The inception of widespread digitization of audio in the 1980's revolutionized the music and consumer electronics industries. This paper will empirically demonstrate some drawbacks of the industry standard sample rates for digitization of audio, and present a preliminary study comparing the status quo versus higher HD audio sample rates. Nevertheless, advocating for higher-definition digital audio through education and industry initiatives holds promise for enhancing audio experiences across digital media platforms.

Continual Reliability ImprovementPacifiCorp has continually and steadily improved its service reliability to customers as measured by SAIDI and SAIFI.This presentation will detail the programs and practices put in place to achieve continual improvement, as well as discuss ideas for future improvement.Jake Barker serves as director of distribution engineering and area transmission planning for PacifiCorp.He also has responsibility for customer generation engineering and power quality engineering.His responsibilities include ensuring PacifiCorp's distribution and sub-transmission grid provides adequate capacity to serve customers reliably, customers' power quality is within standards and customer generation installations comply with company interconnection policy.Previous to his current role, Barker worked in asset management developing the 10 year capital plan for major projects as well as managing customer engineering services and smart grid.

This paper is the continuation and conclusion of a study evaluating students' creative works by full-time and adjunct faculty (previous study). The study addressed an interaction design program that previously lacked a uniform method for grading student assignments across courses. The first two phases of the study identified and validated issues that encompassed unclear expectations for completing and grading student assignments. Instructors also reported that significant time was required to grade student assignments. An intervention introduced a uniform system of rubrics designed to assess students in first-year interaction design courses. The rubrics integrated course competencies and program outcomes as the assessment criteria. Rubrics provided students and instructors a framework to determine the purpose and requirements of a specific assignment. The data collected included student assignment scores and the participants' experiences through pre-and post-study surveys and interviews. The data helped answer if uniform grading rubrics can improve student performance based on scores, reduce the time spent grading by instructors, and improve inter-rater reliability amongst faculty members. Students and instructors who used the rubrics noted increased instructor feedback and overall academic achievement. The data revealed a degree of inter-rater reliability across two courses using the rubrics. This study increased the probability that using the same grading system would result in similar assignment scores across different instructors.

Virtual reality (VR) offers a potentially engaging environment for teaching college students. The faculty of an interaction design program is currently creating a college course where students are taught entirely in a VR classroom. The curriculum and study methodology are simultaneously in the development process and intend to measure the impact of such a course on students and instructors. The research questions in consideration involve understanding the needs for facilitating a classroom in a virtual world while ensuring learning occurs. The faculty plans to use the metaverse as a dual workspace and classroom for student participants. The metaverse is an online social experience where students interact through an internet connection in a seemingly lifelike digital space. Additional questions involve the adoption of a beta of the Meta Horizon Workrooms and whether the technology offers a viable platform for virtual classroom instruction. The proposed technology integrations include video conferencing, spatial audio, and additional app integrations for increasing student engagement and academic performance.

This paper presents the emergence of VR/MR/XR/AR technology to augment the documentation and publication of archeological historical sites by faculty and students at Utah Valley University, Orem, USA. It presents the methodologies use to create virtual tours of the archeological site Beit Lehi in Israel and outlines the methodology to create 3D digitization of artifacts from this secure site. The paper outlines the use of virtual 360° photography and 360° videography by UVU faculty and students to produce digital artifacts to document the discoveries at the archeological site. Additionally, this paper outlines the nature of the constantly changing VR/MR/XR/AR platform and technologies.

The experience of the digital media staff in alignment with a body of literature suggests the need for additional research for developing student rubrics for evaluating the creative works of students. A mixed-methods, action-research based intervention for evaluating how instructors may consistently grade and evaluate the creative works of students without subjectivity or bias between instructors. Additionally, these evaluations could have the intended outcome of improving learning outcomes for students across various courses with different faculty members. Without a more consistent delivery of content and evaluation of their work, students cannot perform equally from instructor to instructor. This paper reviews the theory, methodology, and study design through the use of quantitative scores and qualitative surveys to determine the efficacy of the intervention.