Paving the Way for Virtual Instruction

Mason Engineering’s Mark Pullen was a pioneer in distance education in the ’90s, never dreaming that Mason’s faculty would end up using virtual instruction this spring during the coronavirus pandemic. “I was an early advocate of teaching online,” says Pullen, who—in addition to teaching online himself—developed supporting software and recruited enough colleagues to offer Mason’s first online degree in 2005, a master’s degree in computer science. “My vision for online teaching was that it was inevitable that the day would come that it would be the norm, not the exception,” he says. “I thought that it would be a decade or two in the future, not that it would come about because of a medical disaster,” says Pullen, who recently retired as a professor in the Department of Computer Science and as director of Mason’s Center of Excellence in Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Intelligence, and Cyber (C4I & Cyber). He saw the advantages of distance education: Students wouldn’t have to commute and could finish their degrees from anywhere in the world. Pullen taught his last course in fall 2019, and even though it was an in-person class, he offered online video lectures as an option for students. He came to Mason in 1992 after serving 21 years as a U.S. Army officer supporting military needs for advanced information technology. His last seven years with the military were at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he was instrumental in transitioning the internet from a federal research project to the commercial system used today. He also led major advances in networked military training. He’s known today for his broad expertise in information technology with a special focus on interoperability and networked multimedia systems for education and military training. Pullen’s goal at Mason was to teach computer networking while continuing his research in military information technology. “My vision was that networks could improve human life—both in distance education and for the international military community,” he says. When Pullen and his colleagues began working on virtual instruction in the early ’90s, there wasn’t much out there except correspondence videos, he says. He combined teaching in computer science with technology development in the C4I & Cyber Center to work toward changing this. “There was little software of any kind for distance education. We took components from various places, integrated and customized them, creating a predecessor of today’s conferencing tools like Zoom and Webex,” he says. “We developed a usable prototype, where the commercial world followed.” Sanjeev Setia, associate dean for computing programs and initiatives, says Pullen led a project that enabled audio and video to be delivered synchronously over the internet. “This was used to support the Computer Science Department’s efforts in online education, way before the rest of the university got involved in online education.” Robert Simon, a professor of computer science, says it’s difficult to overstate Pullen’s “commitment to getting online education going at Mason. He was way ahead of his time.”

MY VISION FOR ONLINE TEACHING WAS THAT IT WAS INEVITABLE THAT THE DAY WOULD COME THAT IT WOULD BE THE NORM, NOT THE EXCEPTION. I THOUGHT THAT IT WOULD BE A DECADE OR TWO IN THE FUTURE, NOT THAT IT WOULD COME ABOUT BECAUSE OF A MEDICAL DISASTER.

—Mark Pullen, professor of computer science

––Mark Pullen, retired computer science professor —Nanci Hellmich

Computer science professor Mark Pullen was an early advocate of teaching online. He created supporting software, taught online, and recruited enough colleagues to offer Mason’s first online degree in 2005, a master’s degree in computer science. Photo by Ron Aira