CIT Infobits - December, 2004
Issue 78
ISSN 1521-9275
About INFOBITS
Infobits is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ITS Teaching and Learning's Center for Instructional Technology. Each month the CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a number of information and instructional technology sources that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators.
Evolving Technologies Reports
Technology and Plagiarism Study
Future of E-Research and Research Institutions
New Technology Literacy Assessment Service Launched
Conference Catch Up
Educause's Evolving Technologies Committee is charged with the "identification of developing technologies and the evaluation of their impact on higher education." Annually, the Committee's work is presented in a collection of white papers. This year's reports cover digital repositories and management of Web content, learning objects, music file sharing, nomadic computing, regional networks, and spam management. You can view all the papers online at http://www.educause.edu/EvolvingTechnologiesReports/869.
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. For more information, contact: Educause, 4772 Walnut Street, Suite 206, Boulder, CO 80301-2538 USA; tel: 303-449-4430; fax: 303-440-0461; email: info@educause.edu; Web: http://www.educause.edu/.
TECHNOLOGY AND PLAGIARISM STUDY
"[I]nstructors typically fall behind their own students in degree of technological sophistication when it comes to matters of cheating. This gap in sophistication between students and their instructors is one of many pressing issues created by the rapid evolution of information technology in the university." In "Technology and Plagiarism in the University: Brief Report of a Trial in Detecting Cheating" (by Diane Johnson, et al., AACE Journal, vol. 12, no. 3, 2004, pp. 281-299) the authors report on a trial set up at the University of California, Santa Barbara to test automated detection of term-paper plagiarism in a large, introductory undergraduate class. Although the study resulted in only a few detected instances of student cheating, the authors speculate that, if extrapolated to all the courses taught at UCSB each year, "in the short run the number of cases of dishonesty caught and prosecuted could easily grow by an order of magnitude were electronic techniques widely used by faculty." The report is available online at http://www.aace.org/pubs/AACEJ/dispart.cfm?paperID=24.
AACE Journal [ISSN 1551-3696] is a quarterly journal published online by the Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education. Current and back issues are available at http://www.aace.org/pubs/aacej/.
The AACE (founded in 1981) 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, P.O. Box 3728, Norfolk, VA 23514 USA; tel: 757-623-7588; fax: 703-997-8760; email: info@aace.org; Web; http://www.aace.org/.
FUTURE OF E-RESEARCH AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
"The role of libraries . . . will shift from primarily acquiring published scholarship to a broader role of managing scholarship in collaboration with the researchers that develop and draw upon it."
-- Clifford Lynch, speaking at "E-Research and Supporting Cyberinfrastructure" forum
In October 2004, the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) co-sponsored the forum "E-Research and Supporting Cyberinfrastructure: A Forum to Consider the Implications for Research Libraries & Research Institutions." Over 100 educators, librarians, and IT specialists from over 75 organizations met to discuss how changes in the practices of scholarship across all disciplines is affecting the scholarly communication system. Some of the issues that will challenge libraries and research institutions in the years ahead include copyright, funding, collection collaboration, and content archiving. For a report summarizing the forum see "Libraries and Changing Research Practices: A Report of the ARL/CNI Forum on E-Research and Cyberinfrastructure" (ARL Bimonthly Report 237, December 2004) at http://www.arl.org/newsltr/237/cyberinfra.html. PowerPoint slides from forum speakers are available online at http://www.arl.org/forum04/#proceedings.
The Coalition for Networked Information, a program of the Association of Research Libraries and EDUCAUSE, is an organization "designed to advance the transformative promise of networked information technology for the improvement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity." For more information, contact: Coalition for Networked Information, 21 Dupont Circle, Washington, DC 20036 USA; tel: 202-296-5098; fax: 202-872-0884; email: info@cni.org; Web: http://www.cni.org/.
The Association of Research Libraries is a not-for-profit membership organization comprising the leading research libraries in North America. "Its mission is to shape and influence forces affecting the future of research libraries in the process of scholarly communication. ARL programs and services promote equitable access to and effective use of recorded knowledge in support of teaching, research, scholarship, and community service." For more information, contact: Association of Research Libraries, 21 Dupont Circle, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036 USA; tel: 202-296-2296; fax: 202-872-0884; email: arlhq@arl.org; Web: http://www.arl.org/.
NEW TECHNOLOGY LITERACY ASSESSMENT SERVICE LAUNCHED
In November 2004, Educational Testing Service (ETS) launched the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Literacy Assessment service. The test "measures postsecondary students' ability to define, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, create, and communicate information in a technological environment." The first trials of the new assessment will take place at seven colleges and universities in Spring 2005. The assessment could help institutions to spot areas where incoming students need more preparation and where the college should focus its resources. You can read more about the ICT Literacy Assessment at http://www.ets.org/news/04110801.html.
ETS is a non-profit organization that develops, administers, and scores a variety of tests, include the SAT, GRE, and GMAT. For more information, contact: Educational Testing Service, Rosedale Rd., Princeton, NJ 08541 USA; tel: 609-921-9000; fax: 609-734-5410; Web: http://www.ets.org/.
Every year dozens of conferences and other professional development opportunities are offered to educators. Many of these events make their proceedings available online so non-attendees can still benefit from the papers and presentations. Here is a sampling of websites that offer proceedings from 2004 events:
ED-MEDIA 2004
http://www.aace.org/DL/index.cfm/fuseaction/Awards/j/EDMEDIA/y/2004/issue/null
Educause 2004
http://www.educause.edu/e04/conferencepresentationsandresources/5269
CUMREC 2004
http://www.cumrec.org/meeting/proceedings_sessions.asp?meeting=CR04
Syllabus 2004
http://www.campus-technology.com/article.asp?id=10304
10th Sloan-C International Conference on Asynchronous Learning Networks
http://www.sloan-c.org/conference/proceedings/2004/index.asp
Computers in Libraries 2004
http://www.infotoday.com/cil2004/presentations/default.shtml
American Society for Information Science and Technology 2004
http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM04/program.html
Stay informed about technology conferences with the CIT's "Education Technology and Computer-Related Conferences" at http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-37.html and "Calendar of World-Wide Educational Technology-Related Conferences, Seminars, and Other Events." The calendar is at http://atncalendar.depts.unc.edu:8086/.
