A General Accounting Office's (GAO) survey of government and private agencies sought to identify the inherent limitations of interagency coordination and data sharing. GAO's recommendations to the International Communication Agency, the new coordinator of U.S. Government exchange programs, are discussed. (MLW)

The "communications revolution" and its impact on education is discussed, and definitions of services are provided. Educational applications of communication (the combination of computers and communications) are described and roles for colleges and universities in expanding data communications use are suggested. (BH)

Presents an overview of the recent developments in communications and information technologies for the blind and physically handicapped, with particular emphasis on braille, recorded books, and reading machines. (CWM)

A study of 170 undergraduates at the University of Washington examined the effect of terminology and screen layout on student ability to select databases from an initial online interface, "Session Manager." Results indicated that student ability to navigate menu screens was improved with expanded terminology and type grouping of online…

Outlines the seven stages of the Research Activity Timeline (RAT) data collection/analysis technique which structures the research interview around a discussion of participants' current specific work projects. Illustrates the use of RAT through results of the Information Access Project, which examined the use of information technology-assisted…

Discusses when librarians should develop their own Internet collections and how to add value to them, based on examples from the Argus Clearinghouse Web site. Topics include evaluation criteria for Internet resources; strategic planning; Internet collection development policies; and adding value through organization, navigation, learning systems,…

To provide medical students in community-based clinical settings with access to the same range of educational resources (medical literature, student colleagues, feedback, faculty) available at the academic medical center, this paper proposes that advancing information technology be applied to create a "virtual clinical campus" in the community…

Examines the semantic relationships in consumers' health-related questions, physician-provided answers, and between questions and answers with the purpose of supporting the design of health consumer question-answering systems. The information present in the text was expressed using a "pilot" ontology that was based on the semantic…

Proposes a method for protein name extraction from biological texts. The method exploits hand-crafted rules based on heuristics and a set of protein names (dictionary). The approach avoids use of natural language processing tools so as to improve processing speed. Evaluation experiments were conducted in terms of: accuracy, generalizability, and…

Compares users' self-reported and observed usability problems within a Web-based information system. Participants were asked to complete a specific list of tasks within the system, after which they answered several questions regarding the system's usability. While, advanced users generally completed the tasks in less time than novices, the number…

Describes the design and implementation of a prototype visualization system, AuthorLink, to enhance author searching. AuthorLink is based on author co-citation analysis and visualization mapping algorithms. AuthorLink produces interactive author maps in real time from a database of 1.26 million records supplied by the Institute for Scientific…

Describes the Online Academy that developed online instructional modules in reading, positive behavior support, and technology across the curriculum for preservice teacher education programs at the University of Kansas. Focuses on the formative evaluation processes that were employed in creating the instructional design, usability, and…

Describes the visualization of a navigation classification scheme in an information retrieval (IR) system. Highlights include Charles Cutter's rules for creating a dictionary catalog; user needs; an example of undergraduate research using this scheme; and user interaction with the IR system. (Contains 64 references.) (Author/LRW)

Virginia's Public Education Network (PEN) was one of the first statewide public school Internet systems. PEN began as a regional pilot that led to the establishment of a regional prototype, Teacher-LINK. Teacher-LINK in turn became the basis for the statewide K-12 Internet system. Topics include PEN's educational content, Internet services, and…

Examines a popular perceptual construct, user satisfaction, through a review of information systems effectiveness literature. Problems with this construct are highlighted, social psychology literature is used to clarify these problems, and principles are offered for utilizing user satisfaction as a measure of information systems effectiveness.…