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.
Scholars' Information Requirements in a Digital Age
Who Should Own Scholar's Writings?
Eric Digests on Education and Technology
PBS Documentary on Online Learning
Web Resources for Language Teachers
President's Committee Reports Funding for IT Research is Inadequate
More Articles on For-Profit Universities
Librarian's Links
SCHOLARS' INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS IN A DIGITAL AGE
"Scholars' Information Requirements in a Digital Age: Consultation Draft," edited by Sarah Porter and Daniel Greenstein, focuses on strategies to encourage "greater scholarly exploitation of information technologies and digital resources within the arts and humanities." Porter and Greenstein explore how scholars currently use digital resources and what they need to use them more effectively. The draft report is available on the Web at http://ahds.ac.uk/public/uneeds/un0.html
You can send the authors your comments on the draft (info@ahds.ac.uk). Comments received by December 4, 1998, will be considered in the production of the final draft.
The study is supported by the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS), a program funded by the United Kingdom's Joint Information Systems Committee's Committee on Awareness Liaison and Training (JISC/CALT). AHDS' mission is to "collect, describe, and preserve the electronic resources which result from research and teaching in the humanities." For more information about the AHDS see their Web page at http://ahds.ac.uk/index.html
WHO SHOULD OWN SCHOLAR'S WRITINGS?
Two recent articles make a case for scholars to retain the rights to their
articles and papers that are published in scholarly journals. In Lisa
Guernsey's article, "A Provost Challenges His Faculty to Keep Copyright
on Journal Articles" (The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 18,
1998, p. A29), Steven E. Koonin, provost of the California Institute of
Technology, suggests that journal publishers be allowed to publish
articles by Caltech researchers only if the authors and the university
retain copyrights to the material.
The article is available at http://chronicle.com/free/v45/i04/04a02901.htm
According to the authors of "Intellectual Property: Who Should Own
Scientific Papers?" (Steven Bachrach, et al., Science Magazine, vol.
281, no. 5382, September 4, 1998, pp. 1459-60), the copyright
system for scholarly journals should be revamped so that the "authors
of scientific works based on government-supported research should be
free to distribute those works as they see fit, via journals,
electronic postings, and other new modes that may appear."
The paper is also available on the Web. Non-subscribers will have to fill out the free registration, which will give them access to selected articles in
Science for a one-year period. After registering, you can get to the article at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/281/5382/1459
This debate is just beginning, and it will not simply involve the authors and publishers. For example, if individual authors hold onto their copyright, anyone compiling anthologies, course packs, or other collections of papers may have more difficulties in tracking down each author to request permission to reprint.
For information on subscribing to The Chronicle of Higher Education [ISSN 0009-5982] link to http://chronicle.com/about-help.dir/subscrib.htm
Science [ISSN 0036-8075] is published 51 times a year by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Subscriptions are available to AAAS members as part of their membership dues. For non-member subscription information see http://www.aaas.org/membership/mem-app.htm
ERIC DIGESTS ON EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY
New resources available online in the U.S. Department of Education's ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Digest series:
From the ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education
http://ericacve.org/index.html
"Adult, Career, and Vocational Education: An Internet Guide" by Judith
O. Wagner. ERIC Digest No. 196, 1998.
http://ericacve.org/docs/dig196.htm
Provides an annotated list of Web sites and listservs related to the
broad areas of adult, career, and vocational education.
"Technology and Adult Learning: Current Perspectives" by Susan Imel.
ERIC Digest No. 197, 1998.
http://ericacve.org/docs/dig197.htm
The purpose of this Digest is to review some current perspectives about
technology and adult learning.
From the ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/ERIC/libraryset.html
"Information Literacy: Search Strategies, Tools & Resources" by Zorana
Ercegovac and Erika Yamasaki. 1998.
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/ERIC/digests/dig9808.html
Briefly describes challenges facing information literacy development of
community college faculty and students.
For a list of all the ERIC Digests: http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/index/
For more information on ERIC and its other publications and services: http://ericir.syr.edu/
For more information on U.S. Department of Education: http://www.ed.gov/
PBS DOCUMENTARY ON ONLINE LEARNING
net.LEARNING is a two-part, two-hour documentary that was televised on PBS
(Public Broadcasting System) in September 1998. The program "explores
the practices, problems and promises of online higher education, and
finds that it can be a controversial as well as effective way to learn.
Fears about replacing face-to-face learning and other issues are
uncovered in this exploration of education in the digital age. Stories
of grateful students and dedicated teachers, whose lives are
revolutionized by their compelling online experiences, show the many
paths that this technological phenomenon may take in the coming years."
