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:
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Local and online events of particular interest to FCN members:
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The fall IT Curriculum is available on line, <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/>. Encourage your students to attend the introductory classes in computer software, information access, and web publishing. Among the workshops in the next month of particular interest to FCN faculty are:
Introduction to Web Publishing
Mon Oct 12 3:00 PM - 4:50 PM EC Bell
Managing a Majordomo List
Wed Oct 14 3:00 PM - 3:50 PM EC Lynch
Intermediate Windows 95
Tue Oct 20 1:00 PM - 2:50 PM EC Albrich, Allen
Using Mhonarc to Create a Web Archive for a Majordomo List
Wed Oct 21 3:00 PM - 3:50 PM EC Lynch
Intermediate Unix
Thu Oct 22 11:00 AM -11:50 AM EC Jaeggli
More HTML
Mon Oct 26 3:00 PM - 4:50 PM RSR Johnson
Statistics on the Internet
Wed Oct 28 3:00 PM - 4:20 PM EC Stave
Scanning: Digitized Images for Web Publishing
Thu Oct 29 10:00 AM -11:20 AM ITC Hall
Power Web Searching
Thu Oct 29 1:00 PM - 2:20 PM EC Jenkins
Designing for the Web
Mon Nov 2 3:00 PM - 4:50 PM RSR Bell
Database Concepts: Search Like A Pro!
Thu Nov 5 3:00 PM - 4:20 PM EC Frantz
Technology Step-by-Step. Michael Sweet reports that he will be offering ALS 609, a course for faculty and GTFs that explores the pedagogical and technological basics of teaching with technology. Credit (1) available if you actually register for it as a course. Tuesdays from 12:00-1:30 beginning Oct 6. <mailto:mssweet@oregon> for more information.
Fall DuckWare now available. By now you should have received your copy of the 1998 DuckWare CD-ROM, containing the standard set of networking software the Computing Center recommends for students and faculty. Kudos to Microcomputer Services for a great job putting it together! Of particular note are the default web browsers and email packages: for web browsers, the Computer Center is currently recommending Netscape 4.06 for Windows 95/98/NT users, and MSIE 4.01 sp1 for Macintosh users. For email this year the CC (implicitly) recommends Eudora if you own your own machine, and otherwise telnet plus pine. My interpretation is that for instructors this implies that you can more safely begin to take advantage of the features of the 4.x versions of the major browsers, but that you should still not count on the ability of students to deal with email attachments.
Updated Computing Center Publications. Many CC publications have recently been updated, and are available at <http://cc.uoregon.edu/documents.html>. Call your students' attention in particular to:
You can get a current class list, including e-mail addresses of your students, on line at <http://casweb.uoregon.edu>. Follow the link to "Class Roster". You can get the information either as a text list or as an Excel spreadsheet, the latter being perfect for using as your grade book. You'll need a Student Data Warehouse username and password, so you'll probably have to ask your department secretary to obtain the information for you.
Visit the CASWEB web site, and take a look at some of the other data you can also obtain on line! Some of the data is publicly available (e.g. the balance in your department's operating budget). Other data requires appropriate authorization. Some data (e.g. most evaluation data about individual students) is confidential or private, and protected by law. But most faculty will find that there is data here they didn't even know existed -- and that will make your teaching or advising easier.
Most of this information is also available by other means. Some of it is currently specific to CAS, so if you're in another school or college maybe you should ask your school to create a similar site.
FIPSE GRANTS. The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education offers opportunities for educational technology grants. Deadline is 26 October, 1998. <http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/FIPSE/>.
WEB-BASED REFERENCE SERVICES--A GROWING TREND. With the evolving world of the Web, students and researchers can access companies on the Web instead of relying exclusively on libraries on campus. Reference sites on the Web include companies such as Ask Jeeves <http://www.askjeeves.com>, Infomation Please <http://www.infoplease.com>, Answers.com <http://www.answers.com>, and Electric Library <http://elibrary.com>. Expect most major portal sites such as Yahoo! to offer such a service in the near future.
ONLINE JOURNALS. The September issue of the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks is now available at <http://www.aln.org/alnweb/journal/jaln_vol2issue2.htm>. Lots of interesting material on use of web and asynchronous communications. And the September Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication is available at<http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol4/issue1/>. It features a special issue on online journalsim.
ATLAS OF CYBERSPACES. Maps and graphic representations of the geographies of the new electronic territories of the Internet, the World-Wide Web and other emerging Cyberspaces. Fascinating information for statisticians, network analysts, and other lovers of carefully constructed graphic interpretations of reality. <http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html>.
PUBLIC OPINION: ED-TECH. From a new public opinion poll about education (mostly K-12) and technology: "...Although technology is the wave of the future, slightly less than half (49%) of those polled believe it will enhance the educational system and 44% view it negatively. Younger people and college-educated people are most likely to hold this negative view...." <http://www.ascd.org/today/pollrel.html>.
[R]EVOLUTION? "Only revolutionary change will enable academic libraries and systems of higher education to survive in the 21st century, according to a new book of essays on information technology and scholarly communication." (Chronicle of Higher Ed, 10/1/98) <http://www.chronicle.com/daily/98/10/98100101t.htm>
Rather than repeat a long list of conferences in each issue, we've moved the list to its own web page, at <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/conferences.html>. We'll continue to use this space to highlight new conferences of particular interest to UO faculty interested in educational technology:
1. Big companies don't do business via chain letter. Bill Gates is not giving you $1000, and Disney is not giving you a free vacation. There is no baby food company issuing class-action checks. You can relax; there is no need to pass it on "just in case it's true". Furthermore, just because someone said in the message, four generations back, that "we checked it out and it's legit", does not actually make it true.
2. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking up in a bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it happened to their cousin. If you are hellbent on believing the kidney-theft ring stories, please see: <http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm>. And I quote: "The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued requests for actual victims of organ thieves to come forward and tell their stories. None have." That's "none" as in "zero". Not even your friend's cousin.
3. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. And even if they do, we all have it. And even if you don't, you can get a copy at <http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html>. Then, if you make the recipe and decide the cookies are that awesome, feel free to pass the recipe on.
4. We all know all 500 ways to drive your roommates crazy, irritate co-workers, gross out bathroom stall neighbors, and creep out people on an elevator. We also know exactly how many engineers, college students, Usenet posters and people from each and every world ethnicity it takes to change a lightbulb.
5. Even if the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain plutonium that went to particulate over the eastern seaboard, do you REALLY think this information would reach the public via an AOL chain-letter?
6. There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should never, ever, ever forward any email containing any virus warning unless you first confirm it at an actual site of an actual company that actually deals with virii.. And even then, don't forward it. We don't care.
7. If your CC: list is regularly longer than the actual content of your message, you're probably going to Hell.
8. If you're using Outlook, MSIE, or Netscape to write email, turn off the "HTML encoding." Those of us on Unix shells can't read it, and don't care enough to save the attachment and then view it with a web browser, since you're probably forwarding us a copy of the Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe anyway.
9. If you still absolutely MUST forward that 10th-generation message from a friend, at least have the decency to trim the eight miles of headers showing everyone else who's received it over the last 6 months. It sure wouldn't hurt to get rid of all the ">" that begin each line. Besides, if it has gone around that many times - we've probably already seen it.
10.Craig Shergold in England is not dying of cancer or anything else at this time and would like everyone to stop sending him their business cards. He is no longer a "little boy" either.
(this chain letter received -- by email -- 10/2/98)
The UO Faculty Consultants Network Newsletter is published
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This newsletter (as well as other FCN-related material) is available
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