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.
1999 Campus Desktop Computing Survey
Electronic Class Discussion Handbook
Moving Your Course to the Web
Ten Good Deeds in Web Design
Online Journal Comments on Trends in Computing
Top 100 Books in Libraries
Gothic Literature Online
Recommended Reading
1999 CAMPUS DESKTOP COMPUTING SURVEY
This is the 10th year that Kenneth C. Green, the founder and director of the Campus Computing Project and a visiting scholar at the Center for Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University, has conducted a national survey of desktop (personal computers and workstations) computing and information technology in American higher education institutions. The survey enables colleges and universities to compare their academic computing capabilities with similar institutions. The data also show current patterns and future trends that can assist campus administrators in planning for technology innovations and growth. The latest survey shows that "nearly 40 per cent of the senior information-technology officials who took part in the project's annual survey said that helping reluctant faculty members bring technology into their teaching was the hardest part of their job." Green says that "the survey data document the growing campus awareness that the key IT challenges in higher education involve people, not products. . . . [and] that for many institutions 'user support and instructional integration are the flip side of the same coin' - complementary components of the broad challenge that involves the effective use of new technologies in teaching, learning, and scholarship."
A summary of the report, The 1999 Campus Computing Survey: The
Continuing Challenge of Instructional Integration and User Support, is
available online at http://www.campuscomputing.net/
The complete report costs $35.00 (US) and can be ordered online at the
same Website. Summaries of reports from earlier years are also
available online.
ELECTRONIC CLASS DISCUSSION HANDBOOK
Nancy Chism, Director, Office of Faculty and TA Development, The Ohio State University, did a qualitative study on electronic discussions, primarily listserv discussions, and published her findings and guidelines on the Web. Handbook for Instructors on the Use of Electronic Class Discussion is a practitioner's guide, and it includes comments by faculty and students. Although the study was done a couple of years ago and some of the details are specific to the OSU campus, most of the information is still very useful for faculty who are contemplating introducing online discussions in their courses. The Handbook is available at http://www.osu.edu/education/ftad/Publications/elecdisc/pages/home.htm
Two recently-published articles explore the issues and techniques of moving your course to the Web:
In "Migrating Your Course to the Online Environment" (Syllabus, vol. 12, no. 12, September 1999, pp. 20, 22, 24), Rosemary Carlson, professor of finance at Morehead State University, discusses how to approach course conversion to the online environment and presents course management issues to consider. The article is available online at http://www.syllabus.com/sep99_magfea2.html
Contact the author: Rosemary Carlson, Professor of Finance, College of Business, Morehead State University, 150 University Blvd., Morehead, KY 40351 USA; tel: 606-783-2777; fax: 606-783-5025; email: rcarlson@mis.net; Web: http://people.morehead-st.edu/fs/ro.carls/
Syllabus [ISSN 1089-5914] is published ten times a year by Syllabus
Press, Inc., 345 Northlake Drive, San Jose, CA 95117-1261 USA; tel:
408-261-7200; fax: 408-261-7280; email: info@syllabus.com; Web:
http://www.syllabus.com/
Annual subscriptions are free to individuals who work in colleges,
universities, and high schools in the U.S.; $24 (non-educators/U.S.);
$24 (Canada and Mexico); $75 (other countries). An online form for free
subscriptions is available at http://www.syllabus.com/syllsub.html
In "Translating a College Course for Delivery over the World Wide Web
(Journal of Instruction Delivery Systems, vol. 13, no. 3, Summer 1999,
pp. 14-18), Timothy J. Ellis, School of Computer and Information
Sciences at Nova Southeastern University, explores "how to translate
the techniques for facilitating and monitoring student learning that
have been developed for a classroom-based delivery into the
Internet-based environment." (The article is not available online.)
