What's New

Connexions Collaboration with CCCOER Featured in Palo Alto Online News - 2008-05-09

Connexions' collaboration with the California-based Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources is mentioned in a recent article in Palo Alto Online News. The piece discusses the effort to develop affordable textbook solutions for California's system of community colleges with the Open Textbook Project. Click through to read the article for more details.

Chronicle of Higher Education Discusses Open Textbook Project - 2008-05-01

The California Community College Open Textbook Project is currently evaluating a number of platforms for providing open education resources in the California community college system. Connexions is among these platforms, as is discussed in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article. This effort is being funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which provides much of Connexions' own funding. Please visit the Chronicle article for further details.

Connexions Work Mentioned in NY Times Editorial - 2008-05-01

A recent New York Times editorial cites the rising cost of textbooks and calls for universities to adopt innovative new methods for lowering book costs for students. Rice University's efforts to provide texts through Connexions for some of its courses is cited as an example of the new kind of institutional thinking called for by the article. These courses, such as "Concept Development Studies in Chemistry" and "Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering I", are available free online and at very low-cost as printed, bound books available through print-on-demand publishing.

LaTeX Importer Feature Now Available - 2008-04-22

Connexions is excited to announce its newest authoring tool: an importer for turning LaTeX documents into CNXML modules. Not only does the importer produce high quality Connexions markup, it also generates very faithful presentation MathML for the LaTeX mathematics. Geared toward technical authors for whom LaTeX is typically the authoring platform of choice, the importer is based on the open-source LaTeX-to-XML converter Tralics.

To get started using the LaTeX importer, Connexions authors should first have a look at the "Using LaTeX to Create Connexions Modules" overview document. As LaTeX documents can in general be built using arbitrarily complicated packages and macros, this article will guide authors on how to best prepare their LaTeX for import using Connexions' LaTeX document template.

The Institute Highlights IEEE-Connexions Partnership - 2008-04-22

The April 2008 edition of the IEEE Institute highlights the ongoing partnership between the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) and Connexions as part of IEEE's new policy of encouraging free public access. In the article, past IEEE-SPS president Al Hero, who heads the Connexions initiative, encourages participation of authors by publishing new collections and submitting them to the IEEE-SPS for review using its Connexions lens. You can access the article and read Prof. Hero's quotes by clicking here.

Connexions Featured in Educational Technology Magazine - 2008-02-20

In its November-December 2007 issue, Educational Technology Magazine featured a paper written by Connexions Senior Strategist C. Sidney Burrus. That issue is now available for free download. To read it, please click here and scroll to page 22 of the PDF file.

Collection Printing Feature Now Available - 2008-02-01

Connexions is excited to announce the debut of its long-awaited collection printing feature. Now, in addition to generating PDF files of a individual modules, Connexions users can generate a single PDF containing all the modules in a given collection. We will give a brief introduction to these new features here.

How to Generate PDF Files from Collections

Much as Connexions modules have long sported a "Print (PDF)" option in the "Content Actions" box on their left-hand side, collection home pages will have a "Download PDF (BETA)" option to do the same. This is illustrated in Figure 1. Of course, a collection's home pages is always found at "http://cnx.org/content/colXXXXX/latest", where "XXXX" substitutes for the number of the collection in question. The "(BETA)" remark is added to remind Connexions users that this feature is currently being beta-tested, so there may be a few kinks that need to be worked out. When users do happen to run into troubles, we request that they report their problems using the bug-reporting procedure below.

Figure 1: New "Download PDF" option in collection homepage Content Actions pane.

Features of the New Print System

When a collection editor publishes a new collection or a new version of an existing collection, the collection PDF will be available for download within the hour. When modules in the collection change, those changes will appear in the collection PDF within the hour.

A collection PDF contains much more than just the content of the individual modules gathered into the collection. It begins with a title page giving the name(s) of the editor(s) who assembled the collection, followed by the name(s) of the author(s) who created the modules in the collection. Next you will find a table of contents listing all the sections of the collection and the names of modules gathered into those sections along with their page numbers in the printed collection. Following this, the contents of modules will be presented inside of the sections and chapters. References to other modules in the collection will be displayed using a chapter/section numbering system that is consistent across the document. Similarly, references to figures, tables, equations, and references will also have a numbering system that is consistent throughout. Solutions to exercises presented in a chapter will appear at the end of that chapter, rather than immediately following each exercise. At the end of the document, you will find a glossary section of defined terms whose definitions are specified in the markup of each module in the collection. Following this is an index built from the keywords in the metadata and the terms marked up in the body of each module. The printed collection concludes with a list of all the modules used in the collection, displaying the title, authorship, URL, and licensing information for each.

