The Year 2000 Problem and Ethical Responsibility: A Call to Action

Many organizations have made substantial progress in solving the year 2000 computer problem, while many others lag perilously behind. With the year 2000 deadline looming ever closer, this article examines several key issues, including the nature of the year 2000 problem itself, its potential to do harm, the progress that organizations have made to date on this issue, and factors that have worked to inhibit or facilitate organizational responses to this problem. An ethical analysis of the year 2000 problem is presented that reveals that both top management and IS professionals have an ethical responsibility to act on this issue. Organizations are urged to make the completion of their year 2000 problem efforts a top priority, because it is their responsibility and it serves as an investment for the future.     

Individual differences in navigation between sharable content objects—an evaluation study of a learning module prototype

In this article, we report the design and evaluation of a prototype for learning modules compliant to the SCORM standard. This prototype is especially developed for the subject matter of process systems engineering and features a novel process control display for the navigation between Sharable Content Objects. In a controlled field study, N=18 undergraduate students interacted with the module for a period of 40 minutes. The relations between individual differences in learner characteristics, navigation, and learning outcome were considered. Interaction with the module had a strong positive effect on learning outcome. Individual differences in learning outcome were significantly affected by individual differences in intrinsic motivation, computer experience and navigation behaviour.     

The Role of Social Support in Moderating the Relationship Between Psychological Distress and Willingness to Seek Psychological Help Among Black and Latino College Students

This study examined the role of social support in moderating the relationship between psychological distress and willingness to seek psychological help in 158 Black and Latino college students from a large, predominantly White university. The authors found that a social support network served as a significant moderator for Black college students but not for their Latino counterparts. Implications of the findings are presented.     

NEEDED: COMMUNAL PLANNING AND BETTER FUNDING

That Central agencies for Jewish education throughout North America are in difficulty is now an established fact. The challenges facing these agencies relate principally to the two “f's”: function and financing. As the configuration and power structure of Jewish communities have changed, the traditional activities of bureaus and boards of Jewish education have come under intense scrutiny. At the same time, the geometric escalation of Jewish community demands on decreasing financial resources has made it increasingly difficult for bureaus to secure the funding needed to carry out their full array of programs.