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TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2005 Reports Show Online Courses Are Cheaper to Deliver Stanford Researchers Develop Virtual Surgery Tool World Bank Says Digital Divide Closing Fast Pilot Program Distributes Handhelds in Kenyan School Bank Loses Sensitive Data REPORTS SHOW ONLINE COURSES ARE CHEAPER TO DELIVER At the request of the board of regents of the University of Texas System, administrators of the system's UT Telecampus conducted two studies to assess the relative cost of online delivery of university courses. The studies, which covered 2002 and 2003, did not include faculty salaries, which are the same for online or on-campus courses, or costs to develop courses, focusing instead on infrastructure required to deliver the course content to students. In both years of the studies, online delivery cost less than on-campus delivery. The studies did not evaluate the amount of time professors spent teaching--some say teaching online takes appreciably more time. Although the UT Telecampus is the university's online education organization, members of the board said the group's methodology resulted in a fair assessment. According to board member Cyndi Taylor Krier, the board was pleased with the results of the studies but wants next to investigate the relative quality of courses taught over the Web. Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 March 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i26/26a03402.htm STANFORD RESEARCHERS DEVELOP VIRTUAL SURGERY TOOL Researchers at Stanford University are working on software they hope will allow doctors to assess the likely outcomes of surgical procedures before they are performed. For about 10 years, Charles Taylor has been gathering medical data and writing algorithms for the application, which is intended to predict surgical variables, such as blood flow and the flexibility of veins and arteries, for individual patients. Doctors can use various tools to diagnose patients' health problems, but because of differences from one patient to another, doctors cannot reliably predict how an individual will respond to a specific treatment. Taylor and his colleagues have used Stanford's supercomputer to process data related to predicting blood flow, and the team recently reported success in modeling the behavior of veins and arteries. According to the researchers, children born with heart defects stand to benefit enormously from the technology, which is expected to be available in about two years. Wired News, 28 February 2005 http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66711,00.html WORLD BANK SAYS DIGITAL DIVIDE CLOSING FAST The World Bank has released a report contending that the digital divide is closing fast, putting the organization at odds with the United Nations (U.N.), which asserts that the divide is a problem that still needs to be addressed. The U.N. is hosting the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, where attendees are expected to call for increased funding to provide access for poorer countries to digital technologies. The U.N. believes that increasing such access will help poorer countries build stable democracies and deal with problems such as poverty. The World Bank cited statistics, however, that seem to contradict the need for ongoing funding to shrink the divide. The group's report said, for example, that in 2002, Africa had 59 million fixed-line or mobile phones, far more than some other estimates. The report also said half the world's population now have access to a fixed-line phone and 77 percent have access to a mobile phone. Reuters, 24 February 2005 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=7731166 PILOT PROGRAM DISTRIBUTES HANDHELDS IN KENYAN SCHOOL A pilot project run by an organization called EduVision is distributing handheld computers to schoolchildren in western Kenya to replace aging, outdated textbooks. In the program, students receive devices called E-slates, which receive transmissions from a base station in the school. The base stations receive and process information delivered by satellite and transmit text, images, and study questions to the E-slates. EduVision's Matthew Herren explained that the system is very simple to set up but that "getting feedback or specific requests from end users is difficult" because the system uses one-way connections. Herren said organizers of the program are working with Google, which has begun an initiative to digitize millions of public-domain texts and make them available online. Putting those resources into the handheld program, said Herren, would give "every rural school in Africa ... access to the same libraries as the students in Oxford and Harvard." BBC, 28 February 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4304375.stm BANK LOSES SENSITIVE DATA The Bank of America has lost backup tapes containing details of Visa cards that the bank issued to 1.2 million federal employees, who use the credit cards for travel expenses and other purchases related to government business. About 900,000 of those affected work in the Defense Department, according to Alexandra Trower, a spokesperson from the bank. Trower said that following a shipment of a number of such backup tapes, it was discovered that some were missing. The Secret Service was notified and is investigating the disappearance, but according to Trower, no evidence has surfaced that any of the lost information has been put to improper use or that the loss resulted from theft. The bank does not plan to change any of the affected credit card numbers, but it has notified those individuals whose information was included on the missing tapes. New York Times, 26 February 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/26/national/26data.html ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your settings, or access the Edupage archive, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639 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] ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE RESOURCES The EDUCAUSE Resource Center is a repository for information concerning use and management of IT in higher education. 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