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BACK TO STEVE'S HOME PAGE This
is an example of
When this web document is viewed electronically, the links are active. Using the mouse to click on an underlined word will take you to one of the 30 pages included on the portfolio disk. The
rest of this column is used to introduce e-journals - the new way to distribute
scholarly information:
TIMELINE: The
first scholarly journals were
By 1800, the peer review process became established. In the 1920's, Univers- ities started to use journal publications as a performance measure for faculty In the 1960's, scholarly journals became commercially attractive and the cost of some journals skyrocketed. In the 1980's, what was to become the Internet became a popular conduit for e-mail. In the early 1990's a new protocol was invented to move beyond email. Interest in this new channel for scholarly communications exploded with the release of a free graphical Web browser in 1994. This
led to a break in a
The WWW provided a low cost medium for the dissemination of scholarly research. One of the most interesting new developments are the pre-print archives. By 1998, Web sites and peer reviewed e-journals became common and most disciplines have list servers that provide a continuous online conference on topics of interest to particular research communities. The living process of knowledge development on a list server can be more instructive than reading a refined published article. Access to such discussions will play an increasingly important role in scholarship. The new technology supports a quality of publication that was previously prohibitively expensive. Most
journals limit the size of articles and do not support colored diagrams
because of the cost of printed material. Few research data are published
because it costs too much in paper form and is of much greater value in
digital form. Photographic, video, and audio records and simulation models
are rarely disseminated. We have gotten used to a scholarly rhetoric that
relies on brief textual publications with a few diagrams. Digital technology
opens up new possibilities for the more effective communication of research,
the use of which we are only beginning to understand.
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COLLEGE
& UNIVERSITY
The
Role of the Vice President for Information and Technology Services
Steve T. Bett, Ph.D.
Steve Bett has been working for the last three years at Lamar University on a 5-year government sponsored project to improve digital communications in America's industrial supply chains. Prior to this he worked briefly with the Dukane Corporation in an effort to develop and market a proprietary wired classroom solution . He took this position after leading a team in the development of a state-of-the-art electronic teaching theater and a new academic computing network at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, where he was Director of Academic Computing and Media Services. Steve certainly qualifies as a technology visionary, particularly in education, where his ideas for distance learning, digital integration, and computing across the curriculum have been widely adopted. Bio from a recent publication Steve Bett received his doctorate in mass communications with an emphasis in instructional communications, ISD, and distance learning from Indiana University. In the early '70's he helped develop a NASA proposal to use satellites to deliver instruction to remote schools in N.E. Brazil for the Brazilian Space Agency (CNAE). Later he co-authored a study of the economics of satellite based educational systems for the Office of Telecommunications Policy. For 12 years he developed and directed distance education and continuing education programs at four schools. He has taught electronic publishing and digital communications at the Universities of Minnesota, where he was Director of Continuing Education, and South Dakota. As a professor or computer graphics and typography, he became interested in the origin of letter shapes and the history of writing. He was the featured speaker at the University of South Dakota 1993 Philosophical Colloquium on Semiotics. He spoke on the topic of ancient writing systems and the development of the alphabet. Steve Bett has been working for the last three years at Lamar University on a 5-year government sponsored project to advance electronic commerce and to improve digital communications in America's industrial supply chains. Prior to this he worked briefly with the Dukane Corporation in an effort to develop and market a proprietary wired classroom solution . He took this position after leading a team in the development of a state-of-the-art electronic teaching theater at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas. The Dukane hybrid digital/analog multimedia distribution system would permit the same multimedia capabilities in all classrooms at 1/10 the cost of SEU's electronic teaching theater. Prior to taking the position of Director of Academic Computing and Media Services at SEU, Dr. Bett was an associate professor of electronic publishing and computer graphics at the University of South Dakota where he developed a series of courses in information graphics and digital communications. Last year, Dr. Bett wrote two magazine articles: One on the basics of web page development and one on the information revolution. He also contributed two chapters to a book on Internet based learning due out this year. Currently he is working with private industry on a paper on the emerging tools for exchanging digital business documents and technical data. This paper will be delivered at the CALS EXPO in October in Long Beach, CA and become part of the conference proceedings CD. His most recent publication is a 12 page paper on applied phonology and orthography titled An Alphabet for English. This paper traces some of the history of orthographic reforms, describes several proposals for a new writing system for English and suggests how a new orthography could solve some of the problems associated with learning to read, write, spell, and pronounce the English language. His proposal is a refinement of an earlier Spanish/Portuguese inspired writing system developed by a Mont Follick, a British MP (Member of Parliament) . The new ASCII-IPA script is aptly named Nu Folik. This phonemic notation is but one of a dozen proposals for a World English writing system. When not working on problems of electronic data interchange (EDI)
and the transmission of secure business documents and linked technical
drawings in standard tagged digital form over the Internet, Dr. Bett manages
a "World Language" list (an international discussion group), and writes
the "On the Net" Newsletter column for the Spelling Society.
Web Document Disk The reason for including some of these documents on this disk is to
illustrate how, with the use of a simple HTML editor, the Web can be used
to present scholarly information. In the case of phonograms, it is handy
to have a medium that can include "clickable" audio
clips and sound bytes. Virtually anything that can be said can be said
in this new communication medium. With a few new tools, anyone can produce
professional looking reports with charts, graphs, and tables
with incredible ease. The medium can also be used for testing but due to
a 1.44 Mb space limitation, no examples are included.
A Distributed Learning Model for STCC Since the 1980's, Dr. Bett has been an advocate of distributed learning and since 1994 and advocate of the World Wide Web as the principle vehicle. Distributed learning refers to a decentralized instructional model that allows instructor, students, and content to be at different location so that instruction and learning occur independent of time and place. The reason for advocating the Web is the same as the reason for advocating instructional radio (see SES Costs, 1971):
than the alternatives. Faculty can be introduced the Internet technologies as a handy way to distribute standard course materials to supplement a lecture course. In other words, they can be introduced to enabling tools that will permit them to do what they are doing better, quicker, and with less effort. Only about 10% of the faculty will be engaged in learning new technologies that don't have an immediate pay-off. The down side of electronic technologies is rapid obsolescence. Using the very latest "bells and whistles" may be neat but there will be very little produced or learned that will be usable 5 years from now. Most of the "hot" new technologies are "not ready for prime time." For 90% of the faculty, it is important to identify the "mature" technologies - the ones that will be both immediate and long lasting productivity tools. Eventually, half of the college courses and many degree programs will be delivered in a "virtual" format. These virtual classrooms will incorporate such components as:
It is easy for someone without a viewpoint that spans 20 years of technological development to make bad decisions on hardware, software, and systems. There are lots of ways to spend a technology budget and lots of ways to get low returns on one's investment. One of the roles of the Vice President for Information and Technology Services is to map the mine field and recommend the best paths and cost- effective approaches. Experience isn't everything in technology management but those who have made a few mistakes in the past are in a better position not to repeat them in the future. |
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