Scholarly Communication and the Internet

Information technologies of the 20th century have affected the process of scholarly communication. They have not only changed the way in which two scholars interact with each other but also the nature of contributions of others like publishers, booksellers and research libraries. Internet offers a variety of services, which can help achieve communication in an efficient and effective manner. This paper tries to trace the evolution of Internet from the perspective of scholarly communication

Bridging the virtual gap in internet based music instruction: a feasibility study in trombone performance education

Since being introduced into classrooms in the late 1990s, online instruction has grown substantially both in student enrollment and the number of programs offered at state, district, and multi-district levels. Although having been applied liberally to all core subjects and many supplemental subjects, online instruction has yet to be utilized extensively in the musical arts. Courses in music performance present a unique set of technological and logistical challenges when adapted to an online setting. Nevertheless, private music teachers have utilized Internet resources extensively. Similar techniques applied to public school music programs, however, have yet to be explored thoroughly. Utilizing a combination of asynchronous instruction and synchronous instruction for teaching online music performance courses offers a potential for study and development. The purpose of this study was to establish the feasibility of an online music performance course that included both asynchronous and synchronous instruction. An approach that utilized both a multimedia blog format and real-time video instruction was developed, implemented, and delivered to a limited group of trombone students as a pilot study. Nine students participated in online trombone lessons that focused primarily upon the development of performance fundamentals. The delivery of content was assessed to determine a feasible format for music performance instruction in an online setting. Although typical technological shortcomings were experienced during instructional settings, students were able to identify, explain, and apply concepts gleaned from the blog and real-time video lessons. Internet-based resources have been applied to independent and collegiate music performance instruction; pedagogical approaches, however, have not been developed for use in secondary level online learning programs. Consequently, online music performance instruction has not evolved as rapidly as online instruction of core academic subjects. As technological advances become available, the possibility for delivering online instruction in areas of the performing arts, and especially in music performance, becomes more feasible and likely will be integrated into the curricula of many online learning programs. Until such time, the implementation of viable online instructional models is essential for the development of traditional music performance courses

Information Technology Project Update: 2011-2012

Marshall University Information Technology (MUIT) strives to provide seamless access to global resources, a robust infrastructure and current tools to support our faculty, staff and students, and high levels of technology to compete and excel in a world characterized by constant change with increased mobility. MUIT engages in collaborative relationships within the University and with the local community acting as a trusted partner anticipating needs and responding with innovative solutions in support of the University’s mission of teaching, research, and service via extensive research and planning endeavors

Artspeak : articulating artistic process across cultural boundaries through digital theatre

In early 2009, researchers in the English Department of the University of Amsterdam collaborated with researchers in the Drama Department, Deakin University, Australia on a project which brought English as a Second Language students from The Netherlands into the rehearsal studio of Australian students engaged in play-building on Australian themes. The project aims were multiple and interconnected. We extended a language acquisition framework established by the Dutch investigators in previous collaborations with the Universities of Venice and Southampton, and combined this with an investigation of ways to harness technology in order to teach Australian students to communicate with and about their art. The Dutch language students were prompted to develop art-related language literacy (description, interpretation, criticism), through live, video-streamed interaction with drama students in Australia at critical points in the development of a group-devised performance (conception, rehearsal, performance). The Australian student improved their capacity to articulate the aims and processes which drove their art-making by illuminating the art-making process for the Dutch students, and providing them with a real-life context for the use of extended vocabulary whilst making them partners in the process of shaping the work. All participants engaged in the common task of assessing the capacity of the art work produced to communicate meaning to a non-Australian audience.<br /

Multimedia Networks: Fundamentals and Future Directions

Multimedia has become an integral part of computing and communications environment, and networks are carrying ever-increasing volume of multimedia information. The main characteristics of multimedia information are high-volume and bursty traffic, with low tolerance to delay and delay variance. The legacy networks (designed in 70s and 80s) are not able to meet these requirements. Enhancements to the older networking technologies have been developed to convert these into multimedia networks. Enhancements to LANs include Switched Ethernet, Isochronous Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, 100VGAnyLAN, FDDI-II, and Synchronous FDDI. WAN options for multimedia networking include digital leased lines and ISDN. The Internet has revolutionized business and personal communications, but falls short of being a genuine multimedia network. To make the Internet capable of carrying multimedia traffic, new protocols such as MBone, ST-II, RTP, and RSVP have been developed. Internet2 is a new initiative that is aimed at overcoming the problems of throughput, delay and jitter encountered on the original Internet. One technology that was developed with multimedia networking as one of its main applications, is the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology. Upcoming Gigabit Ethernet technology will provide a path for upgrading current Ethernet networks into multimedia networks

Symmetric and asymmetric action integration during cooperative object manipulation in virtual environments

Cooperation between multiple users in a virtual environment (VE) can take place at one of three levels. These are defined as where users can perceive each other (Level 1), individually change the scene (Level 2), or simultaneously act on and manipulate the same object (Level 3). Despite representing the highest level of cooperation, multi-user object manipulation has rarely been studied. This paper describes a behavioral experiment in which the piano movers' problem (maneuvering a large object through a restricted space) was used to investigate object manipulation by pairs of participants in a VE. Participants' interactions with the object were integrated together either symmetrically or asymmetrically. The former only allowed the common component of participants' actions to take place, but the latter used the mean. Symmetric action integration was superior for sections of the task when both participants had to perform similar actions, but if participants had to move in different ways (e.g., one maneuvering themselves through a narrow opening while the other traveled down a wide corridor) then asymmetric integration was superior. With both forms of integration, the extent to which participants coordinated their actions was poor and this led to a substantial cooperation overhead (the reduction in performance caused by having to cooperate with another person)