FCN News 3 April 1998

Don't read this by e-mail! Instead, read the hypertext version of this newsletter: <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/news/current.html>. Contents:

Upcoming Events Campus News Seen on the Net Grant Opportunities Conferences and Workshops, Real and Virtual The Lighter Side Administrativa

Do you have UO colleagues who would find this newsletter useful? Call their attention to the html version, or they can subscribe by sending email to jqj@darkwing.uoregon.edu.

Upcoming Events

Local and online events of particular interest to FCN members (see also upcoming conferences below):

• Your Future on the Internet: Creative Pioneer or Sweatshop Slave?, April 14, 3:30pm, Beall Hall. Randall Rothenberg will present the 1998 Johnson Lecture, sponsored by the School of Journalism and Communications. For more information, call 6-3738.
• Techniques for Teaching with Technology. April 17, Knight Library. A full day of workshops and colloquia focused on how UO faculty use technology in instruction. Sessions include:
  • Introduction to Copyright in a Digital World (Christine Sundt), 9am
  • Copyright: UO Issues and Answers (Pete Swan, et al), 10am
  • Teaching Cyber-Literacy: Computers in Freshman Composition (Michael Arnzen, et al), 10am
  • Motet and Group Conferencing (Holly Arrow, et al), 11am
  • FileMaker Databases on the Web (Mark Johnston), 11am
  • Web Design for Accessible Courses (Mike Stiller), noon
  • Electronic Grading (Sharon Yoder, Becky Dorsey), noon
  • Making Presentations with PowerPoint (Kathy Heerema), 1pm
  • Video Portrayal (Jane Maitland-Gholson), 1pm
  • Apple Technology Update (Mark Johnston), 1pm
  • Listservs for Class Communications (Jennifer Freyd), 2pm
  • Wiring the Humanities (Glenn Himes), 3pm
  • reception, 5pm

  For a complete schedule, see <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/ttt98/>.

• Ethics, Writing and the Nature of Technology, April 25, Knight Library. The Ninth Annual Oregon Conference on Composition and Rhetoric. See <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~uocomp/conf.html>.
• Endnote workshop. May 15, 11am-12:30, Knight 235. Repeated May 19, 28, and June 2. Endnote is a popular bibliography management package from Niles, Assoc. This workshop will provide an in depth look at how to use Endnote to manage your own bibliographies. To register, email Wendy Hawkins <mailto:wom1@gladstone>.

Campus News

IT Curriculum. The spring IT Curriculum is available at <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/>. Call your students' attention to the introductory classes offered, especially during the first 3 weeks of the term!

IP/TV in public labs. IP/TV, a software package allowing reception of video broadcasts over the Internet, has been installed on PCs in student labs at the EMU and Knight Library. For more information, see <http://cc.uoregon.edu/cnews/iptvinlabs.html>. Faculty who want their classes to view specific broadcasts can arrange to reserve the Knight Library's Electronic Classroom (Room 144) or Lois Reed Seminar Room (Room 235) for class use. See <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/webevent> for room-scheduling details.

OREGON documentation on the web. If you ever log in to oregon and are confused about VMS commands, take a look at the newly webified online documentation <http://www-vms.uoregon.edu/htbin/webbook/decw$bookshelf/>.

Library now lends laptops. The Knight Library now has 2 laptops available for checkout for in-library use. <http://cc.uoregon.edu/cnews/librarylaptops.html>.

Seen on the Net

Search Engines don't do the job. If you suspect that the major Internet-search services provide outdated and incomplete links, you're right, according to a study published today in "Science.". See "Searching the World Wide Web" by S. Lawrence and C. Giles. <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/current/>.

Distance learning by nearby students. College and university administrators are finding that their distance learning programs are immensely popular with on-campus students, who see them as a convenient way to earn credits. In the State University of New York's online program, 80% of the participants are full- or part-time students living on a SUNY campus, and at Arizona State University, only 3% of the distance education students live in another state. The trend presents problems for administrators, who face decisions about how to pay for both online and on-campus education at the same time, and how to balance teaching loads for professors who teach both. (Chronicle of Higher Education 27 Mar 98)

Data on the Web. The Social Science Data Analysis Network at the University of Michigan has produced a set of downloadable datasets and student projects, drawn from data from the 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990 censuses. <http://www.psc.lsa.umich.edu/SSDAN/datasets.html>.

