This monograph is an overview of the present and possible future trends in networking, the use of computer communications technology to facilitate the sharing of information and computer resources over great distances. The text reviews networks already being used by universities to share instructional resources and computing ability, and by…

Small businesses account for the great majority of businesses and half the private sector employment in Australia, but only one third provide structured training for their employees. This study, a systematic review of existing research, set out to find clear evidence of intervention strategies that meet small business needs in relation to the…

The injustices of "allowing certain people to succeed, based not upon merit but upon the cultural experiences, the social ties and the economic resources they have access to, often remains unacknowledged in the broader society" (Wacquant, 1998, p. 216). Cognizant of this, the authors argue that education requires researchers' renewed examination…

Through qualitative interviews, the authors examined the experiences of six gifted high-achieving university students to understand the factors that allowed the students to continue on their paths to success. The participants in this study revealed a number of issues that were central to their motivation upon arriving at the university. These…

Stephen Downes reviews Facebook, one of the most widely popular of social networking sites that has emerged in recent years. In his review, Downes notes that Facebook is distinctive because its stronger roots in the academic community, and he proposes that the site's varied and distinctive functions allow it to provide a very different model of…

While college educators have long recognized the intensely social quality of campus life, many faculty and administrators have watched student culture become even more social in recent years as various interactive technologies, including online social networks, have emerged. Starting before students arrive on campus and continuing into their days…

Online reading is evolving beyond the perusal of static documents with Web pages inviting readers to become commentators, collaborators, and critics. The much-ballyhooed Web 2.0 is essentially a transition from online consumer to consumer/producer/participant. An online document may well include embedded multimedia or contain other forms of…

Social developmentalists typically distinguish three levels of analysis in the study of peer relations in childhood and adolescence: individual, dyadic, and group. At the individual level of analysis, sociometric status and individual social behavior are studied. At the dyadic level, researchers traditionally study friendships but increasingly…

The new Fac-Back-OPAC (a faceted backup OPAC) is built on code that was originally developed by Casey Durfee in February 2007. It represents the convergence of two prominent trends in library tools: the decoupling of discovery tools from the traditional integrated library system (ILS) and the use of readily available open source components to…

Over the next several decades, libraries will face the potential loss of all the e-journals, ebooks, electronic theses, local digital collections, and other "e-stuff" curated for the public good. A solution to this problem is LOCKSS ("Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe"), a free, open-source digital-preservation software from Stanford University that…

Technical education is, by definition, a field that requires hands-on practice and experience by the student. When it comes to distant learning, technical education suffers from lack of such practical study, given the fact that e-learning is based on theoretical material being provided remotely to the student. This article presents the idea of…

In using conventional print, CD-ROM and online resources, librarians are still middlepersons between publishers and users. By exploiting Internet and World Wide Web online technology and developing local databases, libraries can tap new information sources and make them available to local audiences and others dispersed around the world in an…

This report highlights the dramatic growth of broadband in the United States. The report shows that the Administration's technology, regulatory and fiscal policies have stimulated innovation and competition, and encouraged investment in the U.S. broadband market contributing to significantly increased accessibility of broadband services. The…

Li Wei (1995) notes that relatively little sociolinguistic work on bilingualism has attempted to analyze and compare the complex relationships between aspects of language choice and code-switching among subgroups of the same community. This study aims to investigate the co-existence of two structurally different Cantonese-English code-switching…

One of the key elements of figurational sociology is the emphasis on understanding complex networks of interdependencies in which people are involved. The focal point of this paper is the process of initial teacher training (ITT) and the relationships of which student teachers are part during their ITT course. The paper does not look at what…