- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

RE: [Air-l] Development of Skills for teachers to offer online co urses
by Matthew Allen 13 Jun '04

13 Jun '04

Research in this area is massive: the ERIC database would be a good starting place, also proquest education. The Educause website is handy too. A small contribution to the field of ideas, now a little dated, is my internet-based learning construction kit: http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/ibl/ Matt

3 2

Internet Surveys: One or Many?
by Kylie Veale 13 Jun '04

13 Jun '04

Folks, I have a quick question (I think) for the group with regard to internet surveys. Does anyone have an opinion and/or references to literature about whether the implementation of several small surveys is better that one very long survey? When I say 'better', I mean a positive effect on survey responses? Thanks Kylie ------------------------------------------ Kylie J. Veale | Brisbane, Australia GradDipInvEnv, MInetStds(Design) PhD student email: kylie(a)veale.com.au www: http://www.veale.com.au/kylie

1 0

Re: How Many Sites on Web?
by Bram Dov Abramson 12 Jun '04

12 Jun '04

> I'm looking for an up-to-date reference for how many sites are on the > Internet. I've tried Clickz, Pew Internet, etc., but with no success. I've > seen a figure of 1 billion Websites, but do not know where this figure came > from. Anybody got hard info.? I think the dispute about how to count what -- ie what? a Web site? what's that -- is long-running, but I guess that Netcraft has been at this while. They have apparently seen about 51m sites (http://www.netcraft.com/?host) What they mean by sites is not totally clear. They say that "the number of hosts found running internet web sites by the Web Server Survey is large [over 40 million in April 2003]". The 40m (now presumably 51m) could refer to the number of unique hosts (boxen), or to the number of unique IP addresses they host, or the number of "Internet Web sites" hosted on those -- each of which is presumably a larger figure than the previous one. Though the ISC Domain Survey's having found 250m live IP address with domain names attached probably helps figure it out. But perhaps the good folks at Netcraft would like to tell us... cheers Bram

1 0

yesterday and today
by jeremy hunsinger 12 Jun '04

12 Jun '04

if you sent something yesterday or today that was held in queue for this list, please resubmit it, because sometimes following directions on an upgrade is not sufficient, this morning a bug popped up and it required me to clear the queue via command line. it should be resolved now. thanks, Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

1 0

mailman upgrade
by jeremy hunsinger 11 Jun '04

11 Jun '04

we now run 2.1.5 Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

2 1

Call for Papers: Interface Panel at CAA
by Alec MacLeod 11 Jun '04

11 Jun '04

Call for Papers New Media Caucus Open Session Panel at the 93rd Annual Conference of the College Art Association Atlanta, Georgia, February 16-19, 2005. INTERROGATING INTERFACES Alec MacLeod and Laurie Beth Clark, chairs Interface is the meeting place between human and computer. For this panel we wish to emphasize the notion of interface through graphics and the underlying structures through which we access and manipulate electronic media. How do interfaces structure and mediate our access to and experience of net browsers, portals & web sites, games, virtual communities, and other software applications? Designers emphasize transparency and the “intuitive” qualities of the interface. The implicit—and sometimes explicit—language employed is highly metaphoric. Initially concepts of “navigation” and “files and folders” pointed to familiar (to some people) “real world” references. Increasingly, there are emerging conventions for the interface which make use of now familiar, though arbitrary, symbolic iconography. In talking with designers and reading about interface design, we detect (or imagine) a longing for a universal visual language. That said, almost everyone seems to concede that verbal descriptions are necessary to make an interface usable. While icons may become conventional signs, there is no way to make one that is likely to evoke a widely shared intuitive comprehension on first sight. This panel will provide a much needed opportunity to interrogate the desire for and feasibility of transparency, universality, and the intuitive nature of interfaces, acknowledging the ways in which the designs of interfaces encode narrow (and dominant) modes of thought. An underlying issue is the role of the tools that create the interfaces. We encourage presentations that reveal the implicit assumptions that seem to make an interface transparent and intuitive. A discussion of possible tools and methods for deconstructing the cultural assumptions in interface design would be one approach. Alternatively, inquiry into the metaphors used in different interface conventions and designs might be a direction to go. We would like to see the panel include those who are actually involved in making interfaces not just deconstructing them. Questions to raise on this panel include: •Does the ubiquitous use of western perspectival representation reinscribe the problematics of the gaze? •What are the dominant and emerging metaphors and in what histories are they embedded? •What are the aesthetics and politics of normalized interface experiences such as those users have while reading email or generating documents using commercial operating systems and software? •How much of what gets created is the product of the logic of the team that designed the software that even high end designers use to create the interfaces? •To what extent does the nature of the code which is used determine the bias and premise of these visual products? •How do the logics used by design applications dictate linearity and menu orientation? •What different issues result from the extensive use of hyperlinks? •Has the wide dissemination of computer interface iconography initiated a true disjunct between earlier studies of iconographic systems such as those from the visual arts? How might it be read as in a continuum with these? Please submit proposals to lbclark(a)education.wisc.edu and amacleod(a)ciis.edu by August 1, 2004.

