DISTANCE ED VIRTUAL HANDOUTS For the recent AFT/NEA higher education conference (see page 6), presenter Cynthia Eaton created a Web site on which she outlined DE issues with which the New York State United Teachers Community College Distance Education Committee is grappling. Eaton's union, the Suffolk County College Faculty Association, and those serving on the NYSUT committee, say that it is crucial that "high standards and quality education, not financial profit, drives distance education policies and practices in our locals." Go to www.cynthiasite.net/2008-highered-conf/negotiating-distance.html for links to other helpful resources and fresh ideas.

MOST STUDENTS SAY NO TO TEXT ALERTS Despite rising concerns about security and communication during a campus emergency, many students feel it's their text message inboxes that need protecting. A recent Associated Press story reports that colleges have mixed results in getting students, faculty and staff to sign up to receive text message alerts. For example, Omnilert, a company that provides an emergency alert system called e2Campus to more than 500 campuses, told AP that its average sign-up rate is just 39 percent.

Experts say that students don't feel at risk and also resist giving out personal information. Nevertheless, text message alerts can work as one component of many to notify students of an emergency, including sirens, loudspeakers, Web site announcements and plain old word-of-mouth.

CAREENING DOWN THE INFO HIGHWAY Students are burning rubber on the various devices that give them access to information on the Internet, but are they getting better at navigating what's credible? The Education Testing Service has created two tests introduced in 2006 to measure information literacy, and the results are coming in. On the first assessment, the panel found, about 24 percent of first-year community college students and 39 percent of freshmen at four-year colleges have achieved basic proficiency. For more information, go to www.ets.org and look for iSkills assessment.