May 2013 CyberSelection: Disabled World

Disabled World  is the CyberSkeptic's Guide to Internet Research CyberSelection for May 2013.

Today, about 1 in 5 people worldwide are living with at least one disability, and most people will experience a disability of some form during the course of their lives. So says Disabled World (disabled-world.com/health/#ixzz2MNSvG2XY), launched in 2004 as a source of independent news articles and reviews about all types of disabilities and assistive devices. Disabled World (disabled-world.com/) offers advice and information for those with chronic or genetic disabilities, as well as disability through accident, illness, or the natural process of aging. Daily news comes from press releases, journalists, and organizations. No medical or health expertise is claimed, although contributors may have extensive experience in the subjects covered. The site is managed and content curated by two individuals, Lynn and Ian Langtree, based in eastern Canada.

Terminology

What is "disabled"? An article attributed to Wikipedia, titled "Disability or Disabled--Which Term is Right? (disabled-world.com/definitions/disability-disabled.php#ixzz2MNbf2yBf), discusses the sensitivity in the U.S. and U.K. toward various terms covering "functional limitations that affect one or more of the major life activities, including walking, lifting, learning, breathing, etc." It acknowledges the effects of laws in various countries and the preferences of groups representing affected people themselves, and comes down unequivocally for "disabled persons" living with various conditions of "disability."

The definitions don't stop there. Indeed, there is a whole page, Glossary and Definitions of Disability Health and Medical Terms (disabled-world.com/definitions/), which lists general and specific glossaries. Links are provided to glossaries of conditions (paraplegia, quadriplegia, and hemiplegia, for example) as well as to the bureaucracy of disability ("Disability Alphabet Soup: Sorting Through the Maze of Legal Abbreviations") and to terms that are useful when buying assistive devices ("Stairlift Glossary of Terms"). Each glossary gives its date of publication and author; those glossaries that are not authored by Disabled World itself are often provided by representatives of professional or commercial organizations, but affiliations of authors are disclosed.

Navigation

Though I often use Ctrl+ to increase the size of type on websites, I am still able to read without screen reading software. Therefore I don't know whether the Disabled World site meets all current standards of visual accessibility, but I find it clear and easy to read (without increasing the font) and easy to move around. Across the top of the homepage are several tabs: Disability Information, Medical, Health, Travel, Sports, News, Community, Videos, and Products. Immediately below these large topic areas is an A to Z list of All Topics; there are hundreds.

The homepage itself gives top space to its mission statement, definition of disability, and several links to informative articles for those who are "newly disabled by accident or illness." Further down are headlines for the most recent news. When I checked in early March the top stories were:

• Handheld Talking Graphing Calculator for Visually Impaired, from Orbit Research
• Wireless Brain Sensor has Many Applications, from Brown University
• Helping Speech and Stuttering in Children with Down syndrome, from University of Alberta
• 30% of Adults Receiving Government Assistance Have a Disability, from U.S. Census Bureau
• Sequestration Cuts Will Have Devastating Impact on People with Disabilities, from National Organization on Disability

Each story was shown on a full page with the ability to print, email, add comments, and post comments or a notice to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Related content that had previously been published in Disabled World was also identified, and in some cases additional information was provided. The sequestration article, for example, gave a brief description of the sequestration battle, labeled as a "definition."

All story pages also contained ads from Google Ad Choices. Although the spots--at the top right of the article, the bottom middle, and the bottom right--are clearly labeled as advertisements, they are tiresome and not particularly pertinent (but most Cyber readers are probably not plagued by the limited selection presented to me: "Work from home in Spain," "Save money; live overseas," and virtually anything printed in Spanish). Such annoyance is the price we pay for "free" sites.

Assistive Devices

The most interactive sections of Disabled World are Products, Videos, and Community. Click on any of these tabs from the main pages and you will get a new top navigation bar that lets you choose from among just those three. I went looking for Products. The Product page (products.disabled-world.com/) immediately presented thumbnail photos of 60 devices--writing instruments, playing cards, light switch enlargers, large button universal TV remotes, arm extender reachers, and more. Click on a product picture to go to its page, and then click again for more information. Purchases are made from the supplier, not from Disabled World, but Disabled World has approved the merchants (products.disabled-world.com/suppliers) and apparently reviews them, as one source had been declared "no longer recommended" on the supplier page.

I soon realized that there is a product category listing in the right column of the product pages (it replaces those annoying ads). The most efficient way to review products is to click on the product category name. If you are new to caregiving or disability status yourself, you will benefit from browsing the categories and be intrigued by the many different types of assistive devices currently sold. The Dressing Aids category, itself just one of over 20 categories, opened up to all sorts of dressing, grooming, and bathroom aids. Of course you would go here for bathroom grab bars, long-handled sponges and brushes, wipes and other toiletry supplies, but did you know you could buy zipper pull-ups, special jewelry fasteners, adaptive nail clippers, and an "autodrop eyedrop guide" if you can't see well enough to hit the mark when inserting your own eyedrops? The pages on canes and cane accessories (products.disabled-world.com/category-444.html) show a huge variety of decorative and adjustable ones, in addition to the more prosaic, and are just the thing to examine if you are trying to help someone accept the use of a cane for the first time.

Disability Videos

As I was looking at some of the Mobility Products photos (products.disabled-world.com/c/11/mobility-products.html) I realized that I needed more description than I could get from a flat page. That's when I remembered the Video tab. On the Video homepage (videos.disabled-world.com/) I found a selection of thumbnail images of "recently viewed" and "new" video clips with title; clicking through to the individual video page lets you view the video itself and presents information about it, statistics, and related links. The Disabled World collection of short video clips (all free) includes demonstrations of assistive technology, classroom discussions of disability topics, general health topics, and inspirational videos of sports. Quality varies: some videos are professional, some are homemade. Many use Flash format and will not display on an iPad. Videos for those with hearing disabilities include British Sign Language (BSL), American Sign Language (ASL), and captioning.

As with assistive devices, there is a detailed subject list of nearly 40 categories to the right. Some of the topics that benefit especially from a video treatment include the following:

• Accessible Homes and Ramps
• Adaptive Driving and Hand Controls
• Apps for iPhone Android and Mobile Devices
• Disability Travel Films
• Lifts Hoists and Transfer Devices
• Sign Language Videos

Community

Click on the Community tab from the main menu or the Disability Community tab from the submenu and you come to Disability Community Q & A, where almost 100 questions have been asked and answered in just two months. Registration is required to participate here. This new community replaces an older forum, and reference is made to Disabled World's Facebook presence (facebook.com/Disabled.World) and the fact that most users keep in touch that way.

In addition to Facebook you can set up an RSS feed of the daily news or catch up on Twitter (https://twitter.com/DisabledWorld). Although I find it annoying that every time I viewed a device or article or video on Disabled World, I was asked to comment, it is obvious that Disabled World has been successful in creating its social community and is working to spread the word.

A Pearl of a Site

Because it is broad in scope, covering every type of disability and touching on regulations and culture in several English-speaking countries of the world, it should not be expected that Disabled World be totally comprehensive, and it is not. It is, however, an excellent starting point for those new to this world. It provides immediate practical help and makes you more aware and sensitive to issues of disability. Experienced searchers will recognize it as a research pearl. It speaks to you in language you understand and meets some needs right away. If you must extend your research, you will be able to do so much more efficiently because of the awareness of issues, resources, and terminology that you have gained in Disabled World.

