The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) E-Science Working Group surveyed ARL member libraries in the fall of 2009 to gather data on the state of engagement with e-science issues. An overview of initial survey findings was presented by E-Science Working Group Chair Wendy Lougee, University Librarian, McKnight Presidential Professor, University of Minnesota Libraries, at the October ARL Membership Meeting. Lougee’s briefing explored contrasting approaches among research institutions, particularly in regard to data management. The briefing also summarized survey findings on topics such as library services, organizational structures, staffing patterns and staff development, and involvement in research grants, along with perspectives on pressure points for service development. To better explicate the findings, Lougee reviewed specific cases of activities at six research institutions.

Audio of the briefing along with slides and a handout are available as part of the Proceedings of the 155th ARL Membership Meeting (see http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/mmproceedings/155mm-proceedings/index.shtml#esci).

ARL has also compiled a set of resources provided by survey respondents. Examples of a range of campus and library documents, tools advancing e-science support, needs assessments, and position descriptions, among other items, are listed on ARL’s Web site at http://www.arl.org/rtl/eresearch/escien/esciensurvey/index.shtml.

Source: Association of Research Libraries

The Securities and Exchange Commission today launched its first-ever Web site devoted exclusively to investor education, providing investors with in-depth information and “top tips” on how to invest wisely, plan for the future, and avoid being scammed.

By visiting www.investor.gov, investors can access information in a user-friendly format that is specifically tailored to their needs. The site includes sections specifically for those just getting started investing, for those saving for a child’s education, and for those planning for retirement. It also has a detailed “Seniors Care Package” section for senior citizens and caretakers.

Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

YouTube EDU, the Web site for video channels from universities, has recently added content from institutions in Europe and Israel.

Forty-five colleges and universities from those areas, including the University of Cambridge and distance-learning institutions like the Open University of Catalonia, now have channels on the site.

Access YouTube EDU

Source: Wired Campus

Another one of our serendipitous finds, this collection comes to you from Online Classes.org, which regularly features nice topical collections of lectures, tips, hacks, etc., via its blog.

The economy has taken central stage in world news for the past few years due to rapidly failing markets the world over. Even with so much attention focused on economic issues if you’re not familiar with the field, or simply want a more in-depth look at things, it can be hard to follow just what’s going on. These lectures, given by scholars from some of the most prestigious educational institutions in the United States and around the world can help give you that foundation of knowledge and help you better understand the financial crisis that’s been building over the past few years.

If you follow business and economic news, you will recognize the names of some professors here. The lectures, which also include panel discussions, are grouped by category:

+ General Economics — examples:

• Beyond Freakonomics: New Musings on the Economics of Everyday Life: University of Chicago professor and economist Steven Levitt further explains his theory on everyday economics in this lecture. [Princeton]
• Financial Markets: This lecture series from professor Robert Shiller will teach you about the basics of the economic system and how each part fits together. [Yale]

+ Understanding the Economic Crisis — examples:

• Understanding the Crisis in the Markets: A Panel of Harvard Experts: Get an explanation of the financial crisis from some of the best and the brightest by watching this panel discussion at Harvard. [Harvard]
• Jeremy Siegel: Snapshots of the U.S. and Other Markets: Get a handle on what events precipitated the market fall with this lecture that addresses the sub-prime market, the stock market and foreign markets. [UPenn]

+ Proposed Solutions to the Economic Crisis — examples:

• Preventing the Next Financial Crisis: Pay close attention to this lecture series that brings together numerous scholars, researchers and experts to discuss how future financial disasters can be averted. [Columbia]
• Will the Stimulus Actually Work?: Billions of dollars were pumped into failing U.S. businesses, but will it make any difference at all in the long run? This lecture from professor Steven Kyle discusses the issue. [Cornell]

+ Future of the Economy — examples:

• Once the Market Has Fallen 50% Your Future Returns are Even Better: Here you can learn why now may be a good time to invest. [UPenn]
• One War We Shouldn’t Avoid: A New Approach to Reducing the Cost of Future Catastrophes: In 2005, three major hurricanes battered the southern United States, costing billions in repairs and with thousands of lives lost. This lecture addresses how we can be better prepared both for the weather and the financial ramifications of it. [UPenn]

+ International — examples:

