News 08-14-2001
The Art Institute Online Teams with Adobe On Web Design Certificate Programs
The Art Institute Online, a division of The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, has
formed an educational alliance with Adobe Systems Inc. to develop and market
certificate programs in Web Design as part of The Art Institute Online Center
for Professional Development. The Center for Professional Development will offer
intensive, accelerated modules in the Web Design certificate programs in an
online format that are specifically designed around targeted professional areas.
Two programs will initially be offered: Introduction to Web Design and Web Site
Development. Each program consists of five courses in six-week modules and will
include: Fundamentals of Design for the Web, Architecture and Information Management,
Web Authoring, Defining and Debugging Specs, Design a Web Site, Introduction
to Multimedia and Web Design, Interactive Design, Web Authoring Tools, User
Interface Design, Develop a Web Site. The Art Institute Online, a division of
The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, is a distance learning school offering Internet-
delivered education. The Art Institute Online offers courses leading to the
Bachelor of Science degree in Graphic Design or Multimedia & Web Design, the
Associate of Science degree in Graphic Design or Multimedia & Web Design, and
two diploma programs in Digital Design and Web Design. Students may take a demonstration
online course by visiting The Art Institute Online at http://www.aionline.edu
or by calling 1-877-872-8869 for more information.
Maple Wins Educational Software Awards
Waterloo Maple's mathematical software Maple 7 has won the Educational Software
Review Award (EDDIE) in the math category, post-secondary level. In addition,
Maple PowerTools, a free online resource of Maple application packages and academic
course materials, won the award in the educational Web site category for post-secondary
mathematics.
The EDDIEs, sponsored by the ComputED Gazette, recognize innovative and content-rich
programs for use by educators to augment the classroom curriculum and improve
teacher productivity. Winners are selected from titles submitted by software
publishers from around the world and are based on academic content, potential
for broad classroom use, technical merit, subject approach, and quality of management
system.
Skidmore to Expand Internet Class Offerings
Skidmore College received a grant of $460,000 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
to develop three new baccalaureate distance-learning programs through its University
Without Walls. The new interdisciplinary programs in American history and culture,
human nature and behavior, and communication and the arts, will be designed
so they can be completed entirely over the Internet, said Skidmore President
Jamienne Studley. The three-year grant will support new staff, provide funds
for faculty to develop 30 new Internet courses and pay for assistance with Web
site development, technical support, marketing, travel and other costs related
to developing the new online programs.
netLibrary Launches First eBook Tool Kit
netLibrary, provider of eBooks and Internet-based content/ collection management
services for libraries, announced that all of its library customers will have
access to a newly created eBook Tool Kit, a comprehensive Web-based resource
featuring a host of integration, marketing, and promotional tools designed specifically
for and by libraries. The eBook Tool Kit encompasses topics such as how to successfully
integrate eBooks into the library's OPAC, how to increase usage, and how to
develop and implement eBook marketing and PR programs, promotions, or special
events. Customers who order netLibrary eBooks will receive a CD with an interactive
tutorial which directs users to a regularly updated Web site organized along
two main tracks: eBook Fundamentals and Promoting eBooks. For more information,
contact a netLibrary representative directly or visit www.netLibrary.com.
Atomic Dog Publishing Launches My Backpack 2.0
Atomic Dog Publishing, a Cincinnati-based higher education, online publisher,
announced the release of its new online learning environment, MyBackpack 2.0,
the platform upon which all of Atomic Dog's online textbooks are delivered.
MyBackpack 2.0 presents textbooks in real-time, allowing for a higher level
of customization, currency, and multimedia integration. The new learning environment
features full text searching, pop-up glossary terms and footnotes, bookmarking,
integrated study-guides, integrated video, audio, simulations, and animations,
and a hyperlinked table of contents, in full and brief. MyBackpack 2.0 also
enables students and instructors to customize their textbooks. Students can
now enter personal notes and highlights within any of Atomic Dog's online textbooks.
Instructors can also post notes, quizzes, Web exercises, alternative points
of view, case studies, current events and critical thinking questions to their
students. For more information, visit www.atomicdog.com.
Netbriefings Allows Institutions to Produce Webcasts
Internet Webcasting services company Netbriefings announced the availability
of two products that, combined, enable education departments to produce and
deliver, or Webcast, streaming-media sessions through the Internet, without
technical expertise. The two products, one hardware and one software, were developed
in response to customers' need for frequent, high-quality, multimedia communication
with economy and ease.
