FCN News 17 March 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:

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 and IT Curiculum below):

Campus News

Special Offer: Online course in online course creation

The ALN Web group offers a quarterly online course for faculty in web site design and online course creation. The next session starts May 11 and runs for 6 weeks. Cost is normally about $300. As a special offer, the Faculty Consultants Network will provide one or two FREE scholarships to UO instructional faculty interested in participating in this course. In exchange for your scholarship and participation (estimated 10 hrs/week during May and June) you will commit to local debriefing and discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of that course. To apply for this scholarship, contact JQ Johnson, <jqj@darkwing> by April 10. For details on "Getting Started with On-Line Courses", see <http://www.aln.org/alnws/may98/>.

IT Curriculum

The spring IT Curriculum has gone to press, and will be available at <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/> in a few days. Call your students' attention to the introductory classes offered, especially during the first 3 weeks of the term.

TEP Summer Short Course

Each year, the Teaching Effectiveness Program designs and delivers an Instructional Technology Summer Short Course (ITSSC) to a select group of faculty members interested in enriching their teaching with instructional technology. For a look at last year's short course, visit <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~tep/itssc>. This year's course is scheduled for August 17-28. Participation in this program is limited to 14 faculty members distributed among the schools and colleges. Interested faculty should submit a one-page proposal to the Office of Academic Affairs by April 15, 1998. For more information, contact Georgeanne Cooper (gcooper@oregon, 346-2177) or Michael Sweet (mssweet@oregon, 346-2123).

Stereo Physics

Teaching with technology doesn't just mean computer technology. Freshmen at the University of Oregon enrolled in a course called Stereo Physics are exploring the sometimes daunting laws of physics with the help of an unusual study aid -- a stereophonic sound system. The course is the creation of Stanley Micklavzina, an instructor in the physics department. "I am always looking for ways to make physics real to people, to help them understand that physical laws can be studied in very practical ways," Micklavzina says. (From UO in the News, Mar 17)

Seen on the Net

New Chalk -- course materials via web. Perhaps the most ubiquitous use of educational technology today is the course web page. The March issue of New Chalk, from UNC, looks at strategies for managing Web-based course content. <http://www.unc.edu/courses/newchalk/>

Ancient History. If you teach an intro to ancient history or draw from examples of ancient cultures, take a look at Exploring Ancient World Cultures (EAWC). A rich, text- and information-heavy web site. <http://eawc.evansville.edu/>. Instructional web sites don't come much better.

Web Design Resources. The web is full of advice on designing web pages, much of it good. Here's yet another brief list of web design resources. If you're building a course web page, paying some attention to these issues will make your students much happier! <http://goldray.com/webdesign/design_resources.htm>.

Read the Chronicle of Higher Ed. It's on line at <http://www.chronicle.com>. Of particular interest is the Information Technology section, <http://www.chronicle.com/infotech/infotech.htm>. If you're not a paid subscriber you can get headlines and story abstracts at the web site. Subscribers get online access to the full text of stories, including the Chronicle, and get an invaluable weekly e-mail news summary, Academe Today.

New Instructional Math Software. Publishers John Wiley & Sons Inc. and Mathematica software developer Wolfram Research Inc. announced an agreement to develop an interactive version of Wiley's reform calculus textbooks, Calculus: Single-Variable, 2nd ed., and Calculus: Single and Multivariable. The software will be called Calculus Live and is scheduled for release in Fall 1998. <http://www.wiley.com> or <http://www.wolfram.com>.

Evaluating Internet materials. The Chronicle of Higher Ed has an interesting article this week arguing that the Web's mix of reliable sources and vanity press may actually help teach students to be more critical of all scholarly sources. See <http://www.chronicle.com/che-data/articles.dir/art-44.dir/issue-28.dir/28b00601.htm>

Computing and the Humanities. A recent meeting of the American Council of Learned Societies produced an important on line white paper on the application of IT to the understanding of the human record. <http://www.acls.org/op41-i.htm>

How To: copyright and course web pages

A UO instructor asked me last week about copyright and her course web pages. Perhaps my reply will be of interest to a wider audience.

Here's the issue: In creating new materials for the web course, I am producing new intellectual property which I feel should be protected by copyright. How can I take the strongest stance possible to assert these rights? Of course, I recognize it would be almost impossible to enforce this, but I'd prefer to be pro-active about it. I've asked this question of several people I'm working with and the answer I get is "No one's ever tried to copyright a web site."

My thoughts as a non-lawyer:

  1. make sure you (and your colleagues!) understand at least a little bit of copyright law.
  2. unless it's a "work for hire," you own copyright to everything you produce as soon as you type it in. Some universities assert that the instructional products produced by their faculty are part of their jobs, hence WFH, but UO typically does not. Still, you will want to make sure that Tech Transfer doesn't want a piece of the action for your courseware. Start with the institution on your side.
  3. make sure that you are careful about your own IP usage. Don't use student work without permission, for instance. If you're planning to market your own IP, that may weaken your fair use case for using other people's work.
  4. stick a copyright notice on each web page. Not much legal significance, but it serves as a reminder to potential copiers. Include explicit language stating your restrictions on use, "for permission to use this work in your own course, contact the author" or "may be freely copied as long as this copyright notice remains intact" or whatever.
  5. in a few cases, it makes sense to restrict access to your courseware, e.g. to limit access to UO-only. That's fairly easy to do technically, and discourages colleagues at other institutions from finding out about your work. Makes sense mostly if you're doing development, and have a marketing plan for capitalizing on your work in the future, but want to temporarily limit distribution.
  6. plan to aggressively pursue the worst offenders. In a recent example at UNC, a faculty member found that someone else had "borrowed" his course web pages in toto, but a firm note to the borrower and the borrower's department chair worked fine. See <http://www.unc.edu/courses/newchalk/archive/ncv2n1.html>. Search engines are a great way to locate infringers, just as they are a great way to find the originals when you think a student a plagarized a term paper he/she submitted to you.
  7. disabuse people of the idea that web pages can't be copyrighted. But be aware that your own long term interests as an academic may be better served by having as many people as possible use your work and correctly cite you for it, rather than by trying to generate a revenue stream by limiting access to and selling the copyrighted work.

Want to learn more about copyright?

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:

Traditional conferences and workshops:

The Lighter Side -- cliches

  1. Home is where you hang your @.
  2. The E-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.
  3. A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.
  4. You can't teach a new mouse old clicks.
  5. Great groups from little icons grow.
  6. Speak softly and carry a cellular phone.
  7. Don't put all your hypes in one home page.
  8. Pentium wise; pen and paper foolish.
  9. The modem is the message.
  10. Too many clicks spoil the browse.
  11. The geek shall inherit the earth.
  12. A chat has nine lives.
  13. Don't byte off more than you can view.
  14. Fax is stranger than fiction.
  15. What boots up must come down.
  16. Windows will never cease.
  17. In Gates we trust.
  18. Virtual reality is its own reward.
  19. Modulation in all things.
  20. A user and her leisure time are soon parted.
  21. There's no place like http://www.home.com
  22. Know what to expect before you connect.
  23. Oh, what a tangled website we weave when first we practice.
  24. Speed thrills.
  25. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.

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/>.