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Weekly News Digest
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November 5, 2015 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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dtSearch Corp. Rolls Out Solution for Running on Microsoft Azure
dtSearch Corp. launched a new .NET solution for running its dtSearch Engine fully online in the Microsoft Azure cloud by using RemoteApp for secure data access. This means that all dtSearch components can be operated in the cloud with the new Azure Files feature for dtSearch index storage. RemoteApp makes searching look and feel like a native application running under the OS. Developers using dtSearch Engine can go to CodeProject to find this solution.For more information, read the press release.
Pew Report Studies Device Ownership
Pew Research Center’s Internet, Science & Tech division released a new report, “Technology Device Ownership: 2015,” which reveals that 68% of Americans age 18 and older have smartphones, and 45% have tablets. E-reader device ownership is at about 19%, down from 32% in 2014. About 40% of adults have an MP3 player; that number has been steady since 2008. About the same percentage (73%) of people own computers as in 2004 (71%).For more information, read the report’s summary.
Alexander Street Press Debuts Food Studies Archive
Alexander Street Press introduced the Food Studies Online collection, which is composed of 80,000 pages of primary source materials, images, and secondary works, as well as 200 hours of documentaries and series relating to the food studies field. The topics these sources cover include the evolution of utensils, hunger, menu design, food policy, urban food production, and food waste.For more information, read the press release.
Adam Matthew Offers Free Sources on Historic Black Community
Adam Matthew is offering free access to The Weeksville Exhibition, part of the recently released African American Communities collection, for the month of November 2015. This source covers the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses, one of the first free black communities in the U.S. Users can view blueprints, photographs, and panoramas of the neighborhood, as well as individual houses and rooms. They can also listen to oral histories.For more information, read the press release.
Federal Election Commission Launches New Website
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) created beta.fec.gov, a new website being launched in phases that shares campaign finance data and information on registration and reporting, among other federal elections details. It is a companion to the current FEC resource, the Campaign Finance Disclosure Portal.Visitors to the site can see how campaign money is raised and spent during federal elections and compare candidates’ financial data. A glossary shows the definitions of words or phrases related to elections. Upcoming features include information about how congressional candidates register and report to the FEC, as well as a calendar of FEC deadlines and events. For more information, visit the website.
ARL Promotes Excellence in Assessment Program
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) announced that the Voluntary System of Accountability (an initiative from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities) has developed a new program, Excellence in Assessment (EIA). EIA is the first national initiative to recognize colleges and universities that successfully integrate assessment practices across their campuses, measure student learning outcomes, and use assessment results to influence institutional decision-making and improve students’ performance.For more information, read the press release.
Safari and RedLink Integrate for Enhanced Publisher Analytics
RedLink, a business analytics provider, will integrate with Safari’s PubFactory publishing platform to offer a comprehensive suite of sales analytics and visualization tools to publishers using PubFactory. They can use RedLink’s real-time dashboard views of usage data as well as pay-per-view traffic and user access patterns, among other tools, to create sales strategies and establish future-proof sales and marketing business plans.“The integration with PubFactory is in sync with RedLink’s goal to develop solutions that can be easily adapted across publisher platforms to offer flexibility to publishers, to create the best user experience possible, and to increase propagation dissemination of their content,” says Deepika Bajaj, RedLink’s VP of publisher relations. For more information, read the press release.
NEH Contest Encourages Use of Open Data
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) introduced the Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers Data Challenge, a contest inviting U.S. “hackers and data enthusiasts” to produce web-based tools, data visualizations, or other projects using the open data from the Chronicling America digital repository of U.S. newspapers. The repository has 10 million pages of historically significant newspapers published from 1836 to 1922.The first-place winner will receive $5,000, and runners-up will also win cash prizes. The winners will be invited to present their project at the September 2016 National Digital Newspaper Program meeting at the NEH’s headquarters. For more information, read the press release.
New W3C Website Offers Resources for Developers
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced a W3C Developers website designed as a one-stop resource for developers to find what they need for their work. W3C aims to encourage greater developer engagement because they are increasingly important in leveraging the Open Web Platform.Content available on the new website includes free and open source W3C validators, checkers, and tools; W3C Community Groups for proposing and incubating new web technologies; and educational resources such as massive open online courses (MOOCs) or courses from W3DevCampus. For more information, read the press release.
McGraw-Hill Education Studies Students and Technology
McGraw-Hill Education released “The Impact of Technology on College Student Study Habits,” which shows that 87% of the 2,600-plus college students surveyed said “having access to data analytics regarding their academic performance can have a positive impact on their learning experience.” It explains how much students value adaptive technology to improve their experiences and engagement with course materials (77% of respondents), professors (64%), and peers (50%). Students see greater potential for technology in college than is currently being used.For more information, read the press release and see the infographic below. 
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Brandi Scardilli
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