News 05-01-2001
Syllabus2001 to Include TLT Summer Institute Program
The TLT Group's Annual Summer Institute will join Syllabus2001 this summer
at the Santa Clara Convention Center, July 20-24. The merged offerings of these
two leading conferences will provide attendees with a broader selection of activities
and session types, including keynotes, breakout sessions, workshops and seminars,
poster sessions, and TLT Group interactive team activities.
Besides presenting a featured track, the TLT Group will be offering two types
of Team activities at the Syllabus Conference: Institutional Teams will present
an opportunity for institutions to send a team of three or more individuals
to work on technology issues specific to their campus; Thematic Groups will
allow individual attendees to form teams to work on common issues.
Those who choose to participate in the Thematic Groups will select from the
following group themes:
- Collaborative Change: Groups selecting this theme will focus on organizing
collaborative change in ways that bridge gaps between individuals, offices,
departments, and institutions.
- Support Service Crisis: Learn how to find, select, develop, and adapt support
resources to slow the widening gap between expectations for the use of technology
and the resources available for supporting them.
- Teaching, Learning, and Technology Centers: Organizing resources and extending
collaborative inter-departmental, inter-office, and inter-institutional programs;
using Web-based course management systems and other low-threshold applications
to augment the effectiveness of a TLTC.
- Assessment and Evaluation: This group will consider assessment and issues
such as how to create studies of teaching and learning that can enhance the
educational value of technology, and studies of educational uses of technology
that can reduce stress on people and budgets.
- Wild Card: Suggest a group theme idea--send it to [email protected].
For details on the full conference program and registration options, visit
SyllabusWeb: http://www.syllabus.com/summer2001/.
Education and Tech Leaders Join to Set Education IT Standards
Leading education and technology organizations recently announced their support
of the Managed Learning System Research and Development Lab, part of a new vendor-neutral
program to set the standards for technology in education. While initially funded
by Intel, Dell, Microsoft, OneNet, SAP Public Services, Inc., EdVISION, and
Riverdeep, the lab is now open to sponsorship and use by other education providers
and vendors to ensure interoperability. The Managed Learning System (MLS) is
a program of JES & Co., a non-profit developer of education technology solutions
and integration. Version 1.0 of the MLS spec is the result of more than three
years of integration and prototype development, including the deployment of
a fully operational system for the state of Oklahoma. With version 1.0 operating
in Oklahoma, the MLS Program will focus on soliciting participation from additional
technology and education leaders, revising the current specification and publishing
a 2.0 version in 2002.
For more information, visit http://www.jesandco.org/.
Silicon Valley Business Leaders Examine Technology's Impact
More than 500 men and women, most from Silicon Valley companies, joined scholars
and U.S. and international journalists at Santa Clara University's Mayer Theatre
for a conference called "Technology and Us." Presented by the university's Center
for the Study of Science, Technology, and Society, the conference joined the
Institute for Women and Technology with engineers and students from Santa Clara
University and six other universities around the U.S. to address the topic:
Can women engineers develop new computer ideas and solutions in on-line environments?
One panel member was Douglas Engelbart, director of the Bootstrap Institute
and inventor of the computer mouse. Engelbart reminded his audience that men
and women need to develop ideas that match the pace of technological development
and cautioned that it is difficult to foresee the revolutionary changes in society
that today's technology will cause.
Two of the conference's panel discussions will be broadcast on successive weeks
on KQED FM, San Francisco, at 8 p.m., May 2 and May 9. Videos of all the conference
sessions are being produced and will be available for sale from the Center for
Science Technology and Society. For more information, visit http://sts.scu.edu.
Special Syllabus Discount!
SIGS/101 Conferences is offering a significant discount to full-time students
and faculty to attend the upcoming XML One conference to be held May 14-17 in
Chicago. The Academic rate is just $500 for a full VIP Passport--this significant
savings is good for full-time students and faculty only! Download the pdf at
http://www.xmlconference.com/chicago
and fax in your registration today!
For more information, call Cindy Hugues at 800-871-7447.
netLibrary Adopts Open e-Book Specification Standards
netLibrary, provider of e-books and Internet-based content/ collection management
services, recently announced the adoption of industry standards for netLibrary
e-books. netLibrary has been a member of the Open eBook Forum ('eBF) and has
actively supported the development of industry standards for the past two years.
