African Studies


"Africa South of the Sahara"
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide.html
"Africa South of the Sahara" is a vast directory of links prepared by Karen Fung for the Electronic Technology Group, African Studies Association, USA. The site provides access to an impressive array of varied information and is a good place to start exploring the African continent online. Users can browse the directory by regions and countries or by one of more than 30 topics, ranging from art, business, e-mail access and electronic networking to international relations, literature and travel. (Vol. 1 No. 9, January '97)

"Geechee Girls Film, Video & Multimedia Productions"
http://www.geechee.com/geechee/

This is a website devoted to Julie Dash's film Daughter's of the Dust, about the lives of a group of African-American women living in a "Gullah" community on South Carolina's Sea Islands at the turn of the century. The site admirably provides intriguing glimpses of the film, its contributors, and places the film in a larger context of filmaking and writing by African-American women and others. (Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96)

"Universal Black Pages"
http://www.gatech.edu/bgsa/blackpages.html/

The Universal Black Pages--an information service residing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, but not affiliated with the Institute--allows visitors to "discover the African Diaspora." The service offers access to a directory of sites related to African and African-American culture, including sections on art, music and entertainment as well as history, educational opportunities and student organizations. The Universal Black Pages are a well-organized and user-friendly gateway to information on African-American culture. (Vol. 1 No. 4, July/August '96)

"World African Network"
http://www.worldafricannet.com/

The "World African Network" is a multimedia telecommunications company founded by Eugene and Phyllis Jackson, specializing in television, telephony, and information services. Its mission is to address historical imbalances in telecommunications; the network's website is designed as a gateway through which people of color can contribute to the global market place of ideas. The site is a useful resource, covering a wide area of topics: the content and programming of "World African Network Online" is based on 24 areas of "Life Interests"--ranging from "Education" and "Art & Culture" to "Business & Economics" and "Religion & Spirituality." You may also visit "The World African Vineyards" to connect to African communities around the world.(Vol. 1 No. 5, Sept. '96)


Agricultural Sciences


"Cyber-Farm"
http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~farm
The "Cyber-Farm"--maintained by the Ohio State University Extension Information Office for Small, Part-Time and Sustainable Agriculture--effectively uses a graphic interface to organize an index of links to sources of agricultural information. Visitors to the farm may click on items and locations on a map, such as "The Farmhouse," "The Garden" or "The Machine Shed," to access listings of Internet resources. Clicking on "The Barn" will lead users to information on "Cattle" and "Poultry" or "Beefalo, Buffalo, Bison." The "Crops" section features links to resources such as "The Corn Growers Handbook from Purdue University" or "Pest Management and Pesticides." (Vol. 1 No. 9, January '97)

"University of Delaware Botanic Gardens"
http://http://bluehen.ags.udel.edu/udgarden.html

see article Vol. 1 No. 2, May '96


American Studies


"American Studies Crossroads Project"
http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/crossroads.html
Co-sponsored by Georgetown University's American Studies program and the American Studies Association, this site is designed as an "electronic crossroads" bringing together material about organizing American Studies courses and programs. Though still under construction, it already features a library of American Studies syllabi as well as a guide to using multimedia in the classroom. Users may also access bibliographies and Internet resources from a "Subject Map to Fields of American Studies" (e.g. African or Asian American Studies, Chicano/Latino Studies). The site will eventually include descriptions of collaborative teaching efforts sponsored by the Crossroads Project. (Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96)


