Risky business: Students and smartphones

The increase in smartphone adoption has been no less than astounding. Unfortunately, the explosive growth has been accompanied by a rash of security problems. A contributing factor to the growing security problem is a lack of education, training, and awareness. In addition, “bring your own device” (BYOD) policies often leave security responsibilities to the competencies of device owners, which compromises security. Today’s students are tomorrow’s employees with responsibilities for protecting their work environment. They need to understand and practice a full-range of mobile security practices so that they can safely access the information assets of their organizations. If students are not engaging in such practices, educational institutions have a responsibility to ensure that students understand how to keep information assets secure. This paper investigates the smartphone security practices of undergraduate college students. Five hundred students in business classes at a regional public university were surveyed to determine their use of recommended smartphone security practices. The study found that many smartphone users did employ some security measures, but a high percentage of them were ignoring potential risks. This suggests a need for increased education, training, and awareness.     

Unknown rights and Baseball strikes

Digital technology has authors in a rundown. While Internet users question whether copyright has a place in the National Information Infrastructure, print publishers are insisting on acquiring from authors rights to all electronic media, known or unknown, whether now existing or yet to be developed. Contrary to the intent of copyright law, publishers are not offering additional compensation for tying up these rights. The solution, says the Authors League of America, lies in adopting the proposals of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights and in taking a further step: rendering rights to unknown media inalienable. Paul Aiken, representing the Authors League of America, presented a version of this article to the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights of the White House Information Infrastructure Task Force in September 1994 as commentary on the preliminary draft of the Working Group’s report.     

An Experiment in Multinational Collaborative Learning and Group Work Using the Internet

In this paper we describe a pedagogic experiment, intended to support and encourage interactive group discussion among students from different universities, in different countries, in what we call Internet Seminars. In an Internet Seminar students and teachers cooperate via the Internet to research and discuss a common subject. In the case discussed here, the chosen subject, 'Teleworking' was selected as one which would have particular resonance with the medium of the seminar, and also as being a topic which is not, as yet, part of the mainstream teaching curriculum. The aims of the seminar, however, were not only or even primarily concerned with the subject material. We also hoped to encourage and help the students develop the transferable skills of project planning, research, team-working and communication, with the added stimulus of working in a multinational context. We describe the form of the seminar, report on its outcomes, and comment on the successes and failures of our approach. © 1999 IFIP, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers     

Teaching the Use of Complex IT in Specific Domains: Developing, Assessing and Refining a Curriculum Development Framework

Information technology holds the promise of increased productivity. However, rapidly evolving tools require a professional able to incorporate these tools into their careers effectively, which signals the need for IT curriculum development initiatives that incorporate the use of complex, domain-specific IT applications in specific professional fields. This paper reports on a study that addresses this need, by developing, assessing and refining a curriculum development framework. The Information Technology Fluency (ITF) framework is a methodology for constructing components (case studies) for inclusion into existing or newly proposed courses to help students develop the skills needed for this challenge. Results obtained using the framework are reported, compared to similar work at a different institution, and used to suggest improvements to the framework.     

The golden rule and the ten commandments of teleteaching: harnessing the power of technology in education

Few will disagree that teleteaching or teaching using computers and telecommunications technology is becoming increasingly popular among educators. There is much more uncertainty, however, about whether technology is as effective a mode of teaching as its proponents claim. This hesitation in endorsing technology is undoubtedly a result of the inconclusive results of teaching experiments using technology with out an adequate pedagogical base. This paper proposes guidelines for the effective use of technology. These may help the educator to avoid frustrating and stultifying practices that may prejudice the educator and student against using a rich educational resource. While the golden rule urges a two-way constructivist approach to teaching, the ten commandments draw the educator's attention to issues of access, hardware and software selection, learner and teacher preparedness for technology, and human factors in the use of technology     

Teaching collaborative skills with a group leader computer tutor

This paper discusses how a group leader computer tutor may aid students in learning collaborative skills in a co-operative learning environment. However, students need to learn collaborative skills and practice using them. The group leader computer tutor discussed in this paper is designed on the principles of co-operative learning, intelligent tutoring systems and computer-supported collaborative work within an intelligent collaborative learning system (ICLS). The group leader aims to facilitate group work on the task level and to teach students how to use collaborative skills in the discussion level as students work on networked computers in the Jigsaw method of co-operative learning. The ICLS and its group leader were used by two classes at a liberal arts university. Qualitative research shows that the students' co-operative attitudes changed and academic achievement improved from pre- to post-treatment. Students, especially, used the communication skill of openness in comment type discussions. The students enjoyed working collaboratively through the ICLS and their teachers thought that the experience was valuable for them.     

Detecting,understanding, and controlling for cheating on tests

Recent research and practice in detecting and controlling for cheating on objective tests are reviewed briefly, and results of a small survey of attitudes and practices concerning cheating are summarized. Two computer programs, Cheat-1 and Cheat-2, prepared by the writer to detect cheating by error-similarity analysis procedures, are described. The use of multiple answer-sheet forms and success with this method in controlling for cheating on classroom tests are described. Other matters concerned with cheating, such as cheating by teachers to improve students' scores, are also considered.