GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Advising Management Systems

Using the principles of Customer Relationship Management, Advising Management Systems are beginning to emerge that focus on the specific needs of academic advising organizations (advisors) and their customers (students). Some systems provide appointment scheduling, access student information from the student information system (Banner, PeopleSoft, etc.). Reports are another feature of these systems.

Aggregators

Aggregators reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or "personal newspaper." Once subscribed to a feed, an aggregator is able to check for new content at user-determined intervals and retrieve the update. The content is sometimes described as being "pulled" to the subscriber, as opposed to "pushed" with email or IM. Unlike recipients of some "pushed" information, the aggregator user can easily unsubscribe from a feed.

Blog

A blog (a contraction of the term " Web log ") is a web site with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog .

Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM)

Group of computer processes implemented by a company to handle contact with its customers. CRM software is used to support these processes, storing information on current and prospective customers. The stored information provides intelligence about “customers” to enhance the relationship between customer and company. In higher education as well as in business, this intelligence can be used to help students navigate their degree programs by reminding them about the most logical resources at the most logical times. CRM is the reason Amazon knows the types of books you might be interested in buying.

Degree Audits

A degree audit is a computer-generated analysis that enables the student and his/her adviser to assess the student's academic progress and unfulfilled baccalaureate, associate degree, or minor requirements. The audit is a valuable tool for academic planning and course selection, because it matches the courses that the student has taken with the requirements of his/her degree program or anticipated program.

Hyperlinks

An element in an electronic document that links to another place in the same document or to an entirely different document. Typically, you click on the hyperlink to follow the link. Hyperlinks are the most essential ingredient of all hypertext systems, including the World Wide Web.

Hypertext

A system invented by Ted Nelson in the 1960s in which objects (text, pictures, music , programs, and so on) can be creatively linked to each other. When you select an object, you can see all the other objects that are linked to it.

Open Source

A software development strategy that allows anyone to have access to the computer code that comprises the software. In the process of development of source code for software that code is made available for public collaboration.

Podcast

A podcast is a series of audio or video files which is distributed over the Internet by download, to portable media players (like iPod) and personal computers. Though the same content may also be made available by download or listening/viewing on a personal computer or apple computer, a podcast is distinguished from other digital-media formats by its ability to be subscribed to and downloaded automatically when new content is added.

Social Networking Sites

Online communities of people who share interests or who are interested in exploring the interests of others. Most social network services provide a variety of ways for users to interact. Examples of social networking sites include facebook and myspace.

Virtual Worlds

A virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. Communication between users has ranged from text, graphical icons, visual gesture, sound, and rarely, forms using touch and balance senses.

Wiki

Wiki is a piece of software that allows users to freely create and edit web page content using any web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple mechanism for creating new pages and connections between internal pages.

Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users.