Reforming Scholarly Publishing in the Sciences. An excellent article by Mary Case and Joseph Branin about scholarly publishing from the Notices of the American Math Society (April 1998), online at <http://www.ams.org/notices/199804/branin.pdf>

Court sides with student who used web to criticize teacher. A federal judge in Cleveland, Ohio, has issued a temporary order reinstating a student who had been suspended from school because his Web site included criticisms of his band teacher, calling the teacher "an overweight middle aged man who doesn't like to get haircuts." School officials contend they have the right to discipline the student, whereas a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union argued that "the school cannot control the communication off the school grounds." A full hearing is scheduled for April 3rd. (AP 19 Mar 98).

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. Highly recommended new book by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville. <http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/infotecture/> for information, or see a sample chapter at <http://webreview.com/wr/pub/98/03/06/feature/>.

The Wellspring. Calls itself "an on-line community of distance educators." Nice web site. <http://wellspring.isinj.com/>.

New Netscape. A new version of Netscape Communicator, version 4.05 for Windows 95 has been released. You can get it from netscape.com; it should be available at the UO mirror site, <ftp://ftphost.uoregon.edu/netscape/communicator/>, in a day or two.

Grant Opportunities

Use of Technology in K-12 Education. Department of Education grants. Application deadline: May 29. <http://www.gpo.ucop.edu/cgi-bin/gpogate?waisdoc=1&4=frwais.access.gpo.gov;1998_register/TEXT/9840/3=2514482%209840%20/diska/wais/data/1998_register/fr05mr98.dat.wais;>.

Online Learning Projects. The Commerce Department of Commerce is accepting proposals for grants to help spur creation of "adaptive learning systems." Officials are particularly interested in seeing development of authoring tools to make it simple for educators and trainers who are not software experts to put their ideas and course-work online. <http://www.atp.nist.gov/atp/>.

Distance learning for rural schools. $162.5 million is available under the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant and Loan Program (DLT). Proposal deadline: June 1. <http://www.usda.gov/rus/dlt/dlml.htm>.

Allen Foundatiion Virtual Ed award. $25,000 award for "the best and brightest in online course development". <http://www.paulallen.com/foundations/virtualu/> for eligibility and entrance requirements. Deadline: April 24, 1998.

Faculty Incentive Awards for Web Use. The NWACC Faculty Incentive Award will recognize projects that focus on innovative ways of using the web for instruction. Materials developed with grant support should be made available, via the web, to other NWACC institutions. Grants of $3000 for faculty stipends, or $10000 for stipend plus additional expenses are available.Deadline May 15. For further information, contact Joanne Hugi, <hugi@oregon>, or see <http://www.nwacc.org>.

Collaborative Program Development. NWACC is soliciting proposals for projects for advanced information technology resources in support of instruction, research, and economic development. The program is aimed at providing modest support for the development of collaborative proposals by NWACC institutions to help remove barriers to collaboration. The support is expected to be used to enable collaboration in the development of proposals by funding travel and support for workshops or other activities that would help get the proposals written. Grants in the range of $2000 to $10000 will be made during the first half of 1998. Deadline May 15. For further information, contact Joanne Hugi, <hugi@oregon>, or see <http://www.nwacc.org>.

Microsoft 1999 Instructional Grant Program. This grant program offers software licenses for Microsoft Visual Development tools and operating systems in exchange for posting and sharing curricula demonstrating innovative use of technology via the Microsoft Academic Cooperative Web site. Deadline June 30. <http://www.networx.on.ca/~jwalker/grant.htm> or <http://academiccoop.isu.edu/>.

Conferences and Workshops, Real and Virtual

An idiosyncratic list of upcoming conferences relevant to educational tech., both "virtual" (online) and traditional. For conferences that require physical travel, my emphasis is on conferences in the Northwest and on those I find personally interesting. The Educom and CAUSE calendars, <http://educom.edu/web/calendar/calendarHome.html> and <http://cause-www.colorado.edu/information-resources/events.html>, contain a more extensive list of mainstream conferences. Virtual conferences and tutorials:

• RoadMap 98, beginning biweekly for 6 weeks. A free Internet tutorial designed for new Internet users and consisting of 27 lessons delivered to your e-mail address. For more information, see <http://rs.internic.net/roadmap96/>.
• Getting Started With On-Line Courses, starting May 11 for 6 weeks. Focus is on use of Microsoft FrontPage 98 for creating standard on-line course materials such as syllabi, assignments pages, portfolios, use of audio, slides, etc. At the end of this on-line course, you will be well on your way to completing an online course. Expect to spend 10 to 20 hours a week to enjoy the full benefit. Registration $250 through April 15. <http://www.aln.org/alnws/may98/> for details and to register online. The FCN may be able to fund your registration if you want to participate in this tutorial; contact JQ Johnson, <mailto:jqj@darkwing> by April 10.

