The Scout Report - April 26, 1996

April 26, 1996

A Publication of Internet Scout
Computer Science Department, University of Wisconsin

A Project of the InterNIC

The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators, the InterNIC's primary audience. However, everyone is welcome to subscribe to one of the mailing lists (plain text or HTML) or visit the Web version of the Scout Report. Subscription instructions are included at the end of each report.
http://rs.internic.net/scout/report

Send comments and contributions to: scout@cs.wisc.edu

Collaborative Research on Learning Technologies -- a new NSF grant
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has recently announced a grant program for Collaborative Research on Learning Technologies. The objective is to stimulate research on the integration of technology with learning at all levels of education--from K-12 to college and University, and from learning in the classroom to self-directed and lifelong learning. Projects supported through this program should involve a significant research component in the information, computer, communications and computation science and engineering aspects of learning technologies. The CRLT Program will: 1) Fund research projects that establish collaborations involving researchers from more than one discipline; 2) Fund a number of smaller exploratory research grants that foster interdisciplinary collaborations and explore possible new areas of research opportunity; 3) Establish one or more real or virtual Centers for Collaborative Research on Learning Technologies. Proposals that involve collaborations among institutions are encouraged. Preliminary proposals are due June 1, 1996, and final proposals are due July 15, 1996. CRLT is a joint program of 4 NSF Directorates: Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG), and Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS). For more information on the CRLT program, contact John C. Cherniavsky, CISE (jchernia@nsf.gov), Nora H. Sabelli EHR (nsabelli@nsf.gov), John W. Prados, ENG (jprados@nsf.gov), or Alvin Thaler, MPS (athaler@nsf.gov).
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/stis1996/nsf9680/nsf9680.txt
[Note: Gopher site may no longer be available.]
gopher://stis.nsf.gov:70/7waissrc%3A/.waissrc/nsf-pubs.src?nsf9680
gopher to stis.nsf.gov
select: Search NSF publications and search: "learning ADJ technologies" (without the quotes). NSF 96-80 is the CRLT proposal.
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Explorations -- an electronic book by the Cornell University Theory Center
"Explorations," a Cornell Theory Center Web site, is designed as a virtual book consisting of four chapters on ongoing scientific research : Above and Beyond, Down to Earth, Living Things, and Particle Particles. "Explorations" is intended to be an "interactive journey into the world of computational research for a wide range of viewers." Topics include cosmology, fluid flow, biodiversity, molecular biochemistry, ocean resources and ecosystems, carpal tunnel syndrome, and fusion, among others. What ties all these topics together in this virtual book is the use of computer generated visualizations to demonstrate various concepts. "Explorations" is readable only through Netscape 2.0 and incorporates frames, animations, images, and VRML files. This is a site rich in graphics and content and beautiful to view, but users with slow connections must be patient. Note that it is important to read the Navigation Tips section to make full use of the site.
http://www.tc.cornell.edu/er96/science96/Explorations/
Slightly less graphical: http://www.tc.cornell.edu/er96/science96/Explorations/TOC/index.html
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OCLC SiteSearch WebZ -- an evaluation system at the University of Missouri
The University of Missouri has made the OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) SiteSearch WebZ evaluation system available on the Web. Searchable databases include Current Contents, Expanded Academic Index, Legal Resource Index, and Business Index. Searching can be done on title keyword, author phrase, subject keyword, or journal title phrase. Boolean searching and powerful proximity searching are available. Inverted indexes of each searchable field dictionary are also available. The help files are crucial to exploiting the power of the searching system, as they explain basic searching, broadening and refining searches, and the indexes available for searching in each database. Using the indexes allows searchers to construct much more powerful searches. All help files are located under "Help" on any search page. For additional information about the databases, click on "Descriptions of the databases and what they contain" after you begin searching. Note that the University of Missouri specifically states that this an "initial implementation," which means that it is a beta offering. However, the quality of the databases, as well as the power of the searching system, make this site worth a visit.
http://sequoia.lso.missouri.edu:4300
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County and City Data Books for 1988 and 1994 -- University of Virginia
The University of Virginia Social Science Data Center has made "County and City Data Books" for 1988 and 1994 available to be searched via the Web. "County and City Data Book" is a Census Bureau publication which is distributed every four to six years. It contains over 200 demographic, economic, and governmental variables from both federal government and private agency sources, presented for the purpose of multi-area comparisons or single area profiles. It is designed to present a "snapshot" of county, city, and state data for the year it covers. There is usually a two year lag between the year of the book and the year of the data. Users can choose areas and variables, and there is an option under county and city data to pick all the counties or cities of a particular state. Output can be sorted in three ways, and can be displayed to the browser or saved in an ftp file as either browser output, or comma delimited output for later importing into statistical applications.
