Edupage, December 07, 2005

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Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 11:15:58 -0500

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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 07, 2005
  George Mason Develops Academic Browser Add-On
  California Law Sets New Data-Security Standards
  DHS Picks Johns Hopkins for Disaster Preparedness
  Academy and Industry Study ROI
  EU Domain Opens for Business


GEORGE MASON DEVELOPS ACADEMIC BROWSER ADD-ON
Researchers at George Mason University are developing a plug-in for the
Firefox browser that will help academics organize sources and properly
cite them. The tool is designed to harvest bibliographic information
from online sources and organize it for someone doing research on the
Web. Assuming the bibliographic elements are formatted in a way the
software can recognize, the application will parse title, author, and
other information and correlate it with the source. Daniel J. Cohen,
assistant professor of history and one of the developers, said it can
be thought of as "incredibly smart bookmarking.... You're not just
bookmarking the page, but you're automatically [capturing]...all that
info that scholars want to save." Unlike commercial products that
organize sources, the new application will tie directly into the
browser, eliminating the step of manually collecting citation details.
The open source application is expected to be completed next year and
will be available for no charge from George Mason's Web site. Cohen
said he believes the application will make unintentional plagiarism
less likely than if a researcher were keeping sources organized
manually.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 December 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/12/2005120602t.htm

CALIFORNIA LAW SETS NEW DATA-SECURITY STANDARDS
California has passed a new data-protection law that may serve as a
model for other states, despite the reaction of academic researchers,
many of whom see it as an obstacle to their efforts at conducting
research efficiently. The new law is intended to safeguard
individuals' personal information when it is used by any research
organization. Under the law, before any state agency may release
personal data, the state's Committee for the Protection of Human
Subjects must assess the research and determine whether it would
adequately protect the requested data. Researchers seeking data from
state agencies must show that the data are necessary; ensure that data
are destroyed or returned when the project is completed; and, when
possible, use information other than Social Security numbers as unique
identifiers for subjects. Academic researchers largely object to the
new law, saying it will impede some aspects of their research.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 December 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/12/2005120601t.htm

DHS PICKS JOHNS HOPKINS FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has chosen Johns Hopkins
University to lead an effort to investigate nationwide preparedness for
and response to large-scale disasters. The Center for the Study of High
Consequence Event Preparedness and Response will look at ways the
country can prevent and manage disasters, particularly through the
interactions of networks and through models and simulations. The center
will address issues including risk assessment, decision making,
infrastructure integrity, surge capacity, and sensor networks. The
center is the fifth Center of Excellence, administered by DHS's Office
of University Programs and dedicated to university-based
interdisciplinary research. Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland
Security, said Johns Hopkins will "lead a talented and deeply
experienced team of professionals from institutions across the country"
to help prevent and respond to "high-consequence disasters or terrorist
attacks."
Government Technology, 5 December 2005
http://www.govtech.net/magazine/channel_story.php/97475

ACADEMY AND INDUSTRY STUDY ROI
A group of academic and industry researchers will work together on an
initiative to create a methodology that organizations can use to study
the return on investment (ROI) of technology projects. Governments are
increasingly asked to demonstrate the value of taxpayer dollars
invested in IT projects. Led by the Center for Technology in Government
(CTG) at the State University of New York at Albany and SAP, the effort
will include researchers from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy
School of Government, Accenture, Gartner Research, Cisco Systems, and
North American and European government agencies. Anthony Cresswell,
deputy director of CTG, said that calculating ROI for IT projects "has
been a complex and difficult problem." He said the new effort will
"produce results that will make a major contribution to the ability of
governments of all types to enhance the political, social, and economic
value they obtain from IT investments."
Federal Computer Week, 6 December 2005
http://www.fcw.com/article91625-12-06-05-Web

EU DOMAIN OPENS FOR BUSINESS
A new domain has been launched that supporters believe will help create
a sense of identity and strength among the nations of the European
Union (EU). The .eu domain is initially open to organizations that hold
trademarks or have offices in any of the 25 nations in the EU. The
domain will later be opened to other groups and eventually to
individuals. More than 400 registrars have been approved to handle
applications for the domain. Jean Pire, a senior partner in a Belgian
intellectual property law firm, said he expects the .eu domain to grow
to be second only to .com in the number of Web sites that use it.
Currently, .com is the domain for more than half of the world's Web
sites; Pire predicts .eu eventually to represent about 25 percent of
Web sites. The .eu extension will not replace existing country-specific
extensions, such as .de for Germany and .fr for France.
Wall Street Journal, 7 December 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113391801658415733.html

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Edupage, December 07, 2005

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