+ Page 1 + --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ####### ######## ######## ########### ### ### ## ### ## # ### # Interpersonal Computing and ### ### ## ### ## ### Technology: ### ### ## ### ### An Electronic Journal for ### ######## ### ### the 21st Century ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ## ### ISSN: 1064-4326 ### ### ### ## ### April 1996 ####### ### ######## ### Volume 4, Number 2, pp. 1-6 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Department of Education University of Maryland Baltimore County Additional support provided by Georgetown University This article is archived as CONTENTS IPCTV4N2 on LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GEORGETOWN.EDU -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Letter from the Managing Editor 2. Retrieval Instructions for Articles 3. Table of Contents and Abstracts 4. Editorial Board 5. Copyright Statement ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Letter from the Managing Editor The transition to AECT publication of this journal is proceeding smoothly. This will probably be my last issue as Managing Editor, while I will remain a member of the editorial board. It certainly has been an amazing four year span for me, personally and professionally. Joining IPCT-L four years ago last February started a chain of events that has changed my whole life. I had not even considered a doctorate at that time; I do my comprehensive examinations in August, having completed doctoral coursework in both Adult/Distance Education and Instructional Systems Design. My dissertation will focus on LISTSERV lists as voluntary associations of Adult Learners, with IPCT-L as my case study. E-journals were in their infancy when Zane pioneered this one; now they have become a respectable venue for publication, and are indexed and stored where even non-internet literate scholars can access them. IPCT-J has its own WEB pages, where you can retrieve current and back issues: URL http://www.helsinki.fi/science/optek/ FTP and Gopher are no longer supported at Georgetown for the journal. We again invite your submissions to IPCT-J. IPCT-J is indexed in ERIC and articles with a distance education emphasis are indexed in the British Open University database. I have also found links to the IPCT-J web pages turning up in an increasing number of lists of distance education resources. Regards, mauri collins, Managing Editor URL: http://cac.psu.edu/~mauri/mauri.html + Page 2 + ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Retrieval Instructions for Articles LISTSERV Articles are stored as files at LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GEORGETOWN.EDU. To retrieve this file, send the GET command appearing both before and after the article abstract to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GEORGETOWN.EDU. Back issues of the journal are stored at LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GEORGETOWN.EDU. To obtain a list of all available files, send the following message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.GEORGETOWN.EDU: INDEX The name of each issue's table of contents file begins with the word "CONTENTS". ----------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Contents ------------------------- To retrieve this article GET GIBSON.IPCTV4N2 IS ALL COHERENCE GONE? THE ROLE OF NARRATIVE IN WEB DESIGN Stephanie Gibson, University of Baltimore, MD ABSTRACT This article offers some thoughts about how our new techniques and technologies -- specifically hypertextual writing and the World Wide Web -- veer away from characteristics embedded in print. It begins with a selective examination of narrative: How it finds a home in culture and in academia, and what it becomes in the hands of technology other than print. The literature of hypermedia provides a helpful framework for examining the rhetorical and symbolic implications of the World Wide Web. Fissures between print narrative and World Wide Web narrative exhibit how coherence is negotiated and understood in these two media. Characteristics unique to the World Wide Web will inform a narrative coherence which values qualities different from those currently found in the linear world of print. Web coherence will in part be anchored in associative, linked structures. Some suggestions and questions about the direction of rhetorical structure for the World Wide Web are posed. To retrieve this article GET GIBSON.IPCTV4N2 Pages: 7-26 + Page 3 + ----------------------------- To retrieve this article GET MILLER.IPCTV4N2 GIRLS' PREFERENCES IN SOFTWARE DESIGN: INSIGHTS FROM A FOCUS GROUP Leslie Miller, Melissa Chaika, and Laura Groppe Center for Technology in Teaching and Learning and Center for Research on Parallel Computation Rice University ABSTRACT In today's technology reliant society, the divide between those who are proficient in computer technology and those who are not is increasing along class, ethnic, and gender lines. More specifically, the technology gap in relation to gender has become so prevalent that it spans everything from the number of female computer science majors to differences in females' perception of computer utility. We believe that the lack of gender-sensitive computer games compounds