Susanne Bjørner provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers. Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net or www.bjorner.info.

April 2013 CyberSelection: Country Insights

Country Insights is the CyberSkeptic's Guide to Internet Research CyberSelecton for April 2013.

Country Insights (intercultures.ca/cil-cai/countryinsights-apercuspays-eng.asp) is a product of the Centre for Intercultural Learning (intercultures.gc.ca), a part of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, formerly Canada's Department of External Affairs. The Centre provides intercultural and international training to personnel in government departments and agencies, NGOs, and private sector organizations. For more than 200 countries of the world, the Country Insights website offers a short factual Overview, Country Facts, and Cultural Information. Cultural Information is the heart of the site, with data provided in these categories:

    Conversations

    Communication Styles

    Display of Emotion

    Dress, Punctuality & Formality

    Preferred Managerial Qualities

    Hierarchy and Decision-making

    Religion, Class, Ethnicity, & Gender

    Relationship-building

    Privileges and Favouritism

    Conflicts in the Workplace

    Motivating Local Colleagues

    Recommended Books, Films & Foods

    In-country Activities

    National Heroes

    Shared Historical Events with Canada

    Stereotypes

In each category, a "local" perspective is offered, followed by a "Canadian" perspective. Background information about the individual authors is given at the end of each Cultural Information page; usually the local interpreter was born in the named country or lived in it for many years, and also has living, study, and/or work experience in Canada. Likewise, the Canadian interpreter most likely is a Canadian native who has spent substantial time in the named country.

North American Perspectives

For some Cyber readers, a Canadian perspective is natural, but the majority are located in the U.S. Are there important differences between these two perspectives that will affect interpretation of the entire site? To find out, I selected United States of America from the dropdown list of countries. The United States of America page (intercultures.ca/cil-cai/overview-apercu-eng.asp?iso=us) immediately revealed, in the Overview section, the diversity of the country. Factual information is given for Language(s), Religion(s), and Ethnic Group(s); there were multiple entries in all categories.

I clicked on Conversations, the first category of Cultural Information, and the full cultural page was revealed (intercultures.ca/cil-cai/ci-ic-eng.asp?iso=us#cn-1). The question posed in Conversations is, what is safe to talk about when meeting someone for the first time? I was relieved to read that "At first meeting in a business setting the standard topics of conversation that are acceptable in Canada would apply in the US—likewise for social first encounters." Communication Styles covers how much space is usual between two people, handshaking, kissing, eye contact, facial expressions, and tone of voice. The Canadian interpreter says that "In the US, much like in Canada, the personal bubble seems to range between 2 to 3 feet" and that "As in Canada, people are not very tactile at first encounter." Both the local and Canadian interpreter commented that Americans are direct and want you to come to the point and not beat around the bush. Both interpreters also indicated, in the Display of Emotion section, that norms for display of affection and anger are similar in the U.S. and Canada.

Dress, Punctuality & Formality concentrates on the workplace environment; both interpreters noted that requirements vary greatly depending on the size and type of workplace, but that use of first names is common. I was surprised to read that "many people will consider you late if you don’t arrive 15 minutes early," but then decided that in a work situation where people do coffee, Facebook, and personal email before starting work, that may be true. Sections on Preferred Managerial Qualities and on Hierarchy and Decision making follow; here it is good to scroll down to read the background of the interpreters, in order to understand more about the environments they have worked in. A Disclaimer at the bottom of the page remarks that "Although cultural informants were asked to draw on as broad a base of experience as possible in formulating their answers, these should be understood as one perspective that reflects the particular context and life experiences of that person."

Subsequent sections give perspectives on religion, class, ethnicity, and gender in the workplace and on work environment questions including these:

How important is it to establish a personal relationship with a colleague or client before getting to business?

Would a colleague or employee expect special privileges or considerations given our personal relationship or friendship?

I have a work-related problem with a colleague. Do I confront him or her directly? Privately or publicly?

What motivates my local colleagues to perform well on the job?

The greatest revelation here was the surprise displayed by the Canadian perspective on encountering the U.S. health insurance "system" and the lack of a one-year paid maternity leave.

Further questions ask the two interpreters to recommend books, films, television shows, foods, and websites to learn the culture of the country, activities to pursue while in the country, who are the national heroes, whether there are shared historical events that might influence the relationship between the two countries, and what harmful stereotypes Canadians might have about people in the named country. The dual answers to these questions, while often too specific to draw generalities, do reveal individual opinions and suggestions. The site recommends cultural triangulation, which it defines as "using a variety of media (people, print, literature, television) and several different sources of each before deciding the meaning of something in another culture" to develop your own picture of the culture.

Beyond North America

Probably the greatest value of this site is for those cultures that are much more different from the one you come from than are the differences between two North American countries. It is easy to browse full reports by country, using the country name dropdown and then clicking any Cultural Information link.

In a lengthy Communication Styles section, for example, the Saudi Arabia page details appropriate and inappropriate distance and  touching norms and practices between men and men, between women and women, and between women and men. I was rather distressed to learn that in China women are expected to "dress up," wearing heels, for work, and in Mexico they not only dress up, but make up heavily. On the Vietnam page it says "Vietnamese prefer to speak in a very indirect manner.… This is different from Canada where, in work situations, it is better to get straight to the point." On the issue of punctuality: "Vietnamese use what translates roughly as 'rubber time'. For example, if you expect people to come to a meeting at 8am, you should invite them for 7.30am."

Time and Time Again

Making comparisons between cultures can be simply done because the subcategories are the same for all countries. I checked Dress, Punctuality & Formality for several.

South Africans also do not follow "first world standards" of punctuality and deadlines. "Many meetings do not start (or end) on time. Allow enough time in your daily schedule to take care of each event running over by at least an hour." In Mexico, the local interpreter advises one "to set up deadlines a week before the 'real' deadline" but the Canadian one says that "The … mañana mañana approach to life does not apply to deadlines, and while meetings might start 10 minutes late, much later than that is not the norm. It is considered rude, however, to show up for social engagements on time." And then, "there is always regular time and "Afghan time" which is 30–45 minutes after the designated time. The Afghan people generally are very hard workers but deadlines are really not of high importance. They may start 30 minutes late but rarely leave on time and often work 2-3 hours overtime." In Finland, on the other hand, "Lateness in attending meetings is not well received. Punctuality is a virtue. Deadlines are taken seriously. Working overtime is almost a norm in some sectors (but be mindful of the unionized work environment).  Always inform if you will be late."

Country Insights is a wonderful site to find the "soft" but vital information on how to deal with people from different countries, whether you are working with them or just visiting. There are some disappointments: a few of the countries are missing the Cultural Information (they do have the Overview and Country Facts, which assembles external links to History, Geography, Culture, Politics, Economy, Media, and a Map). Many pages have not been updated in three or four years. I would love to see a section added that gave suggestions for email communication with the culture in question.

Susanne Bjørner provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers. Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net or www.bjorner.info.

March 2013 CyberSelection: Doing Business

Doing Business 

The Doing Business Project (www.doingbusiness.org), from the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (http://www1.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/corp_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/about+ifc), focuses on business regulation and enforcement in countries around the world. By analyzing regulation applied to small and medium-sized companies throughout their life cycle, the project has developed objective measures of regulation and annually publishes comparative data across countries and across time. Through its publications, Doing Business aims to encourage countries to move towards more efficient regulation; it offers measurable benchmarks for reform; and it serves as a resource for researchers and others interested in the business climate of each country.

