Publications CITations #34

CITations

October 6, 2000
No. 34

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.

Open Information Week
E-Books Talk
Survey Research Short Courses
CTC's Resource for Campus Novell Support Staff
September 2000 Issue of CIT Infobits
Apple Demo
Web Page Tip: Avoid Pages that Require Extensive Scrolling
Lyris Tip: Viewing your Listserv Members
Free Gnu Development Kits for Linux Available
ITRC Tip: Template Gallery for Office 97/2000
ITRC Tip: Re-Enabling Stand-by Mode
CITations Tips Archive
Conference Announcements
2000 CITations Publication Schedule
How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to CITations

OPEN INFORMATION WEEK

During the week of October 16-20, 2000, UNC-Chapel Hill SILS is sponsoring a series of lectures and discussions on the theme of open information. The following events are planned:

Metadata: Providing infrastructure for information sharing
Monday, October 16
2:00-4:00; Room 307 Manning Hall

Contributor Run Libraries
Tuesday, October 17
1:00-2:00; Pleasants Family Room, Wilson Library

Licenses and Legalities for Open Information
Wednesday, October 18
12:30-2:00; Pleasants Family Room, Wilson Library

Open Information in the Scholarly Community
Thursday, October 19
1:00-2:30; Pleasants Family Room, Wilson Library

The Economics of Open Information
Friday, October 20
12:30-2:00, Room 208 Manning (tentative)

All sessions are free and open to the public. Please RSVP to Marcia Tauber (email: tauber@ils.unc.edu) as to which events you will attend so that the organizers can plan accordingly.

E-BOOKS TALK

The topic for the October 10, 2000 Scholarly Communication Working Group's brownbag lunch meeting will be E-books. Marjorie Fowler, Electronic Projects Coordinator at UNC Press, and Nick Vincelli, Head of Acquisitions at Davis Library, will report on the National Institute of Standards and Technology's E-Book 2000 Conference which they attended on September 25-27, 2000, in Washington, DC. The meeting will be from 12:00 noon - 1:00 p.m. in the 2nd Floor Conference Rooms in Davis Library. All faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend.

For more information about the Scholarly Communication Working Group's other meetings link to http://ils.unc.edu/schol-com/

SURVEY RESEARCH SHORT COURSES

Each semester, the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science offers a series of short courses for social science researchers and their students. All Institute short courses are held in 15 Manning Hall on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Except for their statistical data courses, registration is not necessary.

Two short courses for researchers planning to conduct surveys will be offered this month:

Planning and Conducting Telephone Surveys
Thursday, October 12, 3 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Designing Survey Questions
Wednesday, October 18, 3 p.m. -5 p.m.

For course descriptions go to http://www.irss.unc.edu/irss/shortcourses/shortcoursedescriptions.htm

For information about other Odum Institute courses and services go to http://www.irss.unc.edu/

CTC'S RESOURCE FOR CAMPUS NOVELL SUPPORT STAFF

If you are currently supporting a network using Novell NetWare, check out the UNC-Chapel Hill Novell Support Site website. This resource catalogs fixes, heads-ups, and "gotchas" that folks on the campus network have come across. The content is comprehensive and specific to the UNC-Chapel Hill networking environment. The site is at http://novell.unc.edu/

The site is one of the technology resources set up by and for Carolina Technology Consultants (CTC). The CTC is a voluntary, cooperative effort aimed at professional computer support providers at UNC-Chapel Hill and is backed by the resources of the office of Academic Technology and Networks (ATN). Any permanent EPA/SPA member who provides computer support to a University school, department, or center is eligible to become a full member of the CTC program. Such membership entitles participants to any programs initiated by the CTC (e.g., special training programs, technology updates, and technical support resources). While students may not become full members of the CTC, we recognize that some departments rely on them to provide technical support. Students may, with written authorization from their Dean or Director, be eligible for student membership which would entitle them to participate in technology updates and to access technical support resources.

If you are a new support person on campus who wishes to become a part of CTC, you can apply for membership using the online registration form at http://www.unc.edu/ctc/registration.html

SEPTEMBER 2000 ISSUE OF CIT INFOBITS

CIT 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. To subscribe see: http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/index.html#subscribe

The latest issue is available on the Web at http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitsep00.html

Articles in this issue include:
What Do Students in Distance Learning Environments Need?
What Do Instructors in Distance Learning Environments Need?
Tips for Teaching Online Groups
English Dominates in Higher Education
Digital Projects Handbook
ibiblio: "The Public's Library"
Report on Teachers' Use of Technology

APPLE DEMO

On Friday, October 20, the Computer Science department will sponsor an Apple demonstration, "Digital Video and OS X," in 014 Sitterson Hall. The session is open to everyone. Here's the agenda:

8:00 a.m. -- coffee/bagels/donuts in the Sitterson lobby
8:30 -- 9:10 -- Digital Video solutions, including iMovie
9:10 -- 9:50 -- OS X

If you have any questions, contact Bil Hays, Computer Science Network Manager; email: hays@cs.unc.edu

WEB PAGE TIP: AVOID PAGES THAT REQUIRE EXTENSIVE SCROLLING

Web Page Tips is a new category of tips that will appear in CITations. The tips will address issues that we have encountered when helping faculty and staff with their web pages.

Recently, we encountered a long web page that, when printed out, would have been 30 pages long. Web pages that require readers to scroll extensively can be confusing and annoying to navigate. Instead of placing all your content on a single page, first create a starting homepage that provides an overview of your topic/course/etc. From this homepage link to additional pages that each focus on a specific sub-topic.

