Knowledge Management for Call Centres This quick (and somewhat light) white paper surveys the needs and requirements of a knowledge management system for call centres. Professionals in the field will be familiar with the contents, but the outline is useful for people thinking about online (and just-in-time) learning and information retrieval in other fields. And we're all thinking about that, right? By White Paper, Step Two Designs, February, 2002.[Refer]

Leading the Learning Revolution: A Manifesto for the Whole Community of Learning and Performance Professionals There has been a fair bit of discussion on the elearningleaders mailing list about the new American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) Manifesto. One commentator suggested - and I agree - that it's a bit much for any organization to claim that they will "lead the dialogue about the future of learning and performance." And some of the content, others suggested, is a bit, well, out there: "As every student of genetics knows, marrying outside the clan strengthens the gene pool." But hey - full marks to ASTD for putting their thoughts and their visions up on the web for all to see. This whole business is about risk, and I'm glad to see ASTD is willing to take a few. By Manifesto, ASTD, January, 2002.[Refer]

Digging Animation This is a bit of a heads-up - I've received a number of items about Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) recently - a couple new books and some tools (one from JASC, who make the outstanding Paint Shop Pro package) - so you're probabluy about to be deluged. Don't buy anything yet - wait for the freeware (or at least, the cheapware) to come out. SVG is a W3C standard so there should be plenty of tools. Anyhow, this article is a week old but should give you the insider info. A note on the Adobe viewer: despite having tried several times, I have yet to make it work; hope you have better luck. This article is from O'Reilly's XML.Com and the JASC SVG tool info is here. By Antoine Quint, XML.Com, January 23, 2002.[Refer]

Power Point in the Classroom It's not perfect, it's not interactive, but it is overwhelmingly cute and a surprisingly effective teaching site - Power Point in the Classroom is directed specifically toward teachers and has two objectives: to teach them how to use Power Point, and in the process, to teach them how to teach Power Point. It's one of these sites that led me further and further page by page until, before I knew it, I was on Module 6 and late with the newsletter. Again (this job is just way too interesting) (p.s. Don't be scared by the publication date - the instruction is right up to date). Thanks (yet again) to Peter MacKay for finding this item. By ACT360 Media Ltd, , 1998.[Refer]

Schools Interoperability Framework From the about page: "The Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) is an industry initiative to develop an open specification for ensuring that K-12 instructional and administrative software applications work together more effectively. SIF is not a product, but rather an industry-supported technical blueprint for K-12 software that will enable diverse applications to interact and share data seamlessly; now and in the future." If you haven't looked at this site, you should - all the usual major players are there, including software companies, book publishers and more. By , , .[Refer]

United States Open University Announces Plan To Cease Operations Ever hear of the United States Open University? No? That's probably why it is closing its virtual doors. By Press Release, United States Open University, February 6, 2002.[Refer]

Security Researchers Drop Scientific Censorship Case The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) drops its case defending Professor Edward Felten - a researcher forced to withdraw a paper showing how music files could be decrypted - against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Felton and the EFF had lost a preliminary judgement in a New Jersey court. At least the EFF hasn't lost its sense of irony: "Although we would have preferred an enforceable court ruling, our research team decided to take the government and industry at their word that they will never again threaten publishers of scientific research that exposes vulnerabilities in security systems for copyrighted works." By Press Release, Electronic Frontier Foundation, February 6, 2002.[Refer]

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