1 0

How Many Sites on Web?
by Maura Conway 11 Jun '04

11 Jun '04

AoIRers, I'm looking for an up-to-date reference for how many sites are on the Internet. I've tried Clickz, Pew Internet, etc., but with no success. I've seen a figure of 1 billion Websites, but do not know where this figure came from. Anybody got hard info.? All the Best, Maura Maura Conway Teaching Fellow School of International Relations University of St. Andrews St Andrews KY16 9AL Scotland Tel.: +44 (0)1334 462939 Fax.: +44 (0)1334 462937 E-mail: mc52(a)st-andrews.ac.uk

1 0

ISPs as regulators
by Sandra Braman 10 Jun '04

10 Jun '04

Folks interested in the article mentioned below may also want to read "Advantage ISP: Terms of Service as Media Law," in NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY, 2003. In this piece Stephanie Lynch and I looked at ISP terms of service and acceptable use agreements from the perspective of their impact on multiple legal matters, including importantly freedom of speech and intellectual property rights. Sandra Braman >Since the topic of censorship on the net seems to be of interest to >this list you might be interested in a neat piece of research we >recently published: > >How Liberty was Lost in Cyberspace >http://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/liberty.pdf > >And in addition: >http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA553.htm > >Best >--Ch

1 0

Reminder - Invitation to participate in a survey of internet use
by Steve Jones 10 Jun '04

10 Jun '04

[A reminder that if you have not taken this survey to please do so, and to forward the message below to colleagues and/or faculty email lists as you determine appropriate. Thank you. -Sj] Greetings: You are invited to participate in an on-line survey and be part of a research project to explore various aspects of Internet use by college instructors. The survey will take about 10 - 15 minutes to complete. All of your answers are completely confidential. Responses are analyzed only in the aggregate, and are never linked to the individual completing the survey. No identifying information is required to complete this survey, other than basic demographic characteristics. Most questions give you response categories from which to choose. Others are followed by a blank text area where you can write your answers. If you have any questions about this survey, or concerns about confidentiality, please contact the Principal Investigator, Steve Jones, at sjones(a)uic.edu. The research protocol has been approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The URL for the survey is http://info.comm.uic.edu:8080/001survey/ If you know of colleagues who might also take this survey, or of faculty email lists to which you would feel comfortable informing subscribers of it, please forward this email and include this message. Thank you. Steve Jones Professor of Communication University of Illinois at Chicago and Senior Research Fellow Pew Internet & American Life Project _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l(a)aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l

4 4

broadband use in the US
by Sue Cranmer 10 Jun '04

10 Jun '04

Hi Jay (and for the list) PEW's Feb 2004 survey give the following: - 39% of adult internet users - or 24% of all adult Americans have high speed access at home (and increase of 60% sinc eMarch 2003) It's the home figures I'm interested in but there's more in the full report at: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/121/report_display.asp Best wishes Sue Sue, Would you summerize for the list what is a likely reasonable estimate to the % of broadband use in the US. Thanks. Jay

1 0