InfoWatch - Oct'96
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InfoWatch
Tracking Networked Scientific Information Sources and Services
(An electronic update service brought to you by NCSI)
October, 1996
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In this issue :
1. Copyright and Fair Use
2. Department of Education WWW Server Standards & Guidelines
3. Digital Education Network--Free web-based courses for secondary
students
4. First Monday (a peer-reviewed monthly electronic journal about the
Internet)
5. India links
6. Mapquest--Worldwide Coverage (maps for cities and regions)
7. National Geographic
8. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Chemistry Web
Book
9. Plutonium Shipments--Warning from the Nuclear Control Institute
10. Project Aristotle--Automated Categorization of Web sites
11. Science Books Online
12. Science Education
13. The Search Engine Tutorial for Web Designers
14. Selected Tables from UN Monthly Bulletin of Statistics
15. Software sources
16. Ted Radcliffe's Gopher State IPM Site (crop protection)
17. VRML Repository--San Diego Supercomputing Center
18. Web accessible Library Catalogues
19. WWWebster Dictionary & Pronounciation Guide
1. Copyright and Fair Use
Stanford University Libraries, FindLaw, and the Council on Library Resources
have made available a pointers page on copyright and fair use. The site is
divided into four main categories: Primary Materials; Current Legislation,
Cases and Issues; Resources on the Internet; and Overview of Copyright Law.
Each section is divided into subsections that contain the pointers, many of
which are annotated. Of particular interest are several articles on the
impact of copyright and fair use on multimedia, online resources, and
computer programs (found under "Fair Use and Multimedia"), and a compilation
of library copyright guidelines.
URL: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
2. Department of Education WWW Server Standards & Guidelines
Institutions and organizations needing to standardize their Web efforts
might draw upon the document that the US Department of Education (ED) has
created. As a model for a style guide for online content, it provides an
idea of the scope that is required. The guide covers such issues as
navigation/organization and style/markup, and includes links to the guides
of other agencies as well as to hypertext style guides from many sources. As
one might expect from documentation that is the result of a governmental
committee, the coverage is thorough and detailed, including background and
definitions, as well as separate guidelines for ED-controlled, ED-sponsored,
and external content. The ED plans to update the guide at least every six
months. The document is available in HTML, RTF, PDF, WP6.1, and WP5.1
formats.
URL: http://inet.ed.gov/~kstubbs/wwwstds.html
3. Digital Education Network--Free web-based courses for secondary
students
The Digital Education Network offers 7th through 12th grade students a
chance to expand their knowledge in four areas: NewsDEN, which covers
current events for kids and provides tips for teachers on how to integrate
the information into their curricula; MathDEN, an interactive math challenge
that offers four "stages" for students at different levels and tracks their
progress (new question sets are added every Thursday); InternetDEN, a
tutorial on using Internet tools for education, aimed at the novice
net-surfer; and GraphicsDEN, a tutorial on and gallery of computer graphics.
Planned for release next month are WritingDEN and SkyDEN, two new
instructional areas. Free registration is requested before using the site,
but a "guest" login is also available.
URL: http://www.actden.com/
4. First Monday
First Monday is a peer-reviewed monthly electronic journal about the
Internet. It covers the Internet from the point of view of political and
regulatory events, economic, political and social factors, software research
and development, usage in specific communities, standards, and content. The
current issue (August 1996) contains articles on the disappearance of the
White House Speech Archive, differential pricing and efficiency, and trust
in electronic markets, among others. The site also contains an author and
title index. The web version of First Monday is presently free after
registration.
URL: http://www.firstmonday.dk/
5. India links
Over 100 links related to India can be found at this site. These include
movies, music, sports, regional news, news and information, and the latest
Hindi movies!
URL: http://members.aol.com/indialinks/india.htm
6. Mapquest--Worldwide Coverage
To its detailed coverage of the United States, Mapquest has added maps for
cities and regions around the world. The interactive atlas can now display
international locations on six continents; maps are detailed to the highway
and boulevard level. For US addresses, users may search for locations by
street address and view a map of the neighborhood. Registration, free of
charge, allows the user to return to the Mapquest site with settings intact;
settings include which points of interest will be highlighted, how the maps
should be displayed, and even which maps will be labeled and stored for
future reference. The US-only services on the site include Tripquest, a
route planner that covers the US, Canada, and Mexico.
