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Internet continued from page 1

 

expectations about the emerging medium
unseen since televisions raised their
antennae in the 1950s. With ‘information
highway’ articles in publications from
Saturday Night to Popular Mechanics, the
cacophony about the Internet can be
confusing.

Science student Suman Prasad looks through the College’s
home page on the Internet. Douglas College registration and
course information will soon be accessible to Internet users
around the world.

What is clear is that the Internet now
offers important tools to educators such as
e-mail and electronic discussion groups,
and will soon offer many more. Douglas
College is currently developing its own
permanent site on the World Wide Web
which will be accessible globally by
Internet users. Known as home pages,
they can include text, pictures, sound and
even video components.

 

The ‘opening layers’ of the College
site will provide basic what-we-offer data.
However, it will also include links
enabling faculty and staff to add
information about their disciplines and
departments. The limitless range of
material could include items such as
course descriptions,
sports and
performing arts
schedules, and
articles on hot
issues in subjects
from chemistry to
psychiatric nursing
to business.

“The strength of
the Internet is that
it’s fundamentally
organic and
democratic. There
is a do-it-yourself
attitude about it and
external controls
are limited,” says
Paul Levine of the
Public Information
Office.

“Tf people
within the College
are willing to
participate in its
growth, it could be
a tremendous
resource for present
and potential
students, both
locally and
internationally.”

The system also
creates opportuni-
ties for distance
education and
electronic publish-
ing.

“Many of the
large net providers
are going into the
electronic
publishing business and that’s very
significant. It means any online
organization is now an electronic
publisher, and people can access your
information from all over the world
without paper or a printing process,” says
Browne.

Librarian Jean Cockburn says the site
will provide enormous new information-

accessing opportunities for faculty,
students and people outside the College.

“The most important thing for us is to
make our library catalogue available.
B.C. libraries are moving towards more
efficient resource sharing, and this will
allow both our own users and people
around B.C. to find out what we have.”

In a limited service available only to
College card holders via a password
system, Cockburn also anticipates
offering enormous data providers via the
Internet. One example would be Uncover,
a service that catalogues 15,000
periodicals, provides the table of contents
for each issue and, for a fee, can fax any
article anywhere on demand.

In the final analysis, Browne,
Cockburn and Levine - all members of the
College’s Online Committee - agree that
it’s impossible to predict exactly where
the net is going, but they add it’s
imperative that Douglas College go along
for the ride.

“Every university and college in North
America and many others around the
world are establishing an online presence,
so it’s important to stay up on that level.
As institutes of higher learning, we need
to be on the leading edge of new
technologies,” says Levine.

“As well, all the indicators show there
will continue to be exponential growth in
online service providers, people signing
onto the net and numbers of home
computers - whose sales have
skyrocketed. Another important
development which will drive growth is
that the newest version of Windows will
feature an Internet connection. Microsoft
is banking on it, and they’ re not usually
wrong.”

For information on what the Online
Committee is doing, call Brad Barber at
local 5327.

Quote of the Month:

"History is the sum total of
things which could have
been avoided."

- Konrad Adenauer