From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Edupage, 4 June 1999
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1999 16:01:42 -0500
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Edupage is a service of EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association
dedicated to transforming education through information technologies.
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TOP STORIES for June 4, 1999
Copyright Office Releases Recommendations
Commission to Recommend a Ban on Internet Gambling
Tackling E-Privacy in New York
New Technology Makes Work Harder
ALSO
Gig Ethernet Surpasses ATM as Preferred Backbone
Schools Get Down to the Valley
U.S. Universities Discover Smart Card Financing Formulas
Campus Pipeline -- A Correction
COPYRIGHT OFFICE RELEASES RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ON-LINE DISTANCE EDUCATION
A report from the U.S. Copyright Office makes several recommendations for
changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in order to protect
educators' ability to use copyrighted materials in distance education. The
act was passed last October to prevent piracy as an increasing number of
copyrighted materials have become available online, but some
distance-learning experts say the act limits use of educational materials in
online classrooms. Traditionally, educators have been granted fair-use
exemptions from copyright laws, allowing them to use materials such as book
excerpts, audio recordings, and motion pictures in the classroom. To
maintain that right, the report suggests a number of steps: lawmakers should
clarify laws to lessen the distinction between traditional and
distance-learning classrooms; teachers should voluntarily incorporate
education about copyright laws into their classrooms in order to prevent
piracy; students should be given a password to grant them access to
copyrighted materials; the materials should be removed from computers and
servers when they become unnecessary; and classroom exemptions from
copyright laws should be granted only to non-profit institutions, as they
have in the past. (Chronicle of Higher Education Online 06/02/99)
COMMISSION TO RECOMMEND TO PRESIDENT, CONGRESS A BAN ON INTERNET GAMBLING
On June 18, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission will release the
final report of its two-year study on gambling and will likely advise
President Clinton and Congress to outlaw Internet gambling in the U.S.
"Online wagering promises to revolutionize the way Americans gamble because
it opens up the possibility of immediate, individual, 24-hour access to the
full range of gambling in every home," the report concludes. The anonymity
afforded by the Internet is inherently dangerous because it could give
minors access to gaming sites, foster addiction among chronic gamblers, and
permit crime to flourish. The commission urges that people under the age of
21 be barred from participating in legal gambling and that gambling
operations exclude advertising that is targeted at groups such as youths and
the poor. In addition, the commission recommends that states and Indian
tribal leaders push for gambling taxes that allocate funding to support
research on the ill effects of gambling and prevention, education, and
treatment programs. (Wall Street Journal 06/04/99)
TACKLING E-PRIVACY IN NEW YORK
The New York State Assembly is addressing the issue of online consumer
privacy by introducing a comprehensive package of 14 bills that may be up
for discussion as soon as this week. Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer
(D-Queens), a sponsor of several of the bills, says identity theft and the
sale of e-mail information and digital photo images are modern problems that
must be dealt with. The legislation targets the data collection practices
of both individuals and companies. State privacy laws must be updated to
correspond to developments in technology, says Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer, who adds that the new legislation will give users greater control
over their personal data. One of the bills bars the sale, lease, or
exchange of consumers' e-mail addresses or any other identifying information
gleaned from the Internet unless individuals give their permission. (Wired
News 06/03/99)
NEW TECHNOLOGY MAKES WORK HARDER
Communication technology is distracting office workers, according to a joint
report commissioned by Pitney Bowes and conducted by the Institute for the
Future and Gallup. The study surveyed workers in the U.S., the United
Kingdom, and Germany. It found that most workers are interrupted by
telephones, faxes, and e-mail every 10 minutes. Workers in the U.S. receive
an average of 200 e-mail messages per day, while in the United Kingdom
workers receive 171 messages per day, half of which are from people within
the workers' departments. Although e-mail and electronic communication is
intended to save time and ease communication, they can become a burden, as
38 percent of U.K. workers claim that they are very distracted by the
interruptions. The report suggests that people communicating internationally
should consider that different countries prefer different methods of
interaction. Although almost all U.S. workers use voice mail every day,
only one-third of German workers do. Furthermore, twice as many British
workers use mobile phones daily than in the U.S. or Germany. (BBC News
Online 06/01/99)
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GIG ETHERNET SURPASSES ATM AS PREFERRED BACKBONE
Gigabit Ethernet has replaced ATM as the favored campus backbone
infrastructure due to its simplicity and cost-effectiveness, according to
projections from the Dell-Oro Group. Dell-Oro says that for the second
quarter, customers will buy 200,000 ATM LAN ports, compared to more than
334,000 gigabit Ethernet switch ports. Although ATM was originally
preferred due to its guarantee of quality of service (QoS), IT managers now
find gigabit Ethernet to be advantageous because it is fast and easy to use.
