Publications CITations #26

CITations

June 9, 2000
No. 26

CITations is a report featuring information technology-related news of interest to UNC-Chapel Hill faculty members, graduate instructors and the staff who support them. CITations, published twice a month, is an electronic service of the ITS Center for Instructional Technology.

Article on Open Source by Director of UNC-Chapel Hill MetaLab
New SAS Programming Class
ITRC Tip: Wonders of DBMS/Copy
More Web Publishing Tools and Resources
Lyris Tip: Listproc Archives Now Available for Lists Migrated to Lyris
May Issue of CIT Infobits
Conference Announcements
2000 CITations Publication Schedule
How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to CITations

Article on Open Source by Director of UNC-Chapel Hill MetaLab

An aphorism from some twenty years ago, Brooks' Law, holds that adding more programmers to a project only delays it. But if this is so, what accounts for Linux? In "Brooks' Law and Open Source: The More the Merrier? Does the Open Source Development Method Defy the Adage about Cooks in the Kitchen?", Paul Jones, Director of UNC's MetaLab, gathers perspectives on the open source development method and whether it defies conventional wisdom. Jones' article is on the Web at http://www.ibm.com/software/developer/library/merrier.html

Brooks' Law was conceived by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., Kenan Professor of Computer Science here at UNC-Chapel Hill. Brooks explained the law in his book The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering.

New SAS Programming Class

The Applications Support Group will lead a new class in "SAS Programming Efficiency Tips." This course will be a collection of examples on how to make SAS programs more efficient. SAS for Windows version 8 will be used in the class, but the examples presented will be applicable to any platform. Prerequisites are basic-to-intermediate level knowledge of SAS, DATA step programming, and basic PROCs.

The class will be offered two times this month:
Monday, June 19; 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.; Hanes 405; Course #SA22-001
Wednesday, June 28; 12 noon - 2:00 p.m.; Hanes 404; Course #SA22-002

ATN's computer classes are open to UNC-Chapel Hill faculty, staff, undergraduates, and graduate students. To register, call 962-1160. Complete schedules and registration information are available at http://help.unc.edu/training/schedule/

ITRC Tip: Wonders of DBMS/Copy

If you receive data sets from colleagues or data collection agencies that are not in your preferred Statistical Analysis tool's file format, you can translate the data using DBMS/Copy. The DBMS/Copy utility can read, translate, and write over 80 different file formats, including SAS, Stata, SPSS, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Oracle, and SQL.

A version of DBMS/Copy that runs on the UNIX operating system is available on the campus Statistical Server at http://help.unc.edu/statistical/applications/dbmscopy/index.html
Windows users can purchase the software through ATN Software Acquisition for only $23.30 per license. Details are available at http://help.unc.edu/software/dbms.html

Thanks to Bryan Ayers in the Information Technology Response Center for making ITRC Tips available to CITations readers.

If you have any questions about this tip or need other computing assistance, contact the Information Technology Response Center, Wilson Library, Suite 300
Walk-in Hrs: 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Phone: 962-HELP - 24 hours
Email: help@unc.edu

More Web Publishing Tools and Resources

As an addition to "ITRC Tip: Web Publishing Tools and Resources" in the May 26 issue of CITations, Richard Milward, ATN IT Response Center Analyst, has provided a link to more resources. His Web page, "Some Notes on Microsoft Windows, PCs, and Macs," includes tips for publishing from Netscape Composer, adding sound to a Web page, and using foreign language characters. The page, which includes useful information for other computer tasks, is at http://www.unc.edu/~milward/pctech

Lyris Tip: Listproc Archives Now Available for Lists Migrated to Lyris

Good news for those of you who are administrators of lists that were migrated from the old ListProc system to the new Lyris Email List Server. Listmaster Leila Nawaz reports that the ListProc archives were made available to list members via the Lyris Web interface on Friday, June 2nd after the regularly scheduled downtime. To view your archived messages from the old system, connect to the Lyris Website: http://listserv.unc.edu/ and logon to your list. A link to the migrated archives will appear just below the "Read Messages" button on the list's first menu screen.

The ListProc archives do not live in the same location as the Lyris archives, and they will not appear on the Read Messages page with the archives that have accrued for the lists since December 20, 1999. They will not be searchable with Lyris' built-in search engine, but we hope to add a search engine for the ListProc archives by the end of June.

Thanks to Listmaster Leila Nawaz for making Lyris Tips available to CITations readers.

If you have any Lyris questions or problems, please send email to listmaster@unc.edu or call 962-HELP.

May Issue of CIT Infobits

Infobits is an electronic service of ATN/CIT. Each month the CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a number of information technology and instructional technology sources that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators. The latest issue is available on the Web at http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitmay00.html

Articles in this issue include:

Distance Education Policy Primer
Author Foresees No Utopian Digital Age
The Social Life of Information
Information for Beginning Grant Seekers
Oxford University Press Reading Room
Resources on Electronic Publishing
New Textbook Guide on the Web
Recommended Reading: The Irascible Professor

Back issues of Infobits are available on the Web at http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/index.html

To subscribe to CIT Infobits, send email to listserv@unc.edu with the following message:

subscribe infobits firstname lastname

substituting your own first and last names

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Keep informed about technology conferences with the CIT's "Education Technology and Computer-Related Conferences" at http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-37.html and "Calendar of World-Wide Educational Technology-Related Conferences, Seminars, and Other Events." The calendar is on the Web at http://confcal.unc.edu:8086/

2000 CITATIONS PUBLICATION SCHEDULE

June 23
July 7
July 21

CITations welcomes announcements from all UNC-Chapel Hill campus organizations involved in instructional and research technology. To have an announcement considered for publication in CITations, send email to Carolyn Kotlas, kotlas@email.unc.edu, call 962-9287, or fill out a news submission form. The deadline for submissions is noon the day before the publication date.

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE TO CITATIONS

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