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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2005 Dutch Academics Launch Open-Access Site Hamlet Database Nears Completion Google Offers More Direct Searches with Scholar Service FBI Thwarted Computer Attacks NCAA Finds Online Course Fraud DUTCH ACADEMICS LAUNCH OPEN-ACCESS SITE Dutch academics have publicly announced a Web site that offers free access to scholarly material from all of the country's universities. The Digital Academic Repositories (DARE) project, which started a year ago as a test program, is a joint effort among all Dutch universities, the National Library of the Netherlands, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. DARE includes 47,000 academic articles and other digital resources, including bibliographic information, full text materials, and audio and video files. Organizers of the project said no other country allows such widespread and easy access to its academic research. Such open access publishing projects remain anathema to most commercial publishers, but supporters of open access argue that it is the appropriate publishing model, given digital technologies and increasing subscription costs for traditional academic publishing. The Register, 11 May 2005 http://www.theregister.com/2005/05/11/open_access_research/ HAMLET DATABASE NEARS COMPLETION An online database that includes all available commentary on Shakespeare's Hamlet is expected to debut within the next few months. The database was the brainchild of Bernice W. Kliman, who, in the early 1990s was working on a printed edition of such a collection for the Modern Language Association. Kliman saw the Internet as a better tool for such a project, and she raised about $1 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her idea. Over the past 10 years, scholars including Eric C. Rasmussen, a professor of English at the University of Nevada at Reno, have been working to gather every bit of scholarship and criticism ever written about the play and add it to the database. When the database is complete, users will be "able to see 400 years' worth of commentary" for any single line of the play, according to Rasmussen. Certain items from critics in the 20th century had to be left out, however, due to copyright concerns. "We tried to, of course, credit the edition," said Kliman, "but also just paraphrase rather than copy sentence by sentence." Chronicle of Higher Education, 10 May 2005 http://chronicle.com/free/2005/05/2005051001t.htm GOOGLE OFFERS MORE DIRECT SEARCHES WITH SCHOLAR SERVICE Computer users at more than 100 colleges and universities can now take advantage of changes made to the Google Scholar search tool that give more information about and easier access to available resources. Those institutions that are participating in the service have given Google details about which resources they have in their libraries and lists of online databases for which they have subscriptions. Users indicate their campus, and search results will direct them to the most direct means of getting the desired resource. Google said that initially the service will be free of advertisements, as the company works to build a base of "happy users." Steven J. Bell, library director at Philadelphia University, noted that for universities that do not have necessary database tools, the new service is not an option. Bell also commented that although the service will be useful for some users, its limitations, including the resources available in the searches, will be problematic for other users, especially those with a deep understanding of a particular discipline. Chronicle of Higher Education, 11 May 2005 http://chronicle.com/free/2005/05/2005051101t.htm FBI THWARTED COMPUTER ATTACKS An investigation into the theft of part of the operating system software for Cisco routers has prevented network attacks on government and university computers, according to the FBI. In May 2004, a hacker was able to access Cisco's software and reportedly used that information to compromise networks at several military installations and at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Computers at the Argonne National Laboratory, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center were also compromised. The FBI said that law enforcement action has apparently ended the break-ins. As part of the investigation, authorities in Sweden detained a teenager thought to be involved in the malicious activity, though it remains unclear whether U.S. authorities will be able to prosecute that person. Wall Street Journal, 11 May 2005 (sub. req'd) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111569768679229042,00.html NCAA FINDS ONLINE COURSE FRAUD An investigation of student athletes at Nicholls State University in Louisiana has revealed that students and university staff had engaged in "gross academic fraud" by fraudulently completing online courses to preserve the students' eligibility for sports. The university's registrar discovered the fraud after noticing that many student athletes were completing online courses from Brigham Young University (BYU), often with much higher grades than for classes they took at Nicholls. As it turned out, two coaches and an academic adviser were giving students answers for the courses and in some cases serving as proctors for the students' tests. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) confirmed the fraud and imposed penalties on the school's athletic programs, but the episode has raised a red flag about the potential for similar abuse of online programs. "There appeared generally not to be sufficient monitoring either by BYU or ... by Nicholls State," according to Josephine Potuto, member of the NCAA panel that conducted the investigation. A statement from the panel noted, "This case illustrates the ease with which individuals can manipulate and then breach security protocols for online correspondence courses." Inside Higher Ed, 11 May 2005 http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/05/11/nicholls ***************************************************** 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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