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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 08, 2004 Nonprofit Organization to Collect, Distribute Online Courses NIH Mulls Free, Online Posting of All Research Microsoft Doubles Grace Period for SP2 Updates Leading ISP Agrees to End Service to Spammers California Joins Suit Against Diebold NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION TO COLLECT, DISTRIBUTE ONLINE COURSES The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education, a nonprofit organization based in California, will use a $1.5 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to build a collection of online course content called the National Repository of Online Courses. Developing content for online courses can be an expensive undertaking, and some institutions are making their online course materials available for others to use. The Monterey Institute will work to collect such materials, modifying them where necessary, and making them available to higher education as well as to high schools that want to provide online Advanced Placement courses. Institutions that can pay for the content they receive will be asked to contribute to help the institute break even, according to Gary Lopez, executive director, but the prices will be as low as possible. Lopez said that community colleges, which often lack the resources to develop online course content, are likely to be some of the biggest beneficiaries of the program. Chronicle of Higher Education, 8 September 2004 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/09/2004090802n.htm NIH MULLS FREE, ONLINE POSTING OF ALL RESEARCH Officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are considering requiring recipients of NIH grants to provide a version of their final research for posting on PubMed Central, an electronic archive. The proposal closely follows recommendations of the House Appropriations Committee that government-funded research be made available to the public for free. In a statement, the NIH noted that part of its mission is to share results of research that it funds. The statement also acknowledged that efforts to share such research must be balanced with the needs of scientific publishers, who have strongly objected to the proposed open-access model. Opponents of the proposal, including Martin Frank, executive director of the American Physiological Society, said that most journals post articles electronically and offer access to nonsubscribers for relatively small fees. Frank called the requirement to post articles on PubMed Central "an unnecessary expenditure of federal funds for a Web site that is redundant." Supporters of open-access publishing said that the proposal is the right move and noted that under the proposal, publishers would have six months before their articles would be made public, during which time anyone who wanted the article would have to pay for it. Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 September 2004 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/09/2004090701n.htm MICROSOFT DOUBLES GRACE PERIOD FOR SP2 UPDATES Microsoft this week agreed to extend the term during which customers of its Automatic Update or Windows Update services can block the automatic installation of Service Pack 2 (SP2). The company released SP2 in August to address many security issues with its Windows XP operating system, but the update may not work properly with certain applications. Some corporate customers had asked for time to test SP2 and resolve any conflicts, and Microsoft initially agreed to allow users to block SP2 from their automatic updates for 120 days, after which the service pack would be installed through the update services. That period has now been extended to 240 days, starting August 16. At that point, in mid-April, Microsoft's update services will ignore any users' instructions not to install the service pack. CNET, 8 September 2004 http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5355050.html LEADING ISP AGREES TO END SERVICE TO SPAMMERS Under pressure from antispam organization Spamhaus, Savvis, one of the world's largest ISPs, will stop serving nearly 150 known spammers. Though not a commonly known name, U.S.-based Savvis serves such high-profile customers as the New York Stock Exchange and 75 of the world's largest 100 banks. In January, Savvis bought C&W U.S., which had 95 spammers among its 3,000 customers. That number grew to 148, and revenue from those customers rose to $2 million a month, according to Alif Terranson, a former employee of Savvis. Terranson contacted Spamhaus after reportedly being told by executives of Savvis that the company would take no action against those customers found to be sending spam. Spamhaus, which provides antispam protection by publishing a list of sites that send spam, persuaded Savvis to end service of its spamming customers after threatening to block all e-mail from Savvis. Rob McCormick, the CEO of Savvis, rejected Terranson's revenue estimate from the spammers and said his company is committed to working against spam. Steve Linford, operator of Spamhaus, commended Savvis for its quick decision to cut service to the spammers. BBC, 8 September 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3634572.stm CALIFORNIA JOINS SUIT AGAINST DIEBOLD The state of California, as well as the state's Alameda County, this week joined a lawsuit filed by a computer programmer and voting rights advocate against Diebold Inc. for selling faulty hardware and software for electronic voting. The original plaintiffs, Jim March and Bev Harris, are asking the courts to force Diebold to refund all of the money paid to it for the state's electronic voting machines. Problems with Diebold's products caused more than half of the polling places in San Diego County to open late for the state's March primary, and at least 6,000 voters in Alameda county had to use paper ballots instead of Diebold's electronic voting machines. Lowell Finley, attorney for the original plaintiffs in the case, said the decision to join shows that the "state clearly believes there's merit to the case." Meanwhile, the state decided not to file criminal charges against Diebold, a move state voting officials considered after California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley decertified one Diebold system for being unreliable and jeopardizing the state's elections. San Jose Mercury News, 8 September 2004 http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9608838.htm ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your settings, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/ Or, you can subscribe or unsubscribe by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName To UNSUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage If you have subscription problems, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For past issues of Edupage or information about translations of Edupage into other languages, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/ ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE PUBLICATIONS EDUCAUSE publishes periodicals, including "EQ" and "EDUCAUSE Review," books, and other materials dealing with the impacts and implications of information technology in higher education. 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