ISSN 1328-1798

In August 1997 we present the following new materials:

Helen Siu is Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Council of East Asian Studies at Yale University. She is also a visiting Professor of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In her presentation Culture: The New Dimension she draws on her research into the culture, history and political economies of the East Asian region. Using the cultural and political context of Hong Kong, Professor Siu explores concerns for the Global University with characteristic insight and erudition.

Diane Baird's interview with Paul Fritze from the Multimedia Education Unit at the University of Melbourne, is a challenging exploration of the use of technology in teaching, its virtues and possibilities as well as its pitfalls. The converation is entitled Building a Learning Engine. In answer to the inevitable question, "How would you describe 'Learning Engines'?" Fritze states:

I see it as a framework within which teachers can conceive and efficiently produce unique learning activities for use across the Web, without having to worry about inventing or re-inventing the delivery methods, protocols and standards themselves. These learning activities are, or should be, richly interactive in the manner of exercising a student's understanding of some particular aspect of a discipline area... At the same time, the framework provides the necessary administrative components, such as logging student progress, reporting back to teachers. The aim is to develop a pool of these rich objects that can be shared across the institution.

The interview explores ways in which the new technology can focus teachers away from technical concerns of software development and towards the 'solution' of teaching problems.

Evaluating teaching initiatives which employ resource based learning by Peter Ling, Head of the Flexible Learning Environment Unit at RMIT University, considers issues in attempting to evaluate innovations in resource based learnng (RBL). It discusses alternative approaches to evaluation of RBL initiatives and proposes four frames of reference for evaluating RBL.The article includes a case study in the evaluation of an RBL innovation and the conclusion incorporates recommendations. This article is the outcome of both a formal peer review process and an ultiBASE work-in-progress initiative. We are keen to publish other works-in-progess on ultiBASE.

This month our Choice Clicks section features the selections of Else Paeglis, an Internet training specialist. Her Choice Clicks reveal her specialisation by focussing on new, efficient and unusual search engines and current awareness tools. They will certainly assist anybody who despairs of ever finding anything useful on the Web.

In the Resources section Michael Jackson continues his pithy and personal reviews, this time of three more volumes in the Teaching More Students series from the Oxford Centre for Staff Development. The titles reviewed are:

• Supporting more students (6)

• Labs and practicals with more students and fewer resources (7)

• Managing more postgraduate research students (8)

His review also includes comments on '53 Interesting ways to supervise student projects, dissertations and theses' by Vicky Lewis and Sue Habeshaw.

In response to feedback from our readers we have added the contents page of The experience of learning: Implications for teaching and studying in higher education to the review contributed by Gillian Boulton-Lewis last month.

Other updates in Resources include:

• Bibliography of books and articles by Professor Helen Siu.
• Our list of Electronic journals has grown again. It includes hotlinks to individual titles as well as to lists of even more titles, both Australian and international.
• Contents for the Australian journal Studies in Continuing Education have been added for the first time.
• Latest contents of Teaching in Higher Education have been added.
• New software has been expanded. Titles are gleaned from publishers' catalogues and other information on the Web. For example this month there is a link to descriptions and evaluations of simulations suitable for use in the Social Sciences.
• New sites with descriptions and links have been added to Internet Teaching and Learning Sites.
• We are grateful to the representatives of various Australian academic and professional groups who have contacted us with details of their Web sites. We are happy to link to these from our updated Australian academic and professional groups and associations page.

Find out the latest unsolicited comments about ultiBASE and review our usage statistics on our Guest page. Your colleagues can easily subscribe to ultiBASE In-Site using the form on the Guest page. A new feature added to this page is a summary of the findings from our May survey of ultiBASE In-Site 'subscribers'. Thank you again to all those who responded to our survey.

Preservation of ultiBASE

Preservation II

Meanwhile, our vigorous publishing program will continue at least until the end of this year. We encourage and welcome your submissions of book reviews, articles, works-in-progress, events, feedback and ideas with our usual enthusiasm.

Regards from Wendy Pryor

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