Applying the principle of "divide and conquer" to your web pages can not only result in improved design, but it can also simplify your page maintenance. The long web page mentioned above contained over 28,000 lines of HTML code, making revisions or error corrections a monumental task.

Faculty and teaching assistants who would like an in-office consultation to set up web pages for their courses can call the Center for Instructional Technology at 962-6042 to schedule an appointment.

LYRIS TIP: VIEWING LISTSERV MEMBERS

When using the Lyris List Admin Web interface, some list administrators have reported problems seeing all the members in their list. Remember, Lyris' "Edit, create or delete members" page is normally set to show you only the first 200 names in your subscriber list. If you have more than 200 members, use the "Jump Forward" button to show the next 200 names. Or, you can use the drop-down list to select the number that is closest to your total member count. Then click on the "Show" button to list all the members together.

Another problem list administrators have reported is not seeing a subscriber that they know they added to their list. The default member type for viewing on the "Edit, create or delete members" page is "normal (active) members only." If a subscriber has unsubscribed himself or has changed his setting on the list to "nomail," he will not be listed as a "normal" member. If something is wrong with a subscriber's email address, she might be tagged as "held: bad email address"; this would also exclude her from the "normal" member view. To view the complete list of all your subscribers, change the default member group from "normal (active) members only" to "all members, all types."

At this time there is no way to print out a list of members from the Lyris "Edit, create or delete members" page. You can, however, get a list of your subscribers via email, using the "review" command.

To get a list of all the members' email addresses send email to listserv@unc.edu with the following 2-line message:

For example, if my list is named hist191 and the list password is qwerty, my message would be:

If I wanted to get a list of all the members' email addresses along with their names, then my message would be:

If I wanted to get a list of all the members' email addresses, their names, and their member settings, then my message would be:

If you have questions about your list, call 962-HELP or send email to listmaster@unc.edu
Faculty and teaching assistants who would like an in-office consultation to set up a listserv or to troubleshoot an existing list can call the Center for Instructional Technology at 962-6042 to schedule an appointment.

FREE GNU DEVELOPMENT KITS FOR LINUX AVAILABLE

Red Hat gave the Computer Science department several hundred copies of the Gnu C and C++ development kit for Linux. A description of the software is available at http://www.redhat.com/products/support/gnupro/

The development kits are free for the asking at our Technical Support Center, Room 111 Sitterson Hall. The kit includes a CD with the two compilers, a "development environment," and a manual. We have plenty of kits, so don't be bashful if you want some.

-- Brian White, Computer Services Director
UNC-Chapel Hill Computer Science Department

ITRC TIP: TEMPLATE GALLERY FOR OFFICE 97/2000

The Microsoft Office Template Gallery provides hundreds of Microsoft Word templates available for your use. The Template Gallery provides a good place to browse for formatting ideas. The templates can serve as a starting place when you don't want to draft a letter from scratch. Numerous documents are available, ranging from customer complaint letters to rental agreements.

To browse the Template Gallery, go to: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/TemplateGallery/

When you find a template that you would like to try, click on the template's corresponding "Go to Preview" hyperlink.

The first time you use the Template Gallery, you will need to agree to the End User License Agreement and install the site's "Template Gallery Control," which will install, dynamically, into both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. The control allows the site to start up Word from a hyperlinked template. You will need to "grant trust" to Microsoft in the process. You will not be required to close and restart your browser.

After the installation, you will be able to modify the chosen template as a regular Word document and save it locally. To do so, after previewing the template in the browser, click on the "Edit in Microsoft Word" link that corresponds with the chosen template. You will then be able to modify and save the template on your desktop computer.

ITRC TIP: RE-ENABLING STAND-BY MODE

In Windows 98, if a machine stops responding twice while in Stand-by mode, then a user will be notified and given the option to remove Stand-by as a Shutdown option.

At the IT Response Center, we have helped quite a few users to re-enable Stand-by mode, after it has been manually disabled. Here is the most common procedure for re-enabling Stand-by mode:

1. Go to START --> Settings --> Control Panel --> System
2. Click on the Device Manager tab
3. Expand the System Devices list
4. Highlight and remove "Advanced Power Management"
5. Restart your computer
6. Go to START --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Add New Hardware
7. Let Windows auto-recognize "Advanced Power Management"
8. Restart your computer

This procedure will solve the majority of the cases, when the user has manually disabled Stand-by mode. There can be BIOS misconfigurations or hardware problems that also disable Stand-by mode. However, they require greater care and are better examined case by case with technical support's assistance.

For more information read these helpful articles:

Standby Missing From Windows Shutdown Dialog Box
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q188/1/34.ASP

Suspend or Stand by option missing from Shutdown menu
http://www.windows-help.net/windows98/troub-26.shtml

For more 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

CITATIONS TIPS ARCHIVE

The ITRC, CBT, and Lyris tips published in CITations are archived on the Web so you can locate tips without having to search through all the back issues. The tips archive is at http://www.unc.edu/cit/citations/tips.html

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

October 20
November 3 & 17
December 1 & 15

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

CITations is published twice a month by the Center for Instructional Technology. Back issues are available on the CIT website at http://www.unc.edu/cit/citations/

For more information about the CIT, see our Website at http://www.unc.edu/cit/ or contact our office at 962-6042.

To subscribe to CITations, send email to listserv@unc.edu with the following message:
subscribe citations firstname lastname
substituting your own first and last names.
Example:
subscribe citations Nick Park

To unsubscribe to CITations, send email to listserv@unc.edu with the following message:
unsubscribe citations