FCN News 05 Apr 1999

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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Upcoming Events

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

On Campus

SPRING IT CURRICULUM. Free workshops cover a wide range of topics. Call your students' attention to the ones most relevant to your course, or contact Colleen Bell, <mailto:cbell@darkwing> to arrange a custom workshop just for your course. For a complete schedule of this term's sessions, see <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/>.

WIRED HUMANITIES PROJECT. A new collaboration of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS) has created a resource center to promote and enhance computer capabilities among humanities faculty. Faculty in the humanities who need assistance with the application of computing in their teaching or research, including basic user-, internet-, multimedia-, or expert-level support, can contact John Shin, 6-5067, <mailto:fhp@darkwing>. For further information, see <http://fhp.uoregon.edu/whp/>.

TEP INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY SUMMER SHORT COURSE. Two 1-week sessions this summer provide in depth assistance to participants in enriching their teaching with instructional technology. Contact Georgeanne Cooper <mailto:gcooper@oregon> or see <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~tep/98itssc/>.

TECH FAIR -- "NEW IN 99". The annual UO educational technology fair will be held this year on Friday, May 21. This is the major Faculty Consultants Network event of the year, and we need YOUR help to make it happen. We need FCN members to talk about their use of technology on campus, particularly new projects that you have started or completed in the last year! If you have ideas for sessions, or are interested in assisting with the fair, in making a presentation, or in doing a demonstration or "poster session," contact JQ Johnson, <mailto:jqj@darkwing>. If you know of any vendors of instructional technology products who might be interested in participating, we'd be most interested in contacting them too.

Seen on and about the Net

WHO OWNS YOUR COURSE WEB SITE? Ownership of online courses is a hot issue at many campuses. For example, a story in the 1 April Chronicle of Higher Education notes that Drexel University recently asserted that it should own all rights to on-line course materials, but share profits with the professors who developed them. Some professors say they'll refuse to participate in distance-education efforts if they have to give up ownership of their courses. <http://chronicle.com/daily/99/04/99040101t.htm?it>. In Oregon, the State Board makes similar assertions. For a web site that looks at the issues in more depth, see the "Copywon" site at the University of Maryland, <http://www.inform.umd.edu/CompRes/NEThics/copyown/>.

SCHOLARLY ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING BIBLIOGRAPHY. Version 24 of this bibliography lists over 950 articles, books, electronic documents, and other sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet and other networks. <http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html>.

MOBILE E-MAIL READY FOR TAKEOFF. A new class of devices that combine the features of mobile phones and laptops is set to launch, enabling users to dial into the Internet for e-mail or web access, regardless of where they are. "The Internet is the killer app for wireless data," says a product manager at 3Com's Palm Computing division. By 2002, nearly 12.6 million U.S. consumers will be spending more than $5 billion to connect to wireless networks, according market research firm Telecompetition, a four-fold increase over the number of wireless data network users last year. (Los Angeles Times 15 Mar 99; from Edupage, 16 March 99).

VIDEO CONFERENCING COOKBOOK. Interested in using synchronous communications tools, especially network-based video conferencing? SURAnet recently released a very useful video conferencing "cookbook". It contains a wealth of information on digital video and should be an excellent resource for faculty considering work using ths technology. <http://sunsite.utk.edu/video_cookbook/>.

NASA AND NSTA LINK SCIENCE TEXTBOOKS TO WEB. The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has launched a new initiative to link science textbooks to the Internet. The program, sciLINKS, joins key textbook subjects and age-appropriate web sites by incorporating icons and codes into the margins of science textbooks. Thanks to a grant from NASA, the NSTA developed sciLINKS, and textbook publisher Holt, Rinehart and Winston is the first company to incorporate the program in its science textbooks. (Syllabus News, 31 Mar 99).

HOMER ONLINE. Harvard University's Classics Department will present four online multimedia "cyber-dialogues" on the Homeric hero. Professor Gregory Nagy, chair of Harvard's Classics Department, will lead the discussion, which he developed from his course, "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization," and his forthcoming book Homeric Answers. The free lecture series runs during April. Registration and other information : <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/heroes/>.