Known Issues with Collection Printing

As the collection print tool is in its beta-testing phase, it still has a few unresolved issues. If you should encounter these problems, please know that we are working hard to fix them. Some of the more common problems are as follows:

• large tables may flow off the printed page
• tables within tables are not currently supported
• tables with cells spanning rows are not currently supported
• some long equations may flow off the page
• some long equations may flow outside table cells containing them
• autoscaling of images to fit the printed page may not always yield an optimal image size
• some collections will fail to build PDF files; these collections will not have the "Download PDF (BETA)" link

How to Fix Some Problems Yourself

Interested authors can, in certain cases, edit their CNXML to resolve a few of the issues above. For instructions on particular fixes, please click on the links below:

• Re-size images in your collection PDF
• Replace a low-resolution online image with a high-resolution print image in your collection PDF
• Re-size table cells to contain overflowing math entries

How to Report Problems

If you encounter problems in the print collection process other than those mentioned above, please take a moment to let us know. You can use the "Report a Bug" link in the upper-right corner of any collection homepage (Figure 2), or you can go directly to the bug report form by clicking here. When you do so, please provide us with as detailed a description of the problem as possible.

Figure 2: The "Report a Bug" link in the top right corner of a collection homepage.

Planned Print Enhancements

As discussed, this announcement represents the initial release of a Connexions collection printing tool. In time, we will not only release fixes for some of the issues mentioned above, but we will also introduce a number of enhancements to the printing pipeline. These improvements include:

• Single module printing incorporating the improvements seen in the collection print tool.
• A downloadable .zip file containing all the supplemental media for a collection (those non-printable items that currently display with the message "This is an unsupported media type" and a link pointing to an online file).

IEEE-SPS Connexions Lensing Website Online - 2008-02-01

Connexions, on behalf of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS), is pleased to announce the launch of www.ieeecnx.org, the main website for the IEEE-SPS Connexions lensing project. Here, IEEE-SPS authors can view a brief Connexions authoring guide and submit their Connexions modules for lensing. The site also serves as a home for IEEE-SPS content reviewers, where they can review the Lensing Agent guidelines and submit their lensing reports. We encourage those IEEE-SPS authors with content in Connexions to submit their materials for lensing and those who have not yet contributed to Connexions to do so and then apply to have the IEEE-SPS endorsement placed on their modules and collections. For more information on Connexions lenses, please click here.

Cape Town Declaration and Connexions - 2008-01-27

The recently announced Cape Town Open Education Declaration, calling for commonplace open access to education resources, has made quite a media splash. In particular, the San Francisco Chronicle has published an editorial by signatories Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) and Richard Baraniuk (founder of Connexions) discussing the Cape Town Declaration and the Open Education Movement.

Also in connection with the Declaration, articles featuring Connexions have recently appeared in such publications as Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Book Tech: The Best of 2007 - 2008-01-07

Rice University Press (RUP) and Connexions are named in an item about publishing highlights of 2007. The piece mentions "Images of Memorable Cases," one of the first titles in RUP's return to publishing after a ten-year hiatus. The book is available online via Connexions' RUP lens and is available in hard copy from print-on-demand service provider QOOP.

http://www.bigbadbookblog.com/2008/01/04/book-tech-the-best-of-2007/

Vietnam Launches OpenCourseWare Powered by Connexions - 2007-12-14

The government of Vietnam has just launched a country-wide system, known as Vietnam OpenCourseWare (OCW), to make educational materials freely available to students across the country. Vietnam OCW is powered by Connexions and in its initial release focuses on materials in Electronics, Biology, and Information Technology. To learn more, please visit this VietNamNet Bridge article.

Server software upgrade - 2007-12-12

On December 12, Connexions upgraded its systems to the latest versions of its server software, Plone and Zope. The rollout went smoothly, causing no general site outage. Authoring functions were disabled from midnight through 5 PM to prevent data loss while the system was migrated from one set of software to the other; we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Users of the site, including authors, should notice little or no change to the site from this upgrade. Its purpose was to enable future development rather than to implement new features, though we expect some performance improvements and fewer load-related errors in the authoring interface. If you notice anything different that impacts your usage of the site, please let us know!

