Goldsmiths wins £1.3m for cognition centre
Goldsmiths College, University of London, has been awarded £1.3 million by the Higher Education Funding Council for England's Science Research Investment Fund to establish a Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture. The inter-disciplinary centre will look at the factors influencing what people remember, how they think and interact.
Four picked to develop US super network
Four American research institutions have been chosen to build the world's most powerful network - the National Science Foundation's Distributed Terascale Facility. The NSF will provide $53 million (£37 million) for the DTF, which will be 16 times faster than any research network available now with enough capacity to transfer the entire contents of the world's publicly accessible websites among any of the four DTF sites in two hours. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, Argonne National Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology will partner Qwest Communications, IBM and Intel in the project.
Details: www.nsf.org
Pioneer course for film accountants
The Production Guild of Great Britain has been awarded £340,000 by the South East of England Development Agency to launch the first integrated programme of continuing professional development for freelance film production accountants.
Details: www.productionguild.com
Companies sign up for IT skills charter
The e-skills Employers' Charter has received a boost in its efforts to address the IT skills shortage. Some 19 companies, including BT, Dell, Securicor Information Systems, Sun Microsystems and Konica Business Machines, have added their names to a growing list of backers. The charter, launched in March, commits employers to work with the e-skills National Training Organisation for the Information Age.
Details: www.e-skillsnto.org.uk
Stroud College unveils online study package
Stroud College has launched a range of IT professional courses online. The college is teaming up with NETg to develop the online service, which will enable it to greatly expand its curriculum.
Details: www.xtremelearning.com
Manchester duo offer free Spanish study
Manchester Institute for Information Delivery and Manchester Metropolitan University are to deliver a free government-funded SpanishOnline course. The course, aimed at beginners and at those who have an interest in Spanish and Latin American culture, is available to anyone living in England aged 16 or over with access to the internet.
Details: www.miid.net/spanishonline
American pair target self-improving learners
Faculty control of the content of online university courses and the implications for staff workloads are to top the agenda at a three-day conference on online education to be held in Montreal in November by the Canadian Association of University Teachers.
Details: www.caut.ca/english/events/online_ed/default.asp
Arrest highlights e-book conference
The arrest of computer professional Dmitry Sklyarov in the United States for publishing ways to bypass Adobe eBook's copy-protection has focused attention on the electronic book industry. Delegates at the fourth electronic book conference will be debating its future in Washington on November 5-7.
Details: www.itl.nist.gov/div895/ebook2001