The primary purpose of "National Cross Talk" is to stimulate informed discussion and debate of higher education issues. This publication contains the following articles: (1) The Plagiarism Plague: In the Internet Era, Cheating Has Become an Epidemic on College Campuses (Don Campbell); (2) Dillard's Dire Straits: Historically Black…

What would it take for libraries to provide their patrons with the same kind of success in finding information using their resources as they achieve with Google, and as quickly? This author asserts that the answer is not that complicated: be more like Google, and then move beyond Google. With the technology available right now, this is not an…

The incorporation of technology into library processes has tremendously impacted staff and users alike. The University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries is no exception. Sixteen years of reference statistics are analyzed to examine the relationships between the implementation of CD-ROMs and web-based resources and the number of reference questions.…

This article attempts to articulate in broad outline the post-industrial regime of knowledge and information and point out its fatal flaw. The Internet is treated as a socio-technological complex animated by capital and information. The notion of information is interrogated and an alternative notion closer to our everyday intuitions is proposed.…

Secondary-school systems throughout the world are preoccupied with technology integration in subject teaching and learning. Advocacy of the educational use of new technologies often seems to suggest that their value is evident, their adoption urgent, their implementation unproblematic, and their impact transformative. However, the recent…

College students learn differently than their professors. This disconnect between learning styles is not a new problem, however the problem has been magnified by the technology driven environment which exists in contemporary higher education. Students who grew up using computers and Playstations while surfing MySpace blogs and listening to their…

With the amount of research and research journals available on the subject, it may seem like we have established many "facts" and "truths" about technology and pedagogy. More realistically, the 'truth' is that we are only just beginning to learn within and about the young field of educational technology (understanding the…

For most research libraries, remote storage of significant portions of their print collections has become an economic necessity. Historically, user objections to remote storage have focused on access-related issues: i.e., lack of browsability, cumbersome requesting procedures, lengthy retrieval times, and lack of content information about…

In the past, the teacher's sole job is to dispense his pool of knowledge to his students. The emergence of the knowledge economy and globalisation have redefined the place and role of knowledge in society. It is no longer effective to accumulate knowledge but rather to acquire skills for processing the large amount of data made available through…

As the 50th anniversary of the landmark "Brown v. Board of Education" decision arrives, a notably gesellschaftliche (individualist, freedom-oriented, rationalist) paradigm in the education policy agenda prevails. That is to say, in the wake of a series of Supreme Court decisions and the proliferation of publicly funded, ethnocentric charter…

This article addresses an important need--the dissemination of information relating to technology as a public relations tool--and the associated exigency for administrator and teacher technology training. Specifically, we identify the increased expectations for the performance of school leaders and teachers, as well as unresolved issues in public…

Analysts predict that the knowledge economy of the near future will require people to be both computer literate and print literate. However, some of the reading and thinking habits of current college students suggest that electronic media such as web browsers may be limiting the new generation's ability to absorb and process what they read. Their…

Concern about children and the Internet is the latest in a ritual cycle of moral panics surrounding new technologies. Such panics often focus on children and are related to adult anxieties surrounding the transgression of boundaries including those between adult/child, private/public, and work/leisure. They are also founded on technological…

Decision makers are faced daily with making important and pervasive decisions. This is especially significant in higher education, where decisions about academics will have considerable impact on the next generation of leaders. In place of rational decisions about the substance of learning and instruction, academic administrators make incremental…

What do we know about technology and rights? This article provides a fairly comprehensive overview of current issues regarding this topic. We explore and analyse a wide spectrum of rights that are challenged in this current era of technological convergence. We use the United States Bill of Rights as an example of the vulnerability of legal…