A clear and uncluttered homepage invites you to "Explore Economy Data" in two ways. First, you can select an economy, which generally means a country. They are all there, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Alternatively, select a topic:

Starting a Business

Dealing with Construction Permits

Getting Electricity

Registering Property

Getting Credit

Protecting Investors

Paying Taxes

Trading Across Borders

Enforcing Contracts

Resolving Insolvency

Employing Workers

The topics are all areas that represent areas of regulation in most countries and constitute the factors (except for Employing Workers) on which each economy is ranked in the annual reports. Since 2003, Doing Business has published a report each year that compares all economies on these factors and computes an "Ease of Doing Business" index. Doing Business 2013: Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises, was featured as I researched this site in early January and placed Singapore at the top of the ranking as the economy in which it is easiest to do business--for the seventh straight year. Poland was named as the "most improved."

Exploring the Singapore Economy

I selected Singapore from the dropdown list of economies and immediately the "Ease of Doing Business in Singapore" page (www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/singapore) appeared. Singapore is identified by Region (East Asia & Pacific), Income Category (high), Population (5,183,700), and GNI per Capita in US$ (42,930). Then the page notes the Doing Business 2013 rank (1), the 2012 rank (1), and the change (0). Following is a Topic Ranking grid, listing the ten individual topics on which the economy is ranked, with current and prior year rankings, and the change. Singapore was ranked no. 1 in Trading Across Borders this year and last, but that was the only no. 1 ranking it received. It falls to no. 12 for Getting Credit and Enforcing Contracts, and down to 36 (its lowest ranking) for Registering Property.

The bottom part of the page provides a changeable display of each of the ten topics. The default is Starting a Business. You can start a business in Singapore in a single day for less than 400 Singapore dollars; a three-step procedure is outlined. But there is more. Business start-up is ranked against the other Doing Business economies, the regional standard, and an OECD standard in the areas of Procedures (number), Time (days), Cost (% of income per capita), and Paid-in Min. Capital (% of income per capita). If you don't understand what these concepts mean, you can hover over the term and a brief explanation will pop up, with a link to the methodology. Further links to details on starting a business, the methodology that Doing Business uses for this  computation, and a page comparing all economies on this factor are provided.

Move to the other nine topics by clicking on that factor in the Topic Rankings grid or on the tab at the top of the topic part of the page. I examined Registering Property and came away with a better understanding of why Singapore ranked lower on that topic.

Exploring Topics

Any of the topics can be explored in detail by selecting the topic from the drop-down Explore Economy Data menu in the upper right of each page. On the Starting a Business page, the main data is a statistical chart with all the state economies on the left axis, and the factors related to starting a business that we saw previously across the top. In addition to the national economies, there are regional aggregations. Any of the columns can be sorted by clicking on the heading, so it is possible to easily determine that New Zealand ranks first in the category of starting a business.

Here, as on the economies pages, there is a row of tabs. Whereas the tabs in the economies pages lead to alternative topics, the tabs in the topics pages lead to  more information explaining and supporting the mission and methodology of Doing Business. From the default Data view, you can switch to Distance to Frontier, What is Measured, Why it Matters, DB Reforms, Good Practices, Transparency, FAQ, and Other Resources. Reading through these pages provides an accessible tutorial in international business and finance, together with some interesting case histories. For example, Isaac Merritt Singer formed the I.M. Singer & Company partnership with Edward C. Clark in 1851. Clark, however, persuaded Singer to change the form of business to a limited liability corporation in 1863 to protect it from court battles with Singer's heirs--Singer reportedly had more than 20 children!

In the Data view, a Subnational icon appears with various economies; clicking on the Subnational icon for India opens up a new page (http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/starting-a-business/india/) with a similar chart, but detailed for 17 Indian states or union territories. There are subnational pages for the following economies:

China

Columbia

Egypt, Arab. Rep.

India

Indonesia

Italy

Kenya

Mexico

Morocco

Algeria

Pakistan

Philippines

Russian Federation

Full Text Options

There is a lot of data at Doing Business. Much of it can be purchased in print form, but the World Bank's Open Data project (http://data.worldbank.org/) makes most of it available via free download. Click on the Reports tab in the navigation bar below the dark blue on the homepage to find the annual global Doing Business reports. All--back to 2004--can be downloaded for free. Then click on the shaded blue tabs below the top bar to find regional, subnational, and thematic reports, and case studies. Many of the regional and subnational reports are actually pieces of the global reports, but accessing them this way makes it easier to zero in on specific area and also provides bibliographic data indicating the date and original publication.

All the data pages for topics and economies provide print and Excel download options. You can open a read-only copy of the Excel file quickly, or you can choose to save a copy to disk, which then can be manipulated in all the usual Excel ways. It took me practically no time to download, save, and open the file of the Trading Across Borders topical data. For the economy pages, you can refine your output options so you only print or download one or more of the topical pages or an economy summary.

More Discovery

Although the browse methods of discovery are well thought out and work well, there is also a Search Text box at the upper right of each page. Keywords entered appear to be searched as strings with automatic stemming, so entrepreneur finds entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, and so on.

Oddly, Advanced Search (http://extsearch.worldbank.org/servlet/SiteSearchServlet?adv=true&qUrl=doingbusiness&ed=rrudb) seems to be accessible only from this rather convoluted URL, or from a link at the bottom of the quick Search Text box results; keyword entries from the prior quick search are not carried through. Using Advanced Search you can limit by language: Chinese (Simplified), English, Estonian, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, or Spanish. The search engine supports all words, any words, or exact phrase searching. You can also specify occurrences of search term(s) to be anywhere on the page, in the title, or in the page URL, and limit to pages that have been updated  in the past 3, 6, or 12 months, or anytime. A format limiter permits searching for one specified format: Adobe Acrobat or Postscript files, Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint formats, Rich Text Format, or any format. Finally, you can change the length of your results pages to include 10 or 20 results.

Doing Business is a superb site, both for the amount of data it contains and makes available for free, and for its numerous means of displaying and explaining the data. Information from the Doing Business project can make you more knowledgeable about doing business abroad, and in time, its advocacy efforts may even make doing business abroad easier.

Susanne Bjørner provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers. Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net or www.bjorner.info.

February 2013 CyberSelection: AdAge

The print magazine Advertising Age has long been a bible of the advertising industry, but it is also valuable for general company research on most consumer and technology businesses. Cyber last covered the website of Advertising Age magazine (www.adage.com) back in March 2004, as a CyberSelection. I recently reviewed what I had written about AdAge.com, as it was styled then.  Things have changed in the last nine years, of course, but Ad Age has kept up with new technological and marketing techniques as the internet has matured. Its current site uses the brand AdvertisingAge on its homepage, but most places throughout the robust site, it is AdAge.

When I investigated the site again on November 30, the article "Six Things You Should Know About 'The Hobbit' Before It Explodes" was featured. The article noted that it has been nine years since the final installment of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy broke movie box office records and that a new cinematic trip to Middle Earth was now approaching in the form of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey." Three of the six advertising-related factoids about this impending event:

• Characters from "The Hobbit" have been licensed by Microsoft to appear in Windows 8 ads in the U.S., UK, France, and Germany.
• "The Hobbit" is the first major film to use 3-D technology with HFR (high frame rate)--though only 400 cinemas in the U.S. are equipped for HFR.
• Items like "Frodo's Pot Roast Skillet" and "Gandalf's Gobble Melt" are set to appear on the menu at Denny's in a TV spot tie-in deal.