This move is expected to position netLibrary to accelerate the adoption and
use of e-books by its library customers while continuing to support a quality
e-book experience and maintain core functionality. Adoption of 'eBF standards
is also expected to result in lower cost and faster conversion processes which
will facilitate the availability of more front-list titles from the world's
leading publishers, many of whom are already working with netLibrary. The company
plans to accept electronic files meeting 'eBF standards directly from publishers
or, at the publisher's request, manage the conversion process on behalf of the
publisher. Doing so will result in the re-allocation of conversion work to outsource
vendors, changing the scope of conversion processes handled in-house.
For more information, visit http://www.netLibrary.com.
Second Annual Online Journalism Awards
The Online Journalism Awards (OJA) program--the international Web journalism
awards presented by the Online News Association (ONA) and the Columbia Graduate
School of Journalism--is seeking entries for its 2001 contest. The contest is
open to English-language content sites from around the world for work first
published online between July 1, 2000 and June 30, 2001. The deadline to submit
entries is Monday, July 16, 2001. The 2001 Online Journalism Awards will grant
15 prizes in eight categories, including general excellence, breaking news,
feature journalism, innovative presentation of information, and commentary.
For more information, visit http://www.onlinejournalismawards.org.
Web-enabled Recruiting Tool
Educational Directories Unlimited, a provider of online academic program directories
targeted toward prospective students, recently announced the launch of StudentProspector.com,
a Web-enabled tool for universities to recruit graduate student applicants.
Every time a student registers at Gradschools.com, their profile is saved into
a master database, which will be available by subscription for graduate school
recruiters. The service is expected to be expanded to Studyabroad.com customers
by the summer of 2001. Fees are based on the student body size of the academic
program subscribing to the service.
For more information, visit http://www.studentprospector.com.
Distance Learning Conference
Higher Education Washington, Inc. (HEWI) and the National Association of Student
Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) recently announced their first e-learning
conference, Distance Learning: The Future of Education, scheduled for October
29-30 at the University of Maryland University College. The conference will
include panel discussions about being a virtual educator, intellectual property,
corporate e-learning, LAAP grants, accrediting standards, and many other topics.
For more information, visit http://www.hewi.net.
Intel Collaborates with Chinese Academy of Sciences
Intel Corporation recently announced that it is teaming up with the Institute
of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing on advanced
software compiler research. The focus of the two-year research agreement will
be to develop the technologies that will help researchers build the next generation
of processors and compilers. The research is targeted at improving general purpose
performance and efficiency of the Intel Itanium processor family. This, in turn,
is expected to improve performance of e-Business and other applications on Intel-based
computers. Through this collaboration, researchers plan to develop robust, modular
compiler components that enable experimentation. In this compiler, "modules"
will be used to perform specific optimization tasks that allow researchers to
quickly test different techniques against a common base.
Optimization techniques
tested in this way will include loop nesting, inter-procedural analysis, scalar
optimization, global instruction scheduling, profiling, software pipeline, register
allocation, predication and speculation. In addition, a number of simulator
tools will be developed to enable validation and comparison of these modules.
For more information, visit http://www.intel.com/labs.
The History of Online Learning
The Internet and Higher Education journal recently presented a special issue
on the history of online learning. The issue contains articles concerning a
variety of perspectives on online learning. Titles include: "Shift Happens:
Online Education As A New Paradigm in Learning," "The Instructor as Manager:
Time and Task," and "Moving Beyond the White Cane: Building an Online Learning
Environment for the Visually Impaired Professional."
For more information, visit http://www.sbe.nova.edu/ihe.
Industry, Government, and Academia to Join Forces
Three federal agencies will join forces with industry and academia for a two-day
conference next month to foster teamwork and collaboration to meet a critical
need: drawing and retaining young engineers and scientists to the Huntsville
area. The first Education and Employment for Technological Excellence in Aviation,
Missiles, and Space will be held May 15-16 in Huntsville, Ala. A key goal of
the conference is to encourage research colleges and universities from a four-state
area--Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia-- to partner with industry
and government to build a "high-tech corridor" in the region. The event will
address future research and technology needs, and will promote educational opportunities
and workforce development initiatives for engineers, scientists, and students.
To encourage participation by colleges and universities, Marshall, AMCOM, and
the Space and Missile Defense Command will jointly offer up to $1 million in
grant money.
For more information, visit http://www.tabes.org/.
