tudents enrolled in Near Eastern and Mediterranean archaeology at the University of Southern California get the kind of assignment that resonates with collegians throughout the land -- turn in a well-argued report based on semester-long research on a subject of their choosing. But here's the rub: no neat, single-spaced pages, painstakingly typed and annotated. These students must present their results in an entirely different way, one that has more in common with video games, films and Web sites.
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For their collaborative report on ancient Troy last spring, Trevor Muirhead, Brian Olsen and Jonathan Vidar, all seniors, pored over ancient writings, excavation reports, archaeology books and computer graphic design and animation programs to complete what may one day be the digital successor to the term paper: a fully interactive, computer-generated presentation.
The report can be navigated much like a well-designed Web site or CD-ROM encyclopedia. The students have created a 3-D digital model of the 3,000-year-old city. Viewers can fly over walls and along mysterious corridors like inquisitive sparrows, or scroll through an English translation of Homer's ''Iliad,'' one of the earliest surviving accounts of the Trojan War. With the click of the mouse, a U.S.C. professor, recorded for the occasion, reads the legend in the original Greek. Almost all the elements are interlaced so viewers can test the conclusions and conjectures in a highly personal, intuitive way. Through text and graphics, the students address key details of Homer's story, siding with those who conclude that while the war took place, the giant wooden horse -- a gift in which Greek soldiers hid to gain entry to the walled city -- may have been more allegory than actuality.
''I guarantee you that it was lots more work, by far, than doing a term paper,'' Mr. Muirhead, a pre-med student, said. ''At the same time, it was rewarding to get to see something you don't see or benefit from with a traditional paper.''
The university agreed. Mr. Muirhead and Mr. Vidar are continuing their work on Troy this year with a special scholarship. The project can be viewed at www.iml.annenberg.edu/projects.
Under the auspices of the university's Institute for Multimedia Literacy, more than 60 academic courses, including religion, philosophy and most recently medicine, now require their students to ''write'' such multimedia term papers. The institute has helped some 2,500 students realize their reports.
As electronic communication grows by way of desktop computers, camcorders, the Internet and more, the way people express, educate and entertain themselves is fast evolving. The institute approaches the demystifying of the language of graphics, images, music, sound, words and color with an almost missionary zeal.
''We believe a shift is under way in which text, the prime communications medium for centuries, is giving way to a new mode of expression, one that fuses sound, moving and still images, databases and interactivity, to create a 'language of screens,''' said Stephanie Barish, the institute's executive director.
It was a question posed by the filmmaker George Lucas that led to the creation of the institute in 1997. During a conversation with Elizabeth M. Daley, dean of the School of Cinema-Television, he asked: If students aren't taught the language of sound and images, shouldn't they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read or write?
Mr. Lucas, who graduated from Southern California's film school in 1966, acts as a sounding board and high-profile inspiration for the institute. ''I tell you, modern corporations are using these forms of communication,'' said Mr. Lucas, whose Lucasfilm Ltd. has spawned a number of leading entertainment and entertainment-technology businesses. ''To function in the modern world you have to understand this stuff.''
