|
"Certification of Computer Literacy"
by Nancy Csapo, Central Michigan University T.H.E. Journal, August 2002, p. 46.
"In Europe, job seekers can prove their mastery of many basic computer skills by showing employers their 'computer driving license.' Although new to the United States, the European Computer Driving License has created a recognizable computer literacy standard for employers and job seekers throughout Europe." (p. 46) "Known as the ICDL in countries outside of Europe, the program is achieving worldwide recognition and growth in becoming the global computer literacy standard." (p. 46)
"Some universities are now requiring students to demonstrate computer literacy before graduation by taking a computer literacy exit exam." (p. 48) "Numerous technology standards, goals and guidelines targeting computer literacy have been developed at the national, state and district levels with standards for elementary, secondary and postsecondary institutions." (p. 48) "Most states, such as Michigan, have also created technology plans." (p. 48)
"Given the global nature of technology and the business world, a certification of an individual's technology skills that is acceptable and recognizable worldwide would benefit all involved." (p. 48) The ICDL consists of seven modules with detailed syllabi for each module: (1) Basic Concepts of IT, (2) Using the Computer and Managing Files, (3) Word processing, (4) Spreadsheets, (5) Databases, (6) Presentations, and (7) Internet and E-mail." (p. 50) "One main difference between the ICDL and other training and certification programs is that the ICDL is vendor-neutral and can be adapted to users of most major commercial software applications." (p. 50)
"Having an international standard for computer literacy would eliminate gaps in knowledge and variations in standards or expectations, while extending the standards to a wider range of skills beyond word processing." (p. 51)
"Coordinated Autonomy"
by Jim Davis, associate vice chancellor for IT at UCLA, Educause, November/December 2001, Vol. 36, No. 6, p. 86.
"Frank Rhodes, the former president of Cornell University, provides an effective starting point for this discussion [a shift between using technology to support the individual to using technology to support relationships between individuals] by listing eight characteristics of the 'American University for the Future.'
-
Institutional autonomy, lively faculty independence, and vigorous academic freedom but strong, impartial public governance and decisive, engaged presidential leadership
-
Increasingly privately supported but increasingly publicly accountable and socially committed
-
Campus-rooted but internationally oriented
-
Academically independent but constructively partnered
-
Knowledge-based but student-oriented; research-driven but learner-focused
-
Technologically sophisticated but community dependent
-
Quality-obsessed but procedurally efficient
-
Professionally attuned but humanely informed" (p. 86)
"The convergence of these emerging ideals for higher education with the emerging capabilities of IT offer a strikingly aligned venue for change-if there is a confluence of potential rather than a conflict. Both higher education and IT are fundamentally about people." (p. 86)
"Copyright Assumptions and Challenges"
by James Hilton, associate provost for academic, information, and instructional technology affairs and professor of psychology at the University of Michigan--Ann Arbor, Educause, November/December 2001, Vol. 36, No. 6, p. 48.
"Consider the following three assumptions that people commonly make about copyright:
-
If there is no copyright symbol ©, the work is not protected by copyright.
-
Copyright protects ideas.
-
Copyright was created primarily to protect an author's intellectual property." (p. 48)
"These three seemingly sensible assumptions are all dead wrong." (p. 50)
"Copyright law attempts to balance the rights of the author with the rights of the public, but congressional action, judicial interpretation, and international treaties continuously adjust the pivot point of that balance. Over the last two hundred years, the balance has steadily shifted away from promoting the public good (learning) in favor of protecting the copyright owner's property." (p. 50) "In a statutory attempt to redress this growing imbalance, the 1976 Copyright Act explicitly introduced a 'fair use' provision. In essence, the fair use provision sets a limit on the monopolistic control of the author. If the use of a work furthers progress in the sciences and the arts (i.e., if it promotes learning, knowledge, and the public good) and if its use will do relatively little harm to the author's property rights, then it is not necessary to get the author's permission to use the work." (p. 50)
"Both individually and institutionally, we must proactively pursue our fair use rights. If we do not use fair use, we will lose it. This pursuit will, of course, require a little education on our part. Not every use, even every educational use, is likely to be defined as fair use. Higher education institutions need to develop up-to-date, reliable, consistent, and clear copyright-related standards for use. (p. 52) "Institutions must accompany these use standards with a campaign to energize and educate the community about copyright, an issue that is complex and often seems as though it should be someone else's problem." (p. 52) "If a coherent use policy is created but faculty, staff, and students lack access to the resources needed to comply with that policy (e.g., easy copyright clearance, alternative sources for copyrighted material, help finding things in the public domain), the policy will be ignored." (p. 52)
"…because copyright protection begins at the moment of creation, the law-independent from the institution's policy-grants ownership of the work to someone. What is less clear is to whom the law grants that ownership. Normally, copyright is granted to the author of the work. But if the author of the work is operating in his or her capacity as an employee, then the work may be considered a 'work-for-hire,' in which case copyright is granted to the employer. Although institution-sponsored works would ordinarily seem to qualify as works-for-hire, long-standing tradition within the academic community and several court cases challenge this assumption. As a result, there is no clear legal answer as to who owns much of the work that colleges and universities, through their faculties, create. At the very heart of this uncertainty is the question of who owns the faculty-created content of a course. Should course content be viewed as a scholarly work with ownership vested in the faculty or as a work-for-hire with ownership vested in the institution? " (p. 53-54) "Second, copyright is not a single right. It consists of a bundle of rights including the rights to determine who can distribute, duplicate, perform, and create derivative works." (p. 54) "Ownership policies that deal with copyright must, therefore, be based on principles that maximize buy-in from faculty and staff. If an institution creates a policy that has little support among the faculty and staff, it will almost surely drive those activities off campus." (p. 54)
"In the wider world, information has become a commodity, a piece of property with tangible value. It is this change-viewing information as property-that I think captures the true meaning of the information age." (p. 55) "As major producers and consumers of information, we in the academic community must move proactively, both internally and externally, to defend fair use and to help shape copyright law. If we do not, we will end up at the mercy of those who are interested in the economic opportunities for information but who do not share our culture or mission." (p. 55)
"Achieving the Embarrassment Level"
by Steven W. Gilbert, director of technology projects at American Association for Higher Education, Syllabus, January 2002, Vol. 15, No. 6, p. 24.
"A department or college that aspires to be a leader in educational uses of IT should have a very different set of minimum requirements than one that does not." (p. 25) "I've found it useful to subdivide such minimum levels into three categories: access, capability, and usage." (p. 25) "Due to the still rapid pace of change in the underlying technologies, it is important to build in a process for reviewing and revising the minimums to reflect new technology options and new expectations." (p. 25) The article includes a chart of minimum technology levels for faculty at a mainstream university. (p. 24)
|
