Internet Scout Project in the News

These are Scout and Scout-related efforts appearing in outside periodicals and publications. If you run across other Scout-related mentions in the press, please let us know.

An online press kit, with a brief overview of the Internet Scout Project, is available on our For The Media page.

Internet Scout Project develops better tools for online research
December 5, 2005	Wisconsin Technology Network
http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=2495
As the information revolution took hold, some groups envisioned the need to find structure among growing volumes of electronic files. The Internet Scout Project was established in 1994 to develop better tools and services for finding, filtering, and presenting online information. The Scout Project team combines library and computer science organizational concepts with the latest Internet technology to create information and software solutions for educators, librarians and researchers.
Internet Scout celebrates 10 years on web, eyes new project launch
October 26, 2005	Wisconsin Technology Network
http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=2413
From the beginning, the Internet Scout Project has been on the job, providing better tools for finding, filtering and presenting online information. Internet Scout is currently celebrating its first decade on the Web and also looking forward to a future of continuing exploration and service, including a new, four-year development program targeting community and technical colleges.
Internet Technology - Going Beyond Google
August 2005	University Business
http://universitybusiness.com/page.cfm?p=906
In higher education, the Internet Scout Project is structured like a newsletter, complete with the reviewer's initials at the end of each entry. The materials collected in directories are findable on the web, for the most part; they have the advantage of having been winnowed already from the chaff of extraneous data.
Scout Project plans online library portal with $2.6 million grant
November 10, 2004	Wisconsin Technology Network
http://www.wistechnology.com/article.php?id=1338
The University of Wisconsin-Madisons Internet Scout Project will use a recent $2.6 million grant to develop a program that will provide community and technical college educators access to the National Science Digital Library.
Grant to improve access to national digital library
November 4, 2004	News @ UW-Madison
http://www.news.wisc.edu/10383.html
The Internet Scout Project, a 10-year-old UW research unit, has received a $2.6 million grant to improve access to the National Science Foundations National Science Digital Library (NSDL). The aim of the NSDL is to create an online library of digital resources and services to help a wide variety of users access and use the librarys resources in their everyday environments.
Content Management Strategy for a College Library Web Site
March 2004	Information Technology and Libraries
There is a strong precedent for the creation of database-driven Web pages, including subject bibliographies, in libraries. Likewise, there are many open-source options out there for creating database-driven Web portals made up of hyperlinked electronic resources. The Internet Scout project, for example, offers a software suite called the Scout Portal Toolkit. The toolkit is a comprehensive package for building a Web portal of resources categorized by subject. MyLibrary is another such application, with emphasis on user-designed portals of electronic resources.
Scouting Out the Best of the 'Net
February 2004	C&RL News
http://www.acrl.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues2004/february04/joblifetime.htm
If the prospect of having the Internet as your special collection and the world as your audience exhilarates rather than intimidates, then working for the Internet Scout Project (ISP) might be your job of lifetime. Since 1994, the Scout Project, housed in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has produced one of the oldest and best respected free Internet current awareness publications, the Internet Scout Report.
Reporters Digital How-to
December 16, 2003	Editor & Publisher
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2052811
It has been a great joy to visit with you each week in this column over the past six years, to scour the Internet together for resources uniquely suited for the important work of writers and editors. When we started this Web-o-rized scavenger hunt in the winter of 1998, I had no idea it would be such a long and interesting journey. Now, 300 columns later, the time comes to wrap it up, but not without a backward glance.
Technology (A Special Report); The Best Way To... ...Find Something New on the Internet; Most of us visit the same old Web sites day after day; Here's how to get out of your rut
September 15, 2003	Wall Street Journal
If you're like most people, it's probably not very many. Time is limited, the Web is vast -- and the handful of Web sites you visit regularly seem just fine. But know this: Your lack of Web adventure means you're missing out on a wealth of information, knowledge and whimsy online. And to find it, you must have to know whom to ask. One of the best is the Internet Scout Report (Scout.cs.Wisc.edu), a project of the computer-sciences department at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Since 1994, the report has published a weekly listing of sites of interest to researchers and educators in the U.S. Using a graduate-student researcher, the Scout Report each Friday gives detailed descriptions of about a dozen Web pages on such topics as the arts, business and social science. (Separate biweekly reports cover life sciences, physical sciences and technology resources.)
