January 2007 - LIS-Forum - ncsi.iisc.ernet.in

Open Access Repositories over the World
by Sanjeev Kumar Jain 06 Jan '07

06 Jan '07

Dear LIS Professionals and Managers The *Open*DOAR <http://www.opendoar.org/index.html> service provides a quality-assured listing of open access repositories around the world. *Open*DOAR staff harvest and assign metadata to allow categorisation and analysis to assist the wider use and exploitation of repositories. Each of the repositories has been visited by *Open*DOAR staff to ensure a high degree of quality and consistency in the information provided: *Open*DOAR is maintained by SHERPA. Service Aims of *Open*DOAR <http://www.opendoar.org/index.html> *Survey the growing field of academic open access research repositories and categorise them in terms of locale, content and other measures. * *Produce a descriptive list of open access repositories of relevance to academic research. * *Provide a comprehensive & authoritative list for end users wishing to find particular types of, or specific repositories. * *Deliver a comprehensive, structured and maintained list with clear update and self-regulation protocols to enable development of the list. * *Play a prominent international role in the organisation of and access to open access repository services. * *Support Open Access outreach and advocacy endeavours within institutions and globally. * .......................................................... Sanjeev Kumar Jain Central Library Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur - 721 302 Mobile: +91-97328-95328 ----------------------------------------------------------- sanjeevmlis(a)gmail.com sanjeevmlis(a)yahoo.co.in [A] Dear LIS Professionals and Managers The http://www.opendoar.org/index.html Open DOAR service provides a quality-assured listing of open access repositories around the world. Open DOAR staff harvest and assign metadata to allow categorisation and analysis to assist the wider use and exploitation of repositories. Each of the repositories has been visited by Open DOAR staff to ensure a high degree of quality and consistency in the information provided: Open DOAR is maintained by SHERPA. Service Aims of Open DOAR http://www.opendoar.org/index.html Survey the growing field of academic open access research repositories and categorise them in terms of locale, content and other measures. Produce a descriptive list of open access repositories of relevance to academic research. Provide a comprehensive & authoritative list for end users wishing to find particular types of, or specific repositories. Deliver a comprehensive, structured and maintained list with clear update and self-regulation protocols to enable development of the list. Play a prominent international role in the organisation of and access to open access repository services. Support Open Access outreach and advocacy endeavours within institutions and globally. .......................................................... Sanjeev Kumar Jain Central Library Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur - 721 302 Mobile: +91-97328-95328 ----------------------------------------------------------- mailto:sanjeevmlis@gmail.com sanjeevmlis(a)gmail.com mailto:sanjeevmlis@yahoo.co.in sanjeevmlis(a)yahoo.co.in

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Request for article
by Manju C 05 Jan '07

05 Jan '07

I am Manju C now I joined for MPhil Course in Library and Information Science and I selected the topic "Webometrics" So i Need one article That is Published in Annals of Library and Information Studies entitled Webometric study of LIbrary and Information Science Literature Published IN vol. 49 No.1 if any one have that article please send me Thanking you Manju C Librarian Miranda College of Nursing Bangalore Send free SMS to your Friends on Mobile from your Yahoo! Messenger. Download Now! http://messenger.yahoo.com/download.php I am Manju C now I joined for MPhil Course in Library and Information Science and I selected the topic "Webometrics" So i Need one article That is Published in Annals of Library and Information Studies entitled Webometric study of LIbrary and Information Science Literature Published IN vol. 49 No.1 if any one have that article please send me Thanking you Manju C Librarian Miranda College of Nursing Bangalore Send free SMS to your Friends on Mobile from your Yahoo! Messenger. Download Now! http://messenger.yahoo.com/download.php

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The American Physical Society Provides Open Access to Articles
by noufal palliparamban 05 Jan '07

