Digital Commons Network^™

Find It Free And Fast On The Net: Strategies For Legal Research On The Web (2006), Michelle Rigual

Faculty Scholarship

This presentation is a guide to researching legal issues on the internet. Basic search topics applicable to any database are discussed as well as specific strategies for finding free or inexpensive legal materials, effectively using new technologies such as blogs, RSS feeds, and podcasts. Additionally, attendees are warned to avoid outdated technologies and sources.

Modelling Blended Learning Environments: Designing An Academic Development Blog, Geraldine E. Lefoe, Wendy Meyers

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

A major challenge facing academic developers is meeting the development needs of both time poor academics and those staff in multi-location campuses, especially sessional tutors, who may start teaching several weeks before electronic access is enabled. Necessary restrictions placed on access to local intranet and Learning Management Systems meant rethinking how to meet the needs of all staff and in the process model good practice through the use of blended learning environments. One regional university, with seven national and one international campus, is currently redesigning their staff development program to incorporate the use of blogs and wikis to provide access …

Measures Of Perceived Credibility Of Blogs: Construct Validation By Lisrel, Uday S. Tate, Elizabeth Alexander, Suneel K. Maheshwari

Management Faculty Research

Predictions are that blogs will be the promotional tool of the future, if not now. The question remains: how credible are blogs as a source of consumer information? How do consumers perceive the credibility of blogs from different sources when making purchase decisions and product evaluations? The primary objective of the present study is to assess validity and reliability of a set of Semantic Differential scales purported to measure perceived credibility of different types of blogs. Confirmatory factor analysis via LISREL8.5 package was used to obtain appropriate statistics for convergent validity, discriminant validity, and composite reliability. In general, the scales …

Reflections From The Introduction Of Blogs And Rss Feeds Into A Preservice Instructional Technology Course, Bruce Gabbitas, Charles R. Graham, Richard E. West, Geoffrey Wright

Faculty Publications

In this paper we report our experiences using blogs and RSS technology to teach over 800 preservice students in an introductory instructional technology course over the course of three semesters. Our main purpose for using blogs and RSS feeds was to promote critical reflection, student collaboration, and professional development. Through focus group interviews and class surveys, we discovered both effective and ineffective methods for integrating blogs and RSS feeds into a course. This paper will reflect on these findings and provide practical ideas for overcoming the challenges we faced in implementing blogs and RSS feeds as effective teaching and learning …

Workplace Blogs And Workers' Privacy, Rafael Gely, Leonard Bierman

Faculty Publications

In this article we focus on a related issue. We discuss the development of blogs, and the virtual “space” where blogs and bloggers interact the “blogosphere” and their impact on the issue of workers' privacy. To some extent it would seem a bit of a contradiction to talk about privacy and blogging in the same article. Blogging, as we will discuss below, does not appear to be the most private of enterprises. There are, we argue, a number of interesting privacy issues raised by the development of blogs as an employee communication tool and by the way employers have reacted …

Blogs, Wikis, & More…, Karen K. Hein

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

A presentation of ways to use social media platforms in libraries. The presentation first discusses blogs and wikis: an overview of what they are, examples, uses in libraries, considerations, and sources for more information. Next,, RSS is discussed: what it is, how it is used, tools required, and examples of RSS tools. Lastly, social tagging is discussed: what it is, why librarians/libraries/information professionals should care, sources for more information and examples.

Crossing The Chasm: From Cutting Edge To Practical Application, Stephanie Willen Brown

UConn Library Presentations

Presentation to the Capital District Library Council, Albany New York. Audience was public, school, academic, and special librarians. Topics covered:

* Trends & buzzwords - Based on LITA's recent Top Tech Trends
* Blogging - What is it? Who's using it? See examples of cool library blogs!
* RSS - What is it? Why do we care? See examples of how to use it
* Wikis - What the heck is a wiki? Why should you care (again)? See examples of how to use wikis
* Information Overload - How can I keep up?!

Wiki for presentation is available at …

A Blog's Life, Mary Whisner

Librarians' Articles

Seeking to provide a current awareness service to an underserved part of her library's clientele, Ms. Whisner enters the world of blogging and discovers that there is both joy and learning to be had in bringing a blog to life.

Blogs And The First Amendment, David L. Hudson Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

An essay discussing the First Amendment implications of blogs.

Tapping Into Students' Motivation: Lessons From Adolescents' Blogs, Sylvia Read

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Keeping Up To Date With Ip News Services And Blogs: Drowning In A Sea Of Sameness?, Jon R. Cavicchi

Law Faculty Scholarship

It seems like so many IP related Websites you visit invite you to join their free email list to keep you up to date. Sources span a wide spectrum including governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, consulting services, law firms, commercial publishers and more. These sources span the spectrum from free, to low fee to premium pricing. With all of this information overload and choices, how do you differentiate and choose news sources?

The goals of this article are twofold. Goal one is to present a survey of types and categories of IP news tools available to IP researchers. Since …

Health Information Text Characteristics, Gondy Leroy, Evren Eryilmaz '11, Benjamin T. Laroya

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Millions of people search online for medical text, but these texts are often too complicated to understand. Readability evaluations are mostly based on surface metrics such as character or words counts and sentence syntax, but content is ignored. We compared four types of documents, easy and difficult WebMD documents, patient blogs, and patient educational material, for surface and content-based metrics. The documents differed significantly in reading grade levels and vocabulary used. WebMD pages with high readability also used terminology that was more consumer-friendly. Moreover, difficult documents are harder to understand due to their grammar and word choice and because they …