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 (see also On Campus below):
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Location time session 1 repeated Chapman 204 7-8pm Monday, Jan. 11 Condon 360 7-8pm Tuesday, Jan. 5 Monday, Jan. 11 Gilbert 138 7-8pm Tuesday, Jan. 5 Monday, Jan. 11 Columbia 150 7-8pm Tuesday, Jan. 5 Monday, Jan. 11 Lawrence 177 8-9pm Tuesday, Jan. 5 Monday, Jan. 11 Pacific 123 8-9pm Tuesday, Jan. 5 Monday, Jan. 11 PLC 180 8-9pm Tuesday, Jan. 5 Monday, Jan. 11 Willamette 100 8-9pm Tuesday, Jan. 5 Monday, Jan. 11
TEXTBOOK LISTS ON LINE. Check out <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~bstore/BookHunt.html>, where you or your students can see the list of textbooks (and prices) for any course the UO Bookstore knows about. Of particular interest, this database was developed for the Bookstore as a class project for CIS 443 taught by Sarah Douglas.
OSU LIBRARY CATALOG ON THE WEB. Oregon State has brought up their new library catalog system, using software from the same vendor as UO and ORBIS. You can browse their catalog on the web at <http://oasis.orst.edu/>. Coming this spring: OSU in ORBIS and Orbis Borrowing from OSU; request any item from the OSU catalog and get it delivered to UO within 2 days!
MAPS. Last time we mentioned 2 new campus maps, showing branch libraries and computing facilities. These and other campus maps are now on line at <http://geography.uoregon.edu/infographics/campus_maps.html>. Many of the maps are in PDF format, which makes them somewhat hard to read on the web but ideal for printing on demand.
TRAINING FROM HUMAN RESOURCES. January events and presentation from Human Resources. For details, <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~humanres/train98.htm>:
IT CURRICULUM. Encourage your students to attend an introductory class on electronic library resources or web publishing, or schedule a special library-taught workshop just for your class. Or attend a more advanced class yourself. See a schedule at <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/>.
STUDENT'S WEB SITE COVERED BY THE RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH. A federal judge has ruled against the school district of a Missouri high school student suspended because he and his sister posted a personal Web page using vulgar language to criticize the school's official Web site. U.S. District Court Judge Rodney Sippel has issued a preliminary injunction barring the school district from suspending the student, punishing him, or restricting his ability to post his personal home page. Sippel's opinion asserts: "Dislike or being upset by the content of a student's speech is not an acceptable justification for limiting student speech." (AP 28 Dec 98; from Edupage, 29 Dec 1998).
YET ANOTHER ONLINE COLLEGE BOOKSTORE. This one's a "virtual" bookstore that provides a front end to hundreds of campus bookstores. <http://www.efollett.com>.
A very common question from people just starting web publishing is "do I need an account on darkwing, or can I use my existing oregon account?" The short answer for most faculty is "get a darkwing account." Here's a slightly longer explanation why you should do your web publishing on darkwing rather than oregon:
Basically, the web server on darkwing is a standard mainstream web server (Apache running on Solaris), whereas the web server on oregon is a very nonstandard server (developed by Ohio State University) running on a nonstandard operating system (VMS). In the long run, VMS is at the end of its life as an operating system, and is rapidly being replaced worldwide by Windows NT and various flavors of Unix. On campus, we have a continuing committment to VMS, but primarily for administrative -- Banner -- applications. Corresponding to this, support is much more limited (the VMS web server is "unsupported public domain software. That means that consulting on use of the software is not available, and that it may contain unresolved bugs."
As a practical matter, though, using oregon is definitely possible. Create a [.WWW] subdirectory instead of a public_html subdirectory, and store your web pages there. There are a couple of big costs:
Bottom line is that I recommend that new web authors do your web publishing on darkwing rather than oregon unless you feel extremely comfortable with VMS and use EDT or EVE there.
For more advanced users, there are of course other options, including publication on a departmental server or running a personal web server on your desktop machine.
The conference list now has 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.
Three professors (a physicist, a chemist, and a statistician) are at a committee meeting when a fire breaks out in a wastebasket.
The physicist says, "I know what to do! We must cool down the materials until the temperature is lower than their ignition temperature and then the fire will go out. Go find some ice water."
The chemist says, "No! No! I know what to do! We must cut off the supply of oxygen so that the fire will go out due to lack of one of the reactants. Go find a cover for the can."
As the physicist and the chemist continue to debate what to do, the statistician actually does something. He runs around the room lighting more fires.
The physicist and the chemist scream, "What are you doing?"
The statistician replies, "We're going to need a larger sample size."
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/>.