If you would like to have me read and comment on your glossary or thesis page, please make sure I have it by 9:00am on Monday, November 30. Sending them as e-mail attachments is fine.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Google Flu Trends is a part of Google.org. To comment on this blog posting, please read the article, and then explore Google Flu Trends, other parts of Google.org, or one of the other sites mentioned in the New York Times article and report what you find. You may also address whether you think this innovative use of collective intelligence is beneficial or not (explain why!).

I just finished going over your citations and annotations for the articles. In just a few moments, you will be able to find them at the reference desk. There is a lot you will want to revise. Some of the major problems that occurred over and over were:

1. Articles found online must include this information in the citation! Please see pages 7-8 of the electronic APA guide, which you can find at: http://libproxy.albany.edu/limited/default/apa/apa_style_reference.pdf It is easiest if there is a doi, but if there isn't, you need a "retrieved" statement such as they show.

2. I noticed that a fair number of the annotations are simply descriptive, not critical or evaluative. Please review the 7 criteria on the sheet on writing annotations if yours are not correct.

3. Just a heads up: for next week's website citations, do not just use a url alone as your citation. The electronic APA guide I mention above isn't too good with providing an example of a simple, plain website citation. There are many examples of specialized types of information found on websites. I would say that the example given in item #14 (on page 13) is fairly generic. They point out that is the content of the website is unlikely to change, you don't need to include the date that you viewed the site as part of your retrieval statement. Think carefully about whether the sites you have chosen are likely to be static or not over time. \

4. Another heads up: a date is never the first element in the citation. You usually have a personal or organizational author first. If you can't identify one of those, the title of the item (jn this case, the website) would be first. Date is always second.

If you have any questions about the material you are picking up, or what you are working on for next week, feel free to contact me.

The article mentions that this site only saves the work of defunct commissions and panels. Can you imagine that other government information might disappear? Might a change in presidents affect the information that is provided to the public?

Please make sure that you use the APA formatting for the citations for your articles. These articles should be ones that you find using a database, and not items that you discover through news sites on the Web. You will want to consult the online APA Style Guide to Electronic References for any articles you find online. The little blue APA guide I passed out in class only includes the correct style for articles that you find in the print version.

If you have any questions about your assignments, including finding your sources, please let me know.

If you would like to respond to this item, read the full article, and then post your opinion. Is it possible for the military to stop this flow of information? Should they try? What might the consequences be of the stand that you favor?

If you were helping someone who was new to using Minerva, what 2 things would you emphasize to the person as being of critical importance? And why? Write your response as if you were actually telling the person these pieces of advice.

This article appeared in September in the New York Times. China has been in the news a good deal recently in connection to their policies surrounding the Internet, which differ greatly from what you find here in the US. Please read the article and respond to this post with your thoughts about requiring an individual's real name. Is this appropriate, so that people are willing to take ownership of their comments, or will it actually hamper free speech? Think about some of the comments you might find posted on news sites you read. Are people thoughtful and civil in their comments? Would using their real names affect this? If you select this item to respond to, and if you aren't the first to comment, read through your fellow students' comments and respond as appropriate to one or more of them if it relates to your argument.

I will use this blog to let you know important information about the class. When materials are graded and ready to pick up, or if you want to find out what mistakes might be showing up in assignments so you can fix them, this is the place to look! I also will incorporate it into our class discussions as a place for all of us to discuss news items that concern information, particularly information ethics: privacy issues, plagiarism, access to information, etc. And there will be a variety of polls for you to respond to about how you find information. Take a look at the blog at least a couple of times a week.