FCN News 10 May 2000

Upcoming Events

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

• Where is Distance Education Going at UO?, June 12, 2-4pm, Knight Library Browsing Room. Panel presentation and roundtable discussion. Learn about colleagues who are currently teaching online courses, programs offering courses and degrees at a distance, resources, and funding opportunities. Refreshments. Contact Sandra Gladney, UO Distance Education Coordinator, for details. <http://de.uoregon.edu>.
• FITT Center Birthday Party, June 15, 2pm-5pm, Media Services 18 (Knight Library). Join us to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the FITT Center! Cake, ice cream, and a drawing for a digital camera will be highlights of this gala event. <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/fittc/>

On Campus

IT CURRICULUM. The Spring IT Curriculum workshop series is listed on line at <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/>.

Cascading Style Sheets  
      Fri  May 19  10:00 AM - 11:50 AM  RSR  Johnson
Web Graphics  
      Wed  May 10   1:00 PM -  2:50 PM  ITC  Kim
Web Programming II  
      Fri  May 12  10:00 AM - 11:50 AM  RSR  Johnson 

COMPUTER VIRUSES. You've heard (too much, probably) about the love bug, the latest and perhaps most widespread computer virus to date. We're expecting lots of copycat viruses and attacks in the future. Perhaps the most effective response to viruses might be to switch from a PC to a Mac, since most virus writers target only Windows. But absent such a drastic step, there are other things you can do to prevent the spread of such viruses. Among the most important things to do:

• Be suspicious of any email attachment you receive -- including attachments from people you know. Good advice is never to open any attachment unless you're expecting it. Be especially suspicious of "executable" attachments such as files with extensions of .EXE, .VBS, etc. But even Word documents can contain macros, so few attachment file types are actually safe.
• Install, and keep updated, an antivirus package. UO site licenses Norton Antivirus, so it doesn't make sense to have a PC without NAV or some similar package installed. But in addition you need to keep your virus definitions up to date, since antivirus packages are most effective against the viruses they know about.
• If you're a PC user, pay attention to the file types of files you own or receive. That's much easier if your Windows configuration is set up to always display the file extension for all files. In Windows Explorer go to Tools->Folder Options->View then look down the list of options for 'Hide File Extensions for Known File Types' and uncheck that option.
• Keep your web browser software up to date. More and more viruses are taking advantage of bugs in web browsers, and both Netscape and Microsoft frequently release browser updates to deal with security problems in their products.
• If you read your email using Outlook or Outlook Express, take additional security precautions specific to those programs.

BLACKBOARD NEWS. The UO Library's Blackboard system (we used to call it "CourseInfo", but the company is phasing out that name) continues to grow in popularity. About 45 courses are using it this term, and nearly 3000 students. About 4500 students have used blackboard.uoregon.edu in one or more courses this year. For faculty members interested in getting started with Blackboard, we have a new interactive CD-ROM, "Blackboard Basics". This 90 min. tutorial introduces you to the control panel and the tools for building your Blackboard coursesite. Borrow it from the FITT Center, and install the tutorial on your Mac or PC.

MIDTERM ANALYSIS OF TEACHING. The MAT, a service of the Teaching Effectiveness Program, is an instructor-designed, confidential student course evaluation given early in the term while there's still time to make constructive changes to your class. <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~tep/services/mat.html>

SSIL CLOSES ACADEMIC WEB PUBLISHING SERVICE.. Effective June 30, SSIL will be retiring its web publishing service. Since 1994, AWP has created web sites for faculty courses, departments, and university offices. SSIL plans to produce a list of alternative resources for requesting similar web publishing work, including names of students available for employment; contact Cerise Roth-Vinson <mailto:cjrv@oregon>.

NMC DIRECTOR DEPARTING. Mike Holcomb, the director of the UO New Media Center, has announced plans to leave the UO, effective June 15. Join us in wishing him the best!

ORBIS NOTICES. Do you borrow books through Orbis? You can now get email notification when the Orbis book arrives at UO. <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/acs_svc/changeaddress.html>. Oh, and by the way, Orbis borrowing now includes Central Oregon Community College, for a total of 7.8 million items.

GTF FIRST YEAR TEACHING AWARD. Sponsored by TEP and the Graduate School, the award is designed to recognize outstanding teaching performances by graduate teaching fellow (GTFs) in their first year of classroom experience. Application deadline is June 30, 2000. For more information, contact Georgeanne Cooper, <mailto:gcooper@oregon>.

Seen on and about the Net

CONTENT FOR YOUR BLACKBOARD COURSESITE. Publishers are increasingly packaging an online component with college textbooks. The most interesting new entry in this area is Archipelago, a division of Harcourt. They offer "course cartridges" that can be plugged into your blackboard coursesite, with modules for Biology, General Chemistry , Physics, and Economics. The multimedia content combines CD-ROM delivery with web based delivery, and is particularly appropriate for users of the Saunders textbooks.<http://www.archipelago.com>.

