TL Infobits - July, 2007
Issue 13
ISSN: 1931-3144
Top Ten E-Learning Tools
Mashups in Education
University Publishing in a Digital Age
Plagiarism Detection Tools Comparison
Recommended Reading
TOP TEN E-LEARNING TOOLS
Jane Hart, Head of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, asked e-learning experts to list their top ten tools. Sixty-four people responded; the most-frequently cited tool was the Firefox Web browser, mentioned by 37 respondents. To view all the responses and the summary of all contributions, go to http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/index.html.
The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies "provides advice and guidance on current and emerging tools and technologies for businesses and education." For more information, contact Jane Hart, Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, 16 Lansdowne Place, Wincanton, Somerset, BA9 9FB, England; tel: 44 (0)7778 063068; email: info@c4lpt.co.uk; Web: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/.
MASHUPS IN EDUCATION
"For educators and policy-makers, already struggling with the many cultural and logistical challenges posed by digital technologies, mashups complicate the picture even while offering tremendous promise. What, exactly, constitutes a valid, original work? What are the implications for how we assess and reward creativity? Can a college or university tap the same sources of innovative talent and energy as Google or Flickr? What are the risks of permitting or opening up to this activity?"
In "Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix" (EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 42, no. 4, July/August 2007, pp. 12-24), Brian Lamb discusses the conditions needed in universities to enable mashups and other Web 2.0 tools to play a significant role in education. The article is online at http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm07/erm0740.asp.
EDUCAUSE Review [ISSN 1527-6619], a bimonthly print magazine that explores developments in information technology and education, is published by EDUCAUSE (http://www.educause.edu/). Articles from current and back issues of EDUCAUSE Review are available on the Web at http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/.
UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING IN A DIGITAL AGE
"Publishing in the future will look very different than it has looked in the past. Consumption patterns have already changed dramatically, as many scholars have increasingly begun to rely on electronic resources to get information that is useful to their research and teaching. Transformation on the creation and production sides is taking longer, but ultimately may have an even more profound impact on the way scholars work."
The Ithaka report, "University Publishing in a Digital Age" (July 23, 2007), "began as a review of U.S. university presses and their role in scholarly publishing. It has evolved into a broader assessment of the importance of publishing to universities." To assess the current state and future role of university-based scholarly publishing, the report's authors interviewed a variety of university provosts, press directors, and librarians from public and private institutions. Based on the interviewees responses, in the future of university publishing:
-- Everything must be electronic
-- Scholars will rely on deeply integrated electronic research/publishing environments
-- Multimedia and multi-format delivery will become increasingly important
-- New forms of content will enable new economic models
The complete report is available online at http://www.ithaka.org/strategic-services/university-publishing.
Ithaka is an independent not-for-profit organization with a mission to accelerate the productive uses of information technologies for the benefit of higher education worldwide. "We work in close collaboration with JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/) and ARTstor (http://www.artstor.org/), and we are currently incubating three initiatives: Aluka (http://www.aluka.org/), a digital library of scholarly resources from and about the developing world; NITLE (http://www.nitle.org/), a collaborative effort to promote emerging technologies in liberal arts contexts; and Portico (http://www.portico.org/), a permanent archive of electronic scholarly journals." For more information about Ithaka, go to http://www.ithaka.org/.
See also:
"New Model for University Presses"
By Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Ed, July 31, 2007
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/31/ricepress
"The Rice University Press, which was eliminated in 1996, was revived last year with the idea that it would publish online only, using low-cost print-on-demand for those who want to hold what they are reading."
"What a Difference a Publisher Makes"
by Alma Swan
July 7, 2007
http://optimalscholarship.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-difference-publisher-makes.html
"[Copy editing is] a special little focus of interest at the moment because publishers claim it as an important area of added value and want to demonstrate how much they contribute to the integrity of scholarly literature through providing it, while the proponents of self-archiving counter-claim that the author's final version of an article -- the one which contains all the changes advised or required by the peer review process -- is a perfectly adequate version to be deposited in a digital repository for open access purposes." In her blog, OptimalScholarship, scholarly communication consultant Alma Swan discusses some studies that examine the value of what publishers contributed to final versions of scholarly works.
PLAGIARISM DETECTION TOOLS COMPARISON
As part of her presentation, "Plagiarism Detection: Is Technology the Answer?" at the 2007 EDUCAUSE Southeast Regional Conference, Liz Johnson, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, provided a chart comparing seven plagiarism detection tools: Turnitin, MyDropBox, PAIRwise, EVE2, WCopyFind, CopyCatch, and GLATT. The chart is available online at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/SER07017B.pdf.
For more information about the 2007 EDUCAUSE Southeast Regional Conference and to view the proceedings, go to http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?SECTION_ID=248.
Recommended Reading
"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.
We Think: Why Mass Creativity Is the Next Big Thing (Draft version)
By Charles Leadbeater
http://www.wethinkthebook.net/home.aspx
"We-Think: the power of mass creativity is about what the rise of the likes of Wikipedia and Youtube, Linux and Craigslist means for the way we organise ourselves, not just in digital businesses but in schools and hospitals, cities and mainstream corporations. My argument is that these new forms of mass, creative collaboration announce the arrival of a society in which participation will be the key organising idea rather than consumption and work. People want to be players not just spectators, part of the action, not on the sidelines."
Leadbeater is making a draft of his book available online prior to formal publication to allow readers to comment and make suggestions.
[Editor's note: Years ago I came across a study on the importance of professors' informal conversations in the hall for the exchange of ideas. Coming across the link to Leadbeater's book made me think on how much the Web has become a virtual hallway for informally sharing ideas and resources. Thanks to Seb Schmoller's posting (in his Fortnightly Mailing; http://fm.schmoller.net/) on David Jennings' posting on anarchism (http://alchemi.co.uk/archives/ide/is_web_20_a_man.html), I was led to the link to Leadbeater's book.]
