Information Literacy in the News

I saw this story on Yahoo just a day or two ago and I was surprised by what I think is the story’s message:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hPzGjoFyb4Nu_9ZbtQcJU6aRjhhQ

The point the author seems to make is that the quality of papers bought online is remarkably poor compared to what students expect. Is the most disturbing thing about buying papers online the idea that the papers themselves are not very good? Nowhere in the article does the author even hint at the concept of academic dishonesty and the ramifications of plagiarism as an academic ethics problem. The real danger, the author points out, is that if you buy papers online, you might get caught and get a bad grade. Even worse is the author left out anything more the instructor at Sarah Lawrence College had to say about the “awful��? paper. Would the instructor really be more mortified by a poorly written paper (yet still original) rather than by one that was plagiarized or simply bought online? Shouldn’t the author have really warned about the dangers of academic dishonesty and how it cheapens the very fabric of a college education? Pipe dreams, I guess. Yahoo is just the place where many students get their news and stories like this help perpetuate rather immature attitudes towards higher education. Unless the subtext of the story is simply meant to be understood that plagiarism is bad. But I’m afraid the author does a poor job of explaining why it’s bad.

Dear readers, what do you think?

Posted by Daryl Bullis at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week there were some reports that CERN, the world's largest particle physics lab located in Geneva, is prepared to reveal their newest addition to their impressive resume of technological breakthroughs. CERN is the very organization that created the Internet that we know and love today. But what they have done now is create a super-fast Internet to exchange enormous packets of data between research centers. How does this affect us? Well, if the world adopts this newer “grid��? as their web-surfing backbone, downloads of huge data packets will be done in seconds rather than minutes. But wait, that's not all!

3 hour movies downloaded in seconds? Full scale audio/visual real time holograms of teachers on another continent beamed into your classroom? Online gaming involving hundreds of players, if not thousands all at once? The possibilities are amazing, if not downright frightening. I’ve always believed that the Internet would get faster and faster as technology progresses, but would that allow for more efficient criminal activity? Even the grid project director Tony Doyle acknowledges the unpredictable nature of such a possibility becoming reality: “The history of the internet shows you cannot predict its real impacts but we know they will be huge.��?

Huge indeed. What do you think?

Here’s the link to the story from TimesOnline.uk:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3689881.ece

Posted by Daryl Bullis at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

weblogs v. nytimes

Winer predicted a news environment "changed so thoroughly that informed people will look to amateurs they trust for the information they want." Nisenholtz expected the professional media to remain the authoritative source for "unbiased, accurate, and coherent" information.

Instead, our most trusted source on the biggest news stories of 2007 is a horde of nameless, faceless amateurs who are not required to prove expertise in the subjects they cover.

While far from rigorous research, the results of this 'long bet' indicate that people looking for information on top news stories go to wikipedia first, then blogs, then to the traditional media. Who do you trust?

Posted by GB at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The New York Times published an article this past Thursday (page C1) about the emergence of electronic books. While electronic books have been touted for the last decade or so, this article wonders if they might actually gain prominence this time around, as Amazon.com and Google are two key players. Amazon plans to unveil Kindle in October, "an electronic book reader...[that] will be priced at $400-$500 and will wirelessly connect to an e-book store on Amazon's site." Goggle will charge users for access to some digital books, sharing the profits with publishers. The currently available Sony Reader, which costs about $300, can hold up to 80 books and the "battery...lasts for 7,500 page turns." However, Amazon's e-book format is proprietary, and will not work on non-Kindle readers, such as Sony's.

Do you or have you ever used an electronic book reader? Do you see advantages or disadvantages to them? Do you think most people would be willing to move to reading books on a device such as one of these readers?

Cited article:
Stone, B. (2007, September 6). Are books passe?: Web giants envision the next chapter. The New York Times, pp. C1, C9.

Posted by Trudi Jacobson at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-06/ps_transparency

Professor falsely accused of being a terrorist decides the best way to protect himself in the future is to document his entire life online, so there's no confusion about what he's doing.

Posted by GB at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

45 Million Card Numbers Stolen From Retailer

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-TJX-Security-Breach.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
(if this link disappears, search the title phrase in the database: LexisNexis)

Nothing that hasn't happened before, but the scale of this is enormous - theoretically this could affect 1 in every 8 people in the United States. How can we protect ourselves from this type of breach? Should we rely on businesses and/or the government, or do we have to do it ourselves?

Posted by GB at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This seems to creep up in the news a few times a year. The RIAA publicly announces their intention to pursue illegal downloading cases focusing mainly on students on college campuses. What would you do if you got such a letter? Would you admit you've been downloading illegally and pay the fine or just ignore them? What do you think?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/02/28/music.college.reut/index.html

Posted by Daryl Bullis at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)