News 02-06-2001

Syllabus Spring 2001 Call for Posters

Syllabus is currently accepting proposals for poster presentations at the upcoming Syllabus conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, to be held April 5-8. The submission deadline is February 13, and presentations can be proposed via SyllabusWeb at www.syllabus.com.

The main, but not exclusive, focus of the conference will be Campus Communications: From World Wide Web to Wireless. Education professionals with experience in various education applications of new communications technologies, as well as those who design or support distributed learning and/or distance learning programs are encouraged to submit proposals for poster sessions. Posters are displayed in a designated area for one day, and presenters will be scheduled for a 45-minute poster session, during which they will appear to discuss their posters.

Eight major conference tracks will be represented at Syllabus/Cincinnati: (1) Interactive communications on campus, (2) Wireless technologies in education, (3) Advanced networking applications and NGI, (4) Conferencing and collaboration, (5) Web portals and resources, (6) Infrastructure and IT planning issues, (7) Distance education programs and technology directions, and (8) Case studies. All relevant proposals will be considered, so if you have a compelling education technology topic not specified in the above list, please feel free to submit a proposal.

Proposals will only be accepted electronically, via the Syllabus Web site. If you have questions or difficulty submitting your proposal on the Web, please report the problem or question to the Syllabus conference desk at (800) 773-0670 ext. 211. Online registration for the conference is also available at www.syllabus.com.

Eduventures.com Releases Report on E-Libraries

Eduventures.com, an independent market research firm, announced the release of a new report, Contenders for the Crown: Six E-Libraries and their Business Models, which examines the e-library industry. According to Eduventures.com, the e-library market will grow from its current $250 million market size to $850 million annually by 2004.

The six leading e-library firms profiled in the report are Questia, XanEdu, ebrary, Britannica.com, Jones e-global Library, and NetLibrary.

For more information, visit www.eduventures.com.

Scholars Defend Publishing Software Code

A recent judicial decision to prevent the online magazine 2600.com from publishing a software code that decrypts digital data has created concern in the academic world. The decoding program, DeCSS, unlocks a data-scrambling system known as CSS that is designed to thwart widespread copying of DVDs. The judge in the case found in favor of the movie studio plaintiffs, ruling that software code is not protected free speech because of its potential to violate copyright law.

2600.com's publisher, Eric Corley, is challenging the ruling. A group of law professors, computer scientists, and library groups filed court documents in support of the publisher, arguing that the ruling violates the First Amendment and will have a negative impact on scientific research. In one brief supporting Corley's appeal, 17 computer scientists compared computer source code to other forms of creative expression that deserve full First Amendment protection.

Georgia State and Network ICE Expel Hackers

Network ICE today announced a partnership with Georgia State University to protect students and faculty from cyber-crime. The agreement gives all students, faculty members, and employees of the university access to a customized version of BlackICE Defender, a personal firewall designed to stop hackers from compromising connected PCs and laptops in real time. BlackICE technology, incorporated into Network ICE security products, detects, identifies, and blocks Internet attacks in real time.

For more information, visit www.networkice.com.

Brandt Archives Donated to SJSU

An extensive collection of nearly 700 books covering the fields of multimediatraining, expert systems, artificial intelligence, computer programming, and business management will be donated to the College of Education at San Jose State University for students in the Instructional Technology Program. The collection will be presented to the college in a dedication ceremony by Linda Jay Brandt, in memory of her husband, Dr. Richard H. Brandt, a multimedia designer and courseware developer for Sun Microsystems.

Online Engineering Computation

Waterloo Maple, supplier of advanced software products and components for mathematical computation, announced recently its partnership with Engineering.com, an online resource for engineers. The partnership will allow engineers as well as students, architects, robotics designers, and others to perform complex calculations interactively using only a browser. No additional software or plug-ins are needed to access the results.

For more information, visit www.engineering.com.

BookOnWeb.com

Media Technics Corporation recently announced the creation of a new division called BookOnWeb.com. Dedicated to delivering and distributing media-rich books and content over the Web, BookOnWeb.com is working with publishers to turn books and other traditional print offerings into interactive online products. BookOnWeb electronic publishing technology enriches text with how-to videos, animations, pop-up definitions, click-on pronunciations, skill tests, and eQuizzes. Sample titles are available at www.bookonweb.com.

Handspring to Bring Visor to Higher Education

Handspring recently announced a distribution agreement with D&H Distributing's education division to bring the Visor family of products to campus bookstores nationwide. With a variety of plug-and-play Springboard expansion modules, students and educators can easily tailor their handhelds to suit their specific needs, such as taking notes and enabling field research and mobile communications. Modules currently include a range of modems, MP3 players, a graphing calculator, and content-based modules such as the 2000 Physicians' Desk Reference and the New Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Gartner Dataquest reports that worldwide handheld computer shipments, which totaled 5.1 million in 1999, will total 33.7 million units in 2004. North America will command dominant market share and a key component to this growth is the expansion of the market into vertical areas including education.

For more information, visit www.handspring.com.

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