More details, including a transcript of the documentary, are available
at http://www.pbs.org/netlearning/home.html
A review of the documentary is available from Salon Magazine's Web
site:
http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/reviews/1998/09/04review.html
Salon Magazine is published electronically by Salon Internet Inc., 706 Mission Street, Second Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103 USA; tel: 415-882-8720; fax: 415-882-8731; email: salon@salonmagazine.com; Web: http://www.salonmagazine.com/
WEB RESOURCES FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS
In his book, Internet Resources: ELT, Linguistics, and Communication [Tokyo: Eichosha Co., 1998; ISBN: 4-268-002980-7], Kenji Kitao, Professor at Doshisha University, lists a large collection of print and electronic TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) resources, including online resources (Web pages, mailing lists), CD-ROMs, journals, and books.
An outline of the book is available on the Web at
http://ilc2.doshisha.ac.jp/users/kkitao/library/book/internet.htm
The list of resources is also available on the Web at
http://ilc2.doshisha.ac.jp/users/kkitao/online/
Here are some other resources for language teachers mentioned in "On-line Dictionaries and Automatic Translation" by Scott Nesbitt (MultiLingual Computing & Technology, vol. 9, issue 5, August 1998, pp. 36-37).
The LOGOS Dictionary, a freely-accessible database that is updated and
maintained by a network of professional translators. The dictionary
currently has over seven million entries.
http://www.logos.it/query/query.html
Tsunami Server: English-Japanese Translation Software for the Internet
http://www.neocor.com/server/server.htm
Martindale's 'The Reference Desk' Language & Translation Dictionary Center
http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/Language.html
MultiLingual Computing & Technology [ISSN: 1098-7665] is published
bimonthly by MultiLingual Computing, Inc., 319 North First Avenue,
Sandpoint, ID 83864 USA; tel: 208-263-8178; fax: 208-263-6310; email:
orders@multilingual.com; Web: http://www.multilingual.com/ (coming
October 12, 1998)
Annual subscriptions are $39.00.
PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE REPORTS FUNDING FOR IT RESEARCH IS INADEQUATE
The President's Information Technology Advisory Committee recently released an interim report stating that U.S. federal support for research in information technology is "dangerously inadequate." The committee recommended that the U.S. "rededicate itself to cutting edge high-technology research and development or risk being passed by nations with a clearer plan and a stronger vision for the future."
The full interim report is available on the National Coordination Office for Computing, Information, and Communications Web site at http://www.ccic.gov/ac/interim/
MORE ARTICLES ON FOR-PROFIT UNIVERSITIES
To continue the topic of "The Future of Education and For-Profit Universities" [Infobits, August 1998, http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitaug98.html#6], here are some more articles on the subject.
"An Entrepreneur Sees Profits in the Future of His 'Power Campus'" by
Goldie Blumenstyk, The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 2, 1998,
p. A41.
Available online at http://chronicle.com/free/v45/i06/06a04101.htm
"Non-Traditional Universities Challenge 21st Century Higher Education"
by Thomas H. Athey, On the Horizon, vol. 6, issue 5, September/October
1998.
Available online to subscribers at
http://horizon.unc.edu/horizon/online/html/6/5/default.asp
For information on subscribing to The Chronicle of Higher Education [ISSN 0009-5982] link to http://chronicle.com/about-help.dir/subscrib.htm
On the Horizon [ISSN 1085-4959] is published bimonthly by Jossey-Bass
Publishers, 350 Sansome Street, Fifth Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104
USA; Web: http://www.jbp.com/
Subscription information is available at
http://www.jbp.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/jbp/cgify?user_id=35532&filename=oth.html
"Competing With the Web: If We Don't Win, Our Users Lose" by Infobits editor, Carolyn Kotlas, appears in the October 1998 issue of Information Outlook (vol. 2, no. 10, pp. 13-14). The article discusses how information professionals can add to and improve upon the information that their clients find on the Web.
The article is available online at
http://informationoutlook.com/oct98/onthenet.html
Information Outlook [ISSN: 1091-0808] is published monthly by the Special Libraries Association, 1700 Eighteenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009-2514 USA; tel: 202-234-4700, ext. 644; fax: 202-265-9317; email: magazine@sla.org; Web: http://www.sla.org/
Subscriptions are included with membership in the SLA. Annual non-member subscription are $75 (U.S.) and $90 (non-U.S.).