05 Jan '07

Hello, It is very intresting news for us.... The American Physical Society (APS) has recently announced a program where most of their articles can be made publicly available to anyone who wishes to read them. In order for an article to be made "Free to Read," the APS requires a modest fee ($975/Physical Review article and $1300/Physical Review Letter article), which anyone can pay, and the article will then be available for download by the general public for free. This does not mean that the APS surrenders the copyright to these articles, nor can they be posted on any other websites without prior permission. Source: http://www.omninerd.com/2007/01/04/news/1086 Regards Noufal.P.P IIT Kanpur Send free SMS to your Friends on Mobile from your Yahoo! Messenger. Download Now! http://messenger.yahoo.com/download.php Hello, It is very intresting news for us.... The American Physical Society ( http://www.aps.org/ APS ) has recently http://prl.aps.org/edannounce/PRLv97i11.html announced a program where most of their articles can be made publicly available to anyone who wishes to read them. In order for an article to be made "Free to Read," the APS requires a modest fee ($975/Physical Review article and $1300/Physical Review Letter article), which http://publish.aps.org/FREETOREAD_FAQ.html anyone can pay , and the article will then be available for download by the general public for free. This does not mean that the APS surrenders the copyright to these articles, nor can they be posted on any other websites without prior permission. Source: http://www.omninerd.com/2007/01/04/news/1086 http://www.omninerd.com/2007/01/04/news/1086 Regards Noufal.P.P IIT Kanpur Send free SMS to your Friends on Mobile from your Yahoo! Messenger. Download Now! http://messenger.yahoo.com/download.php

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Library MIS
by Parinita Samant 05 Jan '07

05 Jan '07

Dear All, I would like to request some help from you all. How does one generate an MIS report for the library? Has anyone worked on this? What has been your experience? Could you share it with me? Thanks & Regards Parinita Samant *************************************************************************************************************************** This e-mail communication and any attachments may be privileged and confidential to Hexaware and are intended only for the use of the recipients named above. If you are not the intended recipient, please do not review, disclose, disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail and attachments. If you have received this email in error, please delete the same alongwith all attachments thereto and notify us immediately at mailadmin(a)hexaware.com . *************************************************************************************************************************** Library MIS Dear All, I would like to request some help from you all. How does one generate an MIS report for the library? Has anyone worked on this? What has been your experience? Could you share it with me? [A] Thanks &� Regards � Parinita Samant *************************************************************************************************************************** This e-mail communication and any attachments may be privileged and confidential to Hexaware and are intended only for the use of the recipients named above. If you are not the intended recipient, please do not review, disclose, disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail and attachments. If you have received this email in error, please delete the same alongwith all attachments thereto and notify us immediately at mailadmin(a)hexaware.com . ***************************************************************************************************************************

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Library Outside Library
by Mailing List Manager 05 Jan '07

05 Jan '07

Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:57:40 +0530 From: bhagyashree sane <bjsane(a)gmail.com> We implemented a project titled 'Library Outside Library' during 2003. Under the four headings, 'Isaac Newton (Science) Library, is a collection of 8" reflector telescope and a set of binoculars for bird watching etc. We conduct Sky Waching Sessions during Octobers to May every year with the help of experts from Sky Watchers Association of Pune [SWAP]. Sant Tukaram (Music) Library contains set of musical instruments that are used by the participants, campus residents for cultural programmes. We have also conducted 'Alert' sessions like 'Handwrititing analysis' by Madhusudan Ghanekar, 'Arunachal Pradesh' - Slide show by K.P.Tokear during last year. One may visit our academy for references. With Regards, Mrs.B.J.SANE Chief Librarian national insurance academy balewadi, baner road, nia po Pune 411 045

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SIS-24th National Convention and Conference.
by rajesh bhardwaj 05 Jan '07

05 Jan '07

Dear Professionals, Society for Information Science (SIS) is going to organize its 24th National Convention and Conference on "Organizing and Managing Knowledge in Digital Enivironment" on 27th January, 2007 at Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management - Delhi, shastri Sadan, Sector - 3 R.K.Puram ND-110022. More details available at http://sis-india.netfirms.com with kind regards -- Rajesh Kr. Bhardwaj Assistant Librarian, Delhi College of Engineering, Bawana Road- Delhi 110042 M-9213567224, Off-011-27871018- Ext- 2203 http://www.rajweb.name and http://www.dce.edu/library Dear Professionals, Society for Information Science (SIS) is going to organize its 24th National Convention and Conference on "Organizing and Managing Knowledge in Digital Enivironment" on 27th January, 2007 at Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management - Delhi, shastri Sadan, Sector - 3 R.K.Puram ND-110022. More details available at http://sis-india.netfirms.com/ http://sis-india.netfirms.com with kind regards -- Rajesh Kr. Bhardwaj Assistant Librarian, Delhi College of Engineering, Bawana Road- Delhi 110042 M-9213567224, Off-011-27871018- Ext- 2203 http://www.rajweb.name http://www.rajweb.name and http://www.dce.edu/library http://www.dce.edu/library

