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December 11, 2006
NELINET: Tech Sandbox: dSpace
NELINET offers dSpace in Sandbox
http://forums.nelinet.net/sandbox/
SOUTHBOROUGH, MA, December 7, 2006 - This week, NELINET announced the launch of its Technology Sandbox service, a new online lab where members can learn about and experience using emerging information technology systems, applications, and software. The first test system to be added to the Technology Sandbox is DSpace, the open-source institutional repository software developed by Hewlett-Packard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Members who want to experiment with bringing their digital content online can access the DSpace Test site via NELINET’s Technology Sandbox at: http://forums.nelinet.net/sandbox/
“The original idea of the Sandbox grew out of discussions with members who told us that their biggest challenge is the constant need to keep up-to-date about new technologies and trends,” said Arnold Hirshon, NELINET’s Executive Director. “The Sandbox fulfills NELINET’s mission to facilitate members’ adoption of new technologies that help make information more accessible to their users.”
“The true benefit of the DSpace Test implementation is that members can go in to the Sandbox and immediately use the open-source institutional repository without the hassle of having to install the software themselves,” says Ed Sperr, NELINET’s project administrator for the DSpace test lab.
NELINET plans to add new technologies to the Sandbox on a monthly schedule. In January 2007, wiki and blog applications will be added, followed shortly by balloting and voting software. Later next year, NELINET’s Information Technology staff plan to add open-source federated searching and open URL linking solutions as well as a student portfolio management program. Discussions are also underway with some commercial companies to provide access to their products in a test mode on an unlimited basis.
Members interested in registering for an account on NELINET’s Technology Sandbox should contact Kathy Courcy (courcy@nelinet.net) at 1.800.NELINET, ext. 125. If you have suggestions for future Sandbox implementations, please contact Siobhan Ross (ross@nelinet.net) at 1.800.NELINET, ext. 1923.
Posted by hag at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
December 6, 2006
E-Portfolio: Purpose, Successful Implementation
What Is the Purpose of an Electronic Portfolio? Is the Answer the Key to Your Successful Implementation?
" As the director of Spelman’s newly-instituted Electronic Portfolio Project (SpEl.Folio), I’ve come to realize that a central question of our project is, “What is an electronic portfolio?” Is it a medium? Is it a genre, or a set of genres? Is it a delivery system? Is it an assessment tool? Is it a means to reflection and learning? Is it a savvy career move? Is it a flashy new container for the work students already are doing? Is it a pain in the butt?
Readers of SmartClassroom have thought about these questions, and probably have well-developed responses to them. But the audience that concerns me most is the students and teachers at Spelman, a historically black liberal-arts college for women. They sometimes seem to view the electronic portfolio as a flashy container and/or pain in the butt. It’s this audience, and the perceptions they ultimately form, on which the success of Spelman’s project relies. And, as frustrated as I might get when explaining for the hundredth time that an eFolio is not simply in Kathleen Yancey’s memorable phrase “print uploaded,” I must pay attention to these responses. For, if the users and authors of SpEl.Folio view it merely as a flashy container or pain in the butt (or both), that’s exactly what it will be. "
Complete article at:
Posted by hag at 9:38 AM | Comments (0)
December 1, 2006
MITH Digital Dialogues
Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) has begun podcasting their Digital Dialogues seminar series:
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/programs/digitaldialogue/podcasts.php
Three available so far:
- Rice University's Chuck Henry on scholarly electronic publishing,
- Brown University's Vika Zafrin on collaboration in the digital humanities, and
- game studies from media theorist and author Stuart Moulthrop.
Posted by hag at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)