Scouting the Web
August 2003	PC World
Web Newsletters appeared minutes after the Web debuted. One of the best is The Scout Report, a weekly digest of useful sites with an academic bent. (Specialized spin-offs are devoted to physics, life sciences, and math/engineering/technology.) A typical 20-item report might reveal new figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an archive of the free speech movement, a cool online collection of sheet music, and a special focus on a topic in the news.
Digital homeland library readied
April 2003	FCW.com
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0414/web-digital-04-16-03.asp
The Naval Postgraduate School plans to launch a digital library [using the Scout Portal Toolkit] by June, offering up research on homeland security issues.
Science portals
March 15, 2003	Library Journal
For most of us it is the portal that will be the most useful. The database of science materials currently holds about 250,000 records. To build the portal database, NSDL has brought in content from other sites, such as records for video clips from the Informedia project at Carnegie Mellon, web site records from the *Internet Scout Project*, and bibliographic records for scientific papers from the arxiv.org physics repository. Whenever possible, it uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for metadata harvesting. It is no surprise that the Dublin Core with extensions is employed as the metadata standard.
Website of the Week
March 6, 2003	Madison Capital Times
With thanks to the fine folks at The Scout Report (a Web publication of the Internet Scout Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Computer Science department), I learned about this massive database this week [www.baseballlibrary.com]. It promises to give visitors 'the stories behind the stats.' It's largely based on 6,000 biographies in Mike Shatzkin's book, 'The Ballplayers' and a day-by-day history of baseball events, 'The Baseball Chronology,' edited by James Charlton. Shatzkin's firm, the Idea Logical Company, developed the site. In addition, there's oodles of stuff to click through including sections on Baseball's Greatest Teams, Flashbacks and Historical Matchups, side-by-side comparisons of baseball's biggest stars with a chance for you to add your own two cents. These sections were originally produced by the Idea Logical Company for CBS Sportsline.
A free resource-portal Toolkit
February 17, 2003	The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/biz/2003/02/17/stories/2003021700130200.htm
To help organisations [sic] create information portals without the help of web experts, the Scout project has developed a `Portal Toolkit' (http://scout.wisc.edu/research/SPT/) that can be used to float a feature-rich information portal quickly.
So you want to start a syndicated revolution RSS news blogging for searchers
February 2003	Searcher
Weblogs as a software application are surprisingly onedimensional. That dimension is based on time. Because many Weblog applications are built around a database, there is no reason why other Weblog organizational models couldn't be offered. The crossover with a server-based information resource catalog/portal product such as the Scout Portal Toolkit (SPT) [http://scout.wisc.edu/research/SPT/] from the *Internet Scout Project* seems fairly obvious. The SPT is built with PHP/MySQL under RedHat Linux and includes a threaded commenting system along with an excellent query interface that supports date searching.
Software for Building a Full-Featured Discipline-Based Web Portal
November 2002	D-Lib Magazine
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november02/almasy/11almasy.html
The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Internet Scout Project received funding in the fall of 2000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to build an open source software package that would allow collection developers to share their collection's metadata via the web. The resulting software, the Scout Portal Toolkit (SPT), is virtually turnkey, very inexpensive to maintain and operate, and easy for non-technical staff to download, set up and populate with metadata. Conforming to international standards for metadata, data harvesting, and Web technology makes SPT useful for and usable by a wide variety of projects and organizations, allowing and encouraging collaboration and record sharing among projects. Over the SPT project's two-year period, beta testers and in-house quality assurance testing provided valuable feedback, helping to ensure that the software was robust, easy to use, and well-suited to the needs of the intended audience.
