News 07-17-2001
Syllabus2001 Higher Education at the Vanguard of Societal Change
It is through the education of students that technology can be used to reinvent
society, Andrew Lippman maintains, so educators are in effect shaping the future.
According to Lippman, keynote speaker at the Syllabus2001 conference this Monday
in Santa Clara, Calif., new technologies of bits and atoms are a driving force
in the changes global networks are making in our media, communities, and businesses.
Systems can now be designed to respond to social and personal structures as
well as impel them to change. Lippman, founding Associate Director of the MIT
Media Lab is also Director of the lab's Digital Life program, a multi-sponsor
research consortium of faculty, graduate students, and companies exploring the
interconnection between bits, people, and things in an online world. Under Lippman's
direction, the program invents and explores new forms of communities through
research in structured media, learning, human expression, interfaces, and agents.
The members of the program work to jointly define the research issues and participate
in the work. Represented industries include telecommunications, media, transactions,
advertising, publishing, consumer electronics, and computing.
For more information about Syllabus2001, to be held in Santa Clara, Calif.
July 20-24, visit http://www.syllabus.com/summer2001/.
Though online registration for the conference has closed, attendees are welcome
to
register on-site.
NEC Foundation of America Announces Grants
The NEC Foundation of America recently announced eight separate grants totaling $300,000 to not-for-profit organizations focusing their services on education technology applications and/or emerging technologies for people with disabilities. Organizations receiving support from this recent round of grants include Boston University and The Center for Excellence in Education.
For more information, visit http://www.nec.com/.
Commercial Alert Files Complaint Against Search Engines
Commercial Alert, a non-profit organization whose stated mission is to keep
the commercial culture within its proper sphere, recently filed a deceptive
advertising complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against eight search
engines, for placing ads in search engine results without clear disclosure that
they are ads. The complaint states that such listings "look like information
from an objective database selected by an objective algorithm. But really they
are paid ads in disguise." Companies named in the complaint include AltaVista
Co., AOL Time Warner Inc., Direct Hit Technologies, iWon Inc., LookSmart Ltd.,
Microsoft Corp.,
and Terra Lycos S.A.
For more information, visit http://www.commercialalert.org.
ADA Teams with ingenta to Launch Journal Web Site
ingenta, a resource for the search and delivery of academic and professional research articles online, has created a Web site for The Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA).
Established in 1913, the Journal is renowned as a reliable, peer-reviewed source of information on dentistry and dental science. Access to the full text of JADA is now available at http://www.ada.org. Visitors to the site can search from anywhere on the ADA Web site and an e-library of 24 dentistry titles. JADA will offer its prominent research titles on the latest topics in dentistry, clinical information on biomaterials, pharmacology, and cosmetic and esthetic dentistry and general dental practices. Articles and research papers can be accessed by all visitors for one year free of charge. Beginning July 1, 2002 ADA members and Journal subscribers can access the articles, while non-members will be charged on a pay-per-view basis.
JSTOR Releases Arts & Sciences II Collection
JSTOR, an independent not-for-profit organization with a mission to create
an archive of important scholarly journals and to extend access to those journals
as broadly as possible, has announced the release of the first 22 titles in
its new Arts & Sciences II Collection. The multi-disciplinary collection
will offer additional titles in subjects such as History, Economics, and Asian
Studies that will complement JSTOR's original Arts & Sciences I Collection.
In addition, Arts & Sciences II will offer journals in new disciplines including
Classics, Archaeology, Geography, History of Science, and African, Latin American,
Slavic, and Middle Eastern Studies.
The list of signed titles to be included in the Arts & Sciences II collection
is updated regularly and can be found on the JSTOR Web site at http://www.jstor.org/about/asII.list.html.
Fathom and Prometheus to Provide Free Online Learning
A series of free online seminars from institutions including Columbia University,
the London School of Economics, and Cambridge University Press is being made
available by Fathom, a source for online learning, delivered on software by
Prometheus, the open architecture courseware from the George Washington University.