American Indian Studies


"Cankpe Opi"
http://vp4.netgate.net/~jsd/WKmasscre.html
"Cankpe Opi," the Wounded Knee home page--approved by the elders on the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River reservations--should be on the reading list of everybody interested and involved in American Indian issues. The site doesn't shy away from controversy; visitors to the home page are confronted with two quotes--the first one an excerpt from an official investigation of the Massacre at Wounded Knee initiated at the behest of Congress ("There is nothing to conceal or apologize for in the Wounded Knee Battle - beyond the killing of a wounded buck by a hysterical recruit."), the second one a note from the Editor of "Indian Country Today," who dismisses the First Nations web site as a misguided attempt to support American Indian issues. The site features a section on "What happened?" (at Wounded Knee) and "Medals of (dis) Honor," focusing on the 20 medals awarded to participants in the Massacre at Wounded Knee and the e-mail campaign that has been initiated in order to force the U.S. Government to rescind the medals of (dis) Honor. (Vol. 1 No. 11, March '97)

"The Native American Adventure"
http://www.indians.org/

"The Native American Adventure --sponsored by the American Indian Heritage Foundation--consists of a "Live 3D Virtual Art Museum" and an archive of "Indigenous Peoples' Literature." The impressive literature section, an e-text archive developed by Glenn Welker, is an inclusive library, which makes for terrific reading. The archive contains stories and legends, prayers and music, as well as famous quotes and information on great chiefs and leaders (most of the texts are of North American Indian origin, but readers will also find "Fables of the Mayas" and material on indigenous peoples of Mexico). The stories, fables and legends are catalogued by categories such as creation/migration stories or animal stories--e.g., coyote, deer, eagle--and the e-texts can also be browsed by name, date and type. (Vol. 1 No. 11, March '97)

"Nativeweb"
http://web.maxwell.syr.edu/nativeweb/index.html

If you don't know who Leonard Peltier is, here's the place to find out. A collective group of webmasters have pooled an impressive array of resources here to serve the interests of indigenous people, especially Native Americans, and those wanting to find out more about their current activities, art, history and much more. (Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96)


Archaeology


"ArchNet"
http://www.lib.uconn.edu/ArchNet/ArchNet.html
"ArchNet"--produced by Thomas Plunkett and Jonathan Lizee--serves as the Virtual Library for Archaeology and is the best gateway to archaeological resources available on the Internet. The well-organized and inclusive site categorizes information by geographic region and subject; the subject areas range from archaeometry and ethnohistory to mapping and analytical software. The home page is available in 7 languages, including Catalan, Dutch, French and German. (Vol. 1 No. 8, December '96)

"Fallen Timbers Battlefield"
http://www.heidelberg.edu/FallenTimbers/

This archaeological project is maintained by Heidelberg College. Everything at this site is neatly indexed on the homepage: "documents," "photo gallery," "press archives," but there is little synergy between the material. The site exhibits careful and dedicated work; still, it would be desirable if some "embodiment" of this work risked displaying it by presenting it in a way that wouldn't be possible in a different medium. As it is, everything here remains loyal to traditional forms of presenting academic material. (Vol. 1 No. 3, June '96)


Arts


"Arts-Edge"
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/
Arts-Edge is an information network created by The John F. Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. It is designed to provide teachers, students and artists with access to educational resources, professional development opportunities and special projects that support the arts as a core subject area in the K12 curriculum. Among the services featured at the site are NewsBreak--focusing on newsworthy developments and information about arts education issues--a Job Listings page, and the K12ARTSED Listserv, with close to 300 subscribers from all over the world. (Vol. 1 No. 3, June '96)


Asian Studies


"Asian Studies Network Information Center"
http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic.html
ASNIC's site--managed by the Center and Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin--is designed to provide students, faculty members, scholars, and other Asianists with information regarding Asia and Asian Studies programs. Users may "visit" 17 countries and places of Asia and will find information on topics ranging from language, literature, arts and religion to history, government, politics and media. ASNIC is an excellent, inclusive service providing a massive amount of materials--one of the best educational websites around. (Vol. 1 No. 4, July/August '96)