Scout delivers the 'good stuff'
January 22, 2002	Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/tech/news/jan02/14473.asp
'Heritage' and 'Internet' go together about as comfortably as Enron and the Securities and Exchange Commission. You don't usually think of a digital entity born in the mid-'90s as having much of a past. But that's what Madison's Internet Scout Report has, a heritage of success mixed with sadness, along with some absorbing plans for the future.
New Internet Scout Project Reports
January 2002	University of Southampton Library News
http://www.library.soton.ac.uk/news/2002/01/16.shtml
The Internet Scout Project have annouced the publication of three new reports for 'Life Sciences', 'Physical Sciences' and 'Mathematics, Engineering & Technology'. The Internet Scout Report is an established and respected web publication that identifies new, and newly discovered, quality Internet resources and is specifically aimed at researchers and educators. The Report began in April 1994, and new issues have been published every Friday since.
ONLINE GUMSHOES DETECTIVES PROJECT HELPS KIDS EVALUATE WEB SITES
May 17, 2001	Madison Capital Times
'Teachers won't have to keep reinventing the wheel', said district Technology Integration Specialist Barbara Spitz. Spitz and a team of district advisers shaped the program for Madison's middle schools from the University of Wisconsin Madison-based Internet Scout Project's KIDS Report. Sixth graders in Judy Patrick's social studies classes at Jefferson Middle School researched and posted information on The Brain, or how we learn. As part of a research paper assignment, Patrick's students evaluated Web resources. They recommended sites on alcohol, dreams, autism, strokes, brain injury and drugs. DAVID SANDELL/THE CAPITAL TIMES Sixth graders including Ariel Tucker-Jones, Greg Larson, Tosha Songolo, Brett Hellstrom, Yi Bu (standing) and Kristy Hueber and Sarah Becker (seated) in Judy Patrick's classes at Jefferson Middle School became Web sleuths as participants in the Internet Detectives project. It teaches how to find and review information on the Web then posts student-recommended sites as an online resource.
The Scout Report launches new searchable archives
January 4, 2001	Pandia, Search Central
http://www.pandia.com/searchworld/2001-01-scout.html
The world is full of mysteries, one being from where the Internet journalists get their information. They constantly write about new and interesting sites, and one may wonder whether they spend all their time surfing the Web.
Internet Scout Project's NEW-LIST Moves To Classroom Connect
June 6, 2000	Email Universe
http://emailuniverse.com/list-news/?id=126
NEW-LIST, an email list and Web site operated by the Internet Scout Project in the Computer Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin--Madison, announced it has moved to its permanent home at Classroom Connect, which develops original, Web-based curriculum products and professional development programs for K-12 education.
Internet Scout Searches the Worldwide Web for Education Research; Math Goodies
November 1999	DESIEN
http://www.uwex.edu/disted/desien/1999/9911/res.htm
Have you ever wished you had a staff of librarians capable of compiling the last 20 years of doctoral research on educational technology? No, it's not a dream, it's the Internet Scout Project, funded by the National Science Foundation and developed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Evaluating Net evaluators
February 1999	Searcher
The Scout Report Description: Located at the University of Wisconsin's Computer Sciences Department, The Scout Report is one of the oldest Web evaluation publications on the Internet and the flagship publication of the *Internet Scout Project*. The Project is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and publishes the Scout Report every Friday on the Web by e-mail. The Scout Report covers six broad categories: arts & humanities; business & economics; law; medicine & health; science & mathematics; and social science. In addition, in Network Tools, the Scout Report also covers the development of hardware, software, and content related to the Internet. The Scout Report provides a current-awareness service to students, faculty, staff, librarians, and the interested general public in the social sciences, engineering, science, technology, business, and economics. The Scout Team chooses sites from a wide variety of sources, including more than 70 mailing lists and Usenet Newsgroups, current news stories, metasites, and reader submissions. Each weekly issue covers new sites in the areas of research, learning resources, current awareness, new data, and an 'in the news' section. The reviews carefully describe the purpose/mission of the site, its organizational structure, and the tools, publications, and resources available on the site. Every issue