Schools Find Time for File-Swapping
Although they reacted at first with an iron fist, prohibiting Napster and all other forms of file sharing, universities are now relenting despite the legal risks. More...

NY Judge Narrows Terms in BT Internet Patent Case
Web development companies - and especially Prodigy - are breathing a little easier today after a British judge narrowed british telecom's claim of a patent on the hyperlink. More...

Any Teachers on Slashdot?
Like the typical Slashdot item, this discussion wanders a bit (but then, it wouldn't be Slashdot if it didn't), but this item generally revolves around the idea of teachers using technology and especially non-standard (read: non-Windows) technology such as Star Office. More...

Thomson Signs Agreement with Cardean University to Offer Online M.B.A. Degree
The Thomson Corporation has taken another major step in its quiet campaign to be the leading provider of online learning by signing an exclusive distribution agreement with Cardean University courses to corporate clients. It's an MBA, which means they're still cherry-picking, but expect a wider range of offerings to follow this initial foray. More...

Maintaining the Delicate Balance: Distance Learning, Higher Education Accreditation, and the Politics of Self-Regulation
Looks at some of the "delicate" issues surrounding distance learning, accreditation and self-regulation. Raises some familiar issues, such as the problem of fraud in federal funding for distance programs, the reliability of accreditation for quality control in distance learning, and the question of whether wider government controls are needed. More...

Handhelds Go to Class
Cheap, portable and connected, handhelds are finding their way into the classroom - and right out again as students take their learning from the community as a whole. "Students do science experiments outdoors with computerized probes and watch graphs come alive on the spot as they enter spreadsheet data." Short article and a video. More...

User-Centered Design for Different Project Types, Part 1
How the pros do it: two senior engineers from IBM discuss features of user centered design, providing a core set of design and evaluation activities useful across a broad range of application development projects. More...

Fighting (with) Hierarchies - Part I: Basics
No, this item is not about resisting the bureaucracy (even though that's what attracted me to the item in the first place). But it is about something we have been discussing in the office recently: how best to present (and navigate through) a hierarchical menu structure. More...

Macromedia Reinvents the Web
Macromedia's big announcement, Flash MX, gets a scathing review in the O'Reilly Network: "Macromedia's Flash MX seems to be an effort to take over the Web with Flash, and discard the useless bits that Macromedia doesn't happen to control. Remember the scene in Aliens where the baby alien emerges from the guy's stomach. More...

Campus

Campus is an open-source intranet solution for educational institutions. It provides groupware features such as messaging and scheduling and also hosts functions such as homework assignments and a gradebook application. More...