Digital Rights Management and Digital Repositories This article is a set of PowerPoint slides encoded in PDF format - probably the worst way to present information there is: it's both needlessly bulky and hard to read. Normally I wouldn't even bother linking to such a travesty of presentation but in this case you should at least skim the content. The proposal is that the field of Digital Rights Management (DRM) ought to move from a focus on encryption and enforcement to a focus on management mechanisms - after all, when dealing with educational institutions, we are dealing with a network of trusted users. The presentation outlines an Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) which to me seems like a reasonable way of approaching the task. Many more useful concepts in this article make it worth the wait for the download. By Renato Iannella, IMS Open Technical Forum, February 27, 2002.[Refer]

Brain Power: New High-tech Networks are Helping Make Canada a 21st Century Force in Advanced Research What is important and useful about this article is that it goes beyond a description of Canada's CA*Net4, a high speed backbone network linking universities across the country. The article is chock full of descriptions of the way the network is helping with Canadian research from genetic sequencing to nanotechnology to investment analysis. The article quotes Robert LaCroix, director of the University of Montreal, who says, "What?s happening in Canada is unique?not by the quantity of resources but the way we are combining these resources." For while Canadian researchers may be located around the world, they continue to collaborate in advanced research. By Christopher Shulgan, Time, March 18, 2002.[Refer]

A Proposed Set of Principles to Guide Investments of Funds, Time, and Energy in Technology in Learning Developed by Contact North for Ontario schools, colleges and universities, this set of ten principles is a useful checklist to guide technology purchases for learning. The list is most useful if you don't merely think of technology as tools, but rather, think of technology as any systematic approach to the provision of education. MS Word document. By , Contact North, March 8, 2002.[Refer]

Ontario College of Teachers Public Register Hughes writes in, "I just wanted to let you know that the Ontario College of Teachers also has a public register of its members available online where parents or potential employers can view a teacher's professional information like: status, status history, name history, qualifications, letter of approvals, academic history and employment history. It is fairly recent (Spring or Summer 2001). As in Kentuky, some teachers or teachers' associations didn't like it, but as a parent, I am quite happy of the opportunity." Hughes also notes, "And I cannot refrain from showing a little pride that Canada had this service in place before the US." True, but notice that it was the U.S. service that got the news publicity. By , , .[Refer]

The Relevance of Video Games and Gaming Consoles to the Higher and Further Education Learning Experience Though this should be viewed as a preliminary study only, this useful article observes the rise of computer gaming as a cultural phenomenon and speculated, based on what limited research is available, on the use of gaming systems for educational purposes. The author notes that most users employ gaming consoles such as the XBox or the Playstation and that the business model for such systems speaks against their use in education (this is based on the unstated premise that educational titles sell less well than game titles). Good read, good survey of the available technology, and a modest list of success factors. By John Kirriemuir, Ceangal, March, 2002.[Refer]

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