URL: http://www.mapquest.com/
7. National Geographic
Online version of the venerable magazine!
URL: http://www.nationalgeographic.com
8. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Chemistry Web Book
NIST Physical Reference data
For information on thermodynamic data for over 5,000 chemical compounds and
on ion-energetics data for over 10,000 chemical compounds, NIST's Chemistry
WebBook is available for searching. Compounds can be searched by name,
chemical formula, or CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service) registry number.
Information on enthalpy of formation, heat capacity, entropy, ionization
potential, and appearance potential is available. Note that this site works
best on browsers that support tables. NIST also supplies reference databases
in the area of physics.
URL: http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/
URL: http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/contents.html
9. Plutonium Shipments--Warning from the Nuclear Control Institute
International Atomic Energy Agency
The Nuclear Control Institute has created a web site in response to a
proposed standard for the shipment of radioactive materials. This site
presents two world maps showing both sea and air routes that are planned or
already in use for the shipment of plutonium. A series of papers by
NCI-affiliated scientists and observers on the subject of radioactive
materials shipments sets out the NCI position against such shipments. Also
available are press releases and an archive of correspondence between the
NCI and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the body charged with
defining standards for such shipments. As the new standards have not yet
been approved, there is little information about them on the official IAEA
site. Regardless of the individual user's position on plutonium shipments,
the information on these sites will prove thought-provoking.
URL: http://www.nci.org/nci/airtrans.htm
URL: http://www.iaea.or.at/
10. Project Aristotle--Automated Categorization of Web sites
Gerry McKiernan, Coordinator of the Science and Technology Section of the
Reference and Instructional Services Department at Iowa State University,
has created Project Aristotle, a pointers page for projects on "automated
categorization of web resources." At present there are annotated links to
over 35 projects available at the site. Projects include AT&T PHOAKS, Lund
University's WAIS/World Wide Web Project, MIT's HyPursuit, and OCLC (Online
Computer Library Center) Scorpion, among others. Each entry contains
principal investigator information, a project summary, connections to
demonstration or prototype pages, and references. As Internet resources
multiply, users will need classification of these resources more and more.
You can follow the future of this field at this site.
URL: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/Aristotle.htm
11. Science Books Online
The National Academy Press has put more than 1000 Books On-line free for the
reading. The National Academy Press is the publisher for the National
Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of
Medicine, and the National Research Council. The on-line publications are in
the Reading Room section of the site.
URL: http://www.nap.edu
12. Science Education
A brilliantly designed site that gives you the science behind the news, The
Why files - represent the information age at its finest. Managed by the
American National Institute of Science Education, it publishes articles
explaining the scientific and technical background to current events. While
news reports themselves often tend to be sketchy in terms of their
scientific aspects, The Why files just cannot be accused of holding back on
information. Some recent pieces cover sports training (the olympics),
microbe detection (life on Mars), the impact on radiation on humans (the
anniversary of the A-bomb) and forensics (the O.J.Simpson trial).
URL: http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu
13. The Search Engine Tutorial for Web Designers
The strange and wondrous ways in which search engines gather their indexes
is made a little clearer in this tutorial. Written by a web designer
disappointed with how difficult his pages were to find with the standard
search engines, this page gives insight into how Infoseek, Lycos, Alta
Vista, Excite, Web Crawler, and Open Text catalog web pages. The search
strategy of each engine is described, along with tips for how web designers
can increase their site's chances of being among the hits returned when
users enter relevant search criteria. Although indexing algorithms are
constantly being updated, this site presents common-sense guidelines that
web designers interested in reaching a wider audience will find
useful.
URL: http://www.digital-cafe.com/~webmaster/nw01_05.htm
14. Selected Tables from UN Monthly Bulletin of Statistics
The Statistics Division of the United Nations Division for Economic and
Social Information and Policy Analysis has made selections from its Monthly
Bulletin of Statistics freely available (after registration) for a trial
period on the web. Each issue contains a selection of tables from the print
version. The countries for which data is available vary widely by table, and
chronological coverage also varies, but this is a source of much useful
international information. At this time it is unknown if an archive will be
maintained.