NEW BENCHMARKS FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION. A new study partially funded by the National Education Association takes a first step toward establishing quality standards for distance education. Following a survey of six leading distance-ed providers, the Institute for Higher Education Policy produced a list of 24 benchmarks for quality online instruction. Among them: students' online interaction with instructors and other students, fail-safe computer systems, and appropriate support services for both faculty members and students. <http://www.ihep.com/qualityonline.pdf>

ACADEMIC SYSTEMS. Here's an example of a vendor moving aggressively to support on line instruction. Powered by Blackboard Inc.'s CourseInfo product line, Academic Systems Corporation has developed academic.com, a new source for Web-based college-level content, tools and services. The company plans to offer tools for faculty and institutions interested in developing on line courses, combining a blackboard-powered coursesite, a library of multimedia content, and professional training and technical support. <http://www.academic.com>.

HIGH COURT ON THE WEB. The Supreme Court, which has been slow to embrace the Internet, has released a web site that will allow users to read the court's decisions the same day they are released. The site, <http://www.supremecourtus.gov>, offers the court's argument calendar, rules, schedules, bar admission forms, and visitors' guides.

NEW MEDIA CENTERS EXPAND. New Media Centers (NMC) has announced the addition of 11 new academic institutions to their membership roster. NMC is a non-profit, San Francisco-based consortium of academic and corporate members dedicated to the mission of improving teaching and learning in higher education through the innovative use of new media.<http://www.newmediacenters.org/members/pressrelease.html>.

QUESTIA VIRTUAL LIBRARY. Internet startup Questia Media plans to tap the college student market by providing an online database that allows easy access to liberal-arts references commonly used to write papers. The company will establish a site later in the year that will allow students to search 50,000 online and annotated titles, creating an online undergraduate library attempting to compete directly with campus libraries. <http://www.questia.com/>.

BERKELEY LAW CLINIC ON TECHNOLOGY. The University of California at Berkeley law school is creating a high-technology law clinic that will work on civil liberties and public policy issues involved in areas like Internet privacy, encryption and free speech. The Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic will be the nation's first public interest, high-technology law clinic, according to its founder, Pamela Samuelson.

HARVARD PROPOSES LIMITS ON FACULTY INTERNET VENTURES. A Harvard committee has proposed new guidelines that would forbid the university's professors to teach online courses for other institutions -- or even to provide material for such courses -- unless they first obtained the permission of Harvard officials. <http://chronicle.com/free/2000/04/2000042501u.htm>

How To -- Blackboard online quizzes

The Blackboard system has fairly powerful features for designing and administering online assessments. You can create multiple choice and fill in the blank quizzes that your students take online. You can control the amount of feedback students get, and whether the quiz is timed. Since such quizzes typically aren't proctored, they are particularly appropriate when thought of as analogous to homework or "practice quizzes".

If you use blackboard to administer online quizes, one problem you may encounter is students who try to take the quiz, but quit in the middle (perhaps because their browser crashed or they lost their internet connection or they decided it was time for a midnight snack). The default when the instructor creates a quiz is to mark the quiz as "can be taken only once", which means that once the student starts the quiz she has to complete it in one session.

For most purposes, I recommend that when you create an online quiz you turn off the "can be taken only once" option. But if you've already created a quiz you won't be able to change it without losing the grades for all students who have taken it. So what do you do when a student comes to you and complains that he can't finish his assignment?

The solution is that the instructor, on an individual basis, can tell CourseInfo to forget that the student has taken (or started to take) a particular quiz. Go to the online gradebook (in control panel), and click on the score for the student in this test (which will show up as "!" if the student hasn't completed the test. You'll get a screen that includes a "clear attempt" button. Click it. The student will now be able to (have to) take the test again.

Conferences and Workshops, Real and Virtual

This space highlights new listings of conferences of possible interest to UO faculty interested in educational technology. For more meetings see <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/conferences.html>.

• Apple SummerCamp 2000, May 24, Reed College. It's a full day training session for faculty introducing Apple products. This year's focus includes MacOS X, wireless networking, and Apple Digital Video creation products including Final Cut Pro. And it's free. <http://www.applenw.com/summercamp>
• HyperText 2000, May 30-June 4, San Antonio, TX. <http://www.ht00.org>.
• ACM Digital Libraries 2000, June 2-7, San Antonio, TX. <http://www.dl00.org>.
• Removing Barriers: Advanced Internet Applications for Education, Research, and E-Business, June 7-9, Seattle, WA <http://www.educause.edu/conference/regional/nwacc/2000/>
• New Media Centers Summer Conference, June 7-10, Charlottesville, VA. <http://www.newmediacenters.org/event/Conf/SumConf00.html>

The Lighter Side -- an off the cuff remark

"It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech." (Mark Twain)

Administrativa

The UO Faculty Consultants Network Newsletter is published (approximately) once 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/>.