EDUCATION REFORM TOPS HIGH-TECH WISH LIST

The high-tech industry trade group AeA (formerly known as the American Electronics Association) released a list of what it considers the top public-policy issues. The report found a clear need to improve high-tech education in U.S. undergraduate institutions and noted that the "decline in high-tech undergraduate degrees, in short, is a critical problem that jeopardizes the long-term health of the industry." The report also called for the continuation of the moratorium on Internet taxes and a uniform online privacy standard. The AeA report said President Bush should have "fast-track" authority to negotiate trade agreements without the approval of Congress and called upon Congress to grant tax credits for research and development. The Bush administration was generally positive about the report, AeA officials said. Among the recommendations the AeA made to the President and Congress was a call for block grants to provide schools with more funding, especially in those areas that may not be able to afford the latest technology. (, 31 January 2001)

Reuters*, 2001 Jan 31

U.S. IS INCLINED TO LIFT AID BAN FOR WEB STUDIES

Congress may soon have legislation before it amending a 1992 law that restricts federal aid to distance-education programs--including online schools--that conduct fewer than half of their courses in traditional settings. Federal aid could significantly boost online enrollment, as well as bolster the efforts of many online higher education programs. The University of Phoenix, which has 19,000 online students, could afford to invest even more resources into its Web initiatives if the restrictions ease, says acting president Laura Palmer Noone. Analysts predict that the elimination of the ban would bring an extra $3.5 billion in federal aid to Internet-based higher education and raise enrollment to 3 million by the end of 2002, up from 1.5 million now. Federal aid, in the form of loans and grants, already accounts for one-third of all revenue earned by universities. The U.S. Department of Education has responded to online education providers by waiving the 50 percent requirements for 15 programs each year. However, the American Federation of Teachers argues that easing restrictions would have many detrimental effects, including the proliferation of fly-by-night programs and increased tuition for online classes.

Wall Street Journal*, 2001 Jan 31

HOPES FOR DISTANCE LEARNING IN 2002

NextEd CEO Terry Hilsberg, who works with distance learning firms throughout Asia and the Far East, said few American institutions have a presence in the Asian market. He predicted that by the time affordable programs are instituted, other entities will have captured the market. The current U.S. system of higher education must change to serve a global audience, while institutions should specialize in distance learning operations and have separate funding for them, wrote higher education technology expert Sally M. Johnstone. She said one positive step is MIT's OpenCourseWare project, which shares intellectual resources at little cost. In addition, language and technological barriers should be minimized. Optimally, institutions will be able to profit from offering courses for credit. However, even when a course will not result in profits, knowledge can be extracted from specific courses, providing free access to knowledge.

Syllabus*, 2002 Jan 30

COLLEGES FOCUS ON MAKING WEB SITES WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

The past three years have seen several government mandates seeking to improve the accessibility of college computer hardware and Web sites for people with disabilities. In 1998, the federal government invoked the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to require 11 community colleges in California to provide information in both electronic and traditional print format to students who have disabilities. A new federal regulation pertaining to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is pending as the Bush administration reviews all new regulations enacted in the final months of the Clinton presidency. The regulation is meant to bring federal agencies into compliance with the ADA but also applies to state higher-education institutions. College officials say the issue cannot be ignored as more and more professors use the Internet and other multimedia tools as an integral part of their courses and the institutions themselves make the Web an indispensable part of recruitment and administrative activities. However, many of the new features are often difficult for those with visual or hearing impairments to access.

Chronicle of Higher Education Online*, 2001 Jan 26

MAKING COMPUTER SCIENCE MORE OPEN TO WOMEN

Jane Margolis of UCLA and Carnegie Mellon University's Allan Fisher propose ways that high schools and colleges can encourage more women to take computer science courses in their new book, "Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing." The authors contend that society discourages women from taking an interest in computer science as early as childhood, while a prevailing "geek culture" further estranges them. Margolis and Fisher conducted a four-year study of female Carnegie Mellon students as the university retooled its school of computer science, instituting new admissions policies, community groups, and interdisciplinary courses. These programs, along with a "ferocious attention to the quality of student experience," have yielded positive results, according to the professors. Between 1995 and 2000, the percentage of female computer science majors leapt from just 7 percent to roughly 40 percent. Furthermore, the concluding surveys indicated that female students were no more likely than their male counterparts to leave the major, whereas they were twice as likely to do so in 1995.