• The Outlook for the Global Economy and the Challenges That Must Be Met: Former Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin gives you some insight into how the global economy is changing and the many challenges within it that still must by met. [Princeton]
• Feeling the Pain: How the Financial Crisis Is Affecting Brazil, Russia, India and China: This lecture from late last year will give you some insights into the real toll the economic crisis is having abroad as well, with input from business leaders in these four countries. [UPenn]

+ Business Focused — examples:

• Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making: David Rothkopf discusses his book by the same name in this lecture and how a few powerful people are pulling the strings in worldwide business and economics–usually to their advantage. [Columbia]
• Business, Knowledge and Global Growth: Learn how the MBA degree has changed the way business is done in the United States and the world over and the impact it has had on the economy as a result. [Columbia]

Depending on the individual lecture, the links will take you either to the university websites or iTunes U. A few open up as direct links to media (e.g., QuickTime).

To date, we [MIT OpenCourseWare] have published 1,933 courses, and expect to have reached the 2,000-course milestone by the end of the year. MIT faculty continue to openly share their time and materials, allowing us to keep the site growing and updated. Our translation affiliates have also been hard at work, producing 100 new translations of our courses in Chinese, Thai, and Persian.

The OCW site now attracts 1.2 million visits each month, and our content reaches far beyond the ocw.mit.edu domain through YouTube, iTunes U, and our mirror site program. More than 7 million downloads and views of our materials have been recorded on iTunes U and YouTube, and we have distributed complete mirror copies of our site to more than 200 universities in bandwidth-constrained regions.

The cost of operating OCW this fiscal year is $3.6 million USD, a 10% reduction from last year’s budget. We were able to lower our expenses through use of free video hosting services, changes in our video production process, and realignment of staff.

What’s Coming?
In the next few weeks, you’ll notice some changes to the course home pages on our site that we hope will make them easier to use. Navigation elements, links to translations and archived versions of the course, as well as interactive features such as our zip downloads, feedback link, and “Add This” button will be accessible in the left-hand margin. This places all the user controls in the same section.

Information will also be grouped more effectively on the rest of the page. All course content will be drawn together in the center content column. The faculty name and course level information will appear next to the course home page image, and immediately below will be a series of links to course features, to help you find the key content in your course quickly. The right hand column will be devoted exclusively to messaging related to OCW sustainability initiatives.

Access MIT OpenCourseWare

Source: MIT OpenCourseWare

Browse teaching and learning resources provided by dozens of federal agencies. You’ll find videos, photos, animations, and more!

Source: U.S. Department of Education

Easily select from over 50,000 educational resources.

The directory can also be browsed using one or more facets.

Source: Gateway to 21st Century Skills

Want to make sure your database loses data, duplicates records, and can only handle 5 transactions a minute? Want to make your application developers curse you, your sysadmin hate you, and get yourself fired without a reference? These ten database design techniques will set you on the road to downtime perdition and maintenance hell.

Date: Friday, July 10th at 10 am PT
Price: Free (registration required)
Duration: Approximately 60 minutes

Source: O’Reilly Media

Ewan McIntosh, digital media manager with Channel 4’s Innovation for the Public (4iP) shares his thoughts on the issues he thinks will resonate for the future of educational and public-funded technologies and Sir David Melville, Chair of the Committee of Inquiry behind the ‘HE in a Web 2.0 World’ report writes about its key findings.

The details of JISC’s digitisation programme are highlighted by Michelle Pauli, who gives an overview on how over £22 million has been spent to digitise over 6.5 million items for teaching, learning and research.

Opening up resources continues with a summary of JISC’s most successful annual conference – Opening Digital Doors and a review by David Flanders, a self-proclaimed ‘alpha geek’ working for JISC as a programme manager, on the organisation’s first developer happiness day.

Direct to Complete Issue (24 pages; PDF)

Source: JISC

+ Cool! iSynth – The Photosynth Browser for iPhone (via Virtual Earth Blog)+ Cool! iSynth – The Photosynth Browser for iPhone (via Virtual Earth Blog)

+ NASULGC Publishes Online Learning Survey Results (via EDUCAUSE)

+ First U.S. Public Access Policy Made Permanent (via SPARC)

Search by:
+ Subject
+ Degree Level
+ School

From the Web Site:

GetEducated.com is a consumer watchdog and advocacy group that rates, ranks, and verifies the cost, quality and credibility of online colleges and universities.

