This will be the next to the last issue of TL Infobits. My position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been eliminated, and I will leave employment here in December. Since its beginning in 1993, Infobits has always been a one-person endeavor, and so with my departure, Infobits will leave the ITS Teaching and Learning division as well.

It has been my privilege and pleasure to provide this service to my readers over the years. The newsletter has given me a chance to reach out to the academic community on and beyond my own campus. It has enabled me to take my information hunting and gathering skills beyond just satisfying my own curiosity, thus sharing my interests in IT for academics with others. And, not least, I have been able to meet, although only virtually, many dedicated, interesting people who have encouraged my work with their kind comments.

In the event that Infobits resurfaces in a new home, there will be more information in the November issue.

-- Carolyn Kotlas, Infobits Editor

CMS AND PEDAGOGY

"Studies about CMSs tend to focus on their ease of use or how they are used by faculty: their application, for good or ill. Few discuss the ways in which they influence and guide pedagogy, and those that do only note their predisposition for supporting more instructivist methods."

In "Insidious Pedagogy: How Course Management Systems Affect Teaching" (First Monday, vol. 14, no. 10, October 5, 2009) Lisa M. Lane, founder of MiraCosta College's Program for Online Teaching, suggests that Web-novice faculty tend to use CMSs primarily at a basic level. While they become comfortable with a system's administrative tasks, they may not be moving on to mastering the tools that would allow them to customize their instruction beyond traditional approaches. The paper is available at http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2530/2303

First Monday [ISSN 1396-0466] is an online, peer-reviewed journal whose aim is to publish original articles about the Internet and the global information infrastructure. It is published in cooperation with the University Library, University of Illinois at Chicago. For more information, contact: First Monday, c/o Edward Valauskas, Chief Editor, PO Box 87636, Chicago IL 60680-0636 USA; email: ejv@uic.edu; Web: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/

TECHNOLOGY GOES WHERE TEACHERS DON'T WANT TO

"There are, and will be in the foreseeable future, places on the planet where, for whatever reason, good schools do not exist and good teachers do not wish to go. In such areas, it is reasonable to expect that educational technology and distance education will have a special role to play. In this sense, educational technology and distance education are meant to 'level the playing field' and provide equal opportunity for learners in areas where traditional schooling of adequate quality is not available."

In "Remote Presence: Technologies for 'Beaming' Teachers Where They Cannot Go" (Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence, vol. 1, no. 1, August 2009), Sugata Mitra, Newcastle University, asks the
question "Is it possible for teachers to live in areas that they prefer
and still be 'present' in schools where they do not, physically, wish
to go?" Mitra proposes several technology solutions designed to make remote teaching
possible while also having the potential to improve the quality of the
education delivered in these areas.

The paper is available at http://www.academypublisher.com/jetwi/vol1/no1/jetwi01015559.pdf

Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence (JETWI) [ISSN 1798-0461] is published quarterly by Academy Publisher, P.O. Box 40, FIN-90571, Oulu, Finland. For more information, contact Prof. Dr. Sabah Mohammed, Editor-in-Chief, Dept. Computer Science, Lakehead University, Canada; email: jetwi.editorial@gmail.com; Web: http://www.academypublisher.com/jetwi/

GOOGLE SCHOLAR PRESENTS PROBLEMS FOR SCHOLARS

"A free tool, Google Scholar has become the most convenient resource to find a few good scholarly papers--often in free full-text format--on even the most esoteric topics. For topical keyword searches, GS is most valuable. But it cannot be used to analyze the publishing performance and impact of researchers."

In "Google Scholar's Ghost Authors, Lost Authors, and Other Problems" (Library Journal.com, September 24, 2009), Péter Jacsó outlines several issues in Google's tool that can cause problems not only for librarians but also for scholars who use the database for publication and citation counts. He found that not only did the database contain "ghost" authors -- false names created by poor parsing of data -- but also replaced real authors with the ghost names, thereby depriving legitimate scholars of their deserved authorship credits.

The article is available at http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6698580.html

Library Journal.com is an online newsletter published by lLibrary Journal, a publication that has covered the library field for 133 years.

EDUCAUSE'S ANNUAL IT REPORT RELEASED

This month EDUCAUSE released its seventh annual summary of campus "information technology practices, structures, and expenditures." Survey results from over 900 institutions are presented in "Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2008 Summary Report." Among the findings related to faculty and student computing:

-- While faculty and students express a desire for 24 x 7 help desk support, few institutions provide this level of service.

-- Twenty-five percent of doctoral-level campuses are considering discontinuing issuing email addresses to students. This may affect the ability of faculty to contact students in their classes.

