LegiStorm: Transparency’s Sidekick
From the site:

LegiStorm remains the only place on the web where you can find congressional staff salaries. Whether you’re researching who’s breaking the bank or who’s making peanuts, whether you are negotiating a pay raise or figuring out who’s buying drinks after work, LegiStorm is the only place online where you can get the answers.

Our database contains salaries from 2003 into 2007. We are constantly adding new salary data and recently added data for the 2nd quarter of 2007. We continue to add historical data.

Browse Staff Salaries By …

* Staffer
* Representative
* Senator
* Committee
* Leadership Office
* Admin Offfice
* State

Source: Legistorm (via Basefsky’s IWS Documented News Service)

About a month ago we posted that The Lincoln Memorial now allows visitors and/or Internet visitors to learn about Honest Abe and the LM via the telephone and info provided by park rangers. The service is free and comes from the National Park Service.

Today, we can add that The National Gallery of Art (also in DC) now allows users to learn about a small but growing selection of paintings using the telephone. Simply walk up to one of several paintings, look for a number (1-10) dial-a-telephone number and voila, knowledge follows.

The number: (1) 202-595-1857. The call is free. Of course, your local phone plan will determine any changers for the call itself.

OK, so you are not going to be able to make it do DC soon? No worries. All of these paintings are included (with an image, provenance, and more) in the NGA Online Database.

Press 1# to learn about the East Building, IM Pei, Architect
Press 2# Alexander Calder, Untitled
Press 3# Andy Goldsworthy, Roof
Press 4# David Smith, Circle 1, Circle 2, Circle 3
Press 5# Max Ernst, Capricorn
Press 6# Ellsworth Kelly, Color Panels for a Large Wall
Press 7# Richard Serra, Five Plates, Two Poles
Press 8# Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing No. 681 C
Press 9# Rachel Whiteread, Ghost
Press 10# Tony Smith, Die
Press 11# Martin Puryear, Lever Number 3

See Also: NGA Online Tours

See Also: Lincoln Memorial Phonecasting

See Also: ESPN Now Phonecasting Sports Updates 3x an Hour

See Also: Intro: From Podcast to Phonecast, So Simple

Webinar: Folksonomies & Taxonomies in the Enterprise
(Free; link takes you to registration form.)
From e-mail:

Enterprises today face a critical challenge: How to manage an abundance of increasingly complex and disparate information assets in an environment of constant change and technological complexity. How do you provide tools that your users are used to using in the commercial world in order for them to stay competitive and enable collaboration?

Results from a recent roundtable event on Folksonomies & Taxonomies that discussed these challenges will be shared as well other research work that has been focused on the topic.

Other topics to be discussed include:

• What is the business value of a taxonomy/folksonomy and how can you deploy a solution that will grow with the organization?
• What’s the impact of social networking tools on the enterprise?
• Which governance tools can or should be applied?
• How do you merge folksonomies and existing taxonomies – or should you?
• Some best practices and common obstacles

Date: Thursday, 10 January
Time: 11:00 a.m. US Eastern Time
Topic: Folksonomies & Taxonomies in the Enterprise
Presenter: Daniela Barbosa, Dow Jones Client Solutions

Source: Dow Jones InfoPro Alliance

+ CallGenie Buys PhoneSpots for $5.75 Million

+ FUMSI Citation for Mose Useful Article Awarded at Online Information 2007

Nominations were received through mid-November and named many of the eligible articles — those published in the FreePint Newsletter
between December 2006 and September 2007. FreePint editors reviewed the nominations and selected Heather Carine’s article, ‘Mentors and
Mentees: Structuring a Professional Relationship’, as the winner.

+ Modern poetry, as well as introductory courses in physics, psychology, and political science, are four of seven classes from Yale U. that the institution put online today. Not only are the courses free for anyone who is interested, but they are as close to being there as online technology allows.

“These are gavel-to-gavel presentations,” Tom Conroy, a university spokesman, told The Chronicle. “We’ve put everything online that we could, and I think that’s what makes this different.” Lectures can be downloaded and run in streaming video or in audio only. There are searchable transcripts of each lecture, as well as course syllabi, reading assignments, problem sets, and other materials.

Diana E.E. Kleiner, a professor of the history of art and classics and director of the project, which is called Open Yale Courses, said in a written statement that the project’s leaders “wanted everyone to be able to see and hear each lecture as if they were sitting in the classroom.”

The courses available are:
• Astronomy 160: Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics, with Professor Charles Bailyn.
• English 310: Modern Poetry, with Professor Langdon Hammer.
• Philosophy 176: Death, with Professor Shelly Kagan.
• Physics 200: Fundamentals of Physics, with Professor Ramamurti Shankar.
• Political Science 114: Introduction to Political Philosophy, with Professor Steven B. Smith.
• Psychology 110: Introduction to Psychology, with Professor Paul Bloom.
• Religious Studies 145: Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), with Professor Christine Hayes.