Still, ATM will not become obsolete; rather, some IT managers feel it is
better than gigabit Ethernet when distance or multimedia data are involved.
Further support for gigabit Ethernet is expected when ASIC chips for gigabit
Ethernet are released in volume. Currently, Broadcom has just begun to ship
them, while Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, and 3Com showed prototypes last month.
ASIC chips are expected to lower gigabit Ethernet prices from $1,000 per
port to $200 to $300 per port, while ATM prices will continue to be $800 to
$1,200 per port. (InternetWeek Online 06/03/99)
SCHOOLS GET DOWN TO THE VALLEY
Prominent business schools are opening satellites in Silicon Valley to take
advantage of the proximity to the epicenter of the growing electronic
business industry. Schools such as Harvard Business School and the Tuck
School of Business Administration have been the first to create these
research facilities to prepare their students for jobs in Silicon Valley.
Through these outposts, students can make business connections and
experience the culture. The Harvard facility features a research center in
which faculty study Silicon Valley businesses and write case studies, while
students study these cases and form solutions. The Tuck satellite features
an office for visiting students and faculty, and later, will most likely
have one or two permanent faculty members. Also considering the idea are
the University of Michigan Business School and the Haas School of Business
at the University of California at Berkeley, while Stanford takes advantage
of its existing proximity to Silicon Valley. (Wired News 06/03/99)
U.S. UNIVERSITIES DISCOVER SMART CARD FINANCING FORMULAS
Both Penn State University and Cleveland State University have recently
issued smart cards to students, allowing them to take advantage of stored
value at restaurants such as Taco Bell and Arbys, as well as copy machines,
vending machines, and laundry devices. Penn State earns transaction fees of
1.5 percent, which is split between the university and Pioneer Systems, the
administrator of the smart card funds pool and a subsidiary of the
University's Federal Credit Union. The university also gets 10 cents for
each ATM transaction used with the university ID card, as well as 5 cents
from banks for every point-of-sale transaction and 5 cents from the
account-holding institution every time there's a transfer of funds between a
cardholder's account to the chip. Penn State expects that revenues from its
ID+ card will steadily increase from the current $327,000 for 1999 to
$473,690 for the 2001-2002 school year. The school is also planning to
expand the use of the card to its other 22 branches. Cleveland State is
teaming with, and being subsidized by, the Greater Cleveland Regional
Transit Authority to put a contactless chip in its student ID cards with
which students can pay for bus and train rides. (Card Technology 05/99)
CORRECTION:
In the May 24, 1999 issue of Edupage, the abstract CAMPUS PIPELINE LEADS
ADVERTISERS TO A DEMOGRAPHIC GOLDMINE: STUDENTS incorrectly stated that
Campus Pipeline gains access to student records "for resale to advertisers."
In fact, Campus Pipeline does not resell student information to advertisers.
Campus Pipeline adheres to each institution's privacy policies and the
requirements of the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act, which was passed
to protect the privacy of educational records.
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If you have questions or comments about Edupage, send e-mail to:
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Edie Clark, Editor
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UPCOMING EDUCAUSE CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS:
Taming Technology Institute
Sponsored by the American Association of Community Colleges and EDUCAUSE
June 13-15, 1999, Seattle
http://www.aacc.nche.edu/conf/taming/tamingtech.htm
Seminars on Academic Computing (SAC)
Strategy, Technology, Organization, Relationships, and Mission (STORM!)
August 6-11, 1999, Snowmass Village, Colorado
http://www.educause.edu/sac/sac99/sac99.html
For additional information on these conferences see
http://www.educause.edu/conference/conf.html
For information on other technology related
educational conferences see
http://www.educause.edu/ir/events.html
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OTHER EDUCAUSE PUBLICATIONS
EDUCOM REVIEW is a bimonthly print magazine on information technology and
education. U.S. subscriptions are $18 a year.
CAUSE/EFFECT is a quarterly practitioner's journal about managing and using
information resources on college and university campuses. U.S. subscriptions
are $52 a year.
For additional information on these and other EDUCAUSE publications see:
http://www.educause.edu/pub/pubs.html
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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
News abstracts Copyright 1999, Information Inc., Bethesda, MD
Edupage Copyright 1999, EDUCAUSE
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EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association dedicated to transforming
education through information technologies