also includes 'A Current Awareness Metapage' that lists publication resources (books, journals, technical reports, and other reports), tables of contents for new journals, government papers, publishers, think-tank policy papers, data/statistics, conferences, and employment and funding opportunities. Selection Policy and Criteria: Content -- Scope of the content, intended audience, purpose, upto-date, accuracy. Authority - Who is the author, evaluation of the author as an authoritative source. Information Maintenance - Site maintained/updated on regular basis. Presentation - Site organization, ease of navigation, graphics/text options, load time, specific hardware/ software requirements, content delivered in well-organized manner, pleasant to view both stylistically and graphically. Availability -- Reliability: the reviewer checks the site for availability at least three times in the days prior to the Scout Report's release. Cost-No set policy on this criterion but they look very critically at for-fee sites because payment sites deny many users access. Comments: The Scout Report is one of my favorite evaluation sources because I know I get real value for time spent with it. The annotations are thoughtful, well-written summaries that offer valuable information about the site under review. If you have a limited amount of time to read reviews (and who doesn't have limits on their time), then the Scout Report is one of the best places to learn about new and useful Web resources.
Scouting for Net sites
August 1997	American Libraries
Internet Scout, a project staffed by librarians and dedicated to electronic reader's advisory services (located at [http://scout.wisc.edu]), recently received a $3-million grant from the National Science Foundation. What are we taxpayers getting for our pocket change? The Scout Report The Scout Report is a current-awareness tool from the *Internet Scout project* that has been around for over four years. That's a long time in Internet years-longer than many librarians have been online-and that very longevity is one reason why the Scout Report is such a useful tool for resource discovery. The Scout Report, published every Friday, is available on the Web and by e-mail (see the Web site for subscription instructions). Each week Internet Scout staff, under the leadership of librarian Jack Solock, write abstracts for up to 20 new resources. Unlike the breathless 'gee-whiz' quality of some commercial currency tools, the Scout Report is subdued, selective, and evenhanded Staff writers scrutinize content, authority, and information maintenance, and each site is visited several times to ensure it is stable. The resources the Internet Scout team picks are designed to be useful to librarians-for example, the issue I looked at for this column, in late June, covered a key Watergate site (just in time for the 25th anniversary of the break-in), a source for news about Africa, and an astrophysics site. The 'Where are they now' feature takes a look at an old report citation and updates the information. The Scout Report will become even more useful to librarians later this year with the debut of three new specialized reports on science and engineering, social science, and business and economics. Putting the Scout Report to work If you maintain Web resources, including subject guides, the Scout Report is invaluable. Lisa Shackleford, manager of the Village Library (part of the Metropolitan Library System in Oklahoma City), uses information from the Scout Report to help 'update the list of System Book Marks on our public Internet access terminals,' and also distributes tidbits from the report to colleagues. Nancy Wildin, from the Seattle Public Library's Web Office, says she 'makes a point of zipping through Internet Scout right after receiving it on Friday' and adds that she 'wouldn't be without the Scout!' The e-mail version of the Scout Report is particularly useful for those of us who always mean to stay up to date, but who get too busy. E-mail is an in-your-face 'push' technology that's hard to ignore.
Internet Scout Project Wins U.S. Grant
June 14, 1997	Wisconsin State Journal
The UW-Madison-based Internet Scout project will continue to help students and educators find their way around cyberspace, thanks to a $3 million National Science Foundation grant announced Friday. Established five years ago, the Internet Scout staff reviews hundreds of academic sites each week and advises researchers of the best in categories such as science, humanities and engineering. Reports are distributed online at the Scout World Wide Web site -- [scout.wisc.edu] -- and via the Scout Report, a weekly magazine with more than 100,000 readers. The new award ensures . . . we'll be at the forefront of research to develop new ways to locate valuable, credible information on the Internet, said project director Susan Calcari.