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.
Instructional Technology and Faculty Perceptions
Emotions in the Online Classroom
Is the Scholarly Book Dead?
More on Scholarly Publishing
A Forensic Method for Evaluating Journal Quality
Search Smarter, Not Harder
INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY AND FACULTY PERCEPTIONS
In Fall 2001, the South Dakota Regental Systems surveyed all the full-time faculty in the state's universities to learn how they used instructional technology. In "Faculty Perceptions and Uses of Instructional Technology" (EDUCAUSE Quarterly, no. 2, 2003, pp 60-2), Warren Wilson, Director of South Dakota Regents Information Systems, reports on the study's results. The study found that faculty "seem comfortable learning new technology and are motivated to put it into practice." However, faculty are more likely to teach themselves about new technologies, rather than rely on university resource centers for training. The study also revealed that, while monetary rewards can motivate faculty to adopt new technology, "other rewards, such as recognition, tenure, or promotion factors, may work equally well or better." The article concludes with several recommendations that could enhance or extend faculty use of instructional technology. The complete article is available on the web at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0329.pdf
EDUCAUSE Quarterly, a practitioner's journal about managing and using
information resources in higher education, is published by EDUCAUSE.
Current and past issues are available online at
http://www.educause.edu/pub/eq/
For more information, contact EDUCAUSE, 1150 18th Street, NW, Suite
1010, Washington, DC 20036 USA; tel: 202-872-4200; fax: 202-872-4318;
email: info@educause.edu; Web: http://www.educause.edu/pub/eq/
For another study of faculty use of instructional technology, see "Report on Use of Course Management Systems," CIT Infobits, May 2003, http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitmay03.html#4
EMOTIONS IN THE ONLINE CLASSROOM
"The impact of emotions cannot be separated, for better or worse, from even the most dry, rote learning." In the article "Emotions in the Cyber Classroom" (Educator's Voice, June 11, 2003; http://www.ecollege.com/news/EdVoice.learn), Charlotte A. Redden looks at the "learner's emotions related to learning itself, to the content, to the technology, and to the interactions occurring in the cyber classroom." Even though online classes can't supply many of the emotional cues that are available in face-to-face instruction, Redden suggests that instructors can still find ways to evoke in online students positive emotions that lead to more successful learning experiences.
Educator's Voice is published monthly by the eCollege Instructional Design Team. For more information contact eCollege, eCollege Building, 4900 S. Monaco Street, Denver, CO 80237 USA; tel: 888-884-7325; fax: 303-873-7449; Web: http://www.ecollege.com/
In March 2003, the Australian Academy of the Humanities sponsored the Forum on the Future of the Book. Over one hundred humanities academics, librarians, publishers, and booksellers debated whether there was a crisis in academic publishing. Sessions included new modes of book distribution and access and valuing and measuring academic research publishing. The general conclusion of the forum is that, while the scholarly book is not dead, it may be in a state of dormancy.
PowerPoint slides and notes of all the session presentations are available on the web at http://www.humanities.org.au/NSCF/bookfuture/futureofbook.htm
The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established in 1969 to advance knowledge of, and the pursuit of excellence in, the Humanities. For more information about the Academy and its sponsored events, contact: The Australian Academy of the Humanities, GPO Box 93, Canberra ACT 2601 Australia; tel: 612-6125-9860; fax: 612-6248-6287; Web: http://www.humanities.org.au/
For more on scholarly publishing, see four papers by Gerry McKiernan, Science and Technology Librarian and Bibliographer, Iowa State University Library:
"Scholar-based Innovations in Publishing. Part I: Individual and
Institutional Initiatives." Library Hi Tech News 20, no. 2 (March
2003): 19-26.
Online at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/ScholarBased-I.pdf
"Scholar-based Innovations in Publishing. Part II: Library and
Professional Initiatives." Library Hi Tech News 20, no. 3 (April
2003): 19-27.
Online at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/ScholarBased-II.pdf
"Scholar-based Innovations in Publishing. Part III: Organizational and
National Initiatives." Library Hi Tech News 20, no. 5 (June 2003):
15-23.
Online at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/ScholarBased-III.pdf
"Open Access and Retrieval: Liberating the Scholarly Literature." In E-Serials Management: Transitions, Trends, and Technicalities, ed. by David Fowler (Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, Fall 2003).
A PowerPoint presentation summarizing these papers is available on the
Web at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/ScholarBased.ppt
See also:
"On the Transition of Journals to Open Access," by David Prosser,
Director, SPARC Europe. ARL Bimonthly Report 227, April 2003. Prosser's
paper contains a proposal for conversion of subscription-based journals
to open access, based on the idea of a transitional hybrid journal that
offers different pricing models at the article level.
Online at http://www.arl.org/newsltr/227/openaccess.html
A FORENSIC METHOD FOR EVALUATING JOURNAL QUALITY
"Evaluating the quality of a journal publisher is many times a controversial issue. This is especially the case as it pertains to the promotion and tenure decisions of faculty members." In "What Makes a Publisher Important? Maximization of Internet Citations Methodology" (Ubiquity, vol. 4, issue 12, May 13-19, 2003) Avi Rushinek and Sara Rushinek, professors at the University of Miami, describe their study which, employing what they term a "forensic approach," uses a search engine citation test as a supplement to the traditional academic methods of ranking journal quality. The complete article is available online at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/a_rushinek_2.html
Ubiquity is a free, Web-based publication of the Association for
Computing Machinery, "dedicated to fostering critical analysis and
in-depth commentary on issues relating to the nature, constitution,
structure, science, engineering, technology, practices, and paradigms
of the IT profession." For more information, contact: Ubiquity, email: ubiquity@acm.org;
Web: http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/
For more information on the ACM, contact: ACM, One Astor Plaza, 1515
Broadway, New York, NY 10036, USA; tel: 800-342-6626 or 212-626-0500;
Web: http://www.acm.org/
If you frequently use Google to perform Web services, Simson Garfinkel's article, "Getting More From Google" (Technology Review, June 4, 2003), can help you improve your Google session results. Garfinkel provides tips on setting Google preferences, using the Google Toolbar, and using Google to search for images. The article is available at http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_garfinkel060403.asp
Technology Review [ISSN 1099-274X] is published ten times a year by Technology Review, Inc., a Massachusetts Institute of Technology enterprise. For more information, contact Technology Review, One Main Street, 7th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02142 USA; tel: 617-475-8000; fax: 617-475-8042; Web: http://www.technologyreview.com/