THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, COMMUNITY, AND VALUES
About This Issue...
This issue of Interface is the first in this academic year's production schedule. We will publish ten times per year through June 2009 and are now paying our writers one hundred dollars per posted submission if they have formally joined our editorial staff. For single submissions by non-editors we continue to pay $200.00. For those interested in either joining our staff or in submitting pieces, please begin at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/features.php
This issue has articles touching upon broad range of topics. Our feature is by one of our Berglund Student Assistants, Jenn Hernandez, "Virtual Death vs. Reality" and is found at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2008/03/hernandez.php. This is Jen’s first publication in Interface and we think you will find it thoughtful and provocative.
Health Editor and Pacific University faculty member Shawn Davis offers: "With a Little Help from my Online Friends: The Health Benefits of Internet Community Participation" found at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2008/03/davis.php. Shawn shows us that being an active and involved member of an Internet community is, in fact, good for us!
Professor Steven Rhine of Willamette University, long a familiar figure in the field of teaching as related to digital materials, gives us "Web 2.0 and the demise of the shelf concept" sent to us from Eastern Europe where he has been working. See it at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2008/03/rhine.php. Like so many of us, Steven began using the WWW while relying upon metaphors and concepts drawn from the world of books. Here he tells us what it means to move into a Web 2.0 frame of mind.
Michael Geraci, Chair of the Media Arts program at Pacific University, offers us another in his recent series dealing with Adobe’s new rich media platforms, this one of interest surely to anyone who takes digital photos: "Photoshop Express: Web photo sharing gets interesting." See it at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2008/03/geraci.php.
I review two quite different books. The first of these is Patrick O'Keefe's Managing Online Forums, found at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2008/03/okeefe.php . O'keefe, a long-time manager of a variety of discussion forums, has excellent advice both for those who post, and more importantly, for those who manage forums. Anyone with aspirations to manage a successful Web-based forum should see this book.
The second work is Fareed Zakaria's The Post American World, found at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2008/03/zakaria.php . Zakaria, a noted journalist with particular expertise in economics, has written, we think, the first book which adequately sums up the impact of the Internet on the global political and economic environment. Zakaria's work not only is interesting and provocative, but it ties together many factors at work globally to produce a very powerful explanation of fundamental changes caused by the Internet.
Our editorial is "Safer Practices in Financial Transactions on the Internet," found at: http://bcis.pacificu.edu/journal/2008/03/edit.php . A recent scholarly report on web design and security, "Analyzing Websites for User-visible Security Design Flaws", by Laura Falk, Atul Prakash and Kevin Borders, has drawn a great deal of media attention. Here we try to interpret it properly as opposed to the alarmist manner in which many have viewed it, and draw from it lessons which could make us all safer in our financial transactions on the Internet.
As always, we hope that you find this issue of Interface both interesting and useful. Please look for us again in early September.
Jeffrey Barlow
Pacific University’s Berglund Center for Internet Studies
Jeffrey Barlow
Editor, Interface
Jenn Hernandez - Virtual Death vs Reality
Shawn Davis - With a Little Help from my Online Friends: The Health...
Steve Rhine - Web 2.0 and the Demise of the Shelf Concept
Michael Geraci - Photoshop Express: Web Photo Sharing Gets Interesting
Patrick O'Keefe's Managing Online Forums
Fareed Zakaria's The Post American World