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Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software
by Gowri Ravindranth 04 Jan '07

04 Jan '07

Dear Friends: We solicit your participation in 3-Day Regional Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software Organized by Department of Library Services Christian Medical College Vellore & Madras Library Association, Chennai February 8 - 10, 2007 at CHTC Auditorium, Christian Medical College Bagayam Campus About Christian Medical College , Vellore The Christian Medical College began in 1918, when Dr. Scudder started training women for the Licentiate Diploma (LMP). Here first batch of medical students achieved a 100 percent pass in the examinations. In 1942, the medical school was raised to the status of a college and 25 students were admitted to the MBBS course. The first men students were admitted to the college in 1947. Permanent affiliation to the University of Madras was obtained in 1950. From 1953 onwards 50 students were admitted, 25 men and 25 women and in 1964 the annual admissions were increased to 60. In 1988, the affiliation of this institution was transferred from the University of Madras to the newly established Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University . In 2001, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, an autonomous institution of the University Grants Commission awarded a five star rating to the institution. The Postgraduate training programmes continue to be added as newer branches of medicine develop. At present, there are postgraduate diploma courses in 11 specialities and postgraduate degree courses in 35 specialities. This institution has been a pioneer in India in the development of higher specialities like cardiology, Thoracic Surgery, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Urology, Nephrology, Endocrinology, Gastroenterology and Haematology. About MALA Chennai The library movement in the former Madras Presidency originated as part of the national movement for political freedom and social development. The fifth All India Library Conference was held in Madras , along with the Congress session, during the last week of December 1927. As a followup to the deliberations of this conference, through the initiative of Mr. K.V. Krishnanswamy Aiyar and Dr. S.R. Ranganathan, the Madras Library Association (MALA) was founded on 31st January 1928 . MALA continues to accomplish its library promotional initiatives through lecture- demos, conferences, seminars, workshops, exhibitions, discussion forums. Introduction The digital age has ushered in significant changes in the information space in terms of operations, collection development strategies, services, and user preferences. The current information environment unequivocally prompts libraries to leverage on the latest digital technologies towards building practical digital libraries and in setting up dynamic electronic information systems. Digital Libraries (DL) are structured storage environments of digital data with a consistent format for index and content abstraction. Digital libraries do enable the seamless integration of the scholarly electronic information, help in creating and maintaining local digital content, and strengthen the mechanisms and the capacity of the librarys information systems and services. They increase the portability, efficiency of access, flexibility, availability and preservation of digital objects. Open Digital Library (ODL) technologies are gaining attention the world over. Without proper understanding of the complexities, procedures and practices involved in content building, content management and collection building, individual DLs will remain islands of structure in an unstructured Internet sea. Todays information / IT professional must be capable of leveraging the new technology to its fullest extent. Objectives The objective of the Workshop is to conduct a 3- day rigorous training programme on Digital Libraries using the Open Source Software Greenstone at Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore organized in collaboration with Madras Library Association (MALA). Rationale Developing world standard digital libraries demand deployment of costly software solutions which are beyond the reach of most of the universities/ institutions in India and those in the Asian region. The Greenstone Digital Library Software (GSDL) is a top of the line and internationally renowned software system for developing digital libraries, promoted by the New Zealand Digital Library project research group at the University of Waikato . Greenstone is developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. It is open source software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The aim of the software is to empower users, particularly in universities, libraries, and other public service institutions, to build their own digital libraries. More details of the software and example digital libraries built using the software is available at http://www.greenstone.org/ http://www.greenstone.org/ . Workshop Content The Workshop has been designed to facilitate the participants in creating state-of-art digital libraries using Greenstone, which include software installation, configuration, customization, digitization and other related workflow operations, content development and management, designing and creating standard metadata sets to describe digital objects and encoding it in standard markup formats. Pedagogy The workshop will be conducted at the Christian Medical College Vellore (CMC) which is equipped with world-class lecture rooms and computing laboratories with high speed Internet link. For lab sessions, each participant will be provided a PC supplemented with LCD projected live demos. The pedagogy will be a mix of lectures, discussions, case studies and hands-on sessions. Each participant shall be provided with a CD comprising of the Greenstone Software, faculty presentations, and other related software packages. Extensive hands-on labs will be a hall mark of this programme. Target Audience The workshop will be of immense benefit to all those involved in developing and maintaining digital collections such as librarians and information professionals, including software professionals belonging to the academia, Government and NGOs. Workshop Faculty Dr M.G. Sreekumar, UNESCO Coordinator, Greenstone Support Network South Asia and Librarian & Head, Center for Development of Digital Libraries (CDDL), IIM, Kozhikode (IIMK). Ms. K. T. Anuradha, Scientific Officer, NCSI, IISC, Bangalore . Workshop Coordinators Dr. A. Amudhavalli, President, MALA & Professor & Head, Dept. of Information Science, University of Madras , Chennai, 600 005. email: mailto:amudha75@yahoo.com amudha75(a)yahoo.com & Mr. V. Newton, Senior Librarian & Head, Dept. of Library Services, CMC Vellore - 632 004. e-mail: mailto:newton@cmcvellore.ac.in newton(a)cmcvellore.ac.in Workshop Effect At the end of the workshop, the participants are expected to be well-versed and confident of developing digital libraries using the Greenstone software. Follow-up Follow-up support shall be extended through the CDDL of IIMK. Registration Fee A fee of Rs. 1500 ( without accommodation ) or Rs. 2500 (with accommodation) will be charged from the participants. Workshop Participants The participants are limited to 30. Selection of candidates will be made as per merit, commitment to DLs and familiarity with IT applications in libraries. Applications/ nominations should reach the CMC, Vellore , Library Office on or before Jan. 25, 2007 . Participants, while applying, shall give a brief statement of interest in Greenstone, major objectives of attending the workshop as well as their expectations from the programme. Dates and Venue The workshop will be held during February 8 to 10, 2007 at CHTC Auditorium , CMC Bagayam Campus, Vellore ( http://dodd.cmcvellore.ac.in/rwgsdl.htm http://dodd.cmcvellore.ac.in/rwgsdl.htm ) Inquiries or contact Mr. V. Newton, Senior Librarian & Head CMC Vellore 632 004, Tamilnadu , INDIA . e-mail: dodd(a)cmcvellore.ac.in Ms. R. Gowri, Secretary, MALA e-mail: mailto:gravindranth@hotmail.com gravindranth(a)hotmail.com About Vellore Vellore is a town bisected by the Palar river, one of many tributaries of the life giving Cauvery flowing west to east in south India . Vellore is famous for its historic Fort constructed in the 13th Century, and has the hallmark of grandeur with its double-walled fortress with a massive moat and high gateways that lead to the gigantic Jalakandeswarar temple with its ornate Kalyana Mandapam in the interior. Vellore itself has a place in India 's history of independence, since it is here that the first movement to free India was initiated by the Vellore Sepoy Mutiny some 200 years back, on 9th July 1806 . LAST DATE FOR RECEIPT OF APPLICATION: January 25, 2007 Registration Form CMC VELLORE MALA CHENNAI 3-Day Regional Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software February 8 10, 2007 REGISTRATION FORM Name _______________________________________ _____________________ Residential / Non-residential. Male / Female Address for communication _______________________________________ _______________________________________ ___________________________ _______________________________________ ___________________________ City ________________________________ Pin Tel :(O) ________________ (R) _________________ Fax_________________ Email _______________________________________ _____________________ Name of Institution/Organization ____________________________________ _______________________________________ ___________________________ Designation _______________________________________ _______________ Details of advance paid: D D No. _______________ Drawn in favour of CMC Vellore Association payable at Vellore dated ___________ for Rs _______/- only Signature of Participant _______________________________________ With best wishes, Sincerely, L R Gowri Secretary, MALA Spice up your IM conversations. New, colorful and animated emoticons. http://g.msn.com/8HMBENIN/2752??PS=47575 Get chatting!

