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Wed., Dec.15, 2004
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IN THIS ISSUE
VIEWPOINT
NEWS & PRODUCT UPDATES
CASE STUDY
TECH NOTES
READER RESPONSE
Sponsors
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Viewpoint
Assessing Portalness
Albert DeSimone, University of Georgia
For those who have gone through the arduous task of developing and deploying
a Web portal for their college or university, as we have at the University of
Georgia, now comes the work of assessing the success of our individual-centric
gateway to Web-accessible content and services. We can certainly use access
statistics and assume that increased utilization quantifies success. But how
do we qualify a portal? If a portal is a single Web location (or address) where
an individual can access the Web-based services and information most important
to that individual, how well d'es our portal implementation succeed in offering
self-managed, personalized, and customized information environments? What are
its attributes and how well d'es our portal measure up to those attributes?
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News & Product Updates
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Vocal Collaboration Tools: Students Verbalize Test Responses
Designed to spur language instruction, a new bundled instruction package now lets
test takers speak answers into microphones and generate automatically graded
evaluations. Testing and assessment software company, Questionmark, recently joined
forces with vocal collaboration tools vendor, Horizon Wimba to design the solution,
which will be marketed to institutions and language instructors. Questionmark and
Horizon Wimba are positioning the solution as an oral evaluation method that lets
educators effectively record and measure verbal responses, a necessary part of
effective language instruction. The solution recently underwent testing by a
consortium of secondary vocational education authorities in the Netherlands.
Read
more
Vantage Learning Offers Expanded MY Access!
To help college-bound students hone critical writing skills, Vantage Learning debuted
recently an expanded version of its MY Access! Web-based writing assessment and
diagnostic tool. Earlier versions of MY Access! have focused primarily on coaxing
student writing skills to the point at which students are competent enough to pass
college admission tests. Now the product places greater emphasis on helping students
redress essay-writing problems that MY Access! identifies.
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more
Report Examines Foreign Markets for Higher Ed eLearning
The education consulting firm Hezel Associates today released a preliminary report
detailing foreign market opportunities for US higher education institutes. The
preliminary report examines markets in Asia, Latin America, and Europe, and a more
detailed report by country is slated for February 2005. A preview is now available
on Hezel Associates Web site.
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more
Directory of Online Programs on AOL
America Online has partnered with ClassesUSA to offer to AOL members a comprehensive
directory of online degree and certificate programs, which are available at the
nation’s top 100 institutions.
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more
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Case Study
Simulations through rEsource at the University of Ph'enix
By Mike Sharkey, University of Ph'enix
In November 2001 the University of Ph'enix launched rEsource, a platform for
the delivery of electronic course content. rEsource was built on a proprietary
LMS and is simply a Web site from which students access and download course
materials. At this time in some courses, digital content is largely in the form
of readings from eBooks. For other courses, a wider variety of content is used.
The most innovative of these other types of content is called Simulations.
Simulations are Flash-built interactive case studies. The initial batch of
Simulations covered ten domain areas of the MBA program (finance, business law,
statistics, operations, and others). Since then, the University has expanded
the use of Simulations to cover a multitude of topics in business, technology,
and health care. There are now over 100 Simulations covering such diverse areas
as critical thinking, epidemiology, and elasticity of demand. More information
on Simulations is available at http://www.ph'enix.edu/simulations.
Three Simulations can be run from this Web site.
Read
more
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Tech Notes
Tools for Law Enforcement at CSU
California State University, Fresno teamed recently with FacePrint Global Solutions to
offer e-learning tools to law enforcement. Since many criminal justice entities do
not have the resources to send personnel to classroom-based training, CSU will offer
online education alternatives that cover areas such as risk management. Specifically,
the institution and vendor will provide law enforcement with electronic tools to
train personnel how to best handle threats both in the field and in the courtroom.
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more
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Reader Response
From the Reader Response Forum
Online Collaboration & Costs
Posted by: Andrea
I'm interested in what kinds of tools other colleges and
universities are using for online collaboration, particularly for
distance and hybrid courses. I'm currently working with a
learning community to explore these technologies and am
growing frustrated with costs involved. How have you funded
these technologies?
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