You can find lots of business and media news like this by scanning the busy homepage, which shows blurbs for five feature articles at the left, and another seven or eight leading to various columns or blogs in the center. The right column shows mostly ads, including house ads: titles and links to Related Content and Most Read stories, and links to Most Commented and Most Emailed. The left column displays an intriguing line of news "From Around the Web" that touches on advertising and marketing topics (New York Times reports that Bazooka gum is discontinuing its comics wrap after 60 years; Reuters notes  Twitter's legal battle over ownership of tweets; and Business Week discusses "The Science Behind Those Obama Campaign E-Mails."

Search and Read

There is lots of material, and most of it is accessible through the simple Search Advertising Age search box at the top right of each page. Here you can search the contents of each weekly print issue of Advertising Age (back to 1992) as well as online-only content (updated each business day, back to 1995). My search for PeopleBrowser delivered a results screen with six items and included a repeat of the search statement (delicately informing me that I had misspelled the name, and completing the correct search, all within 0.14 seconds). Default order is Most Relevant, but that can be changed to Most Recent or Most Popular with a click. Facets on the left of the screen allow you to Refine Results by the Section in which they appear, Author, or Keywords that are extracted from the full stories. Each result shows a title in large font, its section label, author, date published, and a snippet with the search term(s) highlighted and about ten words before and after the keywords. There are links to More (from that section), RSS Feed set-up, and the Full Text of the article.

Even if you are not a subscriber or registrant on AdAge.com you can proceed to read the full text of articles without any difficulty--to a point. When I hit the Full Text link for the ninth time (I wasn't counting but AdAge was), a pop-up screen informed me that "visitors to adage.com can access 10 stories for free within the calendar month"--and "encouraged" me to subscribe. There are various subscription packages; the least expensive is the Digital Package at $79 per year, which provides online access to published print and online articles, CMO Strategies, podcasts, and full screen video. Access to the print is a separate fee, or you can subscribe to both.

Registration is not the same as a subscription; registration is free and brings its own privileges. You do not need to register to search or display full text items (within your subscription or monthly limit). Registering provides personalized services: you can sign up for a dozen free email newsletters, send email copies of content (if you have viewed it), participate in polls, and comment on stories.

Advanced Search

The AdAge Advanced Search screen (http://adage.com/advancedsearch) has an elegantly simple interface that uses drop-down menus to reveal sophisticated searching options. The first option defines the scope of your Search: "The entire site" is the visible default, but you can also choose from Headlines, Authors, Keywords, or Articles. Then, there is a Keyword box, where you enter one or more words. The Match box is the next option and a drop-down  "All Words" is the visible default--that's what told me I could enter more than one keyword in the box immediately above. But there are other choices:

Any words

Partial words

Best Partial words

Exact Phrase

All > Any

All > Partial

Boolean

If you don't know what some of these choices mean, just hold the cursor over that choice on the drop-down menu and a brief explanation appears. The Boolean explanation (the briefest textual explanation of Boolean I have seen in my life) indicates that AND, OR, NOT, NEAR, and parentheses may be used. Once you select an option to populate the Match box, its explanation appears in text below the box to remind you how you are searching.

You can search "All of Advertising Age" or refine to one or more Selected Sections:

AdAge.com

AdAgeChina

The Print Edition

Data Center

Encyclopedia

Madison+Vine

The Date Range criterion has a cute slider you move to specify within the last one day to the last 365 days. There are also two blank boxes to specify a Specific Range; when you click in the blank, a calendar pops up that you move forward and back like at your favorite travel site. The only problem with this is if you want a really long-ago start date. It gets tedious clicking the back arrow on the calendar.

I tried a number of rather complicated searches and had some difficulties. Where my earlier PeopleBrowser search had been interpreted, corrected, and returned results, my Boolean search for (iPad OR tablet) NOT mini also turned out to be erroneous, repeatedly reporting "1-0 of 0 results" with an empty result screen. I would have welcomed some more direction, but in-context search help is limited to what has already been described above, and the general Help page (http://adage.com/help/) covers topics other than searching. I wrote to a contact name that I found, however, and was impressed to received email back on a Sunday with the advice to use AND NOT in the Boolean search. So, if the system can correct from PeopleBrowser to PeopleBrowsr, why can't it correct from NOT to AND NOT?

Bottom Line

These quibbles aside, however, there is a wealth of information at the AdvertisingAge site, and much of it remains, after nine years, freely accessible. AdAge is an essential site to check for business history and strategy because of its rich archive of the weekly print edition and the huge amount of web-only content. Varied search options make it easy to locate articles on your topic. I am disappointed in the removal of pay-per-view access; I would prefer if AdAge had continued its former offer of single articles for $3 or less, payable by credit card, and even expanded it to a pay-for-a-day option at a rate of, say $10 per day. Still the $79 annual digital rate is lower than the digital+print of nine years ago, even while the archives have grown five times in size.

Susanne Bjørner provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers. Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net or www.bjorner.info.

January 2013 CyberSelection: Open Knowledge Repository

The vast knowledge reserves of the World Bank are now available free via a sophisticated open access platform. The new Open Knowledge Repository (https://openknowledge.worldbank.org) was launched in April 2012, two years after the World Bank first made its statistical data available to the public (see Open Data http://data.worldbank.org/). At this second site, more than 2,000 books, articles, reports, and working papers can be searched, displayed in full text, and--here is the icing on the cake--distributed, re-used, and re-mixed for commercial purposes, through the World Bank's commitment to its Creative Commons CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). The Open Access Policy for Formal Publications at http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/04/16200740/world-bank-open-access-policy-formal-publications, implemented in July 2012, details the commitment of the World Bank to making its research freely available to the world at large.

The homepage is clean and simple. Thumbnail pictures and short descriptions of five New Publications are displayed on the large center and right-hand panels. The left-hand panel provides links to Browse, Advanced Search, Other (About, Terms of Use, FAQ), Site Statistics, Resources, social network sites, and RSS feeds. A simple search box is spread across the top of the main panel.

Search and Retrieval

Hoping to learn something positive about economic conditions in the country in which I live, I keyed spain into the search box. Results came immediately, showing 1-10 of 28 items. Each item listed title, author(s), date, and the first three lines of an abstract. I noticed that results are displayed automatically in Relevance order, descending, and that I could change the order to Title or Publication date, and ascending. I could also change the number of items displayed on a page to six other quantities from 5 to 100. I changed the display number to 40, requested Publication date, descending, order, and hit Apply.

The World Bank concentrates on reports of economic development and does a lot of trans-national comparisons. I had to skip over several items in the new results display before I found a citation with a visible mention of Spain. The first Spanish cite was "Corporate Growth, Age and Ownership Structure: Empirical Evidence in Spanish Firms," an article from the Journal of Business Economics and Management in 2011. Other interesting cites included "Public Transport Funding Policy in Madrid: Is There Room for Improvement?" (probably, but I personally think the Madrid transit system works unusually well already) and "Spain: Development, Democracy and Equity," in which the visible abstract reminded that "Spain stands as one of the few countries in the world which have completed a successful transition from authoritarianism and relative underdevelopment to democracy and economic abundance in the last half century."