CALIFORNIA VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY CUTS BACK. California Virtual University will cease operations as an independent distance-education institution, following reluctance on the part of the venture's partners -- the state's three public-college systems and the association of independent colleges -- to put up $1 million a year for the next three years to cover operating costs. CVU will retain its searchable Web site <http://www.california.edu>, which lists available courses at more than 100 participating colleges and universities. Funding already received by CVU, including $250,000 from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation and $375,000 from corporate sponsorships, has already been spent, in part on developing the Web site. CEO Stanley Chodorow said in a mid-March e-mail message that "We just did not have enough fuel to get up to takeoff speed." (Chronicle of Higher Education 2 Apr 99; from Edupage, 1 April 99).

COMPARING ONLINE DISTANCE ED SOFTWARE PROVIDERS. An article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed (9 April) discusses the market for web-based course delivery software suites such as RealEducation, WebCT, and PipeLine, "The Marketing Intensifies in Distance Learning". <http://chronicle.com/free/v45/i31/31a00101.htm?it>. The UO currently has several experiments using such course management software. The Computing Center is planning to beta test the SCT product; the Library is experimenting with WebCT and currently using it successfully in one course; Arts Administration is experimenting with Blackboard; we had an oncampus presentation by RealEducation, and OUS is looking into it as a system-wide alternative; Biology used to use FirstClass. We probably have other experiments with other such packages that I'm not familiar with as well!

How To -- Managing dialin stress

If you've ever given an assignment that required computer use, you've probably gotten complaints from your students about access problems. It's a fact of life -- most students have computers, but modem access to the UO is limited. You need to have reasonable expectations for student access, and need to suggest alternatives for students who run into access problems.

For data on actual UO modem pool usage, see <http://ns.uoregon.edu/modems/index.html>. A brief summary of those pages is that usage varies by time of day and part of the term, with the highest usage being near the end of the term. At that time, expect the UO's high-speed modems (6520 and 3565) to be totally saturated from late morning through 1am, and the low speed modems to be heavily used from about 6pm till midnight. The Computing Center enforces a 2 hour per session limit on dialin connections, and a "soft" 14 hour/week total dialin usage per person.

A few students have opted out of dialing into the UO modem pool, and instead get Internet access through a commercial ISP; such students probably have better access to basic services but have their own problems: their software environment may be different from the UO standard, making diagnosis and help for them harder, and many UO resources (e.g. licensed library databases) aren't available to students using a non-UO ISP.

An alternative to dialing in is for students to use a computer lab on campus. For a map of labs see <http://geography.uoregon.edu/infographics/maps/computing.pdf>. On-campus labs provide high speed network access and often provide specialized software or hardware not available on a typical home PC. However, like the UO modems they are heavily used, particularly afternoons and late in the term. And for many, particularly working students, they are not as good an option as working from home at the times the student has available.

Some things you can do to reduce student frustration include:

Conferences and Workshops, Real and Virtual

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.User Interface 99 West, April 12-14, San Francisco, CA. <http://www.ui99.com>.

The Lighter Side -- Good times (and bad times)

-------Forwarded Message------

Dear Hector,

This must be legitimate because a colleague received it yesterday when it was issued by Cassandra. Please distribute to Priam, Hecuba, and your 99 sibblings.

Thanks,

Laocoon

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

IF YOU RECEIVE A GIFT IN THE SHAPE OF A LARGE WOODEN HORSE ON THE HILLS ABOVE YOUR CITY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT INTO YOUR CITY!!!

It is EXTREMELY DESTRUCTIVE and will overrun your ENTIRE CITY!!!

The "gift" is disguised as a large wooden horse about two stories tall.

It tends to show up outside the city gates and appears to be abandoned.

DO NOT let it through the gates!

If you have already received such a gift, DO NOT OPEN IT! Take it back out of the city unopened.

FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

Poseidon

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/>.