"Orientation"
http://www.orientation.com/

Conceived, developed, and hosted by The Black Box, a Hong Kong-based interactive media company, "Orientation" is a commercial Web directory providing information about Asia in cyberspace and locating it for you. The database of Asian and Asian-related websites can be searched by subject areas, including "Arts & Activities," "Ideas & Institutions," and "Science & Technology"; "Orientation" also offers the latest regional financial news, headline news, and chat. The outstanding feature of this useful directory is its multilingual interface, which is available in Chinese, Japanese, and English. (Vol. 1 No. 10, February '97)


Biology


"Beyond Bio 101: The Transformation of Undergraduate Biology"
http:///www.hhmi.org/Beyond Bio101/
Created by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, this website focuses on the changing learning environments of biology students at a number of American colleges. "Beyond Bio 101" is based on the experiences of some of the colleges and universities that have been expanding research opportunities for undergraduates with the support from grants awarded by the Undergraduate Biological Sciences Education Program of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The website features useful information on topics such as curriculum redesign and electronic learning as well as a resources section for biology educators. (Vol. 1 No. 9, January '97)

"The Biology Place"
http://www.biology.com/

"The Biology Place" is brought to you by Peregrine Publishers and Faculty Director Neil A. Campbell from the University of California, Riverside. The prototype is still under construction, but looks like a promising enterprise. Among the main topics are Chemistry, Cells, Genetics, Animals and Ecology, and each section features student activities, web resources and research news. So far only the genetics section is complete--featuring student activities such as "Solving Mendelian Genetics Problems," "Investigating Huntington Disease" and "Investigating the Bacterial Genome"--but it's a site whose evolution seems to be worth waiting for.(Vol. 1 No. 5, Sept. '96)


"BioMOO"
http://bioinfo.weizmann.ac.il:8888

http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~mercer/htmls/BioMOOHomePage.html
Founded by Gustavo Glusman at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, the BioMOO (Multiple-User Object-Oriented environment) takes a website for biologists to the level of real-time interaction. The site is a place for scientists to exchange ideas and conduct seminars and allows simultaneous users to communicate among themselves. Visitors enter BioMOO through Telnet connections and receive notices on their computer screens describing which rooms they have entered and who else is "present" in them. In the tradition of "Dungeons & Dragons," you may find a skull in the dungeons of this site--but this one can be rotated for scientific purposes. (Vol. 1 No. 2, May '96)

"Memetics Index"
http://143.236.107.53/authors/kkitow/memetics/

This website is dedicated to the school of thought which studies the transmission of ideas by viewing ideas--memes--as living organisms. Memetics as a school of thought is based on the theories of evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who researched the similarities he encountered between the replication of genes and ideas. The site is an excellent introduction to this 'new science,' featuring articles such as "Viruses Of The Mind" by Richard Dawkins and "Virus-Like Sentences And Self-Replicating Structures" by Douglas R. Hofstadter, as well as other resources and links to related sites. (Vol. 1 No. 6, October '96)

"PigVision"
http://toolshed.artschool.utas.edu.au/PigVision

"PigVision" is dedicated to collaborations of artists and scientists in the area of agricultural science. It originated in a research concept of Raymond Rohner who "had studied and worked in the field of agriculture science in Switzerland before taking up his Fine Art studies at the Tasmanian School of Art in Hobart/Australia." This sublime site is a tribute to the possibilities of interdisciplinary work. Many links from net-savvy biology departments around the world lead to this site. Really great pictures of pigs and interesting research on the pig's rubbing behavior are just two of the reasons for visiting this webpen. (Vol. 1 No. 7, November '96)

"Virtual FlyLab"
http://vflylab.calstatela.edu/edesktop/VirtApps/VflyLab/IntroVflyLab.html

If you want to feel really creative, try breeding mutated flys! With the purpose of teaching about the actual statistical occurrence of Mendelian traits, this site lets you play geneticist; just choose the genetic traits of the female insect and the male insect--for example, do you want the bristles to be "wild type" or "forked"? When you're done selecting traits, press on the button marked "Mate," and watch the offspring from your experiment appear! Fun for all the family, and for generations to come! (Vol. 1 No. 6, October '96)


