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Wed., Jan.19, 2005
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IN THIS ISSUE
VIEWPOINT
NEWS & PRODUCT UPDATES
CASE STUDY
TECH NOTES
READER RESPONSE
Sponsors
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Viewpoint
Shared CMS Hosting Services in Ohio: Year One
By Cable Green
There are more than 110 institutions of higher education in Ohio enrolling
more than 585,000 students. Nearly all of these campuses require CMS hosting
and associated system administration, faculty training, digital content repositories,
and authentication to online resources. However, many of these same institutions
lack the resources and staff expertise to deliver robust CMS and content repository
services as a 24x7 enterprise, with sufficient server capacity and disaster
recovery capabilities to maintain these resource intensive services.
If CMS hosting is left to the independent efforts of Ohio higher
education institutions, it is not likely that a robust shared
infrastructure across institutions will develop, but rather basic,
duplicative services will be created with limited State funds.
Decreasing State budgets, calls for increased inter-institutional
collaboration (e.g., Ohio Governor’s Commission on Higher Education
and the Economy), and the increased cost of enterprise level CMS
operations have created an environment ripe for partnerships in Ohio
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News & Product Updates
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Professor's Anatomy Web Quiz Garners .25M+ Hits
About 175 students take human anatomy each semester at Penn State.
But more than 277,000 "hits" were recorded on the Biology 129-Human
Anatomy class online study aid at PSU last year. (Penn State Live)
Read
more
ebrary Launches Custom Collections
With subscription-based Custom Collections, libarians may now pick
and choose individual titles from more than 60,000 full-text books,
reports, maps, and other authoritative content. The collections are
available to any number of simultaneous users, from any computer
with Internet access.
Read
more
Internet "Threat" to Libraries to be Analyzed
Five years ago a major study found no Internet threat to library
usage; now a major research group is undertaking a similar study and
expecting… no change! (Reporter, University at Buffalo)
Read
more
New Version of InterWrite SW for Mac
The new 2.20 version increases the functionality of the InterWrite
product suite, adding a reveal curtain, the ability to insert audio
notes and hyperlinks into an InterWrite page, and more. InterWrite
products include an electronic whiteboard, a wireless pad that turns
any surface into an electronic whiteboard from anywhere in the room,
and an instructor LCD monitor.
Read
more
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Case Study
Choice and Empowerment
By Sayeed Choudhury, Tim DiLauro, and James Martino
Johns Hopkins University
Given the diversity of software now populating the eLearning environment,
the authors pose the question whether end users, and IT managers, are better
served by service-oriented architectures or fully integrated system architectures
for their campus infrastructure. They explore the question, paying special attention
to an environment of heterogeneous repositories and service modules and the
growing demands proposed for these components of the eLearning landscape.
The CMS is increasingly described as a mission-critical component of
the academic technology infrastructure, supporting both classroom-based
and distance learning. However, other more specialized learning
technologies have emerged on the scene. The University of Minnesota
has coined the term “virtual identity management” to describe the
ePortfolio, used for reflection, career management, and personal and
institutional assessment on a timescale longer than an academic
semester. Blogs serve as personal publishing systems organized
chronologically. Wikis have a slightly higher entry threshold
(i.e., one has to learn some markup elements), but offer great
flexibility for organizing group work and building rich group
concept maps.
Read
more
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Tech Notes
New Book on Technology in Education
Recapturing Technology for Education: Keeping Tomorrow in Today’s
Classrooms, by Mark Gura and Bernard Percy explores how technology
can make 21st Century classrooms more relevant.
Read
more
“Instant Messaging—Collaborative Tool or Educator’s Nightmare!”
This well-researched white paper by Robert Farmer, posted on the
University of New Brunswick Web site, examines the pros and cons.
Read
more
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Reader Response
From the Reader Response Forum
Support for Open Source Solutions?
My impression is that UNIX talent is required. Can anyone speak to the level
of support necessary to implement an OPEN SOURCE solution. -- Posted by Ralph
Fasano, Rhode Island School of Design
Response: Hi Ralph, it depends on the OS system. Unix talent is definitly not
needed to implement Moodle, it runs fine on Windows, even has a Windows installer.While
much of the talk on the Moodle forums involves folks who are coding new modules
for Moodle which requires extra levels of talent, simply running a standard
Moodle install is no more difficult than running a standard WebCT, Blackboard,
etc. install.You can even get a fully hosted supported system where all you
do is run courses, via Moodle.com, for much less than hosted solutions for the
other CMSs. -- Posted by michaelp
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