There are many benefits of e-mails. Through e-mail, a person can relay specific details to any number of "need to know" persons at the press of a "send" key at any time of day, without playing endless phone tag or waking someone up on the wrong side of the time zone. A person can also get "newsy" information out fast and save printing money, too.…

Several comprehensive information literacy (IL) standards have been developed worldwide for use in the education sector, specifically for students and teachers. Apart from the more generic International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) IL standards, such standards are more appropriate for their countries of origins. If these standards are…

Selective archiving of Web sites in Australia has been under way since 1996. This approach has seen carefully selected sites preserved after site owners granted permission. The labor-intensive nature of this process means only a small number of sites can ever be acquired in this manner. An alternate approach is an automated…

Colleges capture a slew of highly sensitive information on everyone on campus. While chief privacy officer has become a recognized title in the corporate world, higher education seems slow to pick up on the trend--a reluctance that could represent either head-in-the-sand thinking or fiscally prudent avoidance of bureaucratic bloat. This article…

The American Association of School Librarians "Standards for the 21st Century Learner" (2007) expresses nine fundamental common beliefs. One of these beliefs is that "ethical behavior in the use of information must be taught" (AASL 2007, 1). It is important for library media specialists to understand that teaching ethical behavior is much more…

The Advisory Committee was created by Congress in the "Higher Education Amendments of 1986" to be an independent and nonpartisan source of knowledge, advice, and counsel to Congress and the Secretary of Education on federal, state, and institutional postsecondary student assistance. One of the most important analytical directives in the…

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) has primary responsibility to ensure that Information Technology (IT) is acquired and information resources are managed in a manner consistent with statutory, regulatory, and Departmental requirements and priorities. This Department Information Resources…

When it comes to anti-malware protection, today's university IT departments have their work cut out for them. Network managers must walk the fine line between enabling a highly collaborative, non-restrictive environment, and ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and computing resources. This is no easy task, especially…

Access to information is an essential art of the educational system. The reality is, however, that there are laws and policies in effect that can restrict what information is available to students and teachers in K-12 schools. Selection policies, Acceptable Use Policies, Circulation Policies, as well as federal laws and acts, all place…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") is a bimonthly report from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). This issue includes the following articles: (1) Removing All Restrictions: Cornell's New Policy on Use of Public…

Putting data-driven decision making into practice requires the use of consistent and reliable data that are easily accessible. The systematic collection and maintenance of accurate information is an important component in developing policy and evaluating outcomes. Since 1982, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has been collecting…

Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) provide the information and tools needed to inform policies, practices and decisions at every level to improve student achievement and system performance. It is equally important that there are policies and practices to protect personally identifiable information and to ensure the confidentiality and…

The literature on sociology in this country in the past few years has featured vigorous discussion of matters relating to the modernization of education in Russia. It is the authors opinion, that the examination of this set of problems has been limited primarily to the present day, and not enough attention is being given to the emergence of the…

A little over a year ago, press releases from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Cornell University touted the release of new "jointly drafted" copyright guidelines to govern what has become a tense subject: the use of electronic course reserves, or e-reserves. Since the mid-1990s, e-reserves have offered libraries and academic…

Mark Brazaitis worries that his university may sabotage the literary careers of his students. As director of the creative-writing program at West Virginia University, Mr. Brazaitis oversees the training of about 30 graduate students, who hope to become published authors. At the end of their three years in the program, they hand in their magnum…