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Source Code for Biology and Medicine
by Subbiah Arunachalam 04 Jan '07

04 Jan '07

For the attention of all new biologists. Please spread the word. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] --------------------- Source Code for Biology and Medicine <http://www.scfbm.org/> Editors-in-Chief: Emmanuel Ifeachor (United Kingdom) and Leif Peterson (United States) Dear Colleague, We are pleased to announce that Source Code for Biology and Medicine has now been launched and is freely available online <http://www.scfbm.org/>. Source Code for Biology and Medicine is an open access <http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/charter>, peer-reviewed online journal that publishes articles on source code employed over a wide range of applications in biology and medicine. Several articles that might be interesting to you have already been published: Editorial Welcome to Source Code for Biology and Medicine <http://www.scfbm.org/content/1/1/1> Leif E Peterson and Emmanuel C Ifeachor Source Code for Biology and Medicine 2006, 1:1 (12 October 2006) Research A traveling salesman approach for predicting protein functions <http://www.scfbm.org/content/1/1/3> Olin Johnson and Jing Liu Source Code for Biology and Medicine 2006, 1:3 (12 October 2006) Methodology DADOS-Prospective: an open source application for Web-based prospective data collection <http://www.scfbm.org/content/1/1/7> Lam Nguyen, Anand Shah, Matthew Harker, Henrique Martins, Mariana McCready, Andreia Menezes, Danny O Jacobs and Ricardo Pietrobon Source Code for Biology and Medicine 2006, 1:7 (13 November 2006) To keep up to date with the latest articles from Source Code for Biology and Medicine, why not register to receive article alerts <http://www.scfbm.org/alerts/> when new research is published? Submit your research to Source Code for Biology and Medicine and take advantage of a rapid, high quality peer-review service, an efficient online submission process, no colour charges or limits on the number of figures, and immediate publication upon acceptance. The published version of your article will be immediately placed in PubMed Central and other freely accessible full-text repositories, making it highly visible to fellow researchers and a general audience worldwide. This complies with the NIH Public Access Policy <http://publicaccess.nih.gov/> and the Wellcome Trust Open Access Policy <http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/node3302.html>. To enable the journal to make all of its content open access, Source Code for Biology and Medicine will levy an article-processing charge for each manuscript accepted after peer review (payable on acceptance <http://www.scfbm.org/info/faq/apcfaq.asp>). Please submit your manuscript via our online submission system <http://www.scfbm.org/manuscript/login/man.asp?txt_nav=chk&>. For more information about the journal, contact peterson.leif(a)ieee.org or visit our instructions for authors <http://www.scfbm.org/info/instructions/>. Yours sincerely, Emmanuel Ifeachor and Leif Peterson The Editors-in-Chief, Source Code for Biology and Medicine <http://www.scfbm.org/info/contact/> ----------------------------------------------------------------- Editors-in-Chief Emmanuel Ifeachor (United Kingdom) Leif Peterson (United States) Editorial Board Generoso Bevilacqua (Italy) Elia Biganzoli (Italy) Ramón Cacabelos (Spain) Xue-wen Chen (United States) Matthew Coleman (United States) Anne Denton (United States) Jose Fonseca (Portugal) Paolo Frasconi (Italy) Jonathan Garibaldi (United Kingdom) Owen Hoffman (United States) Jung-chang Huang (United States) Vasily Leonov (Russian Federation) Paulo Lisboa (United Kingdom) Francesco Masulli (Italy) Rita Noumeir (Canada) Lucila Ohno-Machado (United States) Silvano Paoli (Italy) Giovanni Parmigiani (United States) Ioannis Pitas (Greece) Edward Sarkisyan-Grinbaum (Switzerland) Scott Smith (United States) Roberto Tagliaferri (Italy) Manuel Ujaldon (Spain) Staal Vinterbo (United States) Michalis Zervakis (Greece) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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Open access biomedical journals
by Ajay Kum Sharma 04 Jan '07