Source: Wired Campus

See Also: MIT Open Courseware (over 1800 Classes)
See Also: Open Learning Initiative, Carnegie Mellon
See Also: TuftsOpenCourseware
See Also: Harvard Medical School
See Also: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

+ Top Searches of 2007–AOL

Food Safety FIRST

Welcome to Food Safety FIRST, an online education program designed to help you and your students gain food safety knowledge, safe food handling practices, and critical thinking skills.

With Food Safety FIRST You Can:

• Develop meaningful student projects that meet National Science Standards
• Try new ways to practice inquiry-based teaching and learning
• Get teaching ideas and engaging support materials like videos, PowerPoint presentations, and activity sheets
• Gain laboratory skills for you and your students
• Communicate about teaching food safety with peers around the world
• Receive university-based professional development
• Help prevent foodborne illness

Source: University of Massachusetts Extension Service

See also: Development and Evaluation of an Online, Inquiry-Based Food Safety Education Program for Secondary Teachers and Their Students (Journal of Food Science Education)

First, Christopher Warnock and company at ebrary have released the results of their Global Faculty eBook Study. Interesting reading for sure but remember this report was funded by ebrary.

You can read a summary here (PDF) and request the full text (free) here.

From the summary:

“ebrary has personally learned a number of things from this survey, which we intend to apply to our business going forward,” said Kevin Sayar, President and Co-founder of ebrary. “For example, 57 percent of respondents indicated that students do not know how to use electronic resources provided by the library, and nearly 28 percent stated that there is not enough instruction in how to use electronic resources. Providing better and more comprehensive training is definitely one area in which ebrary can help librarians, faculty and students alike, and we will be rolling out a new global training program later this month.”

We’re looking forward to seeing the training program. Of course, it’s one thing to have a training program and something else for people to use it/study it. You first have to get people to use the program. We also will be looking to see if ebrary will market directly to students and faculty. In other words an ad might read, “did you know that your library offers x and x. It’s available from your dorm room, office, etc. 24x.7.”

• Approximately 50 percent of respondents indicated they prefer using online resources for research, class preparation, and instruction versus 18 percent who prefer print resources.

• Eighty-five percent of respondents viewed information literacy as very necessary, compared to 15 percent who stated it is somewhat necessary and less than 1 percent who find it unnecessary.

• Almost an equal number of faculty members require students to use electronic resources as print for course assignments.

• Fifty-three percent of respondents indicated that Google and other search engines are powerful tools for finding information. Twenty-nine percent indicated Google and other search engines are more useful tools than the print resources provided by the library, compared to 11 percent who indicated they are more useful than library-provided electronic resources.

FINALLY, don’t forget that ebrary continues to provide the ebrary Discover service. It’s completely free to search and also read more than 20,000 books online in many subject areas. Users only pay to copy or print a page. ebrary Discover is also an interesting pricing model.
1) Register for Service
2) Put a minimum of $5.00 on a credit card, this is ONLY used if you print/copy a page.
3) Download the ebrary reader.
4) Search, browse, read.

Of course, many libraries of all types also provide free access to other full text book services including:
+ Books24×7
+ Safari Tech Books
+ NetLibrary

Digital Directions

A new publication from Editorial Projects in Education, the publisher of Education Week, offers trend analysis and advice for K-12 technology leaders.

Source: Digital Directions (Fall, 2007), Editorial Projects in Education

Posted 23 October 2007 on DocuTicker:
+ Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning (Sloan Consortium)
+ Federal Student Aid to Undergraduates Shows Slow Growth, While Published Tuition Prices Continue to Increase (College Board)
+ Hidden Details: A Closer Look at Student Loan Default Rates (Education Sector)

ResourceShelf’s Sunday Best (RSB) #4: The Online Books Page
After one visit on you”ll be hooked. Full text books from numerous sources and a constantly updated “What’s New” list and feed.

WIPO Launches IP Panorama: The Most Advanced E-learning Content on Intellectual Property for your Business

Access to the course materials is free.

From the web site:

IP PANORAMA was developed jointly by the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the Korea Invention Promotion Association (KIPA), and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) under a project entitled, ‘The Joint Development of E-learning Content’ from 2004 to 2007. IP PANORAMA was designed to help SMEs utilize and manage Intellectual Property (IP) in their business strategy. In the past, most of the IP education materials had a legal orientation, even though businesses had a real need for a business-oriented IP education.

