CIT INFOBITS January 2004 No. 67 ISSN 1521-9275 About INFOBITS INFOBITS is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill'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. ...................................................................... Roundup of Articles Predicting IT Trends Guide to Conducting Surveys Online Higher Ed Effective Security Practices Guide Released ERIC Clearinghouses Close Recommended Reading Infobits Subscribers -- Where Are We in 2004? ...................................................................... ROUNDUP OF ARTICLES PREDICTING IT TRENDS "If the last 10 years were about bringing technology to every corner of the campus, the next 10 will be about making that technology more effective, easier to use, and easier to manage. And information technology may grow from a set of tools that help colleges to do what they have always done to a set of systems that could transform the very nature of higher education itself." ("10 Challenges for the Next 10 Years," THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, vol. 50, issue 21, p. B1, January 30, 2004) A new year often spurs people to look back on the past and to make predictions for future trends. This month several articles focus on forecasts for where technology will take education and computing. The Chronicle of Higher Education published a collection of prognostic reports including, "Distance Education: Keeping Up With Exploding Demand;" "Collaboration: Seeking Tools That Are Easy to Use;" and Sherry Turkle's "How Computers Change the Way We Think." All the articles are available online to Chronicle subscribers. 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/ . . . . . In "Ahead of the Curve: Future Shifts in Higher Education" (EDUCAUSE REVIEW, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 10-18, January/February 2004), Shirley Ann Jackson looks at changes taking place in information technology and warns that higher education institutions "must be prepared for disruption. Technology is disruptive. Information technology is really disruptive." EDUCAUSE Review [ISSN 1527-6619], a bimonthly print magazine that explores developments in information technology and education, is published by 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/. Articles from current and back issues of EDUCAUSE Review are available on the Web at http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/ . . . . . "The Next Big Thing?" (THE ECONOMIST, January 15, 2004) bases its vision of the future on two "unglamorous technologies":. "web services" software that resides on a server that other servers can share and "grid computing," which involves sharing and combining the processing power of huge numbers of computer systems into a single, giant virtual microprocessor. The article is available online, at no cost, at http://www.economist.co.uk/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2352183 The Economist [ISSN 0013-0613] is published weekly by The Economist Newspaper Ltd., 25 St James's Street, London, SW1A 1HG UK; Web: http://www.economist.co.uk/ . . . . . Drawing on data from the Campus Computing Project (in "Tracking the Digital Puck into 2004," SYLLABUS, December 2003, http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=8574), Kenneth C. Green, founding director of the Project, sees more wireless computing on campuses, more progress on portal projects, and continuing cuts in computing budgets. Syllabus [ISSN 1089-5914] is published monthly by 101communications, LLC, 9121 Oakdale Avenue, Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311 USA; tel: 650-941-1765; fax: 650-941-1785; email: info@syllabus.com; Web: http://www.syllabus.com/ Annual subscriptions are free to individuals who work in colleges, universities, and high schools in the U.S.; go to http://subscribe.101com.com/syllabus/ for more information. . . . . . Walt Crawford's "top technology trend for 2004, when it comes to libraries and librarians, is the same as for 2003, 2002, and before: Toning down the technology in favor of the humanity." (CITES & INSITES, vol. 4, no. 2, p. 19, Midwinter 2004) The issue is available online, at no cost, at http://cites.boisestate.edu/civ4i2.pdf Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large [ISSN 1534-0937] is a free, online newsletter self-published by Walt Crawford, a senior analyst at the Research Libraries Group, Inc. Current and back issues are available on the Web at http://cites.boisestate.edu/ For more information contact: Walt Crawford, The Research Libraries Group, Inc., 2029 Stierlin Ct., Suite 100, Mountain View, CA 94043-4684 USA; tel: 650-691-2227; email: wcc@notes.rlg.org; Web: http://walt.crawford.home.att.net/ ...................................................................... GUIDE TO CONDUCTING SURVEYS ONLINE A 2001 RAND Corporation report, CONDUCTING RESEARCH SURVEYS VIA EMAIL AND THE WEB [ISBN: 0-8330-3110-4], discusses the pros and cons of using email and the Web to conduct research surveys. The authors (Matthias Schonlau, Ronald D. Fricker, Jr., and Marc N. Elliott) provide an overview of the various aspects of the