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Local events of particular interest to FCN members (see also On Campus below)
COMPUTING NEWS. Be sure to read this quarter's Computing Center Computing News, on line at <http://cc.uoregon.edu/cnews/>. This summer has seen some of the most substantial changes to central computing resources in years. Some of the changes may have particularly noticeable effects on instructional computing. For example:
IT CURRICULUM. More than 30 workshops on a wide variety of topics of interest to you and your students. See <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/> for a complete schedule. Of particular interest to some of your students may be introductory classes like:
Get Ready! Sep 30 3:30-4:50pm; Oct 6 3:30-4:50pm;
Oct 11 7-8:20pm
Using Blackboard Oct 7 1-1:50pm
For instructional faculty, some of the most useful workshops this month may
include:
Managing a Majordomo List Oct 11 4-4:50pm Using MHonARc to Create a Web Archive Oct 18 4-4:50pm Web Publishing I Oct 15 1-2:50pm Web Publishing II Oct 22 1-2:50pm Web Graphics I Oct 19 2-3:50pm Web Graphics II Oct 26 2-3:50pm Multimedia on Your Web Site Oct 25 10-10:50am
CLASSES FOR FACULTY THIS TERM. There are still spaces left in two very interesting classes this fall.
CLASSROOM UPGRADES. One major classroom, Straub 146, is being upgraded for fall 1999. Although it won't be quite complete for the start of classes, it will offer a much improved teaching experience. It is expected to include new technology, including a new computer/video projector, a dedicated laptop computer, a document camera ("visualizer"), new slide projector, audio, and VCR.
Over the summer, Media Services has also added several more mobile devices available for instructional use, including an additional laptop computer and portable computer projector, digital cameras, etc., and has made miscellaneous improvements in several other classrooms. For a current list of classrooms and available classroom technology, see <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/med_svc/classrooms/rooms.html>.
WEB FOR FACULTY. The Registrar's Office reports that it is almost ready to release a faculty-oriented module of DuckWeb. It's an interactive web application that provides easy, secure access to teaching and student information. Web for Faclty provides new services at two different levels; full access, with increased support for faculty and staff who advise students; and limited access, with improved access to class list and term teaching schedule information. Access request forms are expected to be available from department heads by mid-October. Once a signed request form is returned and access is granted, instructions for using Web for Faculty, along with your Personal Access Code (PAC) will be provided. A user ID number, generally a social security number) and assigned PAC are required to log in.
NEW TRAINING FACILITY AVAILABLE. The UO Employee Training Facility (ETF) is a comfortable and spacious 15 pc computer lab with direct UO network connection, Banner, MS Office 97, Netscape, and a high resolution projector situated in leased office space by Dairy Queen, opposite Sacred Heart Hospital. The ETF is primarily used for employee Banner administrative system training but can be reserved by any department that has a need to conduct employee (including faculty) training. The ETF is not used for student training. To check the ETF schedule for availability on the web see, <http://baowww.uoregon.edu/banner/schedule.htm>. To reserve the training facility, call Judy Fossum in the Business Affairs Office 6-2387.
BLACKBOARD COURSEINFO. The online course management system we introduced this summer is proving popular with faculty. More than a dozen courses are already using it fall term, with more getting ready for Winter. It's ideal for faculty who want to build an online course website but don't want to bother with the mechanics of HTML coding, and particularly for faculty who want to make use of threaded discussions and online quizes. See <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/fittc/blackboard/>. Note: some students have had trouble registering for Blackboard. They can get help by attending the IT Curriculum workshop "Using Blackboard," Oct 7 1-1:50pm, by sending email to <mailto:courseinfo@blackboard>, or by visiting the Knight Library ITC.
FEEDBACK ON TEACHING. An important service provided by the Teaching Effectiveness Program is facilitation of feedback on your teaching. TEP offers three services you should take advantage of. Contact Georgeanne Cooper <mailto:gcooper@oregon> for further information, or see:
MOST PROFESSORS STRESSED OVER TECHNOLOGY. The stress of staying up-to-date with technology affects more professors than traditional stresses such as teaching loads and publishing demands, according to a recent survey conducted by University of California, Los Angeles. The survey shows that 67% of professors are regularly stressed by keeping up with emerging technology, compared with 62% stressed by teaching loads, and 50 percent stressed by research or publishing pressures. Only 35% use the Internet to conduct research and 38% use information technology to create classroom presentations. One professor says, "I just don't have the time. I don't have time to use everything they come up with." Faculty stress contrasts sharply with student nonchalance. Noting that 80% of freshmen at UCLA arrived last year with their own computers, a spokesman from that university says, "We are seeing a generation that has practically grown up with computers as a part of everyday life." (Associated Press 08/30/99; from EduPage, 1 Sept 99).