Today, GetEducated.com remains the only consumer advocacy group in the United States dedicated exclusively to assisting online students in analyzing, comparing, rating, and ranking online colleges and universities.

GetEducated.com also serves to protect distance learners from the dark world of online education fraud through innovative free services, such as The Diploma Mill Police, a database that chronicles consumer alerts on more than 300 fake online colleges and university scams.

Source: GetEducated

An automated reading list of bestsellers created by combining the New York Times Bestsellers API and the Amazon.com API.

Direct to Reading Radar

Source: Programmable Web

In this live, online event, Robert Passarella presents an eclectic, yet practical, look at Wall Street, Equity Research, Technology and the Internet. See how new ideas of finding and getting information are supercharging the research process for companies and industries.
…
Robert Passarella has spent over 18 years on Wall Street in the gray zone between business and technology. Rob has always focused on leveraging technology and innovative information sources to empower Equity Research and serve clients. A veteran of Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, and Bear Stearns; he has seen the transformational challenges first hand, up close, and personal.

Always intrigued by the consumption and use of information for investment analysis, Rob is passionate about leveraging alternative data and news provided by the Internet for investment analysis. Robert holds a BBA in Finance from Baruch College and an MBA from the Columbia Business School.

Friday, January 16, 10 a.m. (Pacific Time)
Free registration required. (Attendance is limited.)

Source: O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Below you’ll find the full recording from the recent TOC Webcast, “What Publishers Need to Know about Digitization,” with Liza Daly.
…
Topics covered include:

• What’s XML and do you need it?
• What’s the cost-benefit analysis versus PDF or other formats?
• What should you consider when selecting a vendor?
• Should you use a centralized platform or go on your own?
• How can you monetize your digital offerings?

]]> http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/12/10/webcast-video-what-publishers-need-to-know-about-digitization/feed/ 0 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/12/02/webinar-financial-markets-the-basics/ http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/12/02/webinar-financial-markets-the-basics/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:50:07 +0000 ResourceShelf http://www.resourceshelf.com/?p=18105 Financial Markets: The Basics

The effects of the global economic crisis clearly demonstrate that everyone needs a basic understanding of how financial markets operate. The Dow Jones InfoPro Alliance Team is pleased to bring you this timely webinar, Financial Markets: The Basics, which presents the key concepts of how the world financial systems operate. During this webinar, presented by John Prestbo, Executive Director and Editor of Dow Jones Indexes, and professor extraordinaire of the former Dow Jones University, you will be given a broad overview of the financial markets and how they operate. Mr. Prestbo will explain market theory and define terms, from stock ownership and bond-holding, to mutual funds and commodities.

Attend this year-end webinar and expand your financial market vocabulary. Increase your value and contribution to your organization by gaining a fundamental knowledge of various types of financial instruments and regulatory bodies that will help you research, extract, and decipher market-moving and economic news.

Free
Date: December 11, 2008
Time: 11:00 – 12:00 EST

Source: Dow Jones

]]> http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/12/02/webinar-financial-markets-the-basics/feed/ 0 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/11/28/7-things-you-should-know-about-ustream/ http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/11/28/7-things-you-should-know-about-ustream/#comments Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:39:45 +0000 ResourceShelf http://www.resourceshelf.com/?p=18083 7 Things You Should Know About Ustream

Ustream is an interactive web streaming platform that lets users broadcast their own channels on the Ustream network or on a third-party website such as MySpace or Facebook. Ustream offers a platform for users to host events, promote their own shows, or set up interactive conversations with participants across the globe. Ustream’s broadcasting model offers an attractive new way for Internet broadcasters to connect with audiences, allowing dialogue between users and opportunities to build connections across the globe. Ustream gives faculty free, easy-to-use options for streaming video to geographically disparate audiences, and the service also introduces new frontiers for authentic assessment in the classroom.