04 Jan '07

Dear Library Professionals *Medknow* is the largest publisher in India for academic and scientific biomedical journals. Medknow Publications publishes high quality peer-reviewed scholarly journals. All of these journals provide immediate free access to the full text of articles. The open access policy of the journals aims at increasing the visibility and accessibility of the published content. Most of these journals are indexed with important bibliographic databases including Index Medicus and EMBASE. The unique feature of these journals is immediate full text access without the author/author institution pay model. These journals are searchable from DOAJ (www.doaj.org) and are part of HINARI ( http://extranet.who.int/hinari/en/browse_journal_publisher.php?pub=95). The complete list of journals is available from www.medknow.com/journals.asp. All the journals use the OpenURL standard, making it easy for libraries to link users as directly as possible from citation to the full text of the article. I shall appreciate on behalf of all Library professionals if you could circulate this mail for the benefit of your users. Thanking you With regards Ajay Kumar Sharma Project Associate, INDEST-AICTE Consortium Central Library, IIT Delhi Hauz Khas, New Delhi-110016 011-26591467 (O) 09899339808 (M) Web: http://www.geocities.com/ajaysharma_lib/ Dear Library Professionals Medknow is the largest publisher in India for academic and scientific biomedical journals. Medknow Publications publishes high quality peer-reviewed scholarly journals. All of these journals provide immediate free access to the full text of articles. The open access policy of the journals aims at increasing the visibility and accessibility of the published content. Most of these journals are indexed with important bibliographic databases including Index Medicus and EMBASE. The unique feature of these journals is immediate full text access without the author/author institution pay model. These journals are searchable from DOAJ ( http://www.doaj.org/ www.doaj.org ) and are part of HINARI ( http://extranet.who.int/hinari/en/browse_journal_publisher.php?pub=95 http://extranet.who.int/hinari/en/browse_journal_publisher.php?pub=95 ). The complete list of journals is available from http://www.medknow.com/journals.asp www.medknow.com/journals.asp . All the journals use the OpenURL standard, making it easy for libraries to link users as directly as possible from citation to the full text of the article. I shall appreciate on behalf of all Library professionals if you could circulate this mail for the benefit of your users. Thanking you With regards Ajay Kumar Sharma Project Associate, INDEST-AICTE Consortium Central Library, IIT Delhi Hauz Khas, New Delhi-110016 011-26591467 (O) 09899339808 (M) Web: http://www.geocities.com/ajaysharma_lib/ http://www.geocities.com/ajaysharma_lib/

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How to go to M.I.T. for free
by Subbiah Arunachalam 04 Jan '07

