The idea of Digital Libraries emerged in the early 1990s from a vision of a "library of the future", without walls and open 24 hours a day. These digital libraries would leverage the substantial investments of federal funding in the Internet and advanced computing for the benefit of the entire population. The world's knowledge would be a key press…

No school is an island; it is a part of a continuum or a pipeline of institutions which together form an educational pipeline through which groups of students pass. To turn a body of data into useful information for knowledge-based decision-making at any level, data must be collected, organised, analysed and reflected upon. The purpose of this…

Prior research has highlighted the educational benefit of enabling students to participate in collaborative learning activities. Developing technology that extends the physical boundaries of the classroom and enables students to engage in meaningful collaborative learning activities outside class time can be of significant value. For any…

Agroforestry (AF)/forestry is no longer an isolated field, with so many developmental activities having links with this sector, and thus the information required to be handled by the researchers all over the world has increased exponentially. This article discusses a website that was developed by the National Research Centre for Agroforestry…

Colleges and universities worldwide are turning to the hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) model and saying goodbye to issues like patch management and server optimization. Generally, SaaS involves applications (such as customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and e-mail) offered by a hosting provider. In this…

Now more than ever, campus safety is of paramount importance. A reliable emergency mass notification system is one way to ensure the safety of constituents, and Brandeis University (MA) recently invested in a system that does the job. In this article, the author interviews John Turner, the school's director of networks and systems. Turner…

State education data systems have often been described as data rich but information poor. Historically, these systems were created for compliance purposes and, therefore, designed and managed as information technology projects, but a culture change is under way. Educators and other stakeholders are beginning to value data as a tool to inform…

Business intelligence and information logistics have become an important part of teaching curricula in recent years due to the increased demand for adequately trained graduates. Since these fields are characterized by a high amount of software and methodology innovations, teaching materials and teaching aids require constant updating. Teradata has…

Emergency notification has become a critical component of every higher education institution's overall emergency plan, as incidents across the country have galvanized campus safety officials to find more ways to notify their campus populations. Emergency notification systems can help get and keep students, faculty members, and staff out of harm's…

The main functions of a national scientific and technical information system are described and the requirements they must meet are examined; these include compatibility of all system components, information retrieval languages, hardware and software. (Author)

Discussion of the use of inexpensive microcomputers in local area information networks (LAN) notes such minicomputer problems as costs, capacity, downtime, and vendor dependence, and the advantages of using LAN in offices and libraries, less costly LAN upgrades, library vendors and LAN systems, and LAN problems. A 28-item bibliography is provided.…

The process followed by Yugoslavia in developing a national interdisciplinary information system included surveys of existing library practices, identification of potential databases, processing of library materials, production of national bibliographies, production of catalogs, and use of the system. (FM)