Traditional conferences and workshops:

• Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference Teaching, Learning, and Technology: The Next Step. April 5-7, Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, TN. <http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf>.
• Net '98, April 15-17, Washington DC. <http://www.educom.edu/web/nttf/net98reg.html>.
• Ninth International Conference on College Teaching and Learning, April 15-18, Jacksonville FL. "Teaching, Learning and Technology: A Global Search for Innovative Learning Strategies." Presented by the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. <http://www.fccj.cc.fl.us/~conf/final.html>.
• Technology Standards for Global Learning, April 26-28, Salt Lake City, UT. Sponsored by the Western Governors University. <http://www.westgov.org/smart/vu/vu.html>.
• Electronic Publishing of Data Sets on the World Wide Web, May 4-6, Detroit, MI. Workshop offered by the Association of Research Libraries. <http://www.lib.virginia.edu/arl.workshop/>.
• Net'98: 12th Annual Canadian Internet Conference, May 10-12, Whistler, B.C., Canada. <http://net98.bc.ca>.
• Connections 98: Bridging the Gap, May 10-13, The Hotel Vancouver and Simon Fraser, Harbour Centre, Vancouver, B.C., Canada. The Conference on Educational Technology for Post-Secondary Educators. <http://www.ctt.bc.ca/edconnex.html>.
• Policy '98, May 10-12, Washington DC. "Shaping Policy in the Information Age." Sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery. <http://www.acm.org/policy98/>.
• NAU/Web.98: In the Footsteps of Web Pioneers, May 28-31, Flagstaff, AZ. <http://star.ucc.nau.edu/~nauweb98/>.
• Collaboration - Inside and Out, June 17-19, Portland OR. CAUSE/Coalition for Networked Information/Northwest Academic Computing. <http://www.cause.org/conference/regional/nwacc/1998/nwacc98.html>.
• NECC'98, June 22-24, San Diego, CA. 19th Annual National Educational Computing Conference. <http://necc98.csusm.edu>.
• Digital Libraries '98. June 23-26, Pittsburgh, PA. Third ACM Conference on Digital Libraries.
• Computer Policy and Law, July 8-10, Ithaca, NY. <http://www.sce.cornell.edu/html/cpl.html>.
• Syllabus '98. July 25-28, Sonoma State U., Rohnert Park, CA. <http://www.syllabus.com/conf_page.htm>.
• Association for Applied Interactive Multimedia, July 28-31, Myrtle Beach, SC. <http://www.aaim.org>
• Designing Effective and Usable Multimedia Systems, Sept 9-11, Stuttgart, Germany. ISIP 12.2 working conference. <mailto:a.g.sutcliffe@city.ac.uk>
• Educom '98, Oct 13-16, Orlando, FL.<http://www.educom.edu/conf/98/.index.html>
• TelEd 98, Oct 30-31, Victoria BC. ISTE's Seventh International Conference on Telecommunications and Multimedia in Education. <http://teled98.openschool.bc.ca>.
• WebNet 98, Nov 7-12, Orlando FL. World Conference of the WWW, Internet & Intranet, sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. <http://www.aace.org/conf/webnet/>.
• CAUSE98, Dec 8-11, Seattle, WA. "The Networked Academy".<http://www.cause.org/conference/c98/c98.html>

The Lighter Side

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. She herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution."

The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd."

The mathematician is last. After some thought, she puts a small fence around herself and declares, "I define myself to be on the outside."

Administrativa

The UO Faculty Consultants Network Newsletter is published (approximately) twice a month. If you have materials for inclusion in the newsletter you can send them to <mailto:jqj@darkwing>. This newsletter (as well as other FCN-related material) is available on line in <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/news/>.