Metadata Galore

You can get a full record display by clicking on the title in the initial results display. That action reveals the full abstract and a formatted citation, such as this one:

“Boix, Carles. 2004. Spain: Development, Democracy and Equity. © Washington, DC: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/9209 License: CC BY 3.0 Unported.”

An "XML export" link clicked through to a page that showed the full citation, with abstract, with XML coding. I realized that I was beginning to see evidence that the World Bank is serious about allowing and encouraging its data to be distributed by others.

This record indicated the availability of a PDF download (size and name provided) and a link to "Associated URLs." At the associated URL I found a related report, World Development Report 2005, available in eight languages. There was also an indication of the Collection in which this report appeared (World Development Report Background Collection) and a link to a page for the collection.

Then I clicked on the "Show full item record metadata" link and I was blown away with detail--it was like looking at a coding sheet or full MARC record. In addition to six topic identifiers, there were assorted other fields to indicate language(s), dates of acquisition and availability, regions, and a Google Scholar link--and more. I was impressed with the thorough application of metadata and again realized that this content is easily adaptable for use by numerous other databases and aggregators. Viewing the metadata is also a good way to get ideas for searching using the Advanced Search interface, which you can get to by clicking a link in the left navigation column.

Advanced Search

When I went to the Advanced Search page (https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/discover) I discovered that this is the page that is automatically shown at the top of the results screen after every search, even those done in the initial search box. In addition to the Sort options (previously mentioned) there are dropdown boxes for Search Scope and Filters. 

The Search Scope categories correspond to the Collections to which each item is assigned. They are:

Annual Reports & Independent Evaluations

Books

Journals

Working Papers

Economic and Sector Work (ESW) Studies

Knowledge Notes

Multilingual Content

Multiple Collections can be assigned to an item, but--this is one of the few criticisms I have of this interface--you cannot select more than one Collection to search at one time. The default search scope is All of the OKR. Information about most of the Collections is available under an "I" icon next to the collection name in the Browse portion of the left-hand panel (not on the search form, but you can view it conveniently by opening another browser window).

Journals includes articles published in World Bank-published journals, but also articles published by World Bank authors in external journals. Knowledge Notes are "short briefs (typically 4-6 pages in length) that capture lessons of experience from Bank operations and research in a succinct and easily digestible format (and usually reference larger works found elsewhere in the OKR)." Multilingual Content indicates works with PDFs in languages other than English; records are in English and therefore must be searched only in English, but the full text of the item is often available in a wide variety of other languages.

Filters (Title, Author, Publication Date, Topic, Region, Keyword, and Country) are available for fielded search. Select a filter and enter the value in the small search box to the right of the filter name. Although there are no instructions on how to do this, some guidance is available from the examples of records shown immediately below the search form. More guidance can be found by examining the rich facet display for any given set of search results. Lists of authors, publication date ranges, topics, document types, keywords, region, and country are given; they include the numbers of matching records within the search together with a link that lets you drill down to limit the results.

Browse Options

Several options are available in the left column for browsing the entire database. Clicking By Publication Date gives the oldest items first. Currently, OKR officially contains publications back to 2005 and will extend back to 2000 by the end of 2013. However, the annual World Development Reports is available starting in 1978 and at least some reports go back to the early 1990s.

It is worth clicking on the Topic browse link to look through the 600+ thesaurus terms that are applied to World Bank publications. There are many more topics than the agriculture, education, energy, economic, and poverty reduction terms that I expected. I became interested in Science and Technology Development--Innovation; Private Sector Development--E-Business; Girls Education; and Accommodation and Tourism Industry, for example.

I was surprised at the breadth of the collection of documents I found at the Open Knowledge Repository, and I was impressed with the ease and elegance of its interface, so much so that I am sorry that the World Bank is not more prolific! I've read that report on Spain's development and democracy that I mentioned earlier and was pleased to confirm impressions I had gathered and learn more about the unlikely development of Spain as a tourist destination under Franco. I also fell across a two-page document titled "16 Things You Didn't Know about Africa," which quickly gave me a much more nuanced picture of African countries. I recommend the Open Knowledge Repository whenever you need information on international economic and development initiatives, or cross-national comparisons in business and social science topics. I also recommend it as a model of an internet database and of commitment to open access.

Susanne Bjørner provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers. Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net or www.bjorner.info.

2012 CyberSelections in Brief

January: Brandirectory  http://brandirectory.com/home
Brandirectory calls itself "the ultimate collection of information for the world's largest brands." It is operated by Brand Finance Plc, founded in 1996 and based in London with offices in 19 other locations throughout the world. Brand Finance provides valuations of companies' brands and other intangible assets for accounting, tax, and legal purposes and for commercial transactions including acquisitions, divestitures, licensing, and joint ventures. Brandirectory's "encyclopedia" of brands includes 500 brands throughout the world.

February: CrunchBase  www.crunchbase.com
Crunchbase is a free database of technology companies, people, and investors. It currently contains records for nearly 80,000 companies, over 100,000 people, and 7,000 financial organizations. CrunchBase is operated by TechCrunch (http://techcrunch.com), a popular technology news company founded in June 2005, which describes itself (on CrunchBase) as "a network of technology-oriented blogs and other web properties," and was acquired by AOL a year ago.

March: Today's Front Pages  www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages
Today's Front Pages is one of several interactive exhibits at the Newseum, a Washington, DC news museum; each day a special gallery lets visitors have a look at up to 80 newspaper front pages from every U.S. state, the District of Columbia, and countries around the world. Today's Front Pages on the Newseum website goes even further. More than 800 newspapers submit their front pages electronically each morning, and by 8:30 AM Eastern time--a half hour before the physical Newseum opens--the pages are available for web browsing.

April: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)  www.itepnet.org/
Founded in 1980, ITEP is the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit, non-partisan organization devoted to research on federal, state, and local tax policy issues. ITEP works with lawmakers, non-governmental organizations, the media, and the public, providing accurate, timely, and straightforward information to promote understanding of the effects of current and proposed tax policies. If you want to see how the presidential hopefuls' tax proposals would affect you, other Americans, and the economy in general, check here.

May: BusinessUSA  http://business.usa.gov
BusinessUSA is a "centralized, one-stop platform" designed to make it "easier than ever for businesses to access services to help them grow and hire." It went live in beta in February, just four months after President Obama challenged government agencies to work together, beyond their individual boundaries, and to "start thinking and acting more like the businesses they serve." Thus much of the information you find here is available at other U.S. government websites; the unique contribution of BusinessUSA is supposed to be that you can find what you need easier and faster.

June: OnlineConversion.com  www.onlineconversion.com
When I went searching for a measurement translation site that is comprehensive but simple to use, I was glad to find OnlineConversion.com, where you can "convert just about anything to anything else" in over 5,000 units of measurement. As globalization shrinks our world, it becomes increasingly impossible to do research, read for pleasure, and compare purchase prices online without making, or checking, conversions between different currencies and units of measure. OnlineConversion.com is a one-stop measurement conversion site that can save time for everyone.

July/August: ClinicalTrials.gov  http://clinicaltrials.gov
ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry and results database of clinical trials supported by federal and private healthcare research facilities and conducted in the United States and around the world. Authorized by federal mandate in 1997 and managed by the National Institutes of Health, the database went live in February 2000 and currently gives information about the purpose, location, and participant requirements of more than 125,000 clinical trials in all 50 US states and nearly 180 countries.