Connexions featured in Math Forum Newsletter - 2007-12-11

Connexions is featured in a recent edition of Drexel University's Math Forum news letter. The Math Forum is an online resource dedicated to the improvement of mathematics pedagogy.

Connexions Author Kitty Schmidt-Jones Featured by CNN.com - 2007-11-12

Kitty Schmidt-Jones, author of popular Connexions courses on music such as Understanding Basic Music Theory and Musical Travels for Children, has been featured in a cnn.com article on the future of textbook authorship and publishing.

Connexions featured in Educational Technology - 2007-11-06

The November/December issue of Educational Technology magazine, which is dedicated to open educational resources (OER), contains an article about Connexions. The article, "Connexions: An Open Educational Resource for the 21st Century," is written by Rice University's C. Sidney Burrus, the Maxfield and Oshman Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering and former dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering. To read the full article, subscribe to Educational Technology or download a PDF version (Copyright © 2007 by Educational Technology Publications, Inc., used with permission).

IEEE Signal Processing Society Announces Partnership with Connexions - 2007-10-31

IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) President Alfred Hero announced in the November 2007 IEEE Signal Processing Magazine that the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineerings (IEEE) -- the world's largest professional society -- is partnering with Connexions on a major initiative to develop a critical mass of signal processing educational modules and courses that will be available for free access by anyone, anywhere, at any time.

The materials will pass through a careful Society review for quality and content that will earn them the imprimatur of the IEEE brand for quality. Eventually the materials will be available not just in English but also in a number of languages, including Spanish and Chinese.

The project will begin accepting submissions of content for conversion and reviewing in January 2008. If you’d like get started early contributing your own content, see the Connexions author’s guide.

For more information, see the project website at www.ieeecnx.org.

Introducing Advanced Search with Usage Statistics - 2007-10-31

This month, Connexions introduces an improved content searching interface. This advanced search tool allows users to sort search returns by a number of metrics, expand or collapse details in the search results, and even view usage statistics for Connexions modules and courses.

Figure 1: Access advanced search through the "view statistics" link in a Connexions author profile page.

Search and Browse

This interface can be accessed in a variety of ways. A Connexions user can click on the "view statistics" link in an author profile page (Figure 1). This takes the user straight to the advanced search statistics view for that author's content (see below for more information on this view). Alternatively, to access the advanced search features, a user may search for material as normal in Connexions - either through the content browsing interface in Figure 2 (choose the "Expand this Information" link in the "View" box) or content keyword search in Figure 3. Results are returned in the detail view shown in Figure 4. In this view, Connexions users have access not only to the names and authors of modules and collections matching their criteria, but they can also examine a selection of the metadata associated with each item, such as the it's keywords and revision history. To hide this more detailed information, users can click on the "Compact" link under the "View" heading in the search return box (Figure 4).

Figure 2: Access advanced search through Connexions' content browsing interface.

Figure 3: Access advanced search through Connexions' content searching interface.

Figure 4: Search results detail view.

Sort (by Popularity, Language, Keywords etc.)

Results in the search return can be sorted by a variety of fields using the "Sort by" drop-down box shown in Figure 5. Options for the sort include module popularity, language, revision date, title, and type.

Figure 5: Search results display options.

Get Statistics about Popularity and Viewership

Finally, module and collection usage statistics can be found by clicking on the "Statistics" link under the "View" heading in the search results box. This gives you the view shown in Figure 6. Statistics include total views, views per day, and popularity percentile and rank in the Connexions repository. These statistics can either cover the module or collection's entire history (the "All Time" link under the "Statistics" heading) or the most recent week of activity (the "Recent" option). As already mentioned, this statistics view is also available by clicking on the "(view statistics)" link on an author's member profile page (Figure 1).

Download a Spreadsheet

Additionally, these statistics can be downloaded as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to a user's local machine using the "Download Spreadsheet" link found under the "Statistics" heading.

Figure 6: Search results statistics view.

We encourage Connexions users and authors to experiment with this exciting new search interface to see what all it has to offer.