Bioethics


"Ethics and Genetics: A Global Conversation"
http://www.med.upenn.edu/~bioethic/genetics/
This project, headed by Glenn McGee, is a joint effort of the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania. The site features articles on the ethical issues raised by genetics and uses an automated comments system that sends your comment to the author and posts it immediately--thus allowing real-time conversations with anyone else who happens to be visiting at the time. The discussion focuses on the controversies surrounding genetic testing, genetic enhancement, gene therapy and genetic engineering; the web-wide approach and quality of the setup make this site a perfect place for catalyzing discussions of the philosophical issues occasioned by the science of genetics. (Vol. 1 No. 4, July/August '96)


Chemistry


"The Chemical Educator"
http://journals.springer-ny.com/chedr
This site consists of a peer-reviewed journal intended for "chemical education professionals" (in common parlance: chemistry teachers). The site had been offering a free trial subscription, but, if they stick to their present plans, then a subscription cost will have gone into effect by the time you read this. "The Chemical Educator" is a first-class online journal: visually pleasing, well-organized and updated bi-monthly. Articles cover such areas as Internet resources for chemistry, the role of chemistry in a liberal arts education, as well as articles on specific applications of scientific methodology. (Vol. 1 No. 4, July/August '96)

"Chemicool"
http://the-tech.mit.edu/Chemicool/

Cool it is: this website, maintained by David Hsu, lets visitors choose elements from the "Chemicool Periodic Table" and access information about them--ranging from appearance, characteristics, and reactions to radius, conductivity, and abundance. At present, the site is a useful reference guide, and more desirable features are in the making: Hsu plans to implement a search feature, add some multimedia demos and more info about the history of chemical elements. (Vol. 1 No. 11, March '97)

"Moviemol"
http://chem-www.mps.ohio-state.edu/~lars/moviemol.html/

Ohio State University offers access to Moviemol, a program for visualization and animation of molecular structures for PCs, IBM RISC/6000s and SGI workstations. Moviemol displays sets of molecular coordinates one after the other to create a "movie". The molecules can be rotated or translated, magnified or diminished during the animation. The program can be obtained from the authors or by anonymous ftp from chem-ftp.mps.ohio-state.edu. It is free-of-charge for academic researchers. (Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96)


Classics


"Argos"
http://http://argos.evansville.edu/
"Argos" is a peer-reviewed, limited area search engine (LASE), designed to cover the ancient and medieval worlds and to restrict search results to entries relevant to scholarly study. "Argos" was created by Managing Editor Anthony F. Beavers and Technical Director Hiten Sonpal at the University of Evansville during the Summer of 1996. What makes this site an excellent resource is the quality of the index, which is controlled by qualified professionals ( the Associate Editors of the project); any page that turns up in an Argos search has been "certified" by the Editorial Board. (Vol. 1 No. 10, February '97)


"Diotima: Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World"
http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/gender.html/

see article Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96


Cultural Studies


"CTheory"
http://128.2.19.107/ctheory/ctheory.html
See theory run, see theory jump, see big theory names, like the Krokers, Baudrillard, and many more! Also Kathy Acker. Theory, technology and culture all interact in the various articles collected here. Worth a bookmark, if you don't find theory dreary. (Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96)

"Digital Cultures"
http://www.livjm.ac.uk/Digital_Cultures

"Digital Cultures" is a three-credit, Level 3 module prepared by Sean Cubitt and offered by Media and Cultural Studies at Liverpool John Moores University. The course investigates the impact of electronic media and communications on contemporary cultural life and provides a substantive case-study in the analysis of major cultural theories of contemporary society. The website includes the course outline and guide, as well as hotlinks and a glossary. Even if you're not going to enroll, the "Digital Cultures" site is a valuable resource for educators and everybody interested in how identity, postmodernism and globalisation can be understood in the context of digital media. (Vol. 1 No. 9, January '97)