September: Udemy  www.udemy.com
Udemy is an online academic course site that is different; it offers both free and fee-based courses, and in addition to hosting courses through which you can learn, it provides a platform through which you can create a course and make money. Founded in February 2010, Udemy now claims 10 million users and garners 70,000 lecture views each month. Courses are offered in a wide variety of technology, academic, and lifestyle categories; While the majority are free, many charge a fee.

October: GeoNames  www.geonames.org
GeoNames looks plain, unexciting, and bare-bones, but it hides a lot of power behind its dull facade. Founded by Marc Wick, a self-employed software engineer in Switzerland, the site contains over 10 million geographical names from all over the world. GeoNames exists commercially as a web services tool for developers; you may have benefited from it when using sites such as Bing Maps, the U.S. Geological Survey, the BBC, and Nokia. Much of the data that moves below the surface in those sites is available for free at www.geonames.org, and it can be used directly by individuals in a variety of ways.

November/December: ForeSee www.foresee.com
ForeSee, the force behind many of those annoying pop-up polls that often greet you as you approach websites with a specific task in mind, defines itself as a "pioneer in customer experience analytics" and claims to "collect millions of satisfaction survey responses annually." What does it do with the data? Its website offers a supply of research and white papers, webinars and transcripts, and blogs, all of which are free.

November/December 2012 CyberSelection: Foresee

It has happened to you, too, I am sure. You approach a website with a specific goal in mind. But before you get to what you need--almost before the front page is finished loading--up pops a window asking you to complete a survey at the end of your visit, evaluating your experience. One day last summer when I was interrupted three times within seconds of opening three different websites by such a pop-up invitation, I decided to find out where all that data was going. Coincidentally perhaps, all three survey requests had come from ForeSee (www.foresee.com).

I did not spend much time at the ForeSee site then--only enough to note that ForeSee defines itself as a "pioneer in customer experience analytics" and claims to "collect millions of satisfaction survey responses annually." That number seemed about right! I also noticed that there was a supply of research and white papers, webinars and transcripts, and blogs, all of which seemed to be free. I looked at a couple blog entries (http://blog.foresee.com/) and typed in my email address to get email notification of new posts. All summer I have been receiving a steady stream of emails with teasers and links to topics relating to customer satisfaction and its measurement, e-retail, social media, mobile, usability, and more. Sometimes I have even followed the link to read more.

Blog postings, from 20 contributors, are frequent--about three times per week--and full of factual content. You can limit blogposts to one of 19 different topics, including Analytics, Case Stories, Customer Satisfaction, and ForeSee Original Research. RSS or email subscription is available.

Research & White Papers

Moving beyond the blogs, though, let's look at the main site. Click on the Research & White Papers tab to browse papers by industry, subject, or date (2010, 2011, or 2012). ForeSee has six industry categories: E-Business, Financial Services, General, Government, Healthcare, and Retail, and divides its work into five subjects: American Customer Satisfaction Index, Best Practices, Social Media, Trends in Satisfaction, and Web Analytics.

Each industry and subject topic offers a handful of recent reports, each with a brief informative description that gives its major finding. The ForeSee Daily Deal Commentary (2012), for example, says:

Daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial have come under criticism lately from merchants and business analysts who are not convinced the business model is good for retailers. But new research from ForeSee shows that daily sites attract new customers and inspire loyalty. Groupon leads the way with the largest share of the market. Download the free report to learn more about how daily deals can increase business awareness, purchases, and repeat purchases.

You have to fill out a rather lengthy registration page before downloading the report, but after you have done this once, the site tracks you so that subsequent download requests skip past that page (I'm still waiting to see how many reports I can download before wearing out my welcome and getting requests to pay). The Daily Deal report is an attractive and easy-to-read 8-page PDF, filled with statistics, tables, and color-coded summary statements. Data for this March 2012 report was collected from the ForeSee 2011 E-Retail Satisfaction Index (U.S. Holiday Edition), apparently an annual investigation, and noted comparisons with an earlier daily deal survey conducted in the spring of 2011.

Government Sector

ForeSee has been working extensively with the U.S. government since at least 2010, when it released a year-end E-Government Transparency Index, confirming that "online transparency is a key driver of online satisfaction and overall trust in government for many of the websites tracking it." The corresponding report is no longer available, but pointers were given to more recent press releases and research and white papers. Indeed, there are government-related white papers issued for each quarter in 2011 and 2012.

The Q1 2011 report found that "good federal government websites save the government money and foster democracy." Q2 recommended that "the .gov Task Force consider traffic, the amount of redundancy, and citizen experience as criteria for making their decision on how to consolidate e-gov websites and reduce duplication." Q3 analyzed the state of social media in federal government, and Q4 documented the not surprising finding that "customer satisfaction with federal government websites remains near record highs and far surpasses satisfaction with the federal government overall."

Sandwiched between the Q1 and Q2 2012 E-Government Satisfaction Index reports was the news that ForeSee President and CEO Larry Freed had testified before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Social Security on May 9 about citizen satisfaction with the websites of the Social Security Administration (SSA). Freed's full written testimony was available as a free download, and in it he acknowledged that ForeSee has been working with SSA websites for eight years. 

Webinars and Media Coverage

An upcoming webinar titled Cause and Effect: How Mobile Impacts the Retail experience, was promoted under the News & Events tab, and I registered. I should have expected it but I didn't: the confirming email told me that the webcast was viewable on smartphones and tablets including iPads, iPhones, and Android devices.  I watched it on desktop machine, however; it was presented by Eric Feinberg, ForeSee's mobility guru, who said, among other things, that slightly more than half of all in-store mobile use is directed to that store's website. Does this say something about onsite customer service these days?

Some--not all--past webinars are recorded and available for playback or download. I was attracted to one reporting the results of the 2011 online banking study. You need to click on the + sign before the title to view the webinar synopsis and then fill out a registration form again to gain access to this content.

The Media Coverage tab (www.foresee.com/news-events/media.shtml) under News & Events reveals a fascinating list of articles that are worth scanning for their headline value alone, though you can click through to get the full article from an excellent and diverse set of publications. This is a long list of articles (though not as long as the press release list; www.foresee.com/news-events/press-releases/) in which ForeSee, or more usually its flagship publication, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (www.theacsi.org/) is quoted. Interesting stories in late August included the news that "Hatred of Timeline Causes Satisfaction with Facebook to Plummet" (FoxNews.com), "Google+ Trumps Facebook in Customer Satisfaction" (CNN.com), and "Netflix Reputation Ticks Up Slightly In Consumer Survey" (CNN Money). I couldn't resist taking a look at "Survey Fatigue: Do Companies Care What You Think?" (MSNBC; http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2012/06/20/12300983-survey-fatigue-do-companies-care-what-you-think?lite), where, in addition to a discussion of the issue by Herb Weisbaum, there was a one-question live poll at the end. It was not a survey from ForeSee, however.

The Polling Experience

I had been wondering whether I would get through the week of focused research and writing about ForeSee without encountering a survey. As a matter of fact I was getting a little worried, because I hadn't. But it was the end of August--maybe not a good survey time, statistically speaking. And then it happened. I clicked on a link within a ForeSee research report that went to a different ForeSee URL (www.foreseeresults.com) and up popped a survey!