Connexions featured in "Campus Technology" article - 2007-06-27

Connexions was featured in the Campus Technology article "Open Source Connects Courseware at Rice University" on 6/26/2007 by Linda L Briggs. The article reports "as the Internet rapidly reshapes how scholarly information is disseminated at colleges and universities, an open-source, open-community initiative at Rice University in Houston may portend the future". Read the full article.

Connexions hosts Hewlett Foundation 2007 OER Grantees Meeting - 2007-03-22

On behalf of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Connexions project hosted the Foundation's Open Educational Resources (OER) Grantees Meeting at Rice University in Houston, Texas, on March 27 and 28, 2007. The event included a presentation by Dan Atkins, John Seely Brown, and Al Hammond on their findings on the state and potential of the OER field. Click here to view video webcasts of all the presentations. Click here to view the Web page for the event. Click here to view the press release by Rice News on the event.

New Executive Director joins Connexions - 2007-01-10

Dr. Joel Thierstein joined the Connexions team as it new Executive Director on January 8, 2007. Joel brings to the project a wealth of media and academic experience along with a strong background in telecommunications, media technology research, communications law, establishing international standards, and managing nonprofit organizations.

Joel replaces Dr. W. Joseph (Joey) King as Executive Director, who has joined the Connexions Advisory Board.

KUHF, an NPR affiliate station in Houston, talks about the "Sound Reasoning" course - 2007-01-09

Chris Johnson with KUHF radio talked with Anthony Brandt about Sound Reasoning, the online music appreciation course that Anthony authored in Connexions. They discussed music composition and walked through a portion of the course, complete with some embedded musical examples.

Tech Museum names Connexions a 2006 Awards Laureate - 2006-11-18

The Tech Museum of Innovation, one of the country's leading science and technology museums, named Rice University's Connexions as a 2006 Tech Museum Awards Laureate. The Tech Museum of Innovation, located in San Jose, California, named 25 laureates for its prestigious awards program, which celebrates those who leverage new and existing technologies to benefit humanity. Connexions was one of five laureates vying for the Microsoft Education Award. Other awards the museum presents are the Intel Environment Award, the Accenture Economic Development Award, the Agilent Technologies Foundation Health Award, and the Katherine M. Swanson Equality Award.

IBM awards Rice $700K for shared university research project - 2006-10-06

Rice University and IBM announced that they will collaborate on the development of an open-standards-based, service oriented architecture (SOA) that will help higher education institutions tie together their increasingly diverse academic software applications. Rice University and IBM will collaborate to design an SOA for Rice's Open-CLE. This SOA will allow individual educational and research applications to "talk" with each other. Rice's largest open standards applications today include Sakai - a leading open source course management system; OwlSpace, powered by Sakai and operating as the framework for Rice's web-based Collaboration and Learning Environment; Connexions, a collaborative, educational web-based environment composed of independent teaching modules that can be used alone or connected into larger courses; and DSpace, a digital repository system that captures, stores, indexes, preserves, and distributes digital research material.

The complete text of the announcement is available from Rice University News and Media Relations.

Rice University Press publishes its first document in Connexions - 2006-10-02

Rice University Press (RUP) publishes "Art History and Its Publications in the Electronic Age" in Connexions. This is the first document that RUP has published since becoming a digital press.

Browse content by language - 2006-09-29

Visitors to Connexions can now browse the content repository, sorted by language. In addition to browsing by title, author name, key word, popularity, or date, you can now click the link to the language you want and display content items in that language.

Project Manager joins Connexions - 2006-08-15

Katherine Fletcher joined the Connexions team as its new Project Manager on August 15, 2006. Katherine has worked in both academia and the corporate world and brings to the project a background in educational research, software development and implementation, project management, marketing plans, and budgeting.

System Architect joins Connexions - 2006-07-06

J. Cameron Cooper joined the Connexions team as its new System Architect on June 1, 2006. Cameron brings to the project an extensive background in programming and Web development technologies, such as Plone, Java, Python, and Zope.

Browse Content by Revision Dates - 2006-07-05

Visitors to Connexions can now browse the content repository, sorted by revision date. In addition to browsing by title, author name, key word, or popularity, you can now click the Latest Revisions link and display content items in order of revision date.

