Adobe Acrobat

Connect Professional

(formerly Macromedia Breeze)

Similar to WebEx (see below), Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional is an online meeting space that allows users synchronously (in real time) to share PowerPoint slides, a virtual white board, web sites, and other digital materials.

Blackboard

USC's enterprise course management system, accessible to both faculty and students via the web. Faculty members can create a course web site in Blackboard and post all content including syllabi, course readings, and office hours. Blackboard allows instructors to email the entire class, to post and manage student grades, to allow students to submit assignments, hold asynchronous (not in real time) discussions, and host office hours in a digital space.

Blog
(a blog, to blog)

(n.) Short for web log, a blog is a web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual, with text and images posted that appear in reverse chronological order. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

(v.) To author a web log.

Other forms: Blogger (a person who blogs).

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

A system for protecting the copyrights of data circulated via the Internet or other digital media by enabling secure distribution and/or disabling illegal distribution of the data. Typically, a DRM system protects intellectual property by either encrypting the data so that it can only be accessed by authorized users or marking the content with a digital watermark or similar method so that the content cannot be freely distributed.

Extranet

A buzzword that refers to an intranet that is partially accessible to authorized outsiders. Whereas an intranet resides behind a firewall and is accessible only to people who are members of the same company or organization, an extranet provides various levels of accessibility to outsiders. You can access an extranet only if you have a valid username and password, and your identity determines which parts of the extranet you can view.

GarageBand

An Apple-based music production program that not only allows for the creation of music files on a Mac, but that can also be used as a vehicle to record, edit, and produce audio and enhanced audio podcast files.

iChat

An Apple-based instant messaging client, much like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), but with non-enterprise video-teleconferencing features.

Instant Message (IM)

An Internet tool that allows for synchronous (in realtime) person-to-person communications. While most IM programs allow for image and file transfer, and some have begun to support videoconferencing, IM is still primarily a text-based communications tool.

Internet

A global network connecting millions of computers. More than 100 countries are linked into exchanges of data, news and opinions. Each Internet computer, called a host, is independent. Its operators can choose which Internet services to use and which local services to make available to the global Internet community.

Interwise

A synchronous chat, voice, and video communication tool that allows for online presentations of PowerPoint, documents, and video for later archiving and later viewing. Similar to Breeze and Webex.

Intranet

A network based on TCP/IP protocols (an internet) belonging to an organization, usually a corporation, accessible only by the organization's members, employees, or others with authorization. An intranet's web sites look and act just like any other web sites, but the firewall surrounding an intranet fends off unauthorized access.

iTunes U

A repository for organizing and publishing podcasts. Faculty can upload podcasts to their courses within USC on iTunes U, and registered students can subscribe to their course podcasts to automatically get updated content.

Mediasite

A synchronous chat, voice, and video communication tool that allows for online presentations of PowerPoint, documents, and video for later archiving and viewing.

Mobile Briefcase

Technology tools for creating distance learning and technology-enhanced learning environments packed into a briefcase. It allows for videoconferencing, podcasting, and screen capture. The mobile briefcase enables the teaching of a class virtually anywhere in the world, so long as the instructor has high-speed Internet access.

Netiquette

A contraction of Internet etiquette, the etiquette guidelines for
communication on the Internet. Netiquette covers not only rules to maintain civility in discussions (i.e., avoiding flames), but also special guidelines unique to the electronic nature of forum messages. For example, netiquette advises users to use simple formats because complex formatting may not appear correctly for all readers. In most cases, netiquette is enforced by fellow users.

Picturetalk

A synchronous chat, voice, and video communication tool that allows for remote desktop sharing of online presentations, e.g. PowerPoint, documents, and video. Picturetalk excels at synchronous document collaboration for group and one-on-one project work.

Podcast, Podcasting

Used as both a noun and a verb, podcast refers to a series of audio, enhanced audio (images with audio), or video files that users can subscribe to so that they receive new files (or episodes) automatically when they become available. Podcasts can be used to archive lectures, colloquia, and other real-time events for the benefit of students, faculty, and staff. Because podcasts are not viewed in realtime, they can be uploaded to an iPod or other portable media device and listened to/viewed on the go. They can also be downloaded onto a Mac or PC computer for viewing.

Profcast

A software tool for recording and publishing a PowerPoint (or Keynote) presentation. Profcast captures and synchronizes the speaker’s voice with the PowerPoint slide images, and creates a single file that can then be uploaded into USC on iTunes U as a podcast.

PRS Clickers

Personal response system (PRS) clickers are small, credit card-sized devices that enable the polling of students during lectures. Instructors pose multiple-choice questions to students through specially designed PowerPoint slides, and students respond by pressing the letter or number on their clickers for the answer that they think is correct. PowerPoint then creates a new, dynamically generated slide with a histogram of student responses, which gives everyone insight into student understanding.

QuickTime

Software that plays certain audio and video files. The production version of the software, QuickTime Pro, can be used to capture audio for podcasting. QuickTime has both Macintosh and PC clients.

RSS

Short for RDF Site Summary or Rich Site Summary, an XML format for syndicating web content. A web site that wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers the document with an RSS publisher. A user that can read RSS-distributed content can use the content on a different site. Syndicated content includes such data as news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates, excerpts from discussion forums and corporate information. RSS was originally developed by Netscape.

Skype

Skype is an Internet-based telephony computer program that can be used to make free voice calls over the Internet to anyone else who is also using Skype. It's free and considered easy to download and use, and works with most computers. Once you download, register and install the software, you'll need to plug in a headset, speakers or USB phone to start using Skype.

Smart Board, White Board or Smart White Board

An area on a display screen that multiple users can write or draw on. White Boards are a principal component of teleconferencing applications because they enable visual as well as audio communication.

Starboard

A screen capture tool that is integrated into most of the studio classroom systems at USC for electronically marking PowerPoint presentations, projected websites, and any file, document, or image projected through a computer. Starboard uses software on the computer, a special screen and a special pen. Files can be saved separately for later retrieval, or integrated into a captured class session and synchronized with the instructor's voice for richer context.

Studio Classroom

An enterprise-level multi-media classroom that allows for the use of technology-enhanced learning and distance learning. Classes can be captured and archived and streamed live (webcast) for distance students. Videoconferencing is possible and can also be captured in the archive. Additional TEL tools may be available, including a document camera, digital annotation software, and smart white boards.

Turnitin

Software that allows instructors to check student work against copyrighted materials to ensure academic integrity.

VTC, Video Teleconferencing, or Videoconferencing

Describes a person-to-person (or group-to-group) two-way communication created with audio and video in real time from two distinct locations (one computer system to another) via the Internet. In a video teleconference, you see and hear the person on the other computer in real time, just as they see and hear you.

Web Archive

An online repository of audio and/or video files that users can download and listen to. Web archives are distinguished from podcasts in that you cannot subscribe to a web archive; users must return to the web site to find new episodes in a web archive rather than receiving automatic updates from a podcast.

Webcasting

A unidirectional multimedia broadcast over the World Wide Web. It is very similar to radio or television in that it is not interactive; webcasts emit from a broadcast center (such as a studio classroom) and go out over the Internet to viewers.

WebEx

An online meeting space similar to Adobe Arcrobat Connect Professional (see above) that allows users synchronously (in real time) to share PowerPoint slides, a smart white board, web sites, and other digital materials. WebEx can be used with Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or an audio conference bridge.

Wiki

A web site that can be edited directly from your web browser, without knowing any HTML, JavaScript, or publishing techniques.