Syllabus News Update for Tuesday, November 18, 2003.
Syllabus News Update:
An Online Newsletter from Syllabus Press
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News for Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2003
* Mega English Education Internet Portal Launched in China
* Clemson, IBM, BMW Drive Automotive Research Center
* Student Advantage Sells CollegeClub.com Social Portal
* International Astro-Profs Report 3-D Look at Solar Storms
* International Education Week to Focus on Technology’s Role
* Correction: UMassOnline Revenues, Enrollments Up, Up, Up
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Mega English Education Internet Portal Launched in China
Fudan University, one of the top universities in China,
has formed a partnership with Asia Broadband Inc.
subsidiary Shanghai Telecom to launch the “Fudan New
English” program, which figures to be one of China’s
largest interactive, multimedia English education
Internet portals.
Fudan New English consists of 750 hours of interactive
and multimedia self-learning online courseware, 64 units
of intensive online teaching video lectures, an
e-magazine, and interactive classrooms. Students also
have the opportunity to opt for the blended learning
approach combining the benefits of online multimedia
English training together with the more traditional
classroom training methods.
Ms. Tong Ling, director of the board of Shanghai Telecom,
called the portal a way “to provide English learners with
a consistent English learning Internet environment.
Students can now learn English any time and anywhere,
and the traditional teaching style of 'Dumb English' and
'test-oriented English' will be changed."
Read more: http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=3768
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Try Out a Motion Computing Tablet PC at Syllabus fall2003
Motion Computing, dedicated to providing ultra-mobile
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December 8-10 in Cambridge, Mass. A Gold Sponsor of the
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Clemson, IBM, BMW Drive Automotive Research Center
Clemson University plans to develop a 400-acre automotive
research campus, which promises to make South Carolina a
hub of the nation's automotive and motor-sports industry.
The project already has generated $90 million in state
and private support, including commitments from BMW and
IBM. Microsoft and Michelin also have expressed interest
in being part of the initiative.
The Clemson University International Center for Automotive
Research will be the home of a new graduate engineering
education center, research and testing facilities, and
private industry R&D operations that will help support
the region's growing automotive industry cluster.
The first non-academic tenant on campus will be BMW
Manufacturing of South Carolina, which plans to occupy
an Information Technology Research Center to be built
adjacent to Clemson's graduate school. The 84,000-
square-foot center will support research on improving
automotive software systems and software/hardware
compatibility for BMW products.
The $15 million facility will be owned by Clemson and
leased by BMW. State funding to build the center is part
of the state incentive package offered to BMW last year
when the company announced an additional investment of
$400 million and creation of 400 new jobs over the next
several years. Last year, BMW donated $10 million to
Clemson to help endow the graduating engineering center.
Clemson plans to recruit nine faculty and up to 50 graduate
students, who are expected to generate at least $5 million
a year in research support. The graduate programs will
focus on systems integration, addressing a growing challenge
in the automotive industry as car components become
increasingly computerized and complex.
Read more: http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=3771
Student Advantage Sells CollegeClub.com Social Portal
Student Advantage, Inc., sold CollegeClub.com, a college
social Internet portal, to Alloy Inc., for $600,000 in
cash, a performance-earnout, and certain liabilities.
Alloy is a New York City-based media, marketing services
and direct marketing company targeting “Generation Y,” the
60 million boys and girls in the United States between the
ages of 10 and 24. Student Advantage claimed CollegeClub
pulled in 1 million discrete visitors monthly, who generated
200 million page views. In addition to College Club, Student
Advantage owns, CollegeSports.com, hub site for its
“Official College Sports Network.”
International Astro-Profs Report 3-D Look at Solar Storms
A team of university astrophysicists are part a team that
used a joint European Space Agency-NASA spacecraft to make
the first-ever 3-D study of the “solar maximum, “ the peak
of the sun's 11-year activity cycle. Louis Lanzerotti, a
physicist from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said
the Ulysses spacecraft is collecting data that shows that
“the sun is huffing and puffing and blowing off steam.”
The scientists report that during this period huge
explosions on the sun hurled vast amounts of solar material
into space. Such solar storms sometimes severely disrupt
wireless telephone calls, satellite communications and
electric power grids on Earth.
Other members of the scientific team are: A. Balogh of
Imperial College, London; G. Gl'eckler of the University
of Maryland; J. Geiss of the International Space Science
Institute in Switzerland; D. J. McComas of Southwest
Research Institute; R.B. McKibben of the University of
New Hampshire; R. J. MacDowall of NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center; and N. Krupp and H. Krueger of the Max
Planck Institutes in Germany.
International Education Week to Focus on Technology’s Role
Education representatives from South Africa, Egypt, Mexico
and the United States are poised to discuss the role of
technology in international education during International
Education week, which runs from Nov. 17th - 21st. The
lead-off event will be a videoconference conversation that
will focus on the importance of learning about other countries
and other cultures, and the positive role technology can play
in international education.
This virtual meeting will be Webcast and available in its
entirety at: http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=3772
UMassOnline Revenues, Enrollments Up, Up, Up
[Correction – In last week’s Syllabus News Update, the
url for this story was incorrect. The new url is listed
below.]
UMassOnline, the University of Massachusetts's Web-based
learning division, announced that online education program
revenues and enrollments grew 40 percent and 33 percent,
respectively, in 2003. Revenues from the combined online
programs at the university exceeded $11 million, up from
$7.8 million in 2002, while enrollments reached 13,375,
up from 10,039 in 2002. More than 90 percent of the
revenues are retained by the UMass campuses to support
education and research programs.
The school attributes its rapid growth to the continued
addition of new online programs that serve community needs,
high levels of online student satisfaction, and its
recognition in the national distance learning market due
to factors such as winning several national distance
learning awards.
"Distance learning is critical to the future of UMass and
all of higher education," UMass interim President Jack M.
Wilson said. "Without it, we cannot adequately serve
students who live far from our campuses or whose work and
family lives make traditional higher education an
unattainable goal. Also, at a time when we are expected
to do more with less state funding, UMassOnline is
mobilizing our five campuses to create entrepreneurial
revenue-generating online programs, multi-campus
collaborations, innovative faculty training, increased
national visibility and significant cost savings for the
university."
Read more: http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=3725
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Syllabus fall2003 December 8-10, Cambridge, Mass.
http://www.syllabus.com/fall2003
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