DISTANCE EDUCATION POLICY PRIMER - "The new distance education force transforming higher education may not be controlled by the traditional structures or providers of education services or by traditional academic policies. Not only do the new forms of distance education portend a change for student populations, but also they will force faculty to develop new modalities of teaching and administrators to provide a new infrastructure for support. As a result, the advent of distance education is forcing many institutions to review and amend many of their existing policies and procedures." The American Council on Education (ACE) Division of Government & Public Affairs has produced "Developing a Distance Education Policy for 21st Century Learning" as a primer to help colleges and universities rethink and reformulate policies dealing with intellectual property rights and ownership of distance education courses. The complete report is available on the Web at: http://www.acenet.edu/washington/distance_ed/2000/03march/distance_ed.html (CIT INFOBITS No 23 May 00)

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF INFORMATION - In their book The Social Life of Information (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000; ISBN: 0875847625), John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid argue for the "important role human sociability plays in the world of bits . . . [and] show how a better understanding of the contribution that communities, organizations, and institutions make to learning, knowledge, and judgment can lead to the richest possible use of technology in our work and everyday lives." The authors have a Website, which includes links to all the chapters that are available online. The address is: http://www.slofi.com/. A public forum to discuss The Social Life of Information can be found at: http://www.slofi.com/slofidis.htm. (CIT INFOBITS No 23 May 00)