Students, policymakers and institutions all need to have high quality data about how today's students access and pay for higher education--and what contributes to their success. But the data that are available now are woefully inadequate. We need to improve the national postsecondary data infrastructure The report thoroughly explores seven options…

Describes the security issues Bluestem, a Web authentication and access control system under development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is designed to resolve. Provides an overview of how Bluestem works and details how Bluestem is currently being used to control end-user access to bibliographic resources licensed by the…

Discusses the concept of the intranet, comparing and contrasting it with groupware, and presents an argument for its value based on technical and information management considerations. Presents an intranet development project for an academic organization and describes a portable, user-centered and team-based methodology for the design and…

Explores Web page and Web site mortality rates, and considers two types of change: content and structural. Examines those constancy and permanence phenomena for different Web document classes. Suggests that, from the perspective of information maintenance and retrieval, the Web does not represent revolutionary change, that in some ways it is less…

Reports on the results of a study of a community computing system, Prairienet. Examines characteristics of users and the extent to which Prairienet is serving its purpose as a community resource for networked communication and information access, through the analysis of usage patterns and logs. (Author/AEF)

Presents abstracts of SIG Sessions. Highlights include digital collections; information retrieval methods; public interest/fair use; classification and indexing; electronic publication; funding; globalization; information technology projects; interface design; networking in developing countries; metadata; multilingual databases; networked…

Reports results of a research project assessing state-funded community networking (CN) sites in India. Explores the organization of information resources and services provided by 24 Web-based community networks, examines the core design principles that have been most useful in the development of these sites, and assesses strategies currently used…

Describes and evaluates LIBS Internet Access Software (also called Sonoma Software), which offers automatic Telnet connection to remote library catalogs, databases, information services, campuswide information services, and other wide-area information access tools. Instructions for obtaining and installing the software are given, and a comparison…