Issues in Sustainability: Creating Value for Online Users  

Based on a talk given at the 2003 IMLS Web-Wise Conference, this paper addresses two issues related to the long-term sustainability of collections that museums, libraries, and other heritage institutions put online. The first is that of building collections and services that are core to the mission of the institution and that are likely to win support among its users. The second is the planning process of building those collections and services. In the latter case, Smith describes an IMLS-funded project that the Council on Library and Information Resources has undertaken to assess the business planning processes used by museums and libraries and offer models to follow.

Smith, Abby. First Monday (2003). Articles>Publishing>Online

Issues of Online Research Repositories from the Perspective of the Biomedical Sciences  

This commentary on Joseph Y. Halpern's proposal for a computing research repository discusses difference in traditions and practices of online publishing and repositories between computing and biomedicals sciences. Issues of accessibility and archiving are also discussed.

Armbruster, David L. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Scientific Communication>Online

It's More Than E-Mail: An Overview Of Inter-Networking  

Although global computer networks have existed for many years, they have grown explosively only in the last few—particularly the one called the Internet. ARPANET, the forerunner of these network, was set up to aid communication between the government and people doing defense research in universities and industry. The network got a major boost in the late 1980s when the National Science Foundation created NSFNET, linking the five NSF supercomputer centers with networks at university campuses and the ARPANET. Continuing advances in reliability, speed, capacity, and ease of access have made the Internet an international medium for information exchange.

Hibbard, Jeffrey L. and Eric J. Ray. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Government

IText: Future Directions for Research on the Relationship between Information Technology and Writing    

The vast majority of people who use information technology (IT) every day use IT in textcentered interactions. In e-mail, we compose and read texts. On the Web, we read (and often compose) texts. And when we create and refer to the appointments and notes in our personal digital assistants, we use texts. Texts, as already a technology in themselves, are deeply embedded in cultural, cognitive, and material arrangements that go back thousands of years. Information technologies with texts at their core — the blend of IT and texts that we call ITexts — are, by contrast, a relatively recent development. To participate with other information researchers in shaping the evolution of these ITexts, researchers and scholars concerned with the production and reception of text must build on a knowledge base and articulate issues, a task undertaken in this article. We begin by reviewing the existing foundations for a research program in IText, then go on to scope out issues for research over the next five to seven years. We direct particular attention to the evolving character of ITexts and to their impact on society. By undertaking this research, we urge ourselves and others to play a part in the continuing evolution of technologies of text.

Geisler, Cheryl, Charles Bazerman, Stephen Doheny-Farina, Laura J. Gurak, Christina Haas, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, David S. Kaufer, Andrea Lunsford, Carolyn R. Miller, Dorothy Winsor and JoAnne Yates. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2001). Articles>Writing>Online

JavaHelp: A New Standard for Application Help and Online Documentation

JavaHelpTM software is a full-featured, platform-independent, extensible help system that enables developers and authors to incorporate online help in applets, components, applications, operating systems, and devices. Authors can also use the JavaHelp software to deliver online documentation for the Web and corporate Intranet.

Sun Microsystems. Resources>Documentation>Online

Journal of Digital Information  

Publishing papers on the management, presentation and uses of information in digital environments.

Journal of Digital Information. Journals>Publishing>Online

Jump Right In: A Checklist For Planning an Online Documentation Project  

The initial development of an online documentation system can be overwhelming. Before starting development, though, you should address some or all of the issues documented here: assessment of “as-is” documentation (if it exists), audience requirements and skills, assessment of best delivery method for your information / audience needs, tool selection, development methodology, content organization, look and feel of online documentation, and your development team’s skills. This checklist is a subset of a presentation that covers a proven methodology for developing a hypertext reference system. You can use this checklist as a starting point for your first project.

Blake, Jodi K., Paul D. Hasenwinkel, Charles Christopher Sanchez, and Rachael Snyder. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Online

"Just-in-Time" Documentation  

Discusses innovative ways to provide notations in electronic documents using Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, and HTML. These methods include inserting text and voice comments, and displaying short messages.

Linderman, R. Ivan. Intercom (2000). Articles>Editing>Online

"Just" Professing: A Call for the Valuation of Prototypical Electronic Scholarship  

We should not limit our view of 'what counts' as electronic publishing to online journals that merely replicate print conventions but enlarge it to include other, even yet-to-be-developed forms of electronic publishing.

Nahrwold, Cynthia. Kairos (1997). Articles>Publishing>Online

Keep Online Surveys Short

To ensure high response rates and avoid misleading survey results, keep your surveys short and ensure that your questions are well written and easy to answer.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>Usability>Methods>Online

Key Roles In Developing Successful Online Help  

There are many roles involved in developing a successful online help project. Understanding the relationship between these roles can increase everyone's awareness of the requirements and tasks necessary for a successful project. In many projects, individuals fill more than one role, moving between roles as needed.

