IAT Infobits - October, 1996
No. 40
ISSN 1071-5223
About INFOBITS
Infobits is an electronic service of the Institute for Academic Technology's Information Resources Group. Each month we monitor and select from a number of information technology and instruction technology sources that come to our attention and provide brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators.
Teaching and Learning Newsletter
Evaluating Web Resources
Internet II
Business Intelligence -- Not Just for MBAs
Computer Science Technical Reports Collection
A Diary of the Planet
Literature and VRML
Once Upon a Midnight Dreary
IAT Librarian's Links
TEACHING AND LEARNING NEWSLETTER
The National Teaching and Learning Forum, a newsletter on successful teaching and learning practices in higher education, provides non-subscribers with sample articles on the Web. Recent articles available online include:
"Pages That Feel Like Home," a report on how faculty are using Web pages to teach differently and more effectively
http://www.ntlf.com:80/html/pi/9610/article1.htm
"Urgings and Cautions in Student-Centered Teaching"
http://www.ntlf.com:80/html/pi/9605/article1.htm
"Some Teaching Web Sites," a suggested sampling of Web sites
http://www.ntlf.com:80/html/pi/9610/article2.htm
The site hosts a discussion forum for educators to share information and observations. Another feature on the site is the Interactive Faculty Salary Database, which lets users compare salaries by institution, rank, gender, and ethnic minority status.
The National Teaching and Learning Forum [ISSN 1057-2880] is published six times a year for $39 by Oryx Press; tel: 800-279-6799; email: info@oryxpress.com; Web: http://www.ntlf.com/
With millions of pages on the Web, how do you sort out the good from the bad, the useful ones from the time-wasters? Those with the most experience in evaluating information resources -- librarians and other information specialists -- are ready to help you out with several recent articles. Check out any of these resources for expert guidance and helpful tips:
Alexander, Jan, and Marsha Tate. "Teaching Critical Evaluation Skills for World Wide Web Resources."
Available online at http://www.science.widener.edu/~withers/webeval.htm
An article with the same title will appear in Computers in Libraries, vol. 16, no. 10, November/December 1996, pp. 49-55.
To contact the authors:
Jan Alexander (email: janet.e.alexander@widener.edu)
or
Marsha Tate (email: marsha.a.tate@widener.edu)
Wolfgram Memorial Library, Widener University, One University Place, Chester, PA 19013 USA.
Descy, Don. "Evaluating Internet Resources." TechTrends, vol. 41, no. 4, September 1996, pp. 3-5.
To contact the author: Don E. Descy, Library Media Education Department, Mankato State University, Mankato, MN 56002-8400 USA; email: descy@vax1.mankato.msus.edu; Web: http://www.lme.mankato.msus.edu/ded/don.html
Eades, Lynn. "Live from the Internet and Beyond...Teaching Patrons to Evaluate Internet Sites." Librarians' Association Newsletter, no. 143, October 1996, p. 4.
Available online at http://www.unc.edu/lib/launcch/oct96n.htm#internet
To contact the author: Lynn Eades, Health Sciences Library, CB# 7585, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 USA; tel: 919-966-8012; email: beades@med.unc.edu
Rettig, James. "Beyond 'Cool' -- Analog Models for Reviewing Digital Resources." Online, vol. 20, no. 6, September/October 1996, pp. 52-54, 56, 58-62, 64.
Available online at http://www.onlineinc.com/online/online/onlinemag/SeptOL/rettig9.html
To contact the author: James Rettig, Swem Library, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8794 USA; tel: 757-221-3058; fax: 757-221-2635; email: jrettig@mail.swem.wm.edu
Tillman, Hope N. "Evaluating Quality on the Net." From a paper presented at Computers in Libraries, Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia, Monday, February 26, 1996.
Available online at http://www.tiac.net/users/hope/findqual.html
To contact the author: Hope N. Tillman, Director of Libraries, Babson College, Babson Park, MA 02157 USA; tel: 617-239-4259; email: hope@tiac.net; Web: http://www.tiac.net/users/hope/
To subscribe to publications cited:
Computers in Libraries [ISSN 1041-7915] is published 10 times a year by Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055-8750 USA; tel: 609-654-6266; fax: 609-654-4309; Web: http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/ciltop.htm
Subscriptions are $87.95/year (U.S.), $97.95/year (Canada & Mexico), 68 Pounds/year (Europe); $105.95/year (outside Europe).
Librarians' Association Newsletter is published nine times a year by LAUNC-Chapel Hill (Librarians' Association at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
Subscriptions are $10/year. Contact: Anita Booth, Editor, Davis Library, CB# 3914, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 USA; Web: http://www.unc.edu/lib/launcch/
TechTrends -- For Leaders in Education and Training [ISSN 8756-3894] is published six times a year by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), 1025 Vermont Ave., NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005 USA; tel: 202-347-7834; fax: 202-347-7839; email: aect@aect.org; Web: http://www.aect.org/AECT.htm
Subscriptions to TechTrends are included in AECT membership dues. Non-member subscriptions are available for $40/year (U.S.), $44/year (other countries/surface mail), $64/year (other countries/air mail).