+ Full Document (PDF; 152 KB)

Source: EDUCAUSE

]]> http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/11/28/7-things-you-should-know-about-ustream/feed/ 0 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/11/10/free-web-site-launched-to-help-immigrants-learn-english/ http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/11/10/free-web-site-launched-to-help-immigrants-learn-english/#comments Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:11:59 +0000 ResourceShelf http://www.resourceshelf.com/?p=17981 Free Web Site Launched to Help Immigrants Learn English

The U.S. Department of Education today launched U.S.A. Learns, a free Web site to help immigrants learn English. The Web site, which is located at www.USALearns.org, provides approximately 11 million adults who have low levels of English proficiency with easily accessible and free English language training.
…
U.S.A. Learns offers the following features:

• An easily accessible Internet learning tool;
• Simple directions;
• Free instructional materials developed to teach basic English skills and help adults improve their English proficiency; and
• Learning modules that can be used outside a traditional classroom

Source: U.S. Department of Education

]]> http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/11/10/free-web-site-launched-to-help-immigrants-learn-english/feed/ 0 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/10/21/educause-review-back-to-virtual-school/ http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/10/21/educause-review-back-to-virtual-school/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:34:15 +0000 ResourceShelf http://www.resourceshelf.com/?p=17860 EDUCAUSE Review: Back to Virtual School
Articles include:

+ Virtual Worlds? “Outlook Good”
AJ Kelton (“AJ Brooks”)

Whether it is Second Life or another virtual world, this foundational movement is not going away. The question to be addressed in the coming months and years is how higher education and, subsequently, individual institutions will determine the best way to continue to move forward with virtual worlds.

+ Higher Education as Virtual Conversation
Sarah Robbins-Bell (“Intellagirl Tully”)

Virtual worlds can become an important tool in an educator’s arsenal. But using this tool requires a shift in thinking and an adjustment in pedagogical methods that will embrace the community, the fluid identity, and the participation—indeed, the increased conversation—that virtual spaces can provide.

+ Educational Frontiers: Learning in a Virtual World
Cynthia M. Calongne (“Lyr Lobo”)

The use of virtual worlds expands on the campus-based and online classrooms, enhancing learning experiences. Classes in virtual worlds offer opportunities for visualization, simulation, enhanced social networks, and shared learning experiences.

+ Looking to the Future: Higher Education in the Metaverse
Chris Collins (“Fleep Tuque”)

Beyond the capabilities that virtual worlds offer us at the moment, it is the possibilities that we can imagine for the future that may be the most compelling. Virtual worlds technology, like the Internet in general, is changing the way we access and experience information and the way we can access and connect with each other.

+ Drawing a Roadmap: Barriers and Challenges to Designing the Ideal Virtual World for Higher Education
Chris Johnson (“ScubaChris Wollongong”)

When using a roadmap, one can take many different paths to reach a desired destination. Similarly, institutions can take many different turns along the road to implementing an ideal virtual world for higher education.

Also includes links to “virtual world” projects in educational institutions worldwide.

Source: EDUCAUSE

]]> http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/10/21/educause-review-back-to-virtual-school/feed/ 0 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/10/02/collaboration-tools/ http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/10/02/collaboration-tools/#comments Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:37:53 +0000 ResourceShelf http://www.resourceshelf.com/?p=17751 Collaboration Tools

Students use technology in natural ways that allow them to do what they want: communicate with anyone they want, in the time and space that suits them best. Easily accessible and user-friendly, collaboration tools allow students to explore, share, engage, and connect with people and content in meaningful ways that help them learn. By relying on the familiar ways students use these tools, faculty can enable new forms of communication and engagement in the classroom, permitting extensions and variations of the informal interactions already occurring in classrooms and hallways, and creating new frontiers for collaboration across geographic boundaries.

+ Full Document (PDF; 117 KB)

]]> http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/10/02/collaboration-tools/feed/ 0 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/09/26/report-insights-regarding-undergraduate-preference-for-lecture-capture/ http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/09/26/report-insights-regarding-undergraduate-preference-for-lecture-capture/#comments Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:35:13 +0000 ResourceShelf http://www.resourceshelf.com/?p=17716 Insights regarding undergraduate preference for lecture capture (PDF; 412 KB)

This research study set out to understand student attitudes toward the value of adding lecture capture to existing courses and to assess preferences for classes with a streaming option. A survey was sent to 29,078 undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in April 2008. Average response rate exceeded 25%. Of the survey participants, a significant number of undergraduates (47%) have taken a class in which lectures were recorded and made available online.
Respondents answered 10 multiple-choice questions related to their perspective regarding streaming lectures and preference for streaming content.

Source: UW E-Business Institute

See: I’ll Take My Lecture to Go, Please (Inside Higher Ed)

]]> http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/09/26/report-insights-regarding-undergraduate-preference-for-lecture-capture/feed/ 0