Chronicle of Higher Education Online*, 2002 Jan 25

Library Group Fights Mandatory Filtering Law

The Internet filtering bill that was enacted as part of a massive appropriations bill late last year will be contested by a lawsuit from the American Library Association. The ALA's executive board made the decision to pursue the case but has yet to file the lawsuit. The filtering bill requires the use of filters in public schools and libraries as a prerequisite for continued e-rate funding from the federal government. The ALA intends to argue in its filing that the bill will exacerbate the digital divide because its terms will mostly impact those who do not own a computer and depend instead upon public computers. The ACLU is also expected to challenge the bill but will focus only on its impact on public libraries. The Center for Democracy and Technology intends to offer support to the legal challenges but will not sign on as a plaintiff at this time.

Cnet*, 2000 Jan 18

NEW BILL OF RIGHTS FOR THE DIGITAL AGE

A group of CIOs, in conjunction with computer vendors and AMR Research, has released the Software Bill of Rights. The document establishes basic standards for software, including product quality, accurate delivery schedules, unambiguous pricing, development accountability, and strong customer support. "There's a high level of frustration over software quality," said Bob Parker, a research fellow at AMR. In addition, maintenance and integration activities can represent up to 50 percent of software costs, according to AMR. IT departments should simplify such activities in order to reduce costs, said Parker, allowing more resources to be used on other areas.

InformationWeek*, 2002 Jan 14

MICROSOFT CUTS OFF IE FOR MACS

Microsoft has announced it will no longer develop new versions of Internet Explorer for the Macintosh operating system. Microsoft's Jessica Sommer said that Mac users will be better served by Apple's Web browser Safari because Microsoft does not have access to the code for the Macintosh operating system. A final version of Safari is not yet available, though several beta versions are. Sommer said Microsoft might continue to offer security and performance upgrades, but "No IE 6 is planned." Microsoft also said it will end development of Internet Explorer as a stand-alone product.

CNET*, 2003 Jan 13

Crossing the Great Divide

For all its impact on business and society at large, the Web, we are told, has done almost nothing for the nation's poorest citizens. And indeed, the "digital divide" is real and troubling. Families earning less than $20,000 a year own home computers at a quarter of the rate of families with annual incomes of $75,000. That translates into fewer educational and economic opportunities. Automation, driven increasingly by Web-related technologies, continues to eliminate the factory work and other jobs that were once a haven for the unskilled. African Americans and Latinos account for just 11 percent of computer systems analysts and programmers, positions that still make up one of the fastest-growing job categories in the country.

Yet almost unseen in the gloom enveloping the digital-divide debate, the Web is starting to creep into the lives of the poor in surprising ways. The progress is halting and the successes isolated -- digital oases in an otherwise bleak landscape. But they are real, and reason for hope. They are propelled not by big government initiatives or photo-op corporate pushes to wire the ghetto, but by street-level organizations. They focus on the elemental: combating crime, providing basic health care, getting children enough to eat --things taken for granted in many places, but not in these neighborhoods. As the Web continues its inexorable spread, initiatives like these offer the promise of ferrying the poor into the computer age, one person at a time.

Article by Ralph King for Buisness 2.0, 2002 Jan 08
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PUBLIC MONEY, PRIVATE CODE

Computer science professors and researchers are having a hard time disseminating their work to the public as open-source software because many university and federal lab administrators are more interested in privatizing the research. Former Los Alamos computer scientist Pete Beckman said important meteorological, traffic, and virus simulation software is being kept from the public because of intellectual property concerns. "There are whole departments that create valuable new technology, and they can't get it out to the world because [the lab] is trying to make money off it," he said. Although universities may not directly refuse requests for public distribution, securing permission to do so is often prolonged and tangled by red tape. The desire for profit is retarding scientific innovation, concluded Rebecca Eisenberg of the University of Michigan. This in turn negatively affects economic growth, according to Stanford law professor Larry Lessig. The trend among universities to make money from intellectual property can be traced back to the 1980 passage of the Bayh-Doyle Act, which allows institutions conducting federal research to copyright and sell their work.

Salon.com*, 2002 Jan 04