I agreed to answer at the end of my visit. (ForeSee always gives you the option to say "no, thanks.") I did a lot of investigation and navigated back and forth and all around, so I wasn't entirely sure when I was on www.foresee.com and when I was on www.foreseeresults.com, as they seemed to contain the same content. I was horrified, however, to find that the survey was 20 questions long, and the first 19 were marked with an asterisk to indicate they were required. This fit in with my recollection of these surveys, which was that they were always long, always forced an answer between 1 and 10, and rarely had questions dealing with the issues that I wanted to complain or praise about. The same thing happened this time, but there were a couple additional questions: one open-ended "anything else you want to say about the site?" (there was and I did) and another about whether I wanted to be contacted (I didn't).

I still don't like the polls. I realize, though, that when I choose to respond, my answers get encased with millions of others and sold to a particular client; there are lots of places on the site that make this obvious. But I like the opportunity to make a difference, especially in government websites, and I like the fact that some of the answers I give come back, with millions of others, as information for free.

Susanne Bjørner provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers. Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net or www.bjorner.info.

October 2012 CyberSelection: GeoNames

GeoNames (www.geonames.org) looks plain, unexciting, and bare-bones, but it hides a lot of power behind its dull facade. Founded by Marc Wick, a self-employed software engineer in Switzerland, the site contains over 10 million geographical names from all over the world. GeoNames exists commercially as a web services tool for developers; you may have benefited from it when using sites such as Bing Maps, the U.S. Geological Survey, the BBC, and Nokia. Much of the data that moves below the surface in those sites is available for free at www.geonames.org, and it can be used directly by individuals in a variety of ways.

Although it has been around since at least 2006, I only recently discovered GeoNames as a partner to The European Library (www.theeuropeanlibrary.org), where it was mentioned as an authority file for geographic names. At the GeoNames site itself, I soon found out, you can enter the name of just about any city, state, region, country, lake, river, sea, mountain, or a slew of other location or geopolitical entities, and find out what and where it is. When I lost track of all the foreign place names I was reading in The Poisonwood Bible, for example, I entered Kikongo into the search box at GeoNames, clicked Search, and received a page (www.geonames.org/search.html?q=kikongo&country=) telling me that Kikongo is a "populated place" in the Congo at S 5° 50' 12'' latitude and E 15° 1' 24'' longitude. Clicking on the hyperlinked country name Congo, I got a country page (www.geonames.org/countries/CD/congo.html) listing basic facts about the Congo: country name, ISO code, FIPS code, capital, area, population, currency, languages, the names of neighboring countries, and a tiny view of its national flag. There were also a line drawing of the country and links to other sources of information (Administrative Division, Feature Statistic, Largest Cities, Highest Mountains, Other Country Names, and Wiki).

The site is not completely intuitive, and explanations are minimal. If, like me, you've forgotten a lot of what you learned about geography in a formal setting, you can explore and learn by working your way down the links under Browse the Names at the left of the homepage.

Countries

The Countries page (www.geonames.org/countries/) presents a table of over 300 countries, with columns for the country name, capital, area (square kilometers), population, and its continental home. Clicking the country name leads to a page like the one described above for the Congo, though some have more complex data. Denmark, for example, shows "dependencies" (Faroe Islands and Greenland) and Puerto Rico shows that it "depends from" the United States. GeoNames uses English for all country names, but an extremely useful feature resides below the "other languages" link next to the country name: a table of names for that country in the other languages of the world. So, for example, if you want to know how they write "United States " in Afrikaans, Arabic, or Azerbaijani, just find the right language (click on the "language" column to sort alphabetically).

In addition there are three columns for variations of the ISO 3066 country codes: the two-character alpha codes, three-character alpha, and three-digit numeric. I am familiar with many of the two-digit country codes (US for USA, CA for Canada, DE for Germany, ES for Spain, etc.), though I would have been hard pressed to name the international standard that defines the codes. A fourth column gives FIPS codes, which I had to look up; FIPS is in fact an outdated standard, withdrawn by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard in 2008. I'll bet there are still some computer systems that have not made the changeover, though, so I see why it would be useful for the commercial part of the site. Any of the columns on the Countries page is sortable by clicking on its header, once to put in descending order; click again for ascending.

Cities, Mountains, and ZIP Codes

The Largest Cities link from Browse on the homepage leads to an interactive Google map and chart of ten cities. You can move the map to re-center and select another part of the world, then select one of the pinpoint locations to get a pop-up window with more detail. I moved the map to South America to view cities in northern Argentina and adjoining countries. The ten-city chart shows the country, population, and "feature" of each city. I was puzzled to see that all my Argentine cities were "seat of a first-order administrative division" except for Buenos Aires, which was the "capital of a political entity" and Rosario, which was "seat of a second-order administrative division." When I clicked on the pinpoint for Rosario, the pop-up window showed  a "geotree" link. GeoTree opens up a giant hierarchical outline that shows the relationship of all divisions within the entity. Sure enough, Rosario is the seat of the Departamento de Rosario, which is one of 12 Departamentos of the Provincia de Santa Fe, which in turn is one of 24 provincias of Argentina. The first-order cities of Córdoba, Mendoza, and San Miguel de Tucumán that I had seen were all seats of provinces.

A similar map and chart structure appear when you click Highest Mountains from the homepage, as also happens for Capitals, though in Capitals you get 50 names in the chart.

The Postal Codes link goes to a page (www.geonames.org/postal-codes/) with line drawings of more than 60 countries. You can enter a place name, select a country, and receive a postal code; or enter a postal code, select the country and find out what location it refers to. Depending on the country, some of these are more refined than others.

Search

The keyword search box on the home page, where you are told to "enter a location name," such as Paris, Mount Everest, or New York, defaults to searching all countries, but there is a drop-down menu to limit your search term to any country of the world, from Afghanistan to Åland. You can then "search" for a table of terms matching your location, or "show on map" to bring up the Google map within the GeoNames site.

A link to Advanced Search (www.geonames.org/advanced-search.html?) appears directly under the main keyword search box and offers three additional options. You may select a "feature class" from a drop-down menu. Feature classes are:

country, state, region

stream, lake

parks, area

city, village

road, railway

spot, building, farm

mountain, hill, rock

undersea

forest, heath

The second advanced search limiter is by Continent: Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, North America, and South America, with a default of All.

The third option is a simple checkbox, allowing a "fuzzy search." Then, again, you may "search" for a text table or "show on map."

Authorities and Updating

The use of GeoNames as an authority file is interesting, since the site allows any registered user to edit and add new names using a wiki interface. For such a complex project on a worldwide scale, this makes sense, and GeoNames has "ambassadors" (www.geonames.org/team.html) in many countries of the world. No qualifications for ambassadorship are stated, but names and email addresses are given; ambassadors specifically help with knowledge of administrative divisions in their countries.

No qualifications other than registering are stated, either, for site editors, but recent modifications are cataloged (www.geonames.org/recent-changes.html) showing changes and who made them. A user manual (www.geonames.org/manual.html) gives directions on how to update and a user forum (http://forum.geonames.org/) shows conversations from people who seem to know a lot about geography and programming.

Flattening the World

Capturing millions of locations all over the Earth and making them searchable by name and viewable on maps is ambitious. Occasionally, especially for less populated parts of the world, you will come across a notation in GeoNames that says that insufficient map detail is available. Mistakes are also made in identifying places or their exact location (there are two entries for the town I live in, for example). But GeoNames is a first-stop resource for looking up any geographic name--great for identifying and disambiguating places (How many Medfords are there in the US, anyway?). It is also an interesting example of a successful commercial venture that still offers data for free.

