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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 07, 2005 George Mason Develops Academic Browser Add-On California Law Sets New Data-Security Standards DHS Picks Johns Hopkins for Disaster Preparedness Academy and Industry Study ROI EU Domain Opens for Business GEORGE MASON DEVELOPS ACADEMIC BROWSER ADD-ON Researchers at George Mason University are developing a plug-in for the Firefox browser that will help academics organize sources and properly cite them. The tool is designed to harvest bibliographic information from online sources and organize it for someone doing research on the Web. Assuming the bibliographic elements are formatted in a way the software can recognize, the application will parse title, author, and other information and correlate it with the source. Daniel J. Cohen, assistant professor of history and one of the developers, said it can be thought of as "incredibly smart bookmarking.... You're not just bookmarking the page, but you're automatically [capturing]...all that info that scholars want to save." Unlike commercial products that organize sources, the new application will tie directly into the browser, eliminating the step of manually collecting citation details. The open source application is expected to be completed next year and will be available for no charge from George Mason's Web site. Cohen said he believes the application will make unintentional plagiarism less likely than if a researcher were keeping sources organized manually. Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 December 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/12/2005120602t.htm CALIFORNIA LAW SETS NEW DATA-SECURITY STANDARDS California has passed a new data-protection law that may serve as a model for other states, despite the reaction of academic researchers, many of whom see it as an obstacle to their efforts at conducting research efficiently. The new law is intended to safeguard individuals' personal information when it is used by any research organization. Under the law, before any state agency may release personal data, the state's Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects must assess the research and determine whether it would adequately protect the requested data. Researchers seeking data from state agencies must show that the data are necessary; ensure that data are destroyed or returned when the project is completed; and, when possible, use information other than Social Security numbers as unique identifiers for subjects. Academic researchers largely object to the new law, saying it will impede some aspects of their research. Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 December 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/12/2005120601t.htm DHS PICKS JOHNS HOPKINS FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has chosen Johns Hopkins University to lead an effort to investigate nationwide preparedness for and response to large-scale disasters. The Center for the Study of High Consequence Event Preparedness and Response will look at ways the country can prevent and manage disasters, particularly through the interactions of networks and through models and simulations. The center will address issues including risk assessment, decision making, infrastructure integrity, surge capacity, and sensor networks. The center is the fifth Center of Excellence, administered by DHS's Office of University Programs and dedicated to university-based interdisciplinary research. Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland Security, said Johns Hopkins will "lead a talented and deeply experienced team of professionals from institutions across the country" to help prevent and respond to "high-consequence disasters or terrorist attacks." Government Technology, 5 December 2005 http://www.govtech.net/magazine/channel_story.php/97475 ACADEMY AND INDUSTRY STUDY ROI A group of academic and industry researchers will work together on an initiative to create a methodology that organizations can use to study the return on investment (ROI) of technology projects. Governments are increasingly asked to demonstrate the value of taxpayer dollars invested in IT projects. Led by the Center for Technology in Government (CTG) at the State University of New York at Albany and SAP, the effort will include researchers from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Accenture, Gartner Research, Cisco Systems, and North American and European government agencies. Anthony Cresswell, deputy director of CTG, said that calculating ROI for IT projects "has been a complex and difficult problem." He said the new effort will "produce results that will make a major contribution to the ability of governments of all types to enhance the political, social, and economic value they obtain from IT investments." Federal Computer Week, 6 December 2005 http://www.fcw.com/article91625-12-06-05-Web EU DOMAIN OPENS FOR BUSINESS A new domain has been launched that supporters believe will help create a sense of identity and strength among the nations of the European Union (EU). The .eu domain is initially open to organizations that hold trademarks or have offices in any of the 25 nations in the EU. The domain will later be opened to other groups and eventually to individuals. More than 400 registrars have been approved to handle applications for the domain. Jean Pire, a senior partner in a Belgian intellectual property law firm, said he expects the .eu domain to grow to be second only to .com in the number of Web sites that use it. Currently, .com is the domain for more than half of the world's Web sites; Pire predicts .eu eventually to represent about 25 percent of Web sites. The .eu extension will not replace existing country-specific extensions, such as .de for Germany and .fr for France. Wall Street Journal, 7 December 2005 (sub. req'd) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113391801658415733.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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