Human-computer interaction expert joins Connexions - 2006-05-18

Dr. Manpreet Kaur joined the Connexions team as its new Usability Researcher on March 6, 2006. Manpreet brings to the project an extensive background in usability research, HCI (human-computer interaction) technology, Web interface design, and software development. With a doctorate in Biomedical Engineering and a graduate certificate in Cognitive psychology, Manpreet aims to strike a balance between the human and technological needs of the project. Her professional experience ranges from academic research to usability consulting in the technology, education, finance, and insurance sectors.

Google TechTalk presents Connexions - 2006-04-18

On April 11, 2006, Dr. Richard Baraniuk, the Founder of Connexions, and Dr. W. Joseph King, the Executive Director of Connexions, visited the headquarters of Google™ and delivered a presentation on what Connexions is and how it works. Google TechTalks recorded the presentation, titled Connexions - Building Communities and Sharing Knowledge, and has made it available for viewing on the Google Video Web site.

Web pages introduce authors - 2006-04-03

Click on an author's name in a module display or on the Content tab and the "Member Profile" web page for that author appears. The "Member Profile" gives authors a place to tell Connexions visitors about themselves. Every author has a profile that is automatically generated by the system. Authors can add to their profile easily by clicking the "Edit my Profile" link that displays on their "Member Profile". For more information, please see the Author Profiles instructions on the Connexions Help page.

A new domain name and logo for Connexions - 2006-02-22

Now you can access Connexions at cnx.org. This domain name is a generous gift from McAfee, Inc., the largest dedicated security company in the world. McAfee® delivers proactive and integrated protection with security on networks and systems that provides a comprehensive yet manageable and complete solution.

And Connexions has a new logo that you can see appearing throughout the Connexions Web site.

Connexions visitors surpass 500,000 per month - 2006-02-07

Connexions had 500,740 unique visitors during January 2006. This was the first time the number of visitors exceeded one-half million within a single month. By comparison, Connexions had 264,554 unique visitors in January 2005. This is a 89 percent increase in traffic over one year.

Job opening on the Connexions team - 2006-01-19

The Connexions team is growing and we have an opening for a Senior Software Developer/Architect

If you are interested in applying for this position, please go to the How to Apply Web page and follow the instructions.

Rhaptos 1.5 software released - 2005-10-08

Rhaptos is the code name for the software developed and used by the Connexions project. This software allows students to access a wealth of educational material on the Internet. It also enables authors and instructors to create and organize educational material into modules, which they can select and assemble into collections that are customized to meet their teaching and learning needs.

New, Easier Ways to Edit Connexions Modules - 2005-09-09

Our Word importer makes it easy to create modules from Word documents by transforming them into CNXML. It uses Word's built-in paragraph styles to automatically markup items like sections, links, and figures. You can download a Word document template from Connexions that contains paragraph styles that translate directly into CNXML tags. See the Using Microsoft Word to Create Connexions Modules guide for more information.

Edit-In-Place was originally implemented for small, quick edits to published modules. Now it is the default editor in your workspace and work groups and allows you to perform the following actions to a module before or after you publish it:

• Add new paragraphs or delete existing ones
• Add or edit examples, lists, equations, notes, examples, code blocks, and figures
• Display help text on CNXML tags as you work

Inside Higher Ed calls Connexions a real open source of information - 2005-08-02

Inside Higher Ed, the online news and opinion magazine for higher education, named Connexions as "a model for free, shared information that could be used by faculty members and students anywhere in the world." The article by Scott Jaschik titled "Really Open Source" compared Connexions and MIT's OpenCourseWare.

New Executive Director joins Connexions - 2005-07-05

Dr. W. Joseph (Joey) King joined the Connexions team as its new Executive Director on July 5, 2005. Joey brings to the project an extensive background in telecommunications research, human interface technology, network tools, investment banking, foundation management, and entrepreneurship.

Connexions searchable via OpenSearch at A9.com - 2005-06-08

Connexions now supports the OpenSearch specification. This makes it easier to directly access Connexions content from other search sites. See it at A9.com, Amazon's new multi-source search site.

Content from Connexions can be retrieved as a new column in your search results: select "Over 200 more ..." from the "More Choices..." drop-down menu, and type "Connexions" in the "Search Columns:" box.