Susanne Bjørner provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers from a base near N 38° 3' 42" and  W 0° 47' 37". Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net or www.bjorner.info.

September 2012 CyberSelection: Udemy

CyberSkeptic has covered free online academic course sites before (notably Academic Earth, www.academicearth.org in September 2009). Udemy (www.udemy.com) is different; it offers both free and fee-based courses, and in addition to hosting courses through which you can learn, it provides a platform through which you can create a course and make money. Founded in February 2010, Udemy now claims 10 million users and garners 70,000 lecture views each month. Courses are offered in a wide variety of technology, academic, and lifestyle categories; While the majority are free, many charge a fee. A quick browse through the front page courses showed "Anatomy & Physiology for Beginners," by Natalie Fox, as the least expensive course at $6 (for a 29-lecture course) and "Self Publish Weekend," by Andrew Pyle, as the most expensive, at $220 (for 43 lectures).

Find a Course

There are several ways to browse what's available. Clicking Browse from the front page presents a page (www.udemy.com/courses) highlighting a Course of the Week, which in late June was "Learn C The Hard Way"; three New and Noteworthy courses; three Trending Paid courses; and three Trending Free courses. Scrolling down highlights three courses in each of the subject categories:

    Technology

    Business

    Design

    Social Sciences

    Math and Science

    Humanities

    Arts

    Lifestyle

    Crafts and Hobbies

    Health and Fitness

    Education

    Music

    Languages

    Sports

    Games

    Other Courses

A search box at the top allows keyword searching. When I typed in Spanish I found several courses--and here there were charges as low as $2. While a number of courses taught the language, an intriguing free one was called "Portal en Espanol," from the University of Michigan. Promising 15 lectures, it seems to be a series of interviews with Spanish speakers (www.udemy.com/campus-i-portal-en-espanol/). Before I knew it, I was engaged in listening to a 30-minute interview with Theresa Satterfield, who came to Louisiana from Panama as a child, learned English the hard way, and now is professor of languages at Michigan. I have returned to this course many times since that first lecture; for me it is an opportunity to hear correct and  understandable Spanish about subjects that interest me.

The Faculty Project

Two special strands of "curated" course lists are of particular interest. The first is The Faculty Project (http://facultyproject.org/), where "The best professors from the world's leading universities are coming together to teach online," for free. They haven't all arrived, yet--there were only 14 courses listed in this endeavor when I checked--but those that are there are substantive efforts in a variety of fields. I was drawn to "The United States Constitution: A Biography," taught by Robert J. Allison, Suffolk University; "Brazil for Beginners," with Marshall C. Eakin, Vanderbilt University; "Foundations of Business Strategy," by Michael Lenox, University of Virginia; and "Is U.S. Democracy Broken?: Perspectives and Debates," with Jeb Barnes, University of Southern California. But I signed up for "Math is Everywhere: Applications of Finite Math," taught by Tim Chartie of Davidson College. I don't want to admit how many years it has been since I took a real math course, but what do I have to lose? It's free.

I clicked the Enroll button and joined 322 other students in the math course. Actually, I was taken first to a course page with more information about the instructor and the course itself. The description promised over 20 lectures and 5.5 hours of content relating math to everyday factors such as computer fonts, Angry Birds, March Madness, and Google. A lecture-by-lecture syllabus was provided, with separate links for slides.

University Courses

A second curated list, Online Courses from Top Universities (www.udemy.com/academic-courses), presents over 500 college-level courses from 14 universities. Udemy does not yet have the depth or breadth in this section that Academic Earth has. Though it does have some of the same contributing schools, I did not notice duplication between the two sites. Top contributors to Udemy so far are heavy in the areas of technology and entrepreneurship: Stanford offers 200; MIT, 56; and the Indian Institute of Technology provides 114.  The Stanford selections are particularly attractive, as many appear to be guest lectures from Silicon Valley names that you will recognize. Other universities represented include Cambridge, Columbia, Harvard, Michigan, Virginia, Yale, and several University of California campuses. The left column on the page displaying the most popular courses shows links to the providing school and numbers of courses offered by that organization; there is also a linked subject list indicating numbers of courses in each of 26 subjects. Again, it is clear that entrepreneurship is a top component.

Creating Courses

The aspect that really puts the "you" in Udemy, however, is the platform to create your own course. Step-by-step instructions are given at www.udemy.com/teach (though they are deceptively simple). To get started, click on Create a Course (you must be registered and logged in). Write a title (60 characters) and headline (120 characters), and select a category from the drop-down list of subjects. Then enter three or more keywords or tags, and select the language of the course from a drop-down list. You can also write a summary, using a text box with simple formatting tools (italic and boldface, bullets and numbered lists). Or you can select the HTML or code interface if you know how to use those tools to get more direct access to the appearance of your course summary.

Quick course construction assumes that you already have content lying around on your computer or the internet. You can upload content in various formats (PPT, PDF, MP3, MP4, MOV, AVI , MPG, and ZIP, as well as documents, articles, and pictures) and import it from several sites (YouTube, Vimeo, SlideShare, Flickr, Ustream) by typing in the URL. Udemy promises creators that they own their own course. It is unclear to me, however, whether there is any oversight over materials that are assembled to make sure that the course creator has rights to use them, though the Terms of Service (http://support.udemy.com/tos) requires that content submitted represents the user's own original work.

Organizing the course into chapters and lectures is promised to be as easy as dragging and dropping.  There are more options, though. You can host a live session, and there is a place for asynchronous discussion with students. A mashup tool promises easy integration of video and slides, and the use of HTML5 means mobile access to courses via "any device."

I wanted to test the tools for creating a course, but I couldn't think of a thing I was ready to teach. Still, I clicked Create a Course and made up a title and subject; I was relieved to see a notice saying that anything I wrote and assembled would stay invisible until I "published" it. I am impressed with the tools and technical help offered by Udemy in the course assembly process. If you already have offline course work available to you, or if you have courses on another online platform, you will be able to put together a course on Udemy fairly quickly. Udemy urges but, for the most part, does not help with course planning and good design, however. Anyone who contemplates publishing a course should first study the presentation of several existing courses by various instructors and also enroll in the "How to Create a Udemy Course" (www.udemy.com/official-udemy-instructor-course/) by Alex Mozes, which is free. I'm taking that now and also thinking beyond the bare bones of the course that I started to write. A nice feature of Udemy is that you can keep a course private  and only invite a select group, so it is easy to experiment.

The Bottom Line

If you set a price for the course, you get to keep 70% of the revenue generated with each enrollment. Students pay using a credit card or PayPal. Udemy promises help in using social media (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, blogs, and more) to promote the course, and even provides coupon codes that can be distributed. You can embed the entire course or a small part of it via a widget on your website or blog. The course creation aspect of Udemy is ideal for independent professionals and entrepreneurs who want to sell an educational product or promote themselves. It should also be considered by librarians doing instruction, professional instructors in academia or training, and aficionados who simply want to share a passion.

Note: A new interface was introduced in July, though the old continues to be available for awhile. This review refers to the old interface.

Susanne Bjørner provides editorial services to publishers, librarians, authors, and researchers from a base in Spain. Contact her at bjorner@earthlink.net or www.bjorner.info.