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TOP STORIES FOR FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 09, 2005 Katrina Boosts Online Education Feds Award National Archive Contract Thirteen Countries Get Behind Open Standards KATRINA BOOSTS ONLINE EDUCATION Educators at all levels--from elementary through college--are trying to figure out how to accommodate the estimated 200,000 students from the Gulf states who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and some see the circumstances as a prime opportunity for online education to prove its worth. Advocates of online learning are working to get federal authorities to relax rules governing things ranging from obtaining teacher certification to using public funds to support online schools. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has committed $1.1 million to the Sloan Consortium, an organization that works to improve the quality of online instruction, to provide space for 10,000 students in its program. A number of online programs for elementary and secondary students are hoping to persuade government officials to allow public funds to be used by displaced students in online programs. Julie Young, chief executive of the Florida Virtual School, one of the nation's largest online public schools, said, "It's going to be an opportunity to show the power of online learning." Critics said online programs are a poor substitute for in-class learning. Nat LaCour, secretary general of the American Federation of Teachers, said displaced students "need to be in classrooms with teachers who can provide nurturing experiences." Wall Street Journal, 9 September 2005 (sub. req'd) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112622247296335918,00.html FEDS AWARD NATIONAL ARCHIVE CONTRACT The federal government will spend $308 million to create a national electronic archive that Allen Weinstein, the archivist of the United States, said will be of significant value to academic researchers. Weinstein, a former history professor, said the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) will store and make available all federal electronic documents, which otherwise could disappear entirely or at least be very difficult to locate. The federal government is increasingly creating documents onlin in electronic format, and the ERA is vital in preserving them, said Weinstein. The ERA, which is expected to debut in 2008 and be complete by 2011, could also serve as a model for colleges and universities that create their own digital archive systems, according to Weinstein. Rick Barry, a management consultant in archives and information management, said that the archive itself will not solve the problem of preservation. Bureaucratic and cultural problems must also be overcome, he said. Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 September 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/09/2005090901t.htm THIRTEEN COUNTRIES GET BEHIND OPEN STANDARDS Government officials from 13 countries have developed a report to the World Bank on economic growth, efficiency, and innovation in which they argue for the establishment of open technology standards. The report is quick to point out that open standards are not synonymous with open source, in which source code is shared and can be modified by anyone. The open-standards movement advocates defining a set of standards, available to anyone, that allow various applications, whether proprietary or open source, to exchange information. The report is the product of a project led by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School. According to Charles R. Nesson, law professor at Harvard and founder of the Berkman Center, the goal of the report is to make a "rational business case for having a broad base of open technology standards." The report urges governments to "mandate technology choice, not software development models." New York Times, 9 September 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/technology/09open.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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