CIT Infobits - April, 2003
ISSN 1521-9275
Online Versus Face-to-Face Courses
Reusing Online Resources in Education
AACE Digital Library Opens
Cyberspace Copyright Primer
Proposed Cuts To ERIC Services
Recommended Reading
ONLINE VERSUS FACE-TO-FACE COURSES
"Can online courses match traditional face-to-face (F2F) courses in academic quality and rigor? Can online courses achieve the same learning objectives as F2F courses? Can students learn as much and as well online as they do in F2F courses?" From three decades of teaching experience, sociology professor Mark Kassop (Bergen Community College, Paramus, NJ) answers these questions with a "resounding yes." In "Ten Ways Online Education Matches, or Surpasses, Face-to-Face Learning" (The Technology Source, May/June 2003), Kassop outlines ten ways in which he believes that online education excels. Areas he covers include student-centered learning, interactive discussions, on-demand interaction and support services, and faculty development and rejuvenation. The article is available online at http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1059.
The Technology Source [ISSN 1532-0030] is a free, peer-reviewed bimonthly periodical published by the Michigan Virtual University, 3101 Technology Parkway, Suite G, Lansing, MI 48910 USA; tel: 517-336-7733; fax: 517-336-7787; email: mivu@mivu.org; Web: http://www.mivu.org/.
Current and back issues of The Technology Source are available at http://ts.mivu.org/.
REUSING ONLINE RESOURCES IN EDUCATION
"[C]reating the digital resources necessary for online course delivery requires considerable investment, a factor that makes resource development only viable for courses with large student numbers or sizeable budgets. In order to address this difficulty, numerous national and international initiatives have been funded to investigate ways in which digital learning resources might be developed, shared and reused by teachers and learners around the world (so as to benefit from economies of scale). Behind these initiatives lies a vision of a future in which reusable resources (or 'learning objects' as they are called) could comprise a new currency of exchange within a learning economy. Learning objects, produced by publishers, teachers, support staff and students themselves, would be stored in digital repositories, where they could be easily accessed, recombined and reused within online courses. In an ideal world, these resources would be designed so that they could be adapted to fit different educational models, subject disciplines and levels of study."
The April 2003 special issue of the Journal of Interactive Media in Education "reuses" the book, Reusing Online Resources, as a starting point for invited commentary on such resource sharing. Issues addressed include how digital resources can be used and reused to support learning within a range of educational models, how sharing resources will change educational institutions, and how global sharing of resources is possible. Readers are encouraged to participate in online discussions of these issues.
Journal of Interactive Media in Education (JIME) [ISSN:1365-893X] is peer-reviewed and published online by the Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK. Current and back issues are available, at no cost, at http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/index.html.
More information about Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to E-learning (London: Kogan Page, 2003; ISBN 0749439491), edited by Allison Littlejohn, is available online at http://www.reusing.info/.
The AACE (Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education) Digital Library is a "valuable online resource of peer-reviewed and published international journal articles and proceedings papers on the latest research, developments, and applications related to all aspects of Educational Technology and E-Learning." Users can fully search and access abstracts, as a free service, for 1,000s of AACE journal articles and conference proceedings. Full-text article access requires a subscription either to the journal (for that journal's articles) or to the Digital Library (for ALL journals & proceedings). The library is on the web at http://www.aace.org/DL/.
AACE is an international, educational, and professional not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the knowledge, theory, and quality of learning and teaching, at all levels, with information technology. For more information, contact AACE, PO Box 3728, Norfolk, VA 23514 USA; tel: 757-623-7588; fax: 703-997-8760; email: info@aace.org; Web: http://www.aace.org/.
In "An Education in ©opyright Law: A Primer for Cyberspace" (Library and Information Science Research, no. 11, issue 2, March 2003), Robert N. Diotalevi (Legal Studies, Florida Gulf Coast University) provides a brief tutorial on U.S. copyright law that covers recent legislative changes that affect online materials. The article is available online at http://libres.curtin.edu.au/libres13n1/index.htm.
Library and Information Science Research (LIBRES) [ISSN: 1058-6768] is published by the School of Media and Information, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia. Current and back issues are available at http://libres.curtin.edu.au/index.htm.
For more on copyright, view the webcast of the 2003 Harvard JOLT (Journal of Law and Technology) symposium, "Copyright and Fair Use: Current and Future Prospects." Panelist presentations are online and can be accessed, using RealPlayer, at http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/p.cgi/symposium/main2003.html.
(A free version of RealPlayer can be downloaded from http://www.real.com/)
PROPOSED CUTS TO ERIC SERVICES
As part of reorganization of the U.S. Department of Education begun in 2002, major cuts are proposed for the department's ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) services. Founded in 1966, ERIC hosts a database of more than a million records on education topics. A network of 16 clearinghouses and 10 adjunct clearinghouses located at academic institutions around the country provide a free, personalized "virtual reference desk service" to users called AskERIC. The clearinghouses and AskERIC are slated to be eliminated in the proposed plan.
For more information about these changes, see http://saveeric.org/ or http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/doe.htm.
"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to kotlas@email.unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column.
SiteLines Newsletter
Infobits reader Rita Vine has transferred SiteLines, her newsletter on web searching, from print format to blog format. It's now available at http://www.workingfaster.com/sitelines/ and email subscription options are available at the site. SiteLines, directed at intermediate-level web searchers, focuses principally on web search news, search techniques and approaches, links to articles from other sources on topics of interest to serious searchers, and occasional links to specific search resources.