Contact the author: Dr. Timothy J. Ellis, Assistant Professor, Nova Southeastern University, School of Computer and Information Sciences, 3100 SW 9th Ave., 5th Floor, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33315 USA; tel: 954-262-2029; fax: 954-262-3915; email: ellist@scis.nova.edu; Web: http://scis.nova.edu/~ellist/
Journal of Instruction Delivery Systems [ISSN 0892-4872] is published quarterly by the Learning Technology Institute, 50 Culpepper Street, Warrenton, VA 22186 USA; tel: 540-347-0055; fax: 540-349-3169. Subscriptions are $60/year; add $18 for subscriptions outside North America.
When you make the decision to move course materials to the Web, you may need some help in designing easy-to-use Web pages. "The Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability," a biweekly column by Dr. Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group, will be a handy resource. In many columns Nielsen points out the many mistakes Web page creators make that pose problems for readers. In a recent column, "Ten Good Deeds in Web Design," he presents positive strategies for increasing your site's usability. He also includes links to his previous lists of Web page design mistakes. The article is available at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/991003.html
Back issues are available on the Web at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/
ONLINE JOURNAL COMMENTS ON TRENDS IN COMPUTING
The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing (RCFoC) is "not a new publication -- it's been around for years providing tens of thousands of employees at Digital Equipment Corporation with . . . analysis and commentary on the innovations and trends of contemporary computing." The editor, Jeffrey R. Harrow, Senior Consulting Engineer, Technology & Corporate Development, Compaq Computer Corporation, is now making the journal available online at no cost to readers. RCFoC is published about forty times a year and is available in HTML and audio versions at http://www.digital.com/rcfoc/
A survey was taken of the 8,650 libraries that list their collections in WorldCat (the OCLC Online Union Catalog of materials from libraries in the U.S. and other countries) to find out what books they were most likely to have on their shelves. With 3,971 libraries listed as having it in their collections, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies, by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., topped a list of one hundred books, a position it has held since 1989. The list is heavy in reference works (Bartlett's Familiar Quotations; The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr.) and nonfiction bestsellers (Megatrends, by John Naisbitt; The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom). To view the entire list, go to http://www.oclc.org/oclc/press/19991005a.htm
The OCLC member libraries include all types of libraries: research, university, public, corporate, government, and school libraries. For more information about OCLC and its other services, see their Website at http://www.oclc.org/
This year's Halloween Website is "The Literary Gothic," which includes ghost stories, "classic" Gothic fiction (1764-1820), and related pre- and post-Gothic and supernaturalist literature prior to the mid-twentieth century. The site was created by Jack Voller, Ph.D., Professor of English at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville Campus. Visit The Literary Gothic at http://www.litgothic.com/
For more on Gothic literature, see Gothic Studies [ISSN 1362-7937], the Manchester University Press' new international scholarly journal that covers the field of Gothic studies from the eighteenth century to the present day. Membership to the International Gothic Association comes with every subscription. You can preview the first issue (vol. 1, issue 1, August 1999) at http://www.man.ac.uk/mup
For online subscription information, contact Elizabeth Stirk; email: e.stirk@man.ac.uk; Web: http://www.man.ac.uk/mup/faqs.htm
"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that I have found particularly interesting and/or useful. Send your recommendations to kotlas@email.unc.edu
Dr. Jason Ohler, Director, Educational Technology Program, University of Alaska Southeast, would like other Infobits reader to know about his new book on technology and society. Taming the Beast: Choice and Control in the Electronic Jungle (Technos Press, 1999) "casts a discerning eye on our love-hate affair with technology; reveals 27 ways to see, evaluate, and gain control over the electronic and mechanical extensions that have become such vital parts of our lives; and shows how we can choose new machines wisely for educational, business, and community use." More information, including the table of contents and reviewers' quotes, are available at http://www2.jun.alaska.edu/edtech/taming
Contact the author: Dr. Jason Ohler, Director, Educational Technology Program, University of Alaska Southeast, 11120 Glacier Highway, Juneau, AK 99801 USA; tel: 907-465-6427; fax: 907-465-5159; email: jason_ohler@uas.alaska.edu; Web: http://www.jun.alaska.edu/edtech/jason/