THE MIHIGAN DAILY.Z itt P By PHILIP SHERMAN A new technique for using com- ters may ultimately eliminate ich of the drudgery commonly iociated with term paper writ-, ,. The technique is simply a new ithod of information retrival de-j oped by the University of Pitts- rgh. It's but one example of the panding use of computers in! n-scientific educational fields. (The importance of computers education was emphasized by s week's conference at the Uni- 'sity on "The Use of Computers Undergraduate Engineering In- ioneers Computer Applications, c« . though such laws exist and are in- cluded in the manual.- Fed into Computer The Pitt system remedies this. All the information is originally fed into the computer. When the user wants noise laws, he feeds' the code for the word "noise" into the machine, which prints all sections that contain it, Through some irrelevant pass- ages slip in, the computer's printer, operating at several thou- sand words per minute, is fast enough to get out all the informa- tion quickly. Within the computer, each word 1 puters directly from the printed cal know-how is already available. these students for text, bypassing the expensive tap- 'Project Talent' ing information to ing, pocess.Another job computers are do- stock, seeking st To Program brarses.ing for Pitt educators is a huge sonality and econor study of American high school Speed andt In time, entire libraries could students, called "Project Talent." be programed into computers, Kehl said data from tests of Projects like this which could gather much infor- "aptitude and ability" administer- 'beore, but "nothini mation mechanically from already ed to 500,000 high school students been attempted, l available sources, freeing scholars last spring were put on cards- speed and capacit for original research. there are 5.5 million cards, each puter makes it pos This stage, he admits, is many containing 160 bits of information (At Nashville's G years and millions of dollars in -and fed into the computer. College for Teach the future, but enough technologi- The Pitt educators. will follow and capacity of big ha nt to tnhs 20 years, add-I the computer's tistics on per- mic level. Capacity have been tried g so huge' has Kehl said. The y of the com- sible. George Peabody1 ers, the speedl computers will; struction.") is catalogued as to which section Other educational computer or document it comes from, and tasks being formulated at Pitt in- where it is located within -the clude conduct of a huge educa- document, (A word, 2270049, is the tional-sociological survey whose 22,700th word in the 49th docu- sample includes 500,000 high ment.)i school students and development With its fantastic operating of new business games in conjunc- speeds, the computer can quickly tion with private corporations. reassemble the component words Business Operations into complete texts. Pitt's administration is also get- Superior to Others ting ready for computer use in This information retrival sys- its business operations. tem, which is superior to others One application of a big com- which simply speed up a clerical puter, as described by William B. process that is still bound to sin- Kehl, director of Pitt's Computing gle index systems, has even more Center, is a new information re- promise for the future, Kehl says. trival plan that is not bound by He visualizes that in 10 years, the limits of present indexing sys- "character reading machines on a tems. The system, evolved original- commercial basis" will be avail- ly for a hospital law manual, able. These machines could make works in this fashion: tapes that would be fed directly A hospital administrator wants into computers, which would use to find noise laws related to hos- them as "source documents." pitals. The manual, indexed for Even better, Kehl says, would hospital administrators, shows no be adaptation of character read- particular section for noise laws, ing machines to program the com- TO INCREASE UNDERSTANDING: Comp Edu tonfr se s I V' oe put vo ano ner use: Usingi achievement test answers to' evaluate entire school systems. All the students in a system take the tests, then the answers are fed into the computer for analysis. 4, for instance, few students can identify John Peter Zenger, it may mean the schools' American history courses need beefing up.) Business Games Another project Kehl's group has carried out is creation of new business games - hypothetical exercises-for the Pitt Business School. One game that has received na- tional attentionwas designeddin collaboration with a national dis- tributor of plumbing supplies, who wanted a "micro-economic study" of its market. The computer is able to simulate the behavior of individual customers so accurate- Iy, the results of the games play- ed with it can be turned into cor- porates -and local area planning. Conventional business opera- tions will go on the computer, in- cluding budget accounts, inven- tories, payroll administration, and personnel statistics. Student records'. will also be transferred from punch cards to tape suitable for a big computer to take advantage of its speed. Pitt will make its class sched- lues with the computer, though Montgomery doubts the same can be done with rooms. "There are too many variables," he explains. t t 'ii A desire by experts on com- puters that their amazing ma- chines be more widely understood has resulted in a University work- shop and conference on computers. The workshop, attended by 70 faculty members from 24 colleges and universities, was designed for exchanges of new information on the use of computers. Conference Gets Report Activities at the conference in- cluded a report on the use of computers around the country, a preliminary statement about the results of the University's Ford Foundation project on the use of' computers in undergraduate edu- cation and an address by Prof. R. _ll _ _ _ GUIID IHOUISIE Congregational Desciples, E & R, Campus Ministry W. Hamming of Bell Laboratories and Stanford University. Prof. Hamming suggested that courses on the use of computers could be taught in a way similar to music appreciation courses. He explained that students should be taught the basic ideas behind ap- plications of the machines instead of techniques. "Computers are bringing, after all, a revolution in the world of control and ideas, comparable to or greater than the industrial revolution," Prof. Hamming said. Students Need Preparation "Since we expect the students to live through this revolution and on to the year 2,000, it is the duty of their universities to prepare them as well as possible to meet this future. "The industrial revolution freed man from being a beast of burden, living by his muscle power," he continued. "The computer revolu- tion, will free him from dull mechanical routine living by his conditioned nervous responses. The' implications of t h e s e changes are very fundamental to our present way of life." .U' Takes Steps In addition to the conference, the University is taking other steps to improve computer educa- tion. This is partly due to the im- pact of the Ford Foundation proj- ect at the University, Prof. Donald L. Katz, chairman of the chemical .and metallurgical engineering de- partment, explained. The three-year project, which was begun last fall, has received a $900,000 grant from the founda- tion. This fall the University will of- fer Mathematics 73, a one hour course for sophomores on the uses of computers, which is intended to emphasize programming tech- niques. A series of lectures on com- puters, as well as a series of faculty luncheons, both beginning next week, are also part of the University program. The lecture series will begin Tuesday evening in the Natural Science Aud. + MEDICINE + DENTISTRY + NURSING + PUBLIC HEALTH need and a well informed staff including MEDICAL and DENTAL students will serve you Books and Supplies Our store is specially equipped to fill your every 52 Thompson (Behind E. Quad) SUNDAY EVENING 7:00 P.M. at First Congregational . . . State and William "There is no guild and we are its constitutuents" C. GREY AUSTIN, Asst. 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