The Internet has made cut-and-paste plagiarism easy. As such, teachers are required to be more vigilant about how students do their research assignments. One solution to this problem is the use of Turnitin, a software developed by John Barrie which converts characters and words in a student's paper and compares this with digital fingerprints of…

Since the mid-1980s, the percentage of the population in the United States owning a personal computer has grown from just over 8% to well over 50%, and nearly 60% of the population uses a computer at work. At the end of 2004, there were over 820 million personal computers in active use worldwide, and projections indicate that the number will…

In the past, it took the library staff of the University of Bath in United Kingdom around two weeks each autumn to produce cards for the main intake of its undergraduates. In this article, the author describes how he transformed the school's traditional library card production into a low-cost self-service system. He also describes how the new…

The study of confusion data is a well established practice in psychology. Although many types of analytical approaches for confusion data are available, among the most common methods are the extraction of 1 or more subsets of stimuli, the partitioning of the complete stimulus set into distinct groups, and the ordering of the stimulus set. Although…

Student-authored multimedia projects are an interesting and effective way to promote learning through extensive, focused writing. The equipment and software required to undertake such projects are readily available and straightforward to use with minimal training.

An effective systems librarian must understand security vulnerabilities and be proactive in preventing problems. Specifics of future attacks or security challenges cannot possibly be anticipated, but this paper suggests some simple measures that can be taken to make attacks less likely to occur: program the operating system to get automatic…

Seven pedagogical principles guided the development of a collaborative virtual environment, within an international project called ITCOLE. The progressive inquiry model as a theoretical framework had a large impact on describing these principles. Furthermore, this article describes the two web-based software systems - Synergeia and FLE3 - that…

Purpose: To examine the relationship between deposit of electronic theses in institutional and archival repositories. Specifically the paper considers the automated export of theses for deposit in the archival repository in continuation of the existing arrangement in Wales for paper-based theses. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents a…

When compared with, say, blogging, the deployment of learning objects has been slow indeed. While blog aggregation services are recording millions of blogs and hundreds of millions of blog posts, academic learning object repositories number their resources only in the thousands, and even major corporate repositories have only one or two million…

This month's column focuses on online Web conferencing software. This year promises to have the right mix of conditions to create significant growth in the use of these systems among libraries; library consortia, networks, and associations; and other library-related organizations. Travel budgets are being cut, librarian positions are being…

A self-proclaimed technophobe, Kuroly takes the plunge with his eighth-grade class. As a group, they learn PowerPoint, research poets on the Web, and record favorite poems, all of which results in a triumphant series of PowerPoint presentations on favorite poets.

Research shows that technology makes a difference in student motivation, engagement, and active learning. It also helps students develop critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. Providing each student with his or her own computing device such as a Palm handheld computer and appropriate software can have a great impact. This…

Monte Carlo methodologies are frequently applied to study the sampling distribution of the estimated proficiency level in adaptive testing. These methods eliminate real situational constraints. However, these Monte Carlo methodologies are not currently supported by the available software programs, and when these programs are available, their…

When the topic of cell division is introduced in the classroom, students can showcase their interpretations of the stages of mitosis by creating a slide show illustrating prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase (see samples in Figure 1). With the help of a computer, they can create a model of mitosis that will help them distinguish the…

In 1990, a group of geologists discovered a large number of shatter cones in southwestern Montana. Shatter cones are a type of metamorphosed rock often found in impact structures (the remains of a crater after a meteor impact and years of Earth activity). Scientists have discovered only 168 impact craters around the world. If rocks could talk,…