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:
Local and online events of particular interest to FCN members (see also upcoming conferences and IT Curiculum below):
Disk problems on OREGON. OREGON users whose home directory was on the VMScluster disk USER12 have had a hard week. Due to disk problems over the weekend, it was necessary to restore the disk to the point of its last backup Wed night; email to such users between Nov 26 and Dec 1 may not have been received.
IT Curriculum. The winter IT Curriculum has gone to press. By the time you read this it should be on the web at <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/>.
AAHE Spins off "Teaching, Learning, and Technology" group. The American Association of Higher Education has sponsored many projects by Steve Gilbert -- including some of the most important driving forces for adoption of educational technology in the U.S. Best known have been the AAHESGIT listserv and the TLTR program. Times are changing, though. Steve writes:
We are restructuring AAHE's Technology Projects and will be extending our work in some new directions. In order to accommodate these changes, we are forming our own non-profit corporation, which will work in close collaboration with AAHE. The new organization will be known as the "TLT Group," and it will also be the "Teaching, Learning, and Technology Affiliate of AAHE." The initial core staff will include myself, Steve Ehrmann, Amanda Antico, and Kristy Church. We will remain in the AAHE offices at One Dupont Circle, and will continue all our current activities as well as undertaking new projects.
For more information see <http://www.aahe.org> or <http://chronicle.com/che-data/articles.dir/art-44.dir/issue-15.dir/15a03601.htm> . The aahesgit listserv will continue unchanged; if you're not a subscriber, you're missing one of the best resources around! Subscribe by email to <listproc@list.cren.net> with no subject and contents "SUBSCRIBE AAHESGIT yourfirstname yourlastname".
Bill Graves spins off "Collegis". Another job change: the well-known former chief information officer at UNC Chapel Hill has left UNC with a dozen of his staff to create a startup company to promote computer-enhanced teaching. The new company will provide consulting and info-tech services to colleges, attempting to create a commercial market for instructional technology and courseware. See <http://www.collegis.com/>.
Use of University Computing Resources I. The president of Wayne State University has banned the use of the university's e-mail system and its Internet access for non-university purposes. The move has generated outrage and free speech challenges among the faculty. See <http://chronicle.com/data/news.dir/dailarch.dir/9711.dir/97111003.htm>. [Editor's note: the approach taken at Wayne State is not consistent with policy at UO, and runs high risks. Not only does it potentially violate the first amendment rights of faculty, but it potentially increases the university's liability should its facilities be misused.]
Use of University Computing Resources II. Declaring that "it was the judgment of the people in computing services that it was an inappropriate use of computer services and a violation of the agreement that the students sign at the beginning of each year," the University of Pittsburgh has closed down a student-run Web site created to share tips about avoiding security problems with software. A university administrator asserts that the site violated a campus policy that computers may not be used for commercial purposes, but the student charges that the university is censoring him and says: "We didn't make a dime. We didn't ask for a dime. We didn't sell any advertising on it." Following his attempt to orchestrate an e-mail and telephone protest action from his supporters, the student was charged by the university with harassment, failure to comply with the request of a school official, and interference with the use of the university's judicial process. (AP 28 Nov 97; from Edupage, 30 Nov 97)
Web Page Design Guidelines. Take a look at <http://www.to.utwente.nl/ism/ism1-97/wwwproj/studyctr/AllInOne.htm>, a very nice (and brief!) site in The Netherlands that is part of a course in Educational Science and Technology. Their page includes general suggestions on educational use of the web and specifically covers issues involving content, navigation and layout.
Finding Humanities Resources. A critical problem on networks today is finding the information you need amid the millions of random web pages. "Discovering Online Resources Across the Humanities: A Practical Implementation of the Dublin Core", edited by P Miller and D Greenstein on behalf of the Arts and Humanities Data Service and the UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN), provides a practical and accessible introduction to the importance and use of Dublin Core "metadata" for the purposes of describing and discovering humanities information resources online. Available from the AHDS web site at <http://ahds.ac.uk/public/metadata/discovery.html>.
Computer-Based Education in the Humanities. EDSITEment is a Web site that offers several resources for those interested in the humanities. It includes links to the top sites in history, social studies, English, language arts, foreign languages, and art history. It also lists learning guides and other resources for the classroom. EDSITEment is the product of a partnership forged in Spring 1997 among the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Council of the Great City Schools, MCI, and the National Trust for the Humanities. <http://edsitement.neh.fed.us>. [from Syllabus news, 11/17/97]
Click & Learn, at <http://www.mkdata.dk/english/>, is an educational site all about PC (mostly Intel-compatible) hardware, developed in Denmark. It offers 180 pages of illustrated and easy-read education about the PC, its hardware, and internal architecture. A free online textbook.
Educating with the Internet, from Charles River Media. An introductory book targeted at educators of all levels. It includes an Internet tutorial, a directory to education related information on the Web, tips and ideas for using the Web in the classroom, and a variety of ready-to-use lesson plans to help educators integrate the Internet into their curriculum. For more information, see <http://www.charlesriver.com>.
WGU News. Western Governors University (WGU) National Advisory Board and Board of Trustees recently held meetings to discuss the establishment of the first collaborative university. At the meetings, hosted at 3Com Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif. it was announced that negotiations have been finalized with IBM regarding the SmartCatalog/Advisor. The SmartCatalog/Advisor will allow potential students to research educational options, assess their academic skills and enroll in courses. The pilot phase of the WGU will begin in January 1998. Involved in the pilot offering are one private and 16 public institutions of higher education and two corporate providers ready to deliver courseware and/or enroll students in the pilot phase. Initially, students enrolled in the pilot program may choose from two WGU programs, the Electronics Manufacturing Technician (EMT) certificate program and the Associate of Arts degree program, along with a variety of other course and program offerings. For more information, access <http://http://www.westgov.org/smart/vu/vu.html>. [from Syllabus news, 11/17/97]
Program to detect software plagiarism. An associate professor of computer science at the University of California at Berkeley has developed a software program that can identify plagiarism in computer programming coursework. The "Measure of Software Similarity" program compares lines of code in students' assignments and flags those that contain similar code. The software's creator hopes his product will become a deterrence factor for students who are tempted to cheat: "There are places that find 10% of their students cheating. That's a lot more common than you'd like it to be." <http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~aiken/moss.html> (Chronicle of Higher Education 5 Dec 97; from Edupage, 4 Dec 97)
The Giant Pumpkin placed atop Cornell University's McGraw Tower last month is starting to rot away. Last week, Cornell activated a Web site that will let visitors watch the great pumpkin's descent. Visit <http://pumpkin.library.cornell.edu/> before it's too late.
The HTML editor built into Netscape 3.0 Gold and Netscape 4.0 isn't very useful, but some people find that it's still better than nothing (personally, I prefer Claris Home Page and Microsoft FrontPage Light; Mac users in particular should avoid Netscape Composer). If you do use that editor to prepare web pages, one thing you need to do is to "publish" your pages by moving them from your PC to a web server, typically darkwing. That's fairly easy to do if you know the trick:
First, click on the "publish" button (a lightning bolt or letter with lines under it, depending on version). You'll get a "publish page" dialog box that contains a location field that you need to fill in. The simplest value to place in that field is "ftp://" followed by the host name, "/./public_html" (that's the magic secret), and any subdirectories. Fill in the user name and password boxes, and click "Publish". For example:
Publish files to this location (FTP or HTTP): User Name: Password:
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:
Traditional conferences and workshops:
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/>.