"-Ism (N.)"
http://sunsite.unc.edu/ism/ism.html

If you had a video camera, how would you use it to represent diversity issues at your school? Do you consider your school to be diverse? How or why not? These are questions asked by the "-ISM (N.)" project, which was conceived in 1994 by six full-time field consultants who, during visits to college community centers, discovered that diversity was among the most important issues on students' minds. "-ISM (N.)" wants to provide new, more engaging approaches for addressing issues of diversity, and has now become an independent project of the Institute for Public Media Arts. The website devoted to this project provides valuable information on campus diversity and the "-ISM (N.) Curriculum," as well as access to an online gallery exhibiting video clips, photographs and dialogues from the students involved in the "-ISM (N.)" course. (Vol. 1 No. 9, January '97)


Cultural and Literary Theory


"Jacques Derrida"
http://www.cas.usf.edu/journal/fobo/jd.html
This site on Jacques Derrida provides the necessary service of offering some well-chosen passages from his work; in one of these passages, Derrida points out that his critics often rely on books about his writing rather than referring directly to his work itself. These excerpts offer fresh evidence of that statement's truth. Excerpts from works of writers who manifestly have read Derrida are also linked to this site. (Vol. 1 No. 5, Sept. '96)


"The Sokal Affair"
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jwalsh/sokal/

Is it literary criticism, cultural crticism or an impostor? Social Text, one of those academic magazines some people love to hate, accidentally published an article written as a spoof . The author was Alan Sokal, and the parody was accepted for an issue in the currently controversial area of science studies. Unlike a recent issue of Lingua Franca, which published a letter from Sokal without giving the editors of "Social Text" a chance to respond, this website contains links to numerous sides of the argument. As Andrew Ross points out, media attention has helped make this scandal a Web-event. (Vol. 1 No. 5, Sept. '96)


Distance Learning


"CU Online"
http://cuonline.edu
"CU Online" is the new distance education program of the University of Colorado, created in collaboration with the Colorado-based software company Real Education, Inc. The program currently offers 20 courses, including anthropology, communication, and history, as well as psychology, sociology, and theater. At the website, students may access their classes, but they can also receive academic counseling per e-mail, get student updates at any time and pay tuition; and there's (virtual) campus life, too: a series of PeaceJam conferences featuring Nobel Peace Prize Laureates will be made available on the Internet via RealAudio and then archived at the site. (Vol. 1 No. 11, March '97)

"The United States Distance Learning Association"
http://gopher.usdla.org/

Formed in 1987, "The United States Distance Learning Association" states that its purpose is "to promote the development and application of distance learning for education and training." They serve K12, higher education, corporations, the government, and the military. Its executive Committee includes noteworthy members from both business and education, notably Executive Director Patrick Portway. The site includes information on membership and on the upcoming "Distance Learning Week," March 23 - March 29, 1997. (Vol. 1 No. 7, November '96)


Educational Technology


"From Now On"
http://www.pacificrim.net/~mckenzie/
"From now on," maintained by Jamie McKenzie, is an electronic educational technology journal focusing on the impact of new technologies on education and teaching. The site features "Net Profit," an online book about schools and the Net, as well as the journals' back issues from 1991-96 (searchable by subject index). Among the other sections covered here are 'Parenting & Family Matters,' 'School Virtual Museums' and a 'Poetry Gallery.' An excellent resource for parents and teachers. (Vol. 1 No. 4, July/August '96)

"Journal of Technology Education"
http://borg.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/jte.html

This site provides access to the contents of the bi-annually published "Journal of Technology Education" (JTE), a forum for scholarly discussion on the research, philosophy, theory, or practice of technology education. The journal also features book reviews, editorials, guest articles, comprehensive literature reviews, and commentary on previously published articles; it is an interesting resource for anybody involved in technology education. There is no "subscription fee" for electronic access, and you may also subscribe to the LISTSERV. (Vol. 1 No. 8, December '96)