Outlook App Finally Available

I read in the New York Times today that the Outlook app was released last week.  It is available for iPhones, Android phones, and the iPad.  The app is free.  I was using OWA as an Outlook app, but it did not have the robust features of Outlook.  If you use Outlook, try out the app. 

To learn more, go to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/outlook/to-go

Harvard and Student Cheating

Read an article this morning that Dean Hammonds at Harvard has stepped down from her position (http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/28/us/massachusetts-harvard-dean/index.html?hpt=hp_t2).  If you remember, the cheating problem at Harvard was headline news a few months ago.  Cheating in a course on the introduction to Congress resulted in over 100 students to be dismissed from the college and others disciplined.

Cheating involved plagiarism and collaboration on take-home exams.  The topic of cheating has surfaced at our University too.  In an attempt to assist students to develop values that support honesty, I encourage them to use plagiarism detection software.  We have a site license for Turnitin.  Turnitin is also a feature that can be activated with Desire 2 Learn course management system.

My assessment is that part of the plagiarism problem (mostly not giving credit for the words and thoughts of others and citing the credit) is partly due to inexperience with scholarly scientific writing.  To impart my beliefs about values of not collaborating on individual work, I usually ask students to complete a statement agreeing to not collaborate on work designed to assess individual performance.  I also encourage students to collaborate (peer review writing of their classmates) on writing certain activities.

In the Harvard situation, email was searched to identify who had leaked information, although according to the article, the content of email was not searched.  The lesson reinforced with what happened at Harvard is one needs to have more than one email address.  School business email should be used only for business.  Of course, even if you have more than one email account, confidential information should be not be shared.  If information is  confidential and there is a need to share with those who need to know, a secure email system must be used.

Setting Up Email on the Mac

Chris Breen has a new post, Setting Up Email on the Mac, available from MacWorld.  If you are using an iPad or iPhone the instructions for the Mac should be somewhat intuitive.  The main difference is the you lauch system Preferences on the Mac, whereas, you launch Setting on the iPhone and iPad.  You can read more at http://www.macworld.com/article/2027270/setting-up-email-on-your-mac.html

eHighlighter - A Research Productivity Tool in the Evernote Trunk

I am multitasking - reading an eBook on databases and researching the Evernote Trunk at the same time.  One of the apps in the Trunk is eHighlighter.  I could not find it in the Apple App store with the search tool (that has happened on several occasions) so I searched for it on the web and went into the "back" door of the Apple app store.  Go to https://itunes.apple.com/app/ehighlighter/id552675073?ls=1&mt=8 

eHighlighter has a short tutorial after you create a login and password and open the app.  When working on a research project you would scan the book barcode with the iPad or iPhone camera.  The app grabs the textbook citation metadata and prompts you to create a folder for it. 

Instead of taking notes, you use the mobile device camera to take a photo of the page.  You then used your finger to highlight the text you want to save.  You are prompted to note a page number.  The app then transcribes photo data into text for you to view and edit. 

eHighlighter allows you to save your notes to Evernote, Dropbox, or email.  A YouTube video demonstrating the app is noted below.