E-GOVERNMENT
Govt Website Guidelines Created with Designers, Users in Mind
TELEVISION
Study Links TV Habits to Reading Trouble
INTERNET
Emails, Digital Media Produce Data Mountain
Net's Dark Side Dents UK Broadband
DIGITAL DIVIDE
Survey: US Internet Lagging Behind Other Countries
EDTECH
The Future of Textbooks
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E-GOVERNMENT
GOVT WEBSITE GUIDELINES CREATED WITH DESIGNERS, USERS IN MIND
After two years of research, the US Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) has published 187 guidelines for effective Web design and organization
of material. Sanjay Koyani, senior usability engineer for HHS, said the goal
is to help government, academic, commercial and other entities create
websites that are based on user research and not personal opinions. The
guidelines cover such issues as accessibility, home page design, site
navigation, writing, graphics and content organization. The HHS guidelines,
Koyani said, should pay off for agencies that need to post information
quickly. "We've listed all the guidelines in rank of importance," he
explained. "You can look at those and focus on what is important." The
guidelines are timely, as governments experience growing demands from the
public for answers to questions and increasing pressure to hold down
overhead costs. Recent estimates show that there are more than 22,000
governmental websites, providing more than 35 million Web pages. More than
60 percent of Internet users in the United States go to a federal Internet
site each year.
SOURCE: Washington Post; AUTHOR: Stephen Barr
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26915-2003Oct27.html
TELEVISION
STUDY LINKS TV HABITS TO READING TROUBLE
The Kaiser Family Foundation and Children's Digital Media Centers released a
report on the media habits of children ages six and younger. This study,
based on a random telephone survey of 1,065 parents, found that children's
digital media use can have positive and negative affects on learning
processes. The report found that approximately one-third of children 6 and
younger have TVs in their rooms or live in homes where television is on most
or all the time. "In those 'heavy TV households,' 34 percent of children
ages four to six can read, compared with 56 percent in homes where the TV is
on less often," the report said. The numbers suggest that there may be a
connection between media exposure -- namely television, video games, and the
Internet -- and learning to read. Despite these findings, the report says
reading continues to be a regular part of children's lives. "Almost 80
percent of children six and under read or are read to on any given day, but
children spend an average of 49 minutes with books in a day compared with
two hours and 22 minutes in front of a TV or computer," the report added.
SOURCE: Associated Press; AUTHOR: Siobhan McDonough
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KIDS_MEDIA_IMMERSION?SITE=DCT...
ECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Download the report:
http://www.kff.org
INTERNET
EMAILS, DIGITAL MEDIA PRODUCE DATA MOUNTAIN
A study by the School of Information Management and Systems at the
University of California at Berkley reveals that people around the globe
created enough new information to fill 500,000 US Libraries of Congress
during the course of 2002. The five billion gigabytes of new data equals 800
megabytes per person -- comparable to a stack of books 30 feet high. Stored
information increased by 30 percent since the last global study in 1999. The
biggest storage percentile increase was with hard disk drives. The amount of
stored information on these increasingly high-capacity storage media rose by
about 114 percent since the 1999 study. This study also dispels myths about
offices becoming more paperless. The amount of information stored on paper
-- including books, journals, and office documents -- increased by about 40
percent in 2002. "In the 1999 study, we thought film and paper would move
more toward digital formats," says Peter Lyman, UC Berkeley Professor. He
says this has not been the case because as people access electronic
documents, they print them out. However, he says, photography is moving
quickly into the digital age. "Individual photographs are really moving
quickly to digital cameras, or even image-producing telephones," says Lyman.
SOURCE: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3713686
NET'S DARK SIDE DENTS UK BROADBAND
The iSociety sector of the Work Foundation has released a report on UK
broadband users. The study says the telecom industry could do more to help
users avoid the "dark side" of the Net. People are fed up with spam, p0rn,
and viruses, and the numbers of broadband users reflects this trend. Despite
the official push for the UK to lead in broadband use, they trail at seventh
in global broadband uptake. The industry also needs to do more to understand
why people use broadband and to be able to support its varying uses.
"Ordinary people are promised that broadband makes the Internet
better...Broadband was at its best when it allowed people to create things
for themselves," says James Crabtree from the Work Foundation. The report
also showed that people like to be creative and socially interact using
broadband, instead of being passive users. People need to see the social and
community benefits broadband can offer, enriching their everyday lives,
according to co-producers of the report, the Broadband Stakeholder Group.
SOURCE: BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3217487.stm
SURVEY: U.S. INTERNET LAGGING BEHIND OTHER COUNTRIES
The consumer advisory board of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. has released a
study on Internet use worldwide. The study claims only 10 percent of the
global population are online, with 90 percent of Internet users from
developed countries, a third of them coming from the US. The study also
claims that the digital divide is narrowing in the US, but other countries
suffer from other types of digital divides, including gender and age
divides. There are social reasons for these divides, according to Pat
Moorhead, VP of corporate marketing at AMD. "Bridging the digital divide
requires more than simply offering computers and Internet access.
Technological fixes won't close the divide." Interestingly, the US lags
behind other developed countries in terms of Internet use through mobile
phones and other devices. The board adds there is no single global standard
for measuring Internet usage and growth. The full survey can be found at
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Weblets/0,,7832_8524,00.html.
SOURCE: The Inquirer (UK)
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12394
EDTECH
THE FUTURE OF TEXTBOOKS
New trends in digital learning and publishing have the potential to
revolutionize higher education. The cost of educational books and supplies
has soared 238 percent over the past two decades, leading some to conclude
that textbooks just aren't working. The University of Phoenix, the nation's
largest accredited university, has become the first higher education company
to control both course content and distribution. Its online platform,
rEsource, weaves together essential course administrative tools, content and
student services. Phoenix breaks down textbooks into modular units that can
be assembled, updated and reassembled. The university's next step is to
launch a "developer portal" through which it will solicit and manage content
from its thousands of faculty members -- or authors anywhere. This will
presumably cost less than content licensed through third parties with
editorial and marketing overhead. Educational publishers also are heeding
the call for more flexible textbook formats, with many textbooks accompanied
by websites and ancillary material on CD-ROMs. Still, industry experts agree
that the shift to a digital curriculum will take years, even decades.
SOURCE: Publishing Trends; AUTHOR: Ann Kirschner
http://www.publishingtrends.com/copy/03/0310/0310phoenix.htm
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