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.
Costs of Online Education
Technology and the Biological Process of Learning
Guidelines for Distance Education Released
Preparing Tomorrow's Presenters
Web Tools for Detecting Student Plagiarism
Articles on Distance Education and Copyright
The cost of online education is the subject of a couple of articles this month in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
"While distance-education programs are not going under like their dot-com counterparts, administrators are recognizing that the costs of expanding programs are -- in some cases -- greater than had been anticipated," writes Sarah Carr in "Is Anyone Making Money on Distance Education?" (CHE, February 16, 2001, p. A41) And "[s]ome researchers describe the list of potential costs as never-ending and, in the final analysis, unknowable." The article is on the Web at http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i23/23a04101.htm
In "Author Says Colleges Must Reallocate Money to Academic Technology" (by Florence Olsen, CHE, February 27, 2001, http://chronicle.com/free/2001/02/2001022701t.htm) A. W. (Tony) Bates, director of distance education and technology in the Continuing Studies Division at the University of British Columbia, says that "colleges will have to reallocate money from other accounts to pay for essential academic-technology projects. And that's easier said than done. . . " Bates is the author of Managing Technology Change: Strategies for College and University Leaders (Jossey-Bass Inc., 2000; ISBN: 0-7879-4681-8) Chapter 10 "Avoiding the Faustian Contract and Meeting the Technology Challenge" is available online at http://www.josseybass.com/cgi-bin/catalog/search/title?isbn=0-7879-4681-8
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
website 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
TECHNOLOGY AND THE BIOLOGICAL PROCESS OF LEARNING
The theme for the latest issue of Educational Technology & Society (vol. 4, no. 1, January 2001) is "Technologies and Their Effect on Learning as a Biological Process." Articles include:
"Computer Modeling and Biological Learning," by University of Victoria professors Wolff-Michael Roth and Daniel V. Lawless
"Key Design Considerations for Personalized Learning on the Web," by Margaret Martinez, Ph.D., The Training Place
"Cognitive Navigation: Toward A Biological Basis for Instructional Design," by Steven Tripp, University of Aizu
"Does Technology Present a New Way of Learning?" by Robert N. Leamnson, Professor of Biology, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth
The articles are available at http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/vol_1_2001/v_1_2001.html
Educational Technology & Society [ISSN 1436-4522] is a peer-reviewed quarterly online journal published by the International Forum of Educational Technology & Society and the IEEE Computer Society Learning Technology Task Force (LTTF). It is available in HTML and PDF formats at no cost at http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/
The International Forum of Educational Technology & Society (IFETS) is a subgroup of the IEEE Learning Technology Task Force (LTTF). IFETS encourages discussions on the issues affecting the educational system developer (including AI) and education communities. For more information, link to http://ifets.ieee.org/
LTTF was founded on the premise that emerging technology has the potential to dramatically improve learning. The purpose of this task force is to contribute to the field of Learning Technology and to serve the needs of professionals working in this field. For more information, link to http://lttf.ieee.org/
The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) promotes the "engineering process of creating, developing, integrating, sharing, and applying knowledge about electrical and information technologies and sciences for the benefit of humanity and the profession." For more information, link to http://www.ieee.org/
GUIDELINES FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION RELEASED
In January 2001, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) released Distance Education Guidelines for Good Practice, a "set of quality standards for distance education in colleges and universities . . . based on both a survey of [200] AFT members who teach distance learning classes and previous studies by AFT." The entire report and the practitioner survey is available online (in PDF format) at http://www.aft.org/higher_ed/technology/
Printed copies of the report are available for $2 (US) by writing to the American Federation of Teachers Higher Education Department, 555 New Jersey Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20001 USA.
Founded in 1916, the AFT is a union representing teachers, school support staff, higher education faculty and staff, health care professionals, and state and municipal employees. For more information, contact: American Federation of Teachers, 555 New Jersey Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001 USA; tel: 202-879-4400; email: online@aft.org; Web: http://www.aft.org/
PREPARING TOMORROW'S PRESENTERS
"Instructional technologists -- those who make their living by determining how and why people learn best -- have discovered that creating and providing technology-forward presentation spaces for faculty help students learn more in a shorter period of time."
In "How Today's Colleges and Universities are Preparing Tomorrow's Presenters" (Presentations, vol. 14, no. 12, January 2001, pp. 38-40, 42, 44, 46) Dianne Porter writes how several institutions are providing state-of-the-art presentation technology to give students the communication skills they will need after graduation. In addition to taking the more traditional classes in general communications and public speaking, students learn to be more technologically-adept at using presentation hardware, PowerPoint, and the Web. The entire article is available online at http://www.presentations.com/resources/trends/2001/01/31_f1_clas_01.html
Presentations: Technology and Techniques for Effective Communication [ISSN 1041-9780] is published monthly by Bill Communications, 50 S. Ninth St., Minneapolis, MN 55402 USA; tel: 612-333-0471. Free subscriptions are available to qualified subscribers in the U.S. and Canada by completing an online form at http://www.presentations.com/presmag/pm_subscribe.html
WEB TOOLS FOR DETECTING STUDENT PLAGIARISM
The article "Borrowing, Cheating, Plagiarism, Theft" (by Graeme Daniel, Web Tools Newsletter, February 27, 2001) provides a survey of current Web tools for detecting student plagiarism. Included are links to several articles on plagiarism and how to structure assessment procedures to minimize it. The article is available online at http://webtools.cityu.edu.hk/news/newslett/plagiarismrevisited.htm
Web Tools Newsletter is published weekly for educators by retired teacher Kevin Cox. Each free issue pursues a particular topic related to Web-based teaching and learning. Topics of previous issues include: discussion lists, Web publishing resources, and online quizzes. Subscription information and back issues are available at http://webtools.cityu.edu.hk/news/
Web Tools Newsletter is part of the Web Tools for Learning, a teaching development project of the Division of Computer Studies at the City University of Hong Kong. For more information link to http://webtools.cityu.edu.hk/
ARTICLES ON DISTANCE EDUCATION AND COPYRIGHT
Intellectual property and copyright issues are addressed in articles in the current issue of ED, Education at a Distance (vol. 15, no. 2, February 2001). An extensive list of links to other copyright articles is also included in this issue. To read all the articles, link to http://www.usdla.org/ED_magazine/illuminactive/FEB01_Issue/index.html
ED is the official publication of the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA). Electronically published monthly, ED covers the latest developments in the field of distance learning with up-to-date and thoughtful articles from the top names in the field. Back issues are available at http://www.usdla.org/ED_magazine/16_ed_magazine_past.htm
The United States Distance Learning Association is a nonprofit organization formed in 1987. The association's purpose is to promote the development and application of distance learning for education and training. The constituents served include pre-K through grade 12 education, higher education, home school education, continuing education, corporate training, military and government training, and telemedicine. For more information contact: USDLA, 140 Gould St., Suite 200B, Needham, MA 02494-2397; tel: 800-275-5162; fax: 781-453-2389; Web: http://www.usdla.org/