PROBLEMS WITH WEB CLASS. Two researchers have written a case study about an unsuccessful Web-based class, points to a need for a serious examination of what they call a taboo subject in academia: the problems with Web-based distance education. (NY Times, 22 Sept. 1999). Read the Hara and Kling paper at <http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI/wp99_01.html>.
ONLINE CLASS NOTES. To the distress of many institutions, commercial Web sites have begun to feature notes taken in classrooms (without instructor permission) on dozens of campuses. The commercialization of class notes is not new, but many university leaders say this latest permutation is particularly annoying. Is it legal? Answers from lawyers familiar with copyright law range from "definitely" to "definitely not". See <http://chronicle.com/free/v46/i06/06a03101.htm>. My own belief is that the practice generally is not a copyright violation, especially (paradoxically) if the notes aren't very accurate.
STUDENT TECHNOLOGY SURVEY. Last winter, Cal State U. conducted an comprehensive survey of student attitudes and behavior regarding use of computer technology for academic purposes. You can read it at <http://tii.calstate.edu/stdtchsv.html>.
WEB TRAINING TOOLBOX. As faculty around the world have developed their own tools for putting courses on the web, many universities are trying to commercialize their software. Yet another example is Web Training Toolbox, from New South Wales. Check it out at <http://www.jansol.com.au/products/toolbox.asp>. It's a reasonable package (a bit expensive for what you get, perhaps), and a good early example of the kinds of tools we mayl see most people using over the next couple of years. At UO, we expect to see most faculty who want to use tools like this to gravitate to Blackboard CourseInfo instead.
NIH GOES AHEAD WITH DIGITAL ARCHIVE PLAN. The National Institutes of Health says it's going ahead with plans to create an online archive of scholarly papers in the life sciences that it will make freely available via the Web. The archive will be called PubMed Central, and will be associated with an existing NIH Web site that offers free access to Medline, an index of biomedical articles. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed>. (Chronicle of Higher Education 10 Sep 99)
ONLINE RESOURCE INDEX. The Chronicle of Higher Education maintains an excellent (and recently reorganized) resource index for academics. You'll find links to major sites in each academic discipline, as well as links to sites that deal with higher-education administration. <http://chronicle.com/free/resources/index.php3>.
MAPS OF CYBERSPACE. Carl Malamud, a well known early web pioneer, brings us a fascinating site dedicated to visualizing information. <http://mappa.mundi.net/>. If you're interested in information literacy, maps, or the web, this site is worth visiting.
EDUCATION DEPT. TO AWARD $135 MILLION FOR TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM. The Clinton administration last month announced that it would provide $135 million in three types of grants to promote teacher technology training. The grants will be distributed to consortia composed of colleges, non-profit groups, school districts, and state agencies. The three types of grants--capacity building, implementation, and catalyst--will be provided to consortia to develop and carry out teacher-training programs, and to consortia set up to develop larger programs designed to promote the development and certification of technology-savvy teachers. (Chronicle of Higher Education Online 08/26/99).
Recent releases of Microsoft Word have added new web enhancements. One such enhancement is a "feature" that many people find annoying: if you type something in your Word (Office 97, 98, 2000) document that looks like a web address, e.g. "http://something", Word automatically formats it as a URL. Then if you want to go back and edit it you'll probably find that you click on the URL and Word tries to open the web site!
The fix is simple: Go to the menu item "Tools->AutoCorrect->AutoFormat as you Type". Look in the popup window for "Internet and network paths with hyperlinks." Turn it off (you may have to turn it on then off). This turns off Word's feature of automatically turning URLs into clickable links as you type. If you have links in your document that you want to turn back into ordinary text, select them then use "Insert->Hyperlink" and click on the "remove link" button at the bottom of the popup window.
On the other hand, if you plan to use Word to create HTML documents, you probably want this feature enabled.
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>.
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By my analysis this parody is fair use and is not a copyright infringement, based on the 2LiveCrew "Pretty Woman" case.
The UO Faculty Consultants Network Newsletter is published (approximately)
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