Having access to the Internet and acquiring the skills necessary to use, question, and create in a digital environment have become essential to living and working in the 21st century. Yet, this move to digitalization has created a digital divide between those who have broadband "access" and the "skills and attitudes" to…

Cyberinfrastructure (CI) empowers the foundational computation resources underlying data analytics, spatial modeling, and many other domains serving the growing knowledge economy in the United States. In every part of these interactions with CI, questions of how to seamlessly integrate CI training into educational programs exist. In this article,…

This report describes a communications system engineering planning process that demonstrates an ability to design and deploy cost-effective broadband networks in low density rural areas. The emphasis in on innovative solutions and systems optimization because of the marginal nature of rural telecommunications infrastructure investments. Otherwise,…

The "Horizon Report" series is the most visible outcome of the New Media Consortium's Horizon Project, an ongoing research effort established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, research, or creative expression within education around the globe. This volume, the "2010…

Recent emphases on prospects for difference-sensitive virtual communities rely implicity or explicity on some optimist accounts of cyberspace and globalization. It is expected that hybridity, diaspora and fluidity, marking new understandings of spatiality and temporality in a globalized postmodern era, will create new forms of belonging that will…

Discusses Web site design and information architecture in light of principles of New Urbanism that are being applied in urban planning situations. Topics include networked electronic environment design; user-centered network design; multidisciplinary approaches; knowledge access and collaboration; and the Global Information Infrastructure…

Discusses the use of global computerized information networks through statistics and examples of the involvement of various countries. Topics addressed include growth of the global network; countries that lack any connections; the value of information; librarians and the network; and exploring the Internet, including gopher sites. (Contains 29…

Discusses the architecture of a global hypermedia information and communication system designed to operate through the Internet that is being developed at the Graz University of Technology (Austria). Topics addressed include clients and servers; distributed hypertext; link server protocol; document cache servers; and applications of the global…

Describes the Grace project's Group Communication Service which was developed to function in an Open Systems Interconnection global networking environment to aid in computer-supported cooperative work. A conceptual model of group communications is presented, system architecture and system navigation are explained, and two prototype activities are…

World dilemmas such as poverty, immigration, globalization, technology, transportation, and transnational endeavors define the notion of "global village" in the same way that multicultural populations currently in all nations are described. No longer are nations as homogeneous as they were even a decade ago. In classroom settings the study of…

Offers a tutorial on telecommunications that covers the basic concepts, types, techniques, and protocols of data communications. Current scenarios for computer communications networks, their connectivity to global telecommunication environments, and global online retrieval services are discussed. Ten data communication networks and seven online…

This paper describes the KIDLINK Project, a worldwide e-mail exchange with children from 10 to 15 years of age, which was created as part of the 1990 Children's Cultural Week in Arendahl, Norway, by Odd de Presno, a Norwegian journalist and author of computer books. The goal of the project is to create a global dialog among as many children as…

Examines the relationship between a society's communication technology and Marshall McLuhan's concerns for human cognition, and between the technology and the ways that humans organize their societies. It is suggested that appropriate development of global electronic networks could have a positive effect on individual and organizational abilities…

Discusses four major trends that have been encouraging the transition to a global digital library: (1) economics of the Internet, including inflation, multimedia, collaboration, timeliness, and scholarly communication; (2) improved service; (3) new digital library technologies, including network technology, data compression, full-text indexing,…

Discusses the need for lifelong learning in our future society and considers the growing importance of telecommunications learning centers. The role of evaluation is discussed; the diversity of needs and value systems is examined; and the failure of the Learn Alaska network resulting from the lack of appropriate needs assessment is described. (two…