Good Morning: An Eye-opener from the National Film Board of Canada

Copyright Justice: A Model for Fairness and the Professor Exception to Work Made For Hire
Paul Zuckerman, Salt Lake City, UT

Canadian and American copyright laws, by and large, award first ownership rights to the creators (authors) of literary and artistic works including medical media. There are many more dramatic exceptions in the US. After almost 100 years of bitter debate over the issue of copyright ownership, the US Supreme Court adapted a set of standards in 1989 and 2001, which largely follow the centuries old Canadian model of farness and equanimity.

Professors who work in a university employment setting and do freelance work in the US have been excluded from the copyright provisions that automatically give these rights in the new media to their employer. But, the advent of the new technologies may change all that because of the potentially high remuneration the new media can generate for teachers and professors also doing freelance work.

Providing Quality Remote Customer Service in an Electronic Age
Lori Klein, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is the world's largest medical library with a long history of providing quality reference service both remotely (calling our toll-free number, mail, fax, e-mail) and in person. Maintaining the quality of our service is critical, and there are limits to adding more staff. Surveys and focus groups help to identify what our customer wants (we found timely and personal to be important), but we still need to provide the service. To meet these challenges, the NLM instituted our e-mail reference service in March 1993. This presentation will discuss our no-cost beginning, some of the streamlining we have done with our procedures (triage isn't just for the emergency room), and time-savers such as using stock responses. Several self-service assistance options, and customer service software which automates some of the process and helps with tracking and reporting will be reviewed. While speaking from the perspective of a library providing a high-volume reference and customer service, the principals apply to all customer service operations.

The Future is in Your Hands

Wireless technologies are changing the way we connect to one another. These new technologies present a variety of challenges that we will encounter and opportunities that we can take advantage of. This session is composed of four presentations looking at various aspects of the wireless computing revolution.

Handheld Computing Devices - An Overview
Dean Shaffer, Director of Instructional Technology, DeSales University

What do you need in a handheld? Expanding numbers of business people, medical professionals, and students are using PDAs for much more than just pocket organizers. Interest in these devices has grown dramatically in recent years. This presentation begins with the basics of handheld devices. You will have the opportunity to see some of the devices available and to check out some of the latest gadgets on the market. You'll learn about the differences in sizes, styles, displays, operating systems, accessories, and more. You'll also see some specific software applications and as well as some of the many PDA resources on the Web.

Medical Applications for Handheld Computers
Christopher Sarley, Technical Systems Analyst and Programmer, Center for Educational Development and Support, Lehigh Valley Hospital

The presentation will be an overview of the uses of handheld computers in medicine. An introduction to several commercially available applications for physicians and medical students will be demonstrated and explained. Web-based resources for medical handheld information will also be presented.

Technology Trends of Instructional Materials in Higher Education
Craig Bauer, Division Director, Book Publishing Digital Services, RR Donnelley

New technology is driving change in the instructional materials used in higher education. This presentation will review the products, technologies, market size, market penetration, companies, business models and strategies of the following technologies: eTextbooks, eLearning Objects, Digital Asset Management, Custom and Recombinant Publishing, as well as an update on Formats & Standards.

As new media products and channels of distribution emerge, publishers are adopting XML (eXtensible Markup Language) as a strategy to easily and more cost effectively repurpose their content. This session will provide an XML Primer and insight into XML publishing strategies. It includes:
· A brief history of XML history and comparison to SGML and HTML
languages
· An introduction to related standards including DTD, Schema and XSLT.
· Insight into XML publishing strategies and an explanation of where the Return On Investment is made.
· A review of common workflow, authoring and content management tools - - Implementation issues

The State of Wireless Data Connectivity
Matthew Waite, Associate Project Director, Program and Strategic Development, eBusiness Institute, DeSales University

DeSales University's eBusiness Institute is guiding the exploration of handheld computing devices under two initiatives. DeSales' Link-to-Learn (L2L) program is funded in part by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Link-to-Learn project, and the Visual Instruction and Educational Wireless (VIEW) Project is funded in part by corporate partners including the Verizon Foundation and Handspring, Inc.

Under the L2L program, DeSales students are exploring wireless Web capabilities in educational and business communication. In the VIEW Project, wireless handheld devices are being evaluated as an assistive technology for enhanced student/instructor interactions in an on-line MBA degree program that includes deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

This presentation will provide an overview of DeSales University's activities and evaluations of handheld wireless data environments, including an explanation of the advantages and some of the difficulties experienced. Evaluated environments include wireless LAN and mobile (cellular) WAN. Current capabilities will be discussed, as well as some applications enabled by these technologies. This presentation will also look at anticipated direction wireless connectivity is headed and make some predictions for the future.

 

Way Beyond Bullets - Applying the Creative Tools in PowerPoint 2002
Steve Pendry, Manager of Biomedical Communications,
College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University, Ames, IA

The word PowerPoint has become nearly as ubiquitous as Coke or Kleenex, and for many it has become a synonym for a series of bulleted text slides with a few photos on an all too familiar background design. The widespread use a few design templates, default fonts and generic clip art have done much to support that view. But in fact, PowerPoint includes a host of creative tools that can enable us to produce and deliver very effective visual communication. The 2002 version, a component of the Microsoft Office XP suite, has greatly expanded those options. This presentation will demonstrate several of PowerPoint's image creation features, including drawing, animation, branching and Web tools that can be used to create powerful visualizations of complex medical and scientific concepts. Examples of biomedical subject matter that has been visualized more effectively using PowerPoint will be included. See how PowerPoint can provide a valuable link between the creative talents of biocommunicators and the everyday experience of our clients.

Quicktime VR: A World of Possibilities
Jim Fosse
Biomedical Communications
College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University, Ames, IA

Description coming next week

Creativity Keynote
Streams of Consciousness: Tales from a Winnipeg Filmmaker
Guy Maddin, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Cinematic surrealist Guy Maddin's films are at once stunning and perplexing. Telluride Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award winner and Canadian Cult film hero, Maddin (and his films) are the product of his prodigious intellectual appetite, and reflect his many interests and obsessions. Join Maddin on a rare journey into the creative processes of an experimental filmmaker - it promises to challenge, excite... and bewilder!

Guy Maddin's feature films include Archangel, Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Careful, and Twilight of the Ice Nymphs. His short The Heart of the World was named best experimental film of 2000 by the U.S. National Society of Film Critics.

This conference is being presented by
the Health Sciences Communications Association (HeSCA)

Questions or comments regarding HeSCA's websites? Email Keven Siegert at keven@hesca.org