CIT INFOBITS April 2006 No. 94 ISSN 1521-9275 About INFOBITS INFOBITS is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ITS Teaching and Learning's Center for Instructional Technology. Each month the CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a number of information and instructional technology sources that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators. You can read this issue on the Web at http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitapr06.html. ...................................................................... Podcasting Legal Guide Introduction to Screencasting Worldwide Digital Trends Resources for Reshaping Scholarly Communication Working Smarter with Mobile Devices Recommended Reading ...................................................................... PODCASTING LEGAL GUIDE Podcasting is a tool that allows instructors to give students access to audio or video files on their iPods or computers. As podcasting activity increases, so do the questions of legal rights and liabilities. Creative Commons has just released "Podcasting Legal Guide: Rules for the Revolution," "a general roadmap of some of the legal issues specific to podcasting." The guide covers copyright, publicity rights, and trademark issues related to content that you acquire or create. Information is also provided on licensing your podcast. The guide is available online at http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Podcasting_Legal_Guide. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that offers flexible copyright licenses for creative works. For more information go to http://creativecommons.org/. Other related resources: Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Legal Guide for Bloggers" http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/ "New Campus Copyright Guide" CIT Infobits, March 2006 http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitmar06.html#1 ...................................................................... INTRODUCTION TO SCREENCASTING The latest entry in the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative's "7 Things You Should Know About . . ." series covers screencasting. "Screencasts can be thought of as video podcasts. They provide a simple means to extend rich course content to anyone who might benefit from the material but cannot attend a presentation." The paper answers such questions as "What is it?" "Who is doing it?" "How does it work?" and "What are the implications for teaching and learning?" To read "7 Things You Should Know About . . . Screencasting" go to http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=ELI7012. The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) publishes the "7 Things You Should Know About . . ." series on a variety of emerging learning practices and technologies. Previous topics covered in the series include blogs, wikis, remote instrumentation, grid computing, and virtual meetings. To read other papers in the series, go to http://www.educause.edu/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutSeries/7495. "ELI is a strategic initiative of EDUCAUSE. While EDUCAUSE serves those interested in advancing higher education through technology, ELI specifically explores innovative technologies and practices that advance learning." For more information, go to http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?Section_ID=86. EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. The current membership comprises more than 1,900 colleges, universities, and educational organizations, including 200 corporations, with 15,000 active members. EDUCAUSE has offices in Boulder, CO and Washington, DC. Learn more about EDUCAUSE at http://www.educause.edu. ...................................................................... WORLDWIDE DIGITAL TRENDS "Truly a World Wide Web: Globe Going Digital 2005 Pew Global Attitudes Survey" is the latest in Pew's reports on "a series of worldwide public opinion surveys that encompasses a broad array of subjects ranging from people's assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world and important issues of the day." The report compares data collected in 2002 and 2005 from thirteen countries. Dramatic increases in computer usage were seen in Great Britain, Turkey, Russia, India, and Poland. In many countries the increase was greatest among people over 50 years old. There is still a gender disparity in computer usage: "men use computers more than women in 14 of 16 countries surveyed; only in Canada and Lebanon do the genders share the same amount of computer activity." In all countries, increased computer usage is related to higher education and income levels. The complete report is available online at http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=251. The Pew Global Attitudes Project is directed by the Pew Research Center, "a nonpartisan 'fact tank' that provides information on the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping America and the world." For more information, contact Pew Research Center, 1615 L Street, N.W., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20036 USA; tel: 202-419-4350; fax: 202-419-4399; Web: http://pewresearch.org/. ...................................................................... RESOURCES FOR RESHAPING SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION ". . . the crisis in the scholarly communication system not only threatens the well being of libraries, but also it threatens our academic faculty's ability to do world-class research. With current technologies, we now have, for the first time in history, the tools necessary to effect change ourselves. We must do everything in our power to change the current scholarly communication system and promote open access to scholarly articles." Paul G. Haschak's webliography provides resources to help effect this change. "Reshaping the World of Scholarly Communication -- Open Access and the Free Online Scholarship Movement: Open Access Statements, Proposals, Declarations, Principles, Strategies, Organizations, Projects, Campaigns, Initiatives, and Related Items -- A Webliography" (E-JASL, vol. 7, no. 1, spring 2006) is available online at http://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/content/v07n01/haschak_p01.htm. E-JASL: The Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship [ISSN 1704-8532] is an independent, professional, refereed electronic journal dedicated to advancing knowledge and research in the areas of academic and special librarianship. E-JASL is published by the Consortium for the Advancement of Academic Publication (ICAAP), Athabasca, Canada. For more information, contact: Paul Haschak, Executive Editor, Board President, and Founder, Linus A. Sims Memorial Library, Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, LA USA; email: phaschak@selu.edu; Web: http://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/. ...................................................................... WORKING SMARTER WITH MOBILE DEVICES "Many scholars are suspicious of the use of mobile ICT [information and communication technology] as encroachments on individuals' lives and autonomy. Some worry, for instance, about the degree to which mobile phones have forced their way into public spaces where privacy and silence were once the norm." The authors of "The New Mobile Scholar and the Effective Use of Information and Communication Technology" (by David B. Bills et al., FIRST MONDAY, vol. 11, no. 4, April 2006) "see little to be gained by the failure or refusal of social scientists to take full advantage of these emerging tools. . . . [Their] view is that technology should be as invisible and unobtrusive as possible, and that it should be a means to an end (doing better work) rather than an end in itself." The paper provides a brief primer on wireless technology, along with discussion of USB technology, PDAs, handheld scanning devices, and other mobile tools. The goal is to explain to scholars how to seamlessly integrate all these devices so that they can concentrate on research and scholarship and not be overwhelmed by the individual technology pieces. The paper is available online at http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_4/bills/index.html. First Monday [ISSN 1396-0466] is an online, peer-reviewed journal whose aim is to publish original articles about the Internet and the global information infrastructure. It is published in cooperation with the University Library, University of Illinois at Chicago. For more information, contact: First Monday, c/o Edward Valauskas, Chief Editor, PO Box 87636, Chicago IL 60680-0636 USA; email: ejv@uic.edu; Web: http://firstmonday.dk/. ...................................................................... RECOMMENDED READING "Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas@unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column. "The Effect of Communication Medium on Research Participation Decisions" by Thomas Chesney JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, vol. 11, no. 3, 2006 http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue3/chesney.html Abstract "Students are often used in research as research subjects or to validate/pilot questionnaires. It is known that response rates to requests to participate in research projects vary as a function of a number of factors. This research brief examines the effect of the communication medium on response rate by comparing an oral request for participation with an email request. Email and oral communication, specifically public oral communication, are the two easiest and presumably most common approaches faculty members have to access students to request their participation in research. Results show that an impersonal email to a mailing list is the worst way researchers can approach students to request participation, with there being no difference between making the request by personalized email or orally." ...................................................................... To Subscribe CIT INFOBITS is published by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Information Technology Services Center for Instructional Technology. 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