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.
Notes from the Editor
ROI in Educational Technology
Links to Speeches and Transcripts Online
Technology Information for the Non-Technologist
Online Workshop for Institutional Researchers
E-Prints and Scholarly Journal Publishing
Index of Education Journals Sources Now Online
Welcome to the first issue of CIT Infobits, which replaces the IAT Infobits newsletter. With the closing of the Institute for Academic Technology in June, my position moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for Instructional Technology. Even with the change of title and sponsorship, this newsletter will continue the format and focus of the former publication.
The CIT also sponsors another newsletter that readers may find interesting. New Chalk explores the uses and applications of "new" chalk: networked instructional technologies. Each issue of New Chalk covers a single topic with three brief articles focusing on real, practical examples of how instructors use the new technology in their teaching. New Chalk is available on the Web at http://www.unc.edu/courses/newchalk/
Return on investment (ROI), long a measurement used in business, is increasingly being used to evaluate major investments in training and education. A special section in the July/August 1998 issue of Educational Technology features several papers on applying ROI principles in the use of technology in education. Articles include "The Return-on-Investment Process: Issues and Trends" (author Jack J. Phillips presents a practical model for using the ROI process in education); "Return on Investment for Electronic Performance Support Systems: A Web-Based System" (authors Hawkins, Gustafson, and Nielson describe a package used to determine the ROI of a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs EPSS); and "Measuring the Value of Educational Technology in Different Contexts" (authors Leh, Sleezer, and Anderson report on how decision-makers in ten different business and educational contexts valued educational technology and how practitioners and scholars can use the information to improve future evaluation methods).
Educational Technology [ISSN 0013-1962] is published bimonthly by Educational Technology Publications, 700 Palisade Ave., Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632-0564 USA; tel: 201-871-4007; fax: 201-871-4009; email: edtecpubs@aol.com
Annual subscriptions are available for $119 (U.S.); $139 (all other countries).
Articles published in Educational Technology are not available on the Web; check your campus library for the issue.
More resources covering ROI in education:
Three annotated bibliographies of articles and books on evaluation and ROI from American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). Some of the articles, or excerpts of articles, cited are available on the ASTD Web site.
"Return-on-Investment - ASTD Publications."
http://www.astd.org/CMS/templates/index.html?template_id=1&articleid=11070
"Evaluation - ASTD Publications."
http://www.astd.org/CMS/templates/index.html?template_id=1&articleid=11052
"Return-on-Investment Bibliography."
http://www.astd.org/CMS/templates/index.html?template_id=1&articleid=11064
See also:
Phillips, Jack J. "How Much Is the Training Worth?" Training & Development 50, no. 4 (April 1996): 20-24.
http://www.astd.org/CMS/templates/index.html?template_id=1&articleid=11019
Phillips, Jack J. "ROI: The Search for Best Practices." Training & Development 50, no. 2 (February 1996): 42-47.
Phillips, Jack J. "Was it the Training?" Training & Development 50, no. 3 (March 1996): 28-32.
http://www.astd.org/CMS/templates/index.html?template_id=1&articleid=11016
Higher Education Information Resources Alliance. "What Presidents Need to Know About the Payoff on the Information Technology Investment. HEIRAlliance Executive Strategies Report #4." Boulder, CO: CAUSE, 1994.
http://www.cause.org/information%2Dresources/ir%2Dlibrary/text/hei0410.txt
LINKS TO SPEECHES AND TRANSCRIPTS ONLINE
Gary Price, a subject-specialist librarian at George Washington University, has compiled the "Speech and Transcript Center," a collection of links to speeches and testimony from government and business leaders. Links include speeches from the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, the World Trade Association, and many more organizations. Links of historical interest include speeches by Lyndon Baines Johnson; John, Robert, and Edward Kennedy; and Winston Churchill, as well as the inaugural addresses of the U.S. presidents (1789-1989).
The Speech and Transcript Center is located at http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/speech.htm
For more information, contact Gary D. Price, The Melvin Gelman Library, George Washington University, 2130 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20052 USA; tel: 703-729-8235; fax: 703-729-8237; email: gprice@gwu.edu; Web: http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/listof.htm
TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION FOR THE NON-TECHNOLOGIST
Need a quick introduction to issues and terminology associated with distance education? In "The Technical Realities of Virtual Learning: An Overview for the Non-Technologist" (CAUSE/EFFECT, vol. 21, no. 1, 1998, pp. 24-27, 32-34, 47), Kenneth J. Klingenstein discusses implementing online instructional technologies on campuses. He describes the delivery system options and basic instructional tools for online education, and defines some of the technical terminology that educators may encounter. The complete article is available on the Web at http://www.cause.org/information-resources/ir-library/html/cem9815.html
CAUSE/EFFECT [ISSN 0164-534X] is published quarterly by EDUCAUSE, a new organization formed by the recent merger of two higher education organizations, Educom and CAUSE. For more information contact EDUCAUSE, 1112 16th Street, NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036-4822 USA; tel: 202-872-4200; fax: 202-872-4318; email: info@educause.edu; Web: http://www.educause.edu/
CAUSE/EFFECT is distributed primarily to EDUCAUSE member representatives and to college and university libraries. Primary and participating EDUCAUSE representatives receive complimentary subscriptions to the journal, which is also available online at
http://www.cause.org/cause-effect/cause-effect.html
(Note: this URL (and those cited below) may change in the future as the Web pages of the two organizations are combined.)