URL: http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/mbsreg.htm
15. Software Sources
The two most impressive software banks are zdnet - run by PC Magazine
publishers ie Ziff Davis and shareware.com maintained by c/net - a new
Web-based on-line service. What sets these two apart? Their softwae
classification. Every package is cross-indexed by type, operating system, as
well as popularity as measured by number of downloads. Need a compact,
inexpensive word-processor to replace wordstar or lotus? Hit this site and
search for Page after Page.
URL: http://www.zdnet.com/zdi/software
URL: http://www.shareware.com
16. Ted Radcliffe's Gopher State IPM Site
This site, co-sponsored by the Consortium for International Crop Protection
(CICP), and the National IPM Network (NIPMN), and housed at the University
of Minnesota, is devoted to the ongoing production of an online IPM
(Integrated Pest Management) textbook. At present, over 30 chapters are
available in nine subject areas, ranging from "Biological Control: Theory
and Application," to "Pesticides: Chemistries/Pesticide Resistance," to
"IPM: Policy and Implementation." Over 60 chapters are in preparation, so
this site will be one to keep an eye on as it grows. As its owners say,
Gopher State should be a "a venue for easily maintaining and updating 'state
of the art' information from the world's leading experts on all aspects of
IPM."
URL: http://www.ent.agri.umn.edu/academics/classes/ipm/ipmsite.htm
17. VRML Repository--San Diego Supercomputing Center
VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) "is a standard language for
describing interactive 3-D objects and worlds delivered across the
Internet." One of the best and most comprehensive collections of VRML
information is the VRML Repository, provided by the San Diego Supercomputing
Center. Annotated links are available in the areas of hardware and software;
documentation; and worlds, sounds, and textures. There are also links to
other sites of interest, mailing lists and newsgroups, and companies and
universities. Two of the more useful links from this page are to user's
guides and browsers. The browser guide is organized by both version of VRML
(1.0 or 2.0) and platform. To understand how to turn your desktop into a
virtual .wrl, this is an indispensable site.
URL: http://www.sdsc.edu/vrml/
18. Web accessible Library Catalogues
webCATS: Library Catalogs on the World Wide Web has links to all the online
public-access library catalogues with Web interfaces.
URL: http://library.usask.ca/hywebcat/
19. WWWebster Dictionary
Pronunciation guide
Britannica Online has made Merriam-Webster's WWWebster Dictionary available
for searching on the web. Each retrieved word is accompanied by
pronunciation, usage, grammatical function, a brief etymology, and of
course, definition. A thesaurus can be queried for similar words, hypertext
cross references are available, misspellings return suggested spellings, and
there are hypertext links to illustrations. The search system supports
internal wildcards (single and multiple letter) and right hand truncation
searching. There is also an extensive pronunciation guide. In addition to
the dictionary, the site also contains selected transcripts of the
syndicated radio show "Word for the Wise."
URL: http://www-lj.eb.com/mw/
URL: http://www-lj.eb.com/mw/pronguid.htm
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About InfoWatch :
InfoWatch is a monthly electronic newsletter, brought out by the National
Centre for Science Information (NCSI), Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore - 560 012, INDIA. Information in the newsletter is collected and
verified by NCSI staff. The newsletter aims to raise awareness of new
sources of information on the Internet, particularly those which are
relevant for higher education and research. Some items may be of relevance
only to the IISc community. Resources reported here have been taken from
various discussion lists and other network tools and no special claims are
made for accuracy or originality. Most of the sources cited in the
newsletter were checked at the time of publication, however it is possible
that some of the resources are no longer available. We welcome comments
about the newsletter and suggestions for resources to be featured. Please
e-mail your comments to T.B. Rajashekar, editor, InfoWatch
(raja@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in).
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Acknowledgements : We thank Mr. T.V.Ramachandra of CES, IISc and
Mr. Madhusudan of C-DAC, Bangalore, for providing details of a few
sources reported in this issue.
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