The hardware component, the Remote Meeting Unit, integrates the hardware necessary
to collect input from video cameras, microphones, and projectors. It also contains
a codec that encodes and compresses the data and transmits it to Netbriefings
streaming-media servers for immediate distribution through the Internet. The
software, the Event Management System, runs on Windows-based PCs, and allows
event planners to "design" a communications event, or session, through user-friendly
screens running under a standard Web browser. Designing an event enables direct
compatibility with Netbriefings' servers and the automatic generation of URLs
where participant viewers can register and view the event.
The process also
captures information about the event that allows the event planner to track
event components and later collect data from viewers, such as polling and testing,
and subsequently analyze and report the data. It also creates a template from
which future events can be created on short notice. More information is available
at: www.netbriefings.com/services/index.html
Thomson Learning Offers eTextbooks this Fall
Course Technology, a computer education publishing division of Thomson Learning,
is offering flexible textbook content electronically through eBooks. Course
Technology will offer a library of more than 50 of their best-selling textbook
titles within eBook platforms beginning in September 2001. Course Technology
offers a secure system for accessing, annotating and sharing copyrighted content
online through its partnership with Rovia. The Rovia-enabled etextbooks, which
look exactly like the printed version, integrate the entire offering of materials
that accompany a textbook, including interactive quizzes, movies and other multimedia
enhancements, into a single platform. Professors and students can customize
their content by annotating text, highlighting key passages, inserting "sticky
notes," and bookmarking pages.
Rosettabooks Launches First "Timed" eBook
In a demonstration of technology that could revolutionize the publishing industry
and help jump-start the eBook market, electronic publisher RosettaBooks is offering
Agatha Christie's classic mystery And Then There Were None in a special time-based
permit edition. In conjunction Adobe Systems, Inc. and Reciprocal, Inc., the
eBook is available for download for $1.00 at www.RosettaBooks.com.
Once downloaded, the eBook may be enjoyed for 10 hours, after which the book's
"time-based permit" will expire, and the content will no longer be available.
Readers access the title via the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader and have the option
of renewing the time-based permit or purchasing a "permanent" electronic edition.
The permit prohibits the printing of an eBook. This technology could transform
commercial transactions in the publishing industry.
Israeli Team Wins TI's DSP and Analog University Challenge
Leveraging programmable digital signal processors (DSPs) from Texas Instruments
to build an audio digital watermarking system for protection against copyright
violation problems, three students from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology
were awarded the $100,000 grand prize for TI's DSP and Analog University Challenge.
The competition challenges university students from engineering programs around
the world to create innovative and functional applications using one of TI's
TMS320 DSPs. (See: http://www.ti.com/sc/dspchallenge
) With this technology, a signature can be embedded within the data of a signal,
thus resolving multiple ownership claims to digital media. The digital watermark
is inaudible to the human ear and virtually undetectable and resistant to attempts
to remove it.
Other finalist teams included Rice University of Houston for their
application that enables the transmission of real-time audio and video in wireless
devices and National Taiwan University for their high-speed transceivers for
wireless data communications.TI representatives judged the submissions for their
overall creativity, practicality and repeatability, difficulty, operability,
completeness and professionalism.
SIGGRAPH 2001 Announces Special Sessions
ACM SIGGRAPH announced July 31 the special sessions for SIGGRAPH 2001, the
28th International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques,
being held 12-17 August at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, California.
The five special sessions are Virtual Stars, Masters of the Game, Web3D RoundUP,
Sensapolooza: A Guided Tour of the New Silicon Senses, and 2001 in 2001: How
a Film Inspired Our Future. A comprehensive technical program and special events
focusing on research, art, animation, and interactive technologies are also
planned. For more information on the SIGGRAPH 2001 Special Sessions, see www.siggraph.org/s2001.
The Mathworks Launches Virtual Reality Toolbox 2.0
The MathWorks, Inc., announced the availability of Virtual Reality Toolbox
2.0, 3-D animation software that adds virtual reality visualization and simulation
to MATLAB and Simulink. This new animated view of system simulations provides
engineers a look at their dynamic models, while helping to demonstrate complex
designs. The Toolbox connects MATLAB and Simulink with a VRML-enabled browser
that lets users display a virtual 3-D representation of the modeled system.
Engineers can view and interact with simulated virtual worlds on remote computers
running MATLAB and Simulink, enabling true global access. To provide a complete
working environment, Virtual Reality Toolbox 2.0 includes a VRML plug-in for
Web browsers and a VRML authoring tool for creating and customizing virtual
reality worlds. Visit www.mathworks.com
for more information.
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