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/socsci/ccdb/
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Other searchable statistical databases at the University of Virginia
"County and City Data Books" are only one of several statistical databases that the Social Science Data Center has made available for interactive searching. Also included are the "Regional Economic Information System" (REIS) 1969-1993, with national, regional, state, and county employment, income and earnings data; "County Business Patterns" 1977-1993, with 2 digit SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) business data on establishments, employment, and payroll; "World Tables" (World Bank) 1950-1992, with 244 economic and social variables for 189 countries, and the "1987 SIC Manual," among others. Also included are pointers to other interactive statistical data resources.
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/socsci/interactives.html
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The Student Market -- used textbook exchange on the Net
The Student Market Book Exchange allows students from every university in the U.S. to post information about a textbook they'd like to sell, and search for textbooks they'd like to buy. Users are able to browse books posted from the same institution they are attending, and to post to all institutions or to specific campuses. Forms are provided for listing the subject area, title, edition, and even the condition of the book in question. If there is extensive participation, the site could become a handy book-buying alternative for students.
http://www.studentmkt.com
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The Calls For Papers mailing list at the University of Pennsylvania's English Dept.
The University of Pennsylvania English Department provides the Calls For Papers mailing list (CFP) to facilitate the announcement of conferences and publishing opportunities in English and American literature. CFP encourages conference or panel organizers and volume editors to post all such announcements to this list, whether or not they subscribe. Announcements can include upcoming conferences, panels, essay collections, and special journal issues, and can include calls for completed papers, abstracts, and proposals. Anything related to English and American literature is welcome, including gender studies, other English-language literature, cultural studies, queer theory, bibliography, humanities computing, and comparative literature. Literature in other languages, music, art, history, etc., are excluded unless they relate to English and American literature, as are lecture series, regular meetings of small local societies, fellowship opportunities, etc. An archive of the announcements is maintained at both the CFP Web and gopher site, and is available to be browsed by subject or date.
To subscribe send email to: listserv@english.upenn.edu
In the body of the message type:
SUBSCRIBE CFP
http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/cfp.html
gopher://gopher.english.upenn.edu/11/Announce/CFP
gopher to: gopher.english.upenn.edu
select: Announcements and News about English/Calls For Papers
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Information Society Trends" from the European Union
The European Union's Information Society Project Office (ISPO) now provides its bimonthly newsletter, "Information Society Trends," via email and the Web. The objectives of the ISPO include: "to create awareness of the potential impact of the information society; to address information society issues by providing a forum for the pooling of relevant solutions; and to facilitate the launching of relevant international cooperation actions." "Information Society Trends" contains information on information technology related services, products, markets, companies, legislation, policies, and technology issues. Each issue contains worldwide news broken down by geographic area. Each "story" is no longer than a sentence or two, but the strength of the report is that it allows readers to quickly keep up with worldwide developments. A complete, browsable archive is kept on the Information Society Trends Web page.
To subscribe send email to: Majordomo@www.ispo.cec.be
In the body of the message type:
SUBSCRIBE ISTRENDS your e-mail address
http://www.ispo.cec.be/ispo/istrenddl.html
Complete Archive:
http://www.ispo.cec.be/ispo/press.html
For more information about ISPO:
http://www.ispo.cec.be/
For more information about other ISPO Information Society initiatives:
http://www.ispo.cec.be/infosoc/infosoc.html
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Smithsonian Virtual Festival: "VFest"
The Smithsonian Virtual Festival, "VFest," relates indirectly to the Festival of American Folklife mounted every summer on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Using multimedia materials developed for Mall presentation combined with other research materials, this edition of VFest takes the online visitor to a lu'au in Hawai'i, an African naming ceremony, and borders with Mexico. The visitor can hear Mixteco music from the border and pronunciation of Yoruba names for a child, see videos of a sacred Indian dance and a spontaneous hula at a private party, and try recipes for Hawaiian and African food. The Borders pages provide aids for classroom teaching.
http://www.si.edu/folklife/vfest/
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National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has recently opened a Web site. It consists of three parts: a guide to the NEA, with an overview of the NEA grant making program that includes applicant guidelines and staff information, as well as a hyperlinked list of state and regional arts organizations; an arts resource center, with a listing of NEA publications, information about international funding opportunities, and a large listing of arts service organizations in over 20 subject categories; and "arts.community," an online NEA publication that contains features such as a focus on a particular community, a featured artist, a writers corner, and endowment news, as well as links to other arts related sites.
