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- Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!auvm!CANAL.CRC.UNO.EDU!JHDCI
- Approved-By: "EDTECH Moderator" <21765EDT@MSU.BITNET>
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- Approved: NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
- Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 10:17:05 EDT
- Sender: "EDTECH - Educational Technology" <EDTECH@OHSTVMA.BITNET>
- From: JHDCI@canal.crc.uno.edu
- Subject: Re: Convincing Faculty
- Lines: 22
-
- If software could become a line on faculty vita it would be an incentive. As
- far as getting a commericial distributor to handle academic software I don't
- think there is going to be much of that. Commercial distributors want a pack-
- age with all the bells and whistles as I discovered when my hard drive became
- overloaded. I have a bad habit of buying everything that comes along but when
- I was a weekend without my computer I reflected on just how much duplication
- there is between programs. For an example I have a spell-checker on Excel,
- Word for Windows, and Grammatik. With Windows I can go from one to the other
- so one spell-checker would suffice. Excel and Word retail for $495 and
- Grammatik is $99.50 (I didn't pay retail but I am a legitimate owner) and I
- picture an Academic software package being something that analyzes questions
- in classroom discourse. There is a need but not much of a market. Maybe
- programs such as this should be distributed to other researchers with credit
- going to the developers and the modifiers of the software. A peer review to
- evaluate acadademic software and give proper credit to the writers would give
- academic programs some value. I seriously doubt that much academic software
- is going to hit the big-time. Consider academic software like a text and
- commercial software like a best-selling novel. There is room for both types
- of programs. But faculty will not write academic software if they are not
- rewarded some way. I write academic software but my sanity has been questioned.
- Jack DeGolyer[JHDCI@UNO.EDU]
- University of New Orleans
-