IST-110 Ritter's Sources
This collection of resources will be evolving during
Spring Semester 2000.
(Send suggestions to
ritter@ist.psu.edu).
They are things that I know and like, sometimes even
respect.
Ritter's readers
The RRE. High quality reporting by someone who researches in this area and writes well.
ACM's Tech newsletter, update 3 times per week.
IEEE IT Pro (Remic's suggestion)
EDUCAUSE and their online newsletter (Smail's suggestion)
The rapidly changing face of computing, updated weekly-ish, sponsored by Compaq.
RFC on X.500 directory service
By week
For class 29
For classes 24 & 25
For class 22, IT Policy and the problem of the commons
Double-click (found by Nale)
Netfuture newsletter's article on Internet use survey
Group 3 Section 1, Pro Napster
Group 1 Section 1, less pro Napster (De Bow)
Group 4 Section 1, anti censorship arguments
Group 7/5 Section 1 more free access to information
Group 6/5 Section 1 less free access to information
Group 2 Section 1 Cookies are OK (needs IE to read)
Group 1 Section 2 Problems with MP3's
Group 2 Section 2 Online privacy, more is needed
Group 3 Section 2 Greater online censorship
Group 4 Section 2 MP3's less problems
Group 10 Section 2: Pro-Federal sales taxes
Group 5? Section 2: Pro-State sales taxes
Group 7 Section 2: Email privacy less is needed
Group 6 Section 2: Email privacy more is needed
Group 8 Section 2: Online privacy, less is needed
Group 9 Section 2: for less online censorship
For week 14, managing IT
For week 8.5: Networks
Internet2: Local site, Consorium site (recommended by Grim)
For week 4
www.softlord.com/comp/ -- a short history of computing
For week 3
pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBSWHAT.html -- a general overview
pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SYSAPPR.html -- a good overview of systems thinking
Those who are interested (not required), may wish to see Simon, H. A. (1981). The sciences of the artificial (2 ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
For week 2
See the online readings noted in the syllabus.
Not required, but a good book for learning more about cognition is Anderson, J. R. (1996). Cognitive psychology and its implications (3rd ed.). New York, NY: W. H. Freeman.
For week 1
2. Focus on Generic Skills for Information Technology Literacy. Robert Anderson and Tora K. Bikson, n.d. (www.rand.org/publications/P/P8018).
Comments on ethics and privacy, possible topics for later in class debates
Free speech advocate raises ire of filtering firms (found by Reitz)
which leads to a potential law suithttp://www.junkbusters.com/cgi-bin/privacy
Agre on Privacy one of many articles by Agre on this topic.
Amazon.com and patents (try www.noamazon.com !)
From Tidbits www.tidbits.com TidBITS#520/06-Mar-00 **Amazon.com Awarded Affiliate Program Patent** -- On 22-Feb-00, the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded Amazon.com a patent (applied for in Jun-97) covering the concept of affiliate programs for merchant Web sites. (Affiliate programs pay the owners of other Web sites for referring business to the merchant site.) The company's "Amazon.com Associates" program allows Web site owners to register for the program, then provide either an Amazon.com search feature, or links to specific books or other products sold by Amazon.com, on their site. Amazon.com then pays a commission on any sales that result from users following those links, such as happens with the TidBITS BookBITS page. The patent (number 6,029,141) theoretically gives the company the right to stop other merchant Web sites from using affiliate programs unless they pay Amazon.com a licensing fee. <http://www.amazon.com/> <http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US06029141__> Amazon.com has previously been awarded patents on its "One-Click" ordering system and its approach to refining user searches by suggesting possibly related products. Other online merchants and Web sites have expressed dismay at the awarding of these patents on seemingly obvious Internet techniques that many sites have already implemented. [MHA]
<http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/bezos_0300.html>
The Cookie Leak Security Hole in HTML Email messages
http://www.tiac.net/users/smiths/privacy/cookleak.htm
Cool sites
This is the BBC. They were early into this media, and have superier reporting. Rumour has it, that their world service radio will move onto the net, only.
Rick Reis (Reis@stanford.edu) on his mailing list for educators recommended www.livhope.ac.uk/livhope/gnu/stuhelp/notes2.htm#Ideas%20for as part of a project to develop a geography seminar program for non-standard entry students. The site has many helpful hints on topics that apply to all areas of study such as: Group work, Critical reading, Note-taking, Time management, Literature searching, Referencing, Essay writing, Oral presentations, Effective revisions, Exam techniques. While it is referenced to a different educational system, there remains a lot of useful information.
A word a day. Example posting. Anu Garg is running this mailing list where he sends out a word a day, vocabulary building. This work has built him enourmous goodwill on the net. He is slightly shy though, and basically only contactable through email. The example posting above is about as political as he has gotten in five years.
Good student assignments this semester
Notes on taxes: note found by La Corte
Print sources
Greenberg, I., & Garber, L. (1999). Searching for new search technologies. IEEE Computer, 32(8), 4-7. Useful for the first lab.