IP PANORAMA relies on a brand new instructional design strategy based on ‘Storytelling’ along with educational technology. The learning content of each module was designed with a practical story regarding intellectual property. It is informative as well as interesting.

Their are ten learning modules:
+ Importance of IP for SMEs
+ Trademarks and Industrial Designs
+ Invention and Patent
+ Trade Secrets
+ Copyright and Related Rights
+ Patent Information
+ Technology Licensing in a Strategic Partnership
+ IP in the Digital Economy
+ IP and International Trade
+ IP Audit

Source: WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization)

Webcast from MIT: Learning Through Remixing
This program (93 minutes running time) was recorded on April 28, 2007 and added to the MIT World Video Library 11 days ago. The presentation is part of the MIT5 series.

Direct to Video

From the synopsis:

If you are sufficiently new media literate, you might recognize this panel as a mash-up, combining but not homogenizing five distinctive interpretations of “remixing.” Each contributor has a unique project example to share, but in the end there is some convergence: remixing enables participation, and thus encourages creativity, ownership, and collaboration – the three attributes of contemporary digital culture celebrated in this edition of the annual Media in Transition conference…Some thorny issues surface, including how to explain to living artists why it is legitimate to “steal” their work for remixes, and why it may be especially important for young people of color to undertake the cultural work of determining where meaning is situated.

MODERATOR:
Henry Jenkins
Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities and Director of Comparative
Media Studies Program

PANELISTS:
Erik Blankinship
Co-founder, Media Modifications

Juan Devis
New Media Producer, KCET/PBS Los Angeles

Renee Hobbs
Associate Professor of Communication and Education, Temple University
Director, Media Education Lab

Ricardo Pitts-Wiley
Artistic Director, Mixed Magic Theatre

Alice J. Robison
Postdoctoral fellow, Comparative Media Studies Program, MIT

Source: MIT World

DNA: A Prosecutor’s Practice Notebook

This free self-paced online training is designed to assist State and local prosecutors in preparing DNA-related cases for prosecution. The lessons cover a wide spectrum of topics relating to the science of DNA and its legal application in the courtroom. Lessons include:

* Investigating Cases Involving DNA
* Preparing Cases Involving DNA
* Presenting Cases Involving DNA
* Special Case Circumstances
* Lab Report Analysis

Source: DNA.gov

2007 Global Register of Major Flood Events (via Dartmouth Flood Observatory)
See Also: Maps and Tables for Previous Years (back to 1985)Available Here
+ Map: World Flooding Underway (via Hews)
See Also: Iraq: Locations of Groups of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Iraq, July 2007
+ Reference Map of Gambia
+ El Salvador: Location Map
+ Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: Location Map
+ Hungary: Location Map
+ Haiti: Location Map
+ Croatia: Location Map
+ Honduras: Location Map
+ Guatemala: Location Map
+ Grenada: Location Map
+ Guyana: Location Map
+ Greece: Location Map
+ Equatorial Guinea: Location Map
+ Guinea-Bissau: Location Map
+ Ghana: Location Map
+ Georgia: Location Map (JPG, 22k)
+ Georgia: Location Map
+ Fiji: Location Map
+ Ethiopia: Location Map
+ Eritrea: Location Map
+ Cuba: Location Map

Source: ReliefWeb, UNHCR, MapAction, Others

You’ve just purchased a iPod, portable satellite receiver, or something similar. Now, you need to find a radio frequency on the FM dial to listen to your tunes, satellite stations, etc. In some situations the FM transmitter is built into the product, in other cases, you’ll need to buy an i-Trip or something similar.

With the caveat that numerous variables come into play (in other words, there is no guarantee that these suggestions will work as predicted), Radio-Locator.com, one of the largest databases of radio stations in the world, now offers an “Unused FM Frequency” database for the U.S. only.

It’s easy to use. Simply enter a Zip Code and State (actually, you don’t even need to enter the state) and in a second you’ll see a graph and suggestions on the best frequencies to try so you can clearly hear whatever the device that requires an FM frequency. Of course, if you’re mobile, say you use an i-Trip, you’ll either need to track your route entering each Zip Code or just be ready to start searching for new frequencies once you leave your neighborhood.

+ The database looks at what frequencies are in use by over-the-air FM stations
+ The strength/power that those stations transmit at

Suggestions rate from great, to good, from OK to poor.

Again, these are only suggestions and places to begin your search for a clear frequency. The only way to know for sure is to fire up the device, your FM radio and begin scanning.

+ Dow Jones Adds European Company Content to Factiva Products

+ DSpace Foundation Launches

+ Nine Different Editions (including audio, large type, and CD) of New Harry Potter Book in WorldCat