Friday, July 30, 2004

1 Kilometer Bluetooth Link to Cell Phone [Slashdot:] 11:34:34 PM      Google It!.

Profile of the Southampton institutional repository. Jessie Hey, Targeting Academic Research with Southampton's Institutional Repository, Ariadne, July 2004. Excerpt: "The University of Southampton has been one of the pioneers of open access to academic research, particularly, in the tireless advocacy of Professor Stevan Harnad and in the creation of the EPrints software, as a vehicle for creating open access archives (or repositories) for research....Now that change is happening in earnest with new and varied initiatives appearing so fast in the international arena that it is vital to scan Open Access News regularly to keep up with them....The [UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee] Report recommends that all UK higher education institutions establish institutional repositories on which their published output can be stored and from which it can be read, free of charge, online. It also recommends that Research Councils and other Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all of their articles in this way....It is useful to compare experiences and the baselines from which other institutions are working." (PS: A profile with very useful numbers and graphics. In my excerpt I couldn't resist quoting the reference to OAN, which I believe is OAN's debut in a peer-reviewed journal.) [Open Access News] 3:23:18 PM      Google It!.

Sony Endorsing Open Graphics Format For PS3 [Slashdot:] 3:21:07 PM      Google It!.

UK launches Research Libraries Network. The UK is launching the Research Libraries Network and funding it with £3 million. From yesterday's press release: "A new national initiative - the Research Libraries Network (RLN) - announced today, is set to transform the way research information is collected, organised, preserved and accessed across the UK. The RLN will bring together the UK's four higher education funding bodies, the British Library, the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales and the eight members of Research Councils UK to develop the UK's first national framework aimed at addressing the information needs of researchers....Initially the RLNA's work is likely to include feasibility studies and market research to shape the longer-term programme. Early emphasis is likely to be on improved knowledge of and access to existing resources (for example, by developing search tools and 'union catalogues' which give a single point of access to a number of different collections). Future potential workstreams include collaborative work on developing and preserving digital archives, maximising access for professional researchers to key collections, and working towards collaborative development of collections to ensure access to the widest possible range of research materials." (Thanks to Gary Price.) [Open Access News] 10:06:17 AM      Google It!.

Raising the White Flag on our Course Management System Data Collection. As far as course management systems, the Maricopa system has quite the diversity for course management systems- 2 colleges using WebCT (moving Fall 2004 to a shared Enterprise server), 6 using Blackboard, 1 using MIDAS, a derivative of the Anlon product, and 1 developing a brand new LMS/CMS to pilot this fall. We saw this starting back in 1998, when 2 colleges were separately licensing stand-alone versions of WebCT, and the other colleges were looking at a variety of systems-- our office scheduled a series of demos with some nudging that they ought to consider going in together on these systems. The result? The colleges who started with WebCT stayed with it (individual servers), and seven who had none went in at the same time on individual site installs of Blackboard. Hence Levine's First Law of CMS-es: Most institutions are using the first CMS they tried. Now not to suggest our colleges are short sighted, but you must understand that as a system we are about as decentralized as you can get, so there is no way one could from a central office, "tell" the colleges to standardize. This was the mode that worked well during the 1960s-1980s, a competitive collaborative environment. It is the culture. And changing that is tilting at big frozen windmills. Anyhow, getting around to the title of this post- I thought it would be useful given the increase in usage of the CMSes into the early 200x years, we asked each site to report the most basic, almost not meaningful numbers: number of active course areas in their CMS number of active faculty accounts in their CMS number of active student accounts in their CMS This was gathered by me sending lots of emails to the folks running the servers at each site, and we were mostly successful at gathering that from 2000-2003, and the data shows steady, sharp rises in usage. Over time it seemed to get harder and harder to get this information, perplexing since the data is readily available for these systems in the admin control panels. And in Spring 2004, by the time I got some responses, the semester was over, and the data wiped. The flag is raised. I give up. It matters little to me since I am not even involved with supporting CMSes [cogdogblog] 8:18:43 AM      Google It!.

Pursuing Growth, Microsoft Steps Up Patent Chase. Microsoft plans to increase its storehouse of intellectual property by filing 50 percent more patent applications over the next year than in the previous 12 months. By By STEVE LOHR. [The New York Times > Technology] 7:57:33 AM      Google It!.

Cellphone Antennas to Sprout Atop Light Poles and Signs. New York City plans to allow telecommunications companies to put cellphone antennas and Internet transmitters on top of lampposts and traffic signals. By By IAN URBINA. [The New York Times > Technology] 7:56:44 AM      Google It!.