The Prometheus-Fathom partnership will make available online seminars from leading
universities, museums, and libraries for free to an international audience through
Fathom (http://www.fathom.com),
a company founded by Columbia University. Utilizing Prometheus software, the
seminar material is presented in a variety of media, including text, images,
audio, video, and animation. Following this "virtual lecture," participants
can join discussion boards, take a self assessment test, or learn more through
related educational links. Examples of the coursework to be made available for
the first time this summer include, "Women's Health: Not for Women Only"
from Columbia University, "The Globalisation Debate" from The London
School of Economics and Political Science, "How to Read Joyce" from
Cambridge University Press, and "The Lindisfarne Gospels" from The
British Library. The free seminars are expected to take between a half-hour
and two hours to complete.
Southern Illinois Professor Receives Young Engineer Award
Dr. Susan M. Morgan, Ph.D., P.E., assistant professor in the Department of
Civil Engineering at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), has been
named the 2001 Young Engineer of the Year by the National Society of Professional
Engineers (NSPE). A licensed engineer since 1999, Dr. Morgan authored or co-authored
18 publications and 21 presentations based on her research and is currently
co-authoring an introductory environmental engineering textbook. The award recognizes
young NSPE members who have made outstanding contributions to the engineering
profession and their communities during the early years of their career. Morgan
will be presented with the award during NSPE's Annual Convention and Exposition,
July 26-30, 2001, in Detroit, MI. For more information, visit http://www.nspe.org.
Out of the Cube
A new Web site and e-mail newsletter, http://www.outofthecube.com/,
offers a global forum for visitors to voice views on topics of general interest;
to increase awareness of lesser-known people, places, works, and causes; and
to publish original work of an artistic or literary nature. The content of the
site is generated by the Out of the Cube community, both through the articles
appearing and the discussion of them on the message boards. The creators of
the site hope to target students (of any age), entrepreneurs, original thinkers,
both emerging and established artists, teachers, those with novel and interesting
political agendas, and anyone in the general public who has something to say
but is not being heard. The goal of the site is to create a huge online community
that enjoys reading, writing, and debating articles.
ezboard Unveils ezSkins Technology
ezboard, Inc., which enables users to create and customize their own Web-based
"social space" for professional collaboration and social discussion,
unveiled ezSkins, its latest technology for online communities in its version
6.2 release. ezSkins will allow communities to redesign the structure, look
and feel of their communities to achieve virtually any site design, without
extensive programming knowledge, and in a fully hosted environment. The ezSkins
technology is available to all participating members of the Community-Supported
Communities programs.
For more information, visit http://www.ezboard.com.
Image-Guided Radiosurgery Tool
The CyberKnife Image-Guided Radiosurgery system technology was developed in
cooperation with Stanford University and was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) in 1999 for head, neck, and spine use down to the cervico-thoracic junction.
Publicly unveiled for the first time at the American Association of Neurological
Surgeons Annual Meeting this past April in Toronto, the system integrates proprietary
imageguidance technology with robotic delivery to target and irradiate tumors
with accuracy and patient comfort. Accuracy Incorporated, provider of CyberKnife,
announced recently the first two orders for the system, for Georgetown University
Hospital and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center.
UCSF Medical Center, a top-tier institution with an established brain radiosurgery
program, has signed a contract to acquire the CyberKnife through the CyberKnifePlacement
Model (CPM)--a revenue and risk-sharing joint venture with Accuray--to expand
its radiosurgery program.
For more information, visit http://www.accuray.com/.
Don't Miss These Upcoming Events from 101communications:
- TDWI World Conference, Summer 2001, Anaheim, CA, August 12-17.
No-Nonsense Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence Education. For more
information, please visit:
http://www.dw-institute.com/anaheim2001
- MCP TechMentor Fall in San Francisco, September 4-8.
Bridge the distance between Windows NT and Windows 2000. Onsite Testing Available!
Visit http://www.techmentorevents.com.
- XML One & Web Services One - September 30-October 4, San Jose, CA.
http://www.xmlconference.com/sanjose/index.asp.
Online registration now open!