Internet II, the next generation of the Internet, will be designed to provide the higher education community with "new modes of interactive collaboration and distance learning, the integration of distributed multimedia digital library collections with academic programs, greater access to expensive specialized research facilities such as accelerators and supercomputers, and life long scholarly pursuits facilitated through ready access to learning materials from homes, offices, or anywhere convenient to the learner." In "Internet Too!" David L. Wasley (Information Resources & Communications, Office of the President, University of California; email: david.wasley@ucop.edu) briefly explains what Internet II will mean to both the education and commercial users of networked information.
The paper is on the University of Virginia's Document Conversion Server. Connect to http://dce.acc.virginia.edu /cgi-uva/cgiwrap/~csg-dcs/dcsfetch.cgi?19961029021911/0514 and select HTML as the desired file format. To view the file in your Web browser, click on the "Preview this File" button.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE -- NOT JUST FOR MBAS
A surprising amount of business and market research information is available free of charge on the World Wide Web . . . if you know how to look for it. Two articles in a recent issue of Database can provide you with a good start in searching for this type of information:
"Market Research: The World Wide Web Meets the Online Services," by Michelle Bing (Database, vol. 19, no. 4, August/September 1996, pp. 34-36, 38-40). Bing provides a number of Web sites that you can link to in the online version of the article at http://www.onlineinc.com/online/online/database/AugDB/bing8.html
"Competitive Intelligence Primer," by Robert Schwarzwalder (Database, vol. 19, no. 4, August/September 1996, pp. 89-91) (Not available online.)
Database [ISSN 0162-4105] is published six times a year by Online, Inc., 462 Danbury Road, Wilton, CT 06897-2126 USA; tel: 203-761-1466; Web: http://www.onlineinc.com/database Subscriptions are $110/year (U.S. and Canada); $132/year (Mexico); $145/year (other countries/airmail).
COMPUTER SCIENCE TECHNICAL REPORTS COLLECTION
The New Zealand Digital Library's Computer Science Technical Reports collection is a publicly-accessible, searchable digital library that provides a full-text index to over 27,000 technical reports (750,000 pages) culled from the archives of nearly 300 university and research institutions around the world. The search engine supports either Boolean or ranked queries. The reports are available in plain text and postscript formats. The collection is available at http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~nzdl
After a hiatus of several months, "Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet," a weekly newspaper feature written by Steve Newman (earthweek@aol.com), is again available on the Web. Earthweek uses information from the U.S. Climate Analysis Center, the U.S. Earthquake Information Center, the World Meteorological Organization, and other sources to highlight environmental events around the world. Both the newspaper and Web editions have a world map and descriptions of the week's events; however, the Web version also includes photographs and links not available in the print version. Read Earthweek at http://www.slip.net/~earthenv/
Chad Kearsley, IAT Webmaster and instructor in the English Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been exploring the use of VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) in literature studies. This summer, he presented a paper, "Re-Locating Literary Teaching and Learning with VRML," at the 7th National Conference on College Teaching and Learning sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. Kearsley's paper has been reprinted as Issue 3 of The Monitor, the IAT's new Web column. One of the features of this column is The Monitor, Discussion Forum, where readers can comment and discuss a column with the author and other readers.
Kearsley's paper is located at http://www.iat.unc.edu/publications/monitor/issue3/index.html
For more information on VRML, see "From Reality to Virtuality: Readings and Resources in Virtual Reality" at http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-32.html
This year's Halloween reading recommendations are the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Most of Poe's works are available on the Web in online text archives, along with other Poe-related materials such as commentaries and criticism, course syllabuses, and student papers. Here are some Web sites to get you in the mood for midnight reading.
Peter Forrest's "The House of Usher: Edgar Allan Poe" page
http://www.comnet.ca/~forrest/
Christoffer Nilsson's Poe page
http://www.cs.umu.se/~dpcnn/eapoe/ea_poe.html
Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) Poe archive
gopher://gopher.vt.edu:10010/11/134
The Wiretap Electronic Text Archive's Poe archive
http://wiretap.spies.com/Gopher/Library/Classic/Poe/
or
gopher://wiretap.spies.com/11/Library/Classic/Poe
Edward Bonver's Poe's poetry archive
http://www.rit.edu/~exb1874/mine/poe/poe_ind.html
In October, Lynn Eades, Health Sciences Library Education Librarian at UNC-Chapel Hill, updated her resource guide, "Selected Sites in the Sciences." You can access it at http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-26.html
Many new links have been added this month to the following IAT Information Resource Guides:
"Intranets: Readings and Resources"
http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-34.html
"Java/HotJava: Readings and Resources"
http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-42.html
URL: http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitoct96.html
Infobits editor: Carolyn Kotlas
© Copyright 1996, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.
May be reproduced in any medium for non-commercial purposes.
Center for Instructional Technology
Academic & Technology Networks
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