these differences. Prefaced withprevious research indicating differences in patterns of computer use and perceptions for males and females, this article reports the characteristicswhich adolescent girls prefer in entertainment software. Based upon focus group responses, several paradigms emerge that give insights for software development which will stimulate girls' interests in computing and, ultimately, in associated professions. To retrieve this article GET MILLER.IPCTV4N2 Pages : 27-36 -------------------------------------------------- To retrieve this article GET YOUNG.IPCTV4N2 UNIVERSITY - NATCHAUG INTEGRATED VOICE, VIDEO & DATA LINK Michael Young, Ph.D. & Pam Campbell, Ph.D. University of Connecticut, ABSTRACT The University and Natchaug School entered into a partnership with two corporations to establish an integrated voice, video and data link, using fiber, coax and twisted pair connections. This system included full video conferencing capabilities as well as the ability of each site to control the resources of the other. In the process of using the network, we learned several things. + Page 4 + We learned that the best users of the systems were students. We learned that technological systems are embedded in social systems, and the technology can add new burdens for maintaining courteous and respectful private interactions. We learned that building such a system is a dynamic ongoing process, that often relies heavily on the good will and trust of the collaborating organizations. And, we learned that success (even limited success) breeds its own problems. To retrieve this article GET YOUNG.IPCTV4N2 Pages: 37 - 46 -------------------------------------------------- To retrieve this article GET CAPO.IPCTV4N2 BOOK REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION AND CYBERSPACE: SOCIAL INTERACTION IN AN ELECTRONIC ENVIRONMENT Edited by Lance Strate, Ronald Jacobson, and Stephanie B. Gibson Reviewed By James A. Capo, Ph.D. Communication and Media Studies Department ABSTRACT This review of _Communication and Cyberspace_, edited by Strate, Jacobson and Gibson highlights the collection's cultural and humanistic approach to concepts of computer mediated communication. It analyzes the function, form and meaning sections of the book through an assessment of the editors' own essays in these sections. At the heart of this review is how essays in the book deal with the differences between the "realities" of culture before computer mediated communication (CMC) and the "prospects" for communication and culture in the emerging inter-networked reality CMC generates. Pages: 47 - 52 To retrieve this article GET CAPO.IPCTV4N2 + Page 4 + --------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Editorial Board ------------------------ PUBLISHER: Department of Education University of Maryland Baltimore County EDITOR: Susan B. Barnes Communication Arts Department Marymount Manhattan College EDITORIAL BOARD: Zane L. Berge Director, Training Systems, ISD Graduate Program University of Maryland, Baltimore County Gerald M. Santoro Center for Academic Computing, Pennsylvania State University MANAGING EDITOR: Mauri P. Collins Adult and Distance Education Program The Pennsylvania State University ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Manuel Bermudez University of Florida Computer & Information Sciences Thomas Berner The Pennsylvania State University. Journalism & American Studies Morton Cotlar University of Hawaii Management William Eadie Speech Communication Association Associate Director LaDonna C. Garrett Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York Fashion Buying & Merchandising Dept. Stephanie B. Gibson University of Baltimore Communications Design Theodore S. Hopf Washington State University Communication Alice Horning Oakland University English and Rhetoric Vladimir Klonowski Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw Donald Kraft Louisiana State University Computer Science Scott Kuehn Clarion University of Pennsylvania Communication + Page 5 + Paul J. Lippert East Stroudsburg State University Pennsylvania Communications Edward Mabry University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Communication Rory McGreal TeleEducation New Brunswick, Canada Executive Director David Schroeder Valparaiso University Business Administration David Sims University of Prince Edward Island, Canada Veterinary Medicine Wendy Snetsinger The Pennsylvania State University. Instructional Systems Lance Strate Fordham University Communication and Media Studies Pekka L. Vakkilainen University of Helsinki Independent Educational Consultant Amy Zelmer Central Queensland University, Australia Health Science + Page 6 + 5. Copyright Statement ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century Copyright 1996 University of Maryland Baltimore County. Copyright of individual articles in this publication is retained by the individual authors. Copyright of the compilation as a whole is held by the University of Maryland Baltimore County. It is asked that any republication of this article state that the article was first published in IPCT-J. Contributions to IPCT-J can be submitted by electronic mail in APA style to: Susan Barnes, Editor IPCT-J SBBARNES@PIPLELINE.COM