-- The number of classrooms with wireless access has increased dramatically, enabling more use of Internet resources in the classroom.

-- The number of campuses where a supported content management system (CMS) is used for "all or nearly all courses" has increased but is "still well below the 50% mark."

The report is available at http://net.educause.edu/coredata/reports/2008/

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. The current membership comprises more than 1,900 colleges, universities, and educational organizations, including 200 corporations, with 15,000 active members. EDUCAUSE has offices in Boulder, CO, and Washington, DC. Learn more about EDUCAUSE at http://www.educause.edu/

ANNUAL HALLOWEEN LINKS: THE COMPLETE INFOBITS LIST

Since 1995, each October issue of Infobits has included one or more links to celebrate the spirit of Halloween. Collected here are all the links from past issues and the 2009 selection. For those that are no longer active, comparable links have been substituted.

1995: THE HORROR, THE HORROR

Horror in Literature: http://www.cat.pdx.edu/~caseyh/horror/book.html

Arnzen's Horror Hotlist
Original link no longer available, but see Arnzen's "Gorlets" site: http://www.gorelets.com/

Horror Writers Association: http://www.horror.org/

Young Adult Horror Novels
Original link no longer available, but see The Monster Librarian Horror Fiction Lists for Young Adults: http://www.monsterlibrarian.com/horrorfictionlistya.htm</p>

Donovan K. Loucks' H. P. Lovecraft Page
Original link no longer available, but see Loucks' "The H. P. Lovecraft Archive": http://www.hplovecraft.com/

1996: ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT DREARY

Peter Forrest's "The House of Usher: Edgar Allan Poe" page: http://www.houseofusher.net/

Christoffer Nilsson's Poe page
Original link no longer available, but see "The Poe Decoder": http://www.poedecoder.com/

Virginia Tech Poe archive
Original link no longer available (it was a gopher address!), but see: http://etext.virginia.edu/poe/

Edward Bonver's Poe's poetry archive
Original link no longer available, but see "PoeStories.com": http://poestories.com/index.php

1997: SCARY WOMEN

Women in Horror Films: http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/women/

1998: GHOSTS ON THE WEB

International Ghost Hunters Society: http://www.ghostweb.com/

1999: GOTHIC LITERATURE ONLINE

The Literary Gothic: http://www.litgothic.com/

2000: MODERN MONSTERS

An Exploration of Modern Monsters: http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/Monstrosity/index.html

University of Michigan Fantasy and Science Fiction Website: http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/

2001: GARGOYLES ON THE WEB

Sculptor and stone carver Walter S. Arnold's website: http://www.stonecarver.com/

2002: POE, MONSTERS

Heyward Ehrlich's "A Poe Webliography: Edgar Allan Poe on the Internet": http://newark.rutgers.edu/~ehrlich/poesites.html

MonsterZine: http://www.monsterzine.com/

2003: FANTASTIC ZOOLOGY

Fantastic Zoology: a graphical interpretation of Jorge Luis Borges' The Book of Imaginary Beings: http://www.borges.pitt.edu/vakalo/zf/Default.htm

2004: GOTHIC LITERATURE

Revisit of 1999's Literary Gothic link

2005: ORIGINAL WORKS OF FANTASY AND HORROR

The Harrow: Original Works of Fantasy and Horror: http://www.theharrow.com/journal/index.php?journal=journal

2006: IT HORROR STORIES

Link to article no longer available

2007: GRAVESTONE STUDIES

Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS): http://www.gravestonestudies.org/

The Farber Gravestone Collection: http://www.davidrumsey.com/farber/index.html

2008: GOTHIC AND HORROR STUDIES JOURNAL

Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies: http://irishgothichorrorjournal.homestead.com/

2009: TEACHING HORROR

The current issue (May 2009) of Dissections features several papers on teaching horror literature and horror writing. The issue is available at http://www.simegen.com/writers/dissections/May%202009/dissections_contents_page.html

Information Technology Services at UNC-Chapel Hill

Teaching and Learning

TL Infobits - October 2009

Issue 40
ISSN: 1931-3144

EDITOR'S NOTE: THE FUTURE OF TL INFOBITS

CMS AND PEDAGOGY

TECHNOLOGY GOES WHERE TEACHERS DON'T WANT TO

GOOGLE SCHOLAR PRESENTS PROBLEMS FOR SCHOLARS

EDUCAUSE'S ANNUAL IT REPORT RELEASED

Recommended Reading

ANNUAL HALLOWEEN LINKS: THE COMPLETE INFOBITS LIST

Resources

Back Issues

TL Infobits - October 2009

Issue 40ISSN: 1931-3144

Resources

Back Issues

Issue 40
ISSN: 1931-3144