Online Text Resource

With higher education fees rising- books, tutition, students fees, etc – free or reduced cost books can be invaluable to those struggling to pay the bills. Recently I found a student-run site called Textbook Revolution, that focuses on finding free educational materials. More and more of these grassroots efforts are springing up online and offering alternate ways to obtain content.

For more information about Textbook Revolution go to:
http://textbookrevolution.org/index.php/Main_Page

According to the site:
“Textbook Revolution is a student-run site dedicated to increasing the use of free educational materials by teachers and professors. We want to get these materials into classrooms. On this site you’ll find links and reviews of textbooks and select educational resources. Some of the books are PDF files, others are viewable online as e-books, or some are simply web sites containing course or multimedia content.”

Blackboard’s Next Phase

With the recent announcement that CSU, Chico will begin the process of moving from Blackboard Vista to Blackboard Learn, users might be wondering if the mega corporation has changed from a company gobbler to customer-caring business. According to employees who have recently visited the campus, Blackboard is indeed refocusing itself and is placing more emphasis on its customers’ experience. According to today’s Inside Higher Ed, Blackboard’s corporate strategy is changing:

“Blackboard built its e-learning empire on its learning management system, trading legal blows with some competitors and gobbling up others as it raced to satisfy demand for a technology that had rapidly become de rigueur in higher education.”

“That period of conquest is now over. Last fall, close to 95 percent of institutions had some learning management system in place, according to the Campus Computing Project. Accordingly, Blackboard’s business strategy is changing: with the company adding four new, separately licensed products to its menu in the last three years, Blackboard expects that it will soon no longer rely on Learn, its popular learning management system, to bring home the bacon. ”

To continue reading please go to the article by Steve Kolowich, which appeared in the February 22 issue of Inside Higher Ed.

Detecting and Preventing Plagiarism

By George Lundberg, MD, Editor-at-Large, MedPage Today

http://www.medpagetoday.com/mediaplayer-licensed-viral/player-licensed-viral.swf

TLP Website Wins Prestigious Award

The Directors of Educational Technology/California Higher Education organization (DETCHE for short), gave the 2010 Outstanding Instructional Technology Website Award to CSU, Chico for the TLP site at their annual meeting in December. In their program they described the site this way:

“This site features several blogs that update faculty and students about upcoming technology related events, such as webinars, workshops, and symposia. TLP blogs and information pages cover a wide variety of technologies, including lecture capture, clickers, Turnitin, social media, podcasts, semantic web (Web 3.0), and even an introduction to virtual worlds.”

The TLP website comprises our Knowledge Base about all our supported technologies and services, workshop descriptions and registrations, the TLP blog, our Diigo social bookmarks, and many links to the pedagogy and technology service groups across our campus which serve our faculty. We’re pleased that Kathy Fernandes, director of Academic Technologies (ATEC), of which TLP is one part, was present to accept the award and to bring it home.

You’re Invited! Informational meetings about Blackboard Learn 9.1

As previously announced, we’re excited to be replacing Vista with Blackboard Learn 9.1. Faculty are invited to attend one of our informational meetings to find out how a team of faculty and staff evaluators selected Blackboard Learn 9.1; see a preview of the new teaching and learning features that Learn will deliver; and hear about the planned timeline for course migration. Faculty may attend either Thursday, February 24 from 10-11:00 a.m. or Friday, February 25 from 12-1:00 p.m. Both sessions will be held in the basement of Meriam Library, Studio A. Refreshments will be served. For more information, please contact Laura Sederberg.

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Turnitin: What’s New ?

New Turnitin2 Features:
Full Source Text — covered in the video above… the ability to see *all* of the text of a matching source, and to navigate across matches for that source.
PeerMark Layer — covered in the video above… instructors and student authors can now view PeerMark reviews within the document viewer, as a layer onto the original paper.

Using Turnitin? Some online training opportunities

Turnitin offers live, online 45-minute training session to help you get started with using Turnitin and familiarize you with the changes from Turnitin WriteCycle to Turnitin2. With Turnitin2, you will:

* Work with a single, “all-in-one” view of a student’s paper in its original format, including styled text, graphics and photos.
* Save time and increase productivity with improved tools and a unified user interface.
* View feedback from all sources in one comprehensive, multi-layered view.
* Maintain academic integrity and engage students in their development as learners.

To join the online meeting:

1. Go to the meeting link listed below
2. Enter your name and email address
3. Enter the meeting password: Tii1234
4. Click “Join Now”
5. Join the teleconference (call-in numbers will be listed on the meeting page)

Turnitin2 Daily Training Schedule

Tuesdays / Thursdays
9:30 AM (US PST)
Meeting link: http://bit.ly/tiitr0930
Meeting phone number: 759 668 264
Password: Tii1234

AND

1:00 PM (US PST)
Meeting link: http://bit.ly/tiitr1300
Meeting phone number: 751 891 242
Password: Tii1234

Wednesdays
8:00 AM (US PST)
Meeting link: http://bit.ly/tiiw0800
Meeting phone number: 759 668 264
Password: Tii1234

AND

11:00 AM (US PST)
Meeting link: http://bit.ly/tiiw1100
Meeting phone number: 751 891 242
Password: Tii1234

No pre-registration is needed, simply click on the appropriate link at the starting time, to enter the webinar. If you have any problems, please email tiisupport@turnitin.com.