04 Jan '07

>From Christian Science Monitor, 4 January 2007 How to go to M.I.T. for free Online 'intellectual philanthropy' attracts students from every nation on earth. By Gregory M. Lamb | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor By the end of this year, the contents of all 1,800 courses taught at one of the world's most prestigious universities will be available online to anyone in the world, anywhere in the world. Learners won't have to register for the classes, and everyone is accepted. The cost? It's all free of charge. The OpenCourseWare movement, begun at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2002 and now spread to some 120 other universities worldwide, aims to disperse knowledge far beyond the ivy-clad walls of elite campuses to anyone who has an Internet connection and a desire to learn. Intended as an act of "intellectual philanthropy," OpenCourseWare (OCW) provides free access to course materials such as syllabi, video or audio lectures, notes, homework assignments, illustrations, and so on. So far, by giving away their content, the universities aren't discouraging students from enrolling as students. Instead, the online materials appear to be only whetting appetites for more. "We believe strongly that education can be best advanced when knowledge is shared openly and freely," says Anne Margulies, executive director of the OCW program at MIT. "MIT is using the power of the Internet to give away all of the educational materials created here." The MIT site (ocw.mit.edu), along with companion sites that translate the material into other languages, now average about 1.4 million visits per month from learners "in every single country on the planet," Ms. Margulies says. Those include Iraq, Darfur, "even Antarctica," she says. "We hear from [the online students] all the time with inspirational stories about how they are using these materials to change their lives. They're really, really motivated." So-called "distance learning" over the Internet isn't new. Students have been able to pay for online courses at many institutions, either to receive credit or simply as a noncredit adult-learning experience. Many universities also offer free podcasts (audio or sometimes video material delivered via the Internet). But the sheer volume and variety of the educational materials being released by MIT and its OCW collaborators is nothing less than stunning. For example, each of the 29 courses that Tufts University in Medford, Mass., has put online so far is "literally the size of a textbook," says Mary Lee, associate provost and point person for the OCW effort there. The material provides much more than "a skeleton of a course," she says. Visitors to Tufts' OCW course on "Wildlife Medicine" call it is the most comprehensive website on that topic in the world, Dr. Lee says. What OCW is not, its supporters agree, is a substitute for attending a university. For one thing, OCW learners aren't able to receive feedback from a professor - or to discuss the course with fellow students. A college education is "really the total package of students interacting with other students, forming networks, interacting with faculty, and that whole environment of being associated with the school," says James Yager, a senior associate dean at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He oversees the OCW program there. His school of public health now offers nearly 40 of its most popular courses for free via OCW. The school's goal is to put 90 to 100 of its 200 or so core courses online within the next year or so. In November, learners from places such as Taiwan, Britain, Australia, Singapore, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands logged some 80,000 page views of OCW course material, Dr. Yager says. MIT's initiative began with the idea of giving faculty at other universities access to how professors at MIT approached teaching a subject. But after the OCW project went online, the school quickly realized it had two other huge constituencies: students at other colleges, who wanted to augment what they were learning, and "self learners," those not pursuing a formal education but interested in increasing their knowledge. Along with course content, MIT also wanted to showcase its teaching methods. Many schools follow a traditional model, teaching the theory first, then allowing students to practice what they've learned. MIT has a "practice, theory, practice" way of teaching, Margulies says, that aims to get students engaged and energized immediately - before delving much into theory. Younes Attaourti, a physics professor in Marrakesh, Morocco, stumbled upon MIT's OCW site while surfing the Net. He's used the materials as the basis for courses he's taught on statistical physics and quantum theory of fields. And for his own learning, he's downloaded theoretical physics courses and one on ultrafast optics. "I don't think there is another university elsewhere in the world that is more generous," he writes in an e-mail: "[T]his is the first time that many people around the world are able to have access to top-quality courses." Phillipa Williams is an adult (40-something) student at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, studying mathematics ("don't groan, I love it!" she writes in an e-mail). She's worked her way through many of the OCW undergraduate mathematics courses, she says, because they provide "a different viewpoint, another explanation of material," as well as different practice questions. MIT's OCW website features even more glowing feedback from learners. "[B]ecause of money, many good students with great talent and [who are] diligent do not have the chance to learn the newest knowledge and understanding of the universe," says Chen Zhiying, a student in the People's Republic of China. "But now, due to the OCW, the knowledge will spread to more and more people, and it will benefit the whole [world of] human-beings." "The MIT OCW program is a generous and far-sighted initiative that will do more to change the world for the better than a thousand Iraq-style invasions," the MIT site quotes Leigh Pascoe, a self-learner in Paris, as saying. "It does much to restore my faith in the enlightenment of the American people and their great experiment in democracy. This program should be emulated by every university worthy of the name." Besides MIT, Tufts, and Johns Hopkins, the OCW consortium (ocwconsor tium.org) in the United States includes among its members Michigan State, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Utah State. Internationally, members include groups of universities in China, Japan, and Spain. So far MIT has published 1,550 of its courses for OCW and plans to get the rest online by the end of this year. The materials for each course vary. Full videos of lectures, one of the most popular features, are available for only 26 courses, about 1,000 hours of video in all. "We'd like to do more video because it's really quite popular and our users love it," Marguiles says. "But it's quite expensive." The program relies on "generous support" from foundations, individuals, and MIT itself for funding, she says. Schools like Tufts and Johns Hopkins were able to jump-start their OCW programs quickly because the schools had already committed themselves for many years to putting all their classroom materials online for use by their own students. The biggest job has been to vet the materials for copyright issues, so-called "copyright scrubbing," Lee and Yager say. If permission cannot be obtained for a specific photo or chart, it must be left out of the OCW version or a substitute found. The OCW effort is part of a wide range of dynamic educational content emerging on the Internet, says Dan Colman, associate dean and director of Stanford University's continuing studies program and host of the website oculture.com, which highlights what's happening in Web-based education, with an emphasis on podcasts. Full-fledged online courses "might eventually offer a viable alternative to the classroom, but right now we have a ways to go," he writes via e-mail. Podcasts, for example, let learners hear a lecture, but they don't require that the listener write a critical essay or take part in a classroom discussion - activities that are a key element of the learning process, Mr. Colman says. And technology still needs to advance a bit more too. "We'll need a very fast fiber network and communication tools that give courses a greater degree of immediacy and sociability before this [online] model will become a real option educationally and economically," he says. "In the meantime, the traditional classroom is fairly safe." For example, lab work, which usually requires close hands-on collaboration between an instructor and students, remains problematic online, Yager points out. The losers in putting free content online aren't likely to be universities, which will continue to attract young students, Colman says. But free podcasts and OCW courses may pull adult learners away from other leisure activities, he says, such as reading books, watching educational television shows, or buying recordings of books or lectures. "All of these entities could suffer as users find free high-quality information on the Web," Colman says. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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