research survey process, guidelines for choosing the type of Internet survey to use, and suggestions for designing and implementing Internet surveys. The report is available for purchase in paperback or online in PDF format, at no charge, at http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1480/ The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization "providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world." For more information, link to http://www.rand.org/ ...................................................................... HIGHER ED EFFECTIVE SECURITY PRACTICES GUIDE RELEASED This month the EDUCAUSE/Internet2 Computer and Network Security Task Force released the "Effective Security Practices Guide" for the higher education community. "As a primer to establishing a comprehensive IT security program on campus, the guide contains resources on 'where to begin,' including awareness, policies, and risk assessment and detailed descriptions of tools for implementing a security strategy. Topics covered include network and host vulnerability assessment, security architecture design, network and host security implementation, intrusion and virus detection, incident response, and encryption and authentication. The guide also links to more than 30 effective practices and solutions contributed by members of the higher education community." The Guide is available online at http://www.educause.edu/security/guide/ EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. Learn more about EDUCAUSE at http://www.educause.edu/. Internet2 is a consortium being led by 205 universities working in partnership with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. For more information about Internet2, see http://www.internet2.edu/ ...................................................................... ERIC CLEARINGHOUSES CLOSE After over thirty years of service, the U.S. Department of Education's ERIC Clearinghouses, and the AskERIC service, permanently closed at the end of December 2003. ERIC is a national information system funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences to provide access to education literature and resources. The Clearinghouses, stationed at various educational institutions, provided documents and reference services on educational topics ranging from Elementary and Early Childhood Education to Urban and Minority Education to Adult, Career, and Vocational Education. The new ERIC uses one URL (http://www.eric.ed.gov) to: -- search the ERIC database, -- access the ERIC Calendar of Education-Related Conferences, -- link to the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS) to purchase ERIC full-text documents, and -- link to the ERIC Processing and Reference Facility to purchase ERIC tapes and tools. ...................................................................... RECOMMENDED READING "Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas@unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column. Infobits subscriber Tony Frisby recommends the online version of the peer-reviewed journal, ACADEMIC EXCHANGE QUARTERLY [ISSN 1096-1453]. The website provides free, full-text access to selected back-issue articles in the Monthly Exchange section: http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/monex.htm ...................................................................... INFOBITS SUBSCRIBERS -- WHERE ARE WE IN 2004? Each January issue of Infobits includes an annual subscriber tally listing the countries represented by our subscribers. As of January 9, 2004, there were 7,033 subscribers. Here are some brief statistics about our current subscribers: The majority of the subscribers whose country we could identify are in the United States (3,356) and other English-speaking countries: Canada (443), Australia (250), and the United Kingdom (164). Each of the following countries has between eleven and forty subscribers: Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and Spain. The following countries have ten or fewer subscribers: Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Micronesia, Mongolia, Morocco, Namibia, New Caledonia, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. In addition to subscribers who we can positively identify by a geographic location, 1,570 subscribers are from commercial sites, 177 subscribers are from .org sites, and 563 are from .net sites, none of which have been attributed to a particular country. Many thanks to all the subscribers for your support in 2003! -- Carolyn Kotlas, CIT Infobits Editor ...................................................................... To Subscribe CIT INFOBITS is published by the Center for Instructional Technology. The CIT supports the interests of faculty members at UNC-Chapel Hill who are exploring the use of Internet and video projects. Services include both consultation on appropriate uses and technical support. To subscribe to INFOBITS, send email to listserv@unc.edu with the following message: SUBSCRIBE INFOBITS firstname lastname substituting your own first and last names. 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