Hall, Rebecca C. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

Keyboard Shortcuts and Other Tricks  

This column focuses on using a computer to increase the effectiveness (both the productivity and the quality) of editing manuscripts, with an emphasis on tools and techniques rather than issues of grammar and usage.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2003). Articles>Editing>Online

Keywords Online

Online indexes have the same logical structure as print indexes with main headings and usually subheadings. Some online indexes can also be searched electronically. A search request in Yahoo! returns a list of online category headings. Online indexes, like their print cousins, are true 'searchable structures,' not simply concordance lists of terms appearing in the text.

Brown, Fred. Allegro Time! (2001). Articles>Indexing>Online

Knowledge By Design  

Knowledge by design (KBD) is an instructional paradigm for the emerging digital technologies. This nascent paradigm entails an integrated, triarchic informationmedia-interactivity model of a robust, learner-centered experience. High-performance computer platforms, inexpensive mass storage, and high bandwidth data transfer from fiber optics and orbiting satellites—are converging with the global Internet to transform the nature of the 'infosphere.' At the same time, powerful off-the-shelf multimedia tools are widely available and affordable to courseware developers and communication designers. Approaching knowledge as a design discipline may facilitate the thoughtful development of a postmodern pedagogy that can more closely realize both the technological and human potential of the next millenium.

Lasnik, Vincent E. STC Proceedings (1999). Presentations>Education>Online>Multimedia

KnowledgeWare's Online Odessey: How We Moved Our Printed Documentation to the Screen  

Knowledge Ware successfully transferred existing paper-based documentation to an online format for the latest release of its Application Development Workbench(R) (ADW(R)) software. The online documentation solution, which runs under IBM's OS/2 operating system, was created using a series of macros developed in Microsoft Word 5.0. Using this strategy enabled Knowledge Ware to develop quickly an online system that met customer needs for information support. The system also enabled their technical writers to create both paper-based and online documentation using the same set of word-processed files.

Boland, Jennifer Ann. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Online

Layered Data View for Searching, Browsing, and Presenting Scholarly Documents

This paper describes about the study result on text formats suitable for searching, browsing, and presenting scholarly documents as a digital library service, in relation with the document distribution formats and with the data production methods. Two types of data sources are considered in the context of their application to NACSIS-ELS. The printed document sources are first discussed mainly from the viewpoint of fulltext data production and their application, including application of OCR and document structure recognition technology. Electronic text sources are then discussed mainly from the viewpoint of format conversion and the mutual relation among formats for layered data view.

Oyama, Keizo. ISRDP in Digital Libraries (1997). Articles>Publishing>Online

The Leap Online  

McGowan discusses how documentation departments can ease the transition from a paper-centered work environment to an online one.

McGowan, Kevin S. Intercom (2000). Design>Documentation>Online

Learner Access in the Virtual Classroom: The Ethics of Assessing Online Learning  

Web-based instruction is often valued because of the way hypertext and dynamic visual media may enhance course content. The advantages of virtual space are framed in terms of 'access' - access to broader dimensions of ideas, access to academic and non-academic databases and information, access to diverse learning communities.

LaFond, Larry. Kairos (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

Learning to Use Virtual Team Collaboration to Solve Wicked Problems

The focus of this paper is the ELEARNING RESEARCH PROJECT (hereafter referred to as the EProject), a project to investigate how virtual teams collaborate to solve highly complex or wicked problems. The EProject designed, constructed, and assessed a Web-based collaborative learning environment to support virtual teams of intelligence analysts. The mission of these geo-distributed and cross-disciplinary teams is to learn to collaborate in order to integrate knowledge from diverse domains and thereby produce solutions for wicked problems.

Cupp, Stephanie, Joel Foreman, S. Gievska-Krliu, and Rachelle S. Heller. ACM Crossroads (2004). Articles>Collaboration>Online

Legal Code: When Intra Becomes Extra

And somehow, on March 8, months of chat logs--what a CEO and his management team talked about in their almost daily online chats were the ordinary, boring aspects of running a company. But a few posts involved company strategies. The posts revealed negotiating tactics the team planned to use with business partners, and some of those tactics revealed a fundamental lack of good faith. If the public message logs didn't increase the company's liability exposure, they certainly poisoned its hard-earned business relationships.

Fausett, Bret A. WebTechniques (2001). Articles>Communication>Legal>Online

Legal Issues in Cyberspace  

What are these issues and how do they affect you? Whether writing source code, developing e-commerce Web sites, or using the Web for business or as a consumer, you can be affected by Internet law in ways you might not imagine. Our rights of free speech and privacy take on new dimensions in cyberspace. Our copyright and trademark laws are being applied to cyberspace with caution and controversy. New avenues of criminal activity in cyberspace can wreak havoc in our business, professional, and personal worlds. This paper focuses on Internet law involving copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, free speech, and privacy.

Kagan, Elissa. STC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Publishing>Legal>Online

Less Than Metcalfe's Law

Metcalfe's Law basically tells us that as you connect n number of machines you get n squared in potential value. So, with 2 machines you get a value of 4. When you connect 10 machines, you get a value of 100. When you connect 200 machines, you get a value of 40,000. People like to apply this idea to the internet. In particular, people claim that the strength of the internet is a direct result of so many machines being connected. I think that this is bullshit.

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Online