http://arts.endow.gov/
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The Population Bomb
Paul Ehrlich and the Population Bomb: The human population is likely to double by the middle of the 21st century, soaring past an estimated 10 billion people on the planet. The new PBS television documentary and companion Web site, Paul Ehrlich and The Population Bomb (broadcast premiere: April 26), looks at the ideas of one scientist whose theories link overpopulation to a broad range of global problems. The Internet content includes: current statistics about the world's dwindling natural resources; a directory of organizations committed to improving conditions resulting from overpopulation; teacher resources and a classroom "word game"; a glossary of key terms and a reading list; a population timeline dating from 10,000 BC to the 1994 World Population conference in Cairo; and background information about Paul Ehrlich and the producers.
http://www.pbs.org/kqed/population_bomb/
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Internet Daily Stock Report
The Internet Daily Stock Report contains a daily market recap and morning report on how Internet related stocks are faring. Provided by Internet World, it also contains an Internet stock index of over twenty companies, with names, stock symbols, and business type. Hypertext links to the home pages of those companies are provided.
http://www.internetstockreport.com/
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Johann Sebastian Bach
For lovers of Johann Sebastian Bach a visit to the J.S. Bach Home Page will be worth the trip. This very comprehensive site appears to include pointers to everything about Bach available on the Net, including listings of his complete works, MIDI files of his recordings, and a calendar of upcoming events related to his music. The site is searchable, and the complete works listing can be browsed by category, title, year, instrument & title, instrument & year, BWV number, or even by key. The Recommended Recordings section is organized by title, conductor/performer, instrument, BWV, record label, and recent submissions. Also available are links to biographies, photographs, literature, and other sites offering resources on Bach.
http://www.jsbach.org/
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Conferencing on the World Wide Web
Conferencing on the World Wide Web--Interactive discussions and group forums: If you want your Web site to have pages that allow interactive text based discussion forums, the Conferencing on the World Wide Web page is a great resource to use to find an exhaustive list of pointers to information about commercial software, free software, proprietary systems, and "almost web conferencing." Each listing under free and commercial software provides a short annotation of how the system works, platform availability, examples of the software in action (when available) and either the download site or pricing information. At present, information on over 50 conferencing products is available. This resource covers text based web conferencing (discussion forums and groupware) systems, not web based teleconferencing systems such as CuSeeme.
http://freenet.msp.mn.us/~drwool/webconf.html
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ISDN InfoCentre
For Internauts for whom the letters ISDN stand for I Still Do Not... understand, the ISDN InfoCentre is the place to go. ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) is an alternative to a modem connection to the Internet, and can deliver the Internet to home and office at up to four times the speed of the fastest modem connection currently available. The InfoCentre, provided by Open Communication Networks, Inc., gives basic (and not so basic) information about setting up an ISDN connection. The ISDN in Plain English section provides a basic FAQ for the ISDN beginner. ISDN 101--Solutions for the Beginner is a work in progress, but provides (after registering) network diagrams and interactive information to help users understand their own ISDN requirements. Dear Mr. ISDN answers email questions about ISDN, and includes a "propeller heads" section for more technical questions. The InfoCentre also provides ISDN ordering links to major national ISDN providers, information about hardware, and other ISDN links.
http://www.isdn.ocn.com/
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Updates and Additions to Scout Toolkit
Recent updates and additions to the Scout Toolkit include:

Searching the Internet--Searchable Indexes: The WebCrawler annotation has been updated, as WebCrawler now offers a browsable subject directory of sites, as well as more powerful search capabilities.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/toolkit/searching/searchindexes.html

Searching the Internet--Specialized Directories: Savetz Publishing's The Un-Official Internet Booklist, with over 475 books about the Internet, has been added.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/toolkit/searching/specdirect.html

The Scout Toolkit:
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/toolkit/

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Copyright Susan Calcari, 1996. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the Scout Report provided the copyright notice and this paragraph is preserved on all copies. The InterNIC provides information about the Internet to the US research and education community under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation: NCR-9218742. The Government has certain rights in this material.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the National Science Foundation, AT&T, or Network Solutions, Inc.

The Scout Report - April 26, 1996

April 26, 1996

Research and Education

General Interest

Network Tools

Scout Report and Scout Report HTML Subscription Instructions