Other EDUCAUSE-sponsored publications include:
EDUCAUSE Online, an electronic publication distributed the first of each week; contains synopses of news and information found that week on the EDUCAUSE Web site.
http://www.educause.edu/pub/educause_online.html
Washington Update, a weekly newsletter covering legislative, executive branch, and other policy events relevant to EDUCAUSE member organizations.
http://www.farnet.org/contents/update/
Edupage, a free email service, published three times a week, that summarizes developments in information technology.
http://webserv.educom.edu/edupage/edupage.html
EDUCAUSE Professional Papers (formerly CAUSE Professional Papers), a series of position papers and reports on timely issues in higher education.
http://www.cause.org/pub/profess.html
Educom Review, a bimonthly print magazine which explores developments in information technology and education
http://www.educom.edu/web/pubs/edreview.html
ONLINE WORKSHOP FOR INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCHERS
At the Association for Institutional Research Annual Forum in Minneapolis, MN, May 16-20, 1998, Adrianna Kezar, Associate Director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education (ERIC/HE), presented a workshop entitled "Internet Tools for Institutional Researchers." The workshop was designed to introduce attendees to the ERIC/HE Web site as a gateway to higher education research information on the Internet. The workshop, including its extensive list of linked Web resources related to higher education research, can be found on the ERIC/HE Web site at http://www.gwu.edu/~eriche/Other/airwrkshp.html
The ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education (ERIC-HE) was established at The George Washington University's Graduate School of Education and Human Development in September of 1968. The Clearinghouse concentrates on education beyond the secondary level leading to a four-year, master's or professional degree. Excluded are counseling and student services, junior and community colleges, and the education of teachers; each of these areas has its own ERIC Clearinghouse. The range of information covered by ERIC-HE includes students, faculty, graduate and professional education, legal issues, financing, planning and evaluation, curriculum, teaching methods, and state-federal institutional questions.
For more information, contact ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education, The George Washington University, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, One Dupont Circle, Suite 630, Washington, DC 20036-1183 USA; tel: 800-773-3742; fax: 202-452-1844; email: mkozi@eric-he.edu; Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~eriche/
E-PRINTS AND SCHOLARLY JOURNAL PUBLISHING
Many scholarly journals refuse to accept articles that, prior to their submission for print publication, have been posted on the Web as drafts for comments by a scholar's colleagues. Are these drafts, called electronic preprints or e-prints, merely extensions of the "age-old practice of distributing drafts of papers to colleagues long before they appear in print, such as by handing out papers at a conference or mailing them to fellow researchers?" Or does making them available on the Web, even in draft form, truly constitute a from of prior scholarly publication? According to a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education ("Journals Differ on Whether to Publish Articles That Have Appeared on the Web," by Lisa Guernsey and Vincent Kiernan, July 17, 1998, p. A27), it depends. Some journals, such as The Journal of the American Medical Association, Critical Inquiry, and Science, refuse to publish articles that have been publicly available on the Web or in other preprint forms. Others have similar policies regarding the Web, yet will publish papers that have been presented at conferences. More and more journal publishers, however, see e-prints as the "wave of the future" for scholarly communication and are agreeing to publish articles that previously appeared in electronic form. For more on how journal publishers are dealing with e-prints, read the entire article online at http://chronicle.com/free/v44/i45/45a02701.htm
The Chronicle of Higher Education [ISSN 0009-5982] is published weekly by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc., 1255 Twenty-third Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037 USA; tel: 202-466-1000; fax: 202-452-1033; Web: http://chronicle.com/
Annual subscriptions, which include full access to the Chronicle's Web site and news updates by email, are available for $75 (U.S.); $123.05 (Canada); $150.00 (all other countries). To subscribe contact Circulation Department, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1255 23rd Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20037 USA; tel: 800-728-2803 or 740-382-3322 (outside U.S.); email: circulation@chronicle.com; Web: http://chronicle.com/about-help.dir/subscrib.htm
INDEX OF EDUCATION JOURNALS SOURCES NOW ONLINE
The Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE), a monthly guide to current periodical literature in education, covers articles published in approximately 980 major educational and education-related journals. The CIJE Source Journal Database, provided free by the Oryx Press, contains the names, ISSN numbers, and subscription information for these journals. The database is available at http://www.oryxpress.com/cije.htm
CIJE is part of the ERIC family of reference publications, sponsored by the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC). The CIJE database can be searched at http://ericir.syr.edu/Eric/ or at http://ericae.net/scripts/ewiz/amain2.asp
(These sites offer users two different searching interfaces.)
The ERIC program is administered by the U.S. Department of Education, National Library of Education, Washington, DC 20208 USA; tel: 202-219-2221; Web: http://www.aspensys.com/eric/
The Oryx Press publishes a number of reference publications, including the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors, which is an essential tool for anyone extensively searching the ERIC online database. For more information, see their Web page: http://www.oryxpress.com/