Catherine Schmidt-Jones named Author of the Year - 2005-06-06

Congratulations to Catherine Schmidt-Jones, who has been named the 2004 Connexions Author of the Year. Catherine is a very active Connexions author -- her modules and courses on music and teaching music are used every day by thousands of people from around the world. Visit "The Basic Elements of Music" course by Catherine Schmidt-Jones or find more content she has authored.

NEA awards grant for Sound Reasoning course - 2005-04-15

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) recently awarded a $7,500 grant to Composition and Theory Professor Anthony Brandt for additional development of Sound Reasoning, his interactive music appreciation course in Connexions. Professor Brandt will use the funds from NEA to write and implement additional modules in his course, with technical assistance from the Connexions team. These additional modules will address the issues of what makes music intelligible, how musical ideas are prolonged and developed, and how emphasis is created. There will also be a discussion of of the basic elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre. The complete course will be available online in fall 2006.

Server Upgrade - 2005-03-24

The Connexions site will be unavailable for about 30 minutes starting at 10:00 PM US/Central this Sunday night March 27th while we upgrade our server to Plone 2. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Missing files or modifications? - 2005-03-14

To correct a server outage that occurred on March 14, 2005, the Connexions database was restored with a backup of the database. This action may have caused the loss of data in files that were created or modified between midnight, March 13, 2005, and 1:00 pm March 14, 2005, Houston time. If your workspace or work group is missing files or file modifications from that time period, or if you requested a Connexions account during that time period and Connexions does not recognize your account, please contact our Technical Support team.

Try the new features on the open beta - 2005-01-31

New module editing features are available for you to evaluate in the Connexions open beta test. The editing features are:

• Microsoft Word importer - you can import a Word file into a module and Connexions automatically converts it into CNXML.
• Edit-In-Place in the workspace/workgroup - this is the default view for editing modules. You have to option to edit modules with Edit-In-Place or with the Full Source editor.
• Edit-In-Place enhancements - you can add and delete CNXML tags using Edit-In-Place.

Please take a look at these features and send us your comments about them.

Discuss Connexions content on-line - 2005-01-28

You and other Connexions users can have on-line discussions about Connexions modules. Each module now has its own discussion forum. Please see the Connexions Discussion Forums module for a description of this feature and an explanation of how to use it.

Search for Executive Director for Connexions - 2005-01-14

Connexions is accepting applications for the position of Executive Director. A job description is available on the Rice University Human Relations Web page. The same information is available in a PDF file. If you are interested in applying for the job, please go to the How to Apply Web page and follow the instructions.

Connexions looking for a programmer - 2005-01-13

The Connexions staff is growing and we have an opening for a programmer. A job description is available on the Rice University Human Relations Web page. If you are interested in applying for the job, please go to the How to Apply Web page and follow the instructions.

Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0 Adopted - 2004-12-17

Connexions began using the 2.0 version of the Creative Commons Attribution License on December 17, 2004. Any modules and courses that were published in Connexions after 6:00 pm (Houston time) on that date use License 2.0. All the modules and courses that were published before that date and time still retain License 1.0. For the purposes of publishing in Connexions, there is no conflict between the two versions of the License. See the Creative Commons announcement for an explanation of the new version of the License.

software.cnx.rice.edu goes live - 2004-12-14

Connexions is proud to announce the launch of our software distribution site. This site will be the primary place to download software released by our development team.

The complete system has not yet been released, but there are several individual components that may be useful on their own.

Altova AUTHENTIC 2005 sp1 released - 2004-12-07

If you are having problems editing Connexions files with AUTHENTIC 2005, please install the latest version of the software, AUTHENTIC 2005 sp1. Service Pack 1 (sp1) contains a fix for a problem that version 2005 has with MathML, which is a part of many Connexions documents. If you experience MathML-releated problems with Connexions files that you exported before December 7, 2004, re-export the files.

Modules and courses get a new look - 2004-11-03

Connexions modules and courses have a new look, which makes it easier for readers to find out more about their topic and about Connexions. This change especially helps readers who access a module through an Internet search engine directly, instead of in the context of a Connexions course. A detailed explanation of the changes in this new look is shown on the Connexions Tech Blog page.

See an example of a module with the new look. See an example of a course with the new look.

Presentation Slides from ECDL 2004 - 2004-09-15

The slides from the presentation "Connexions: An Alternative Approach to Publishing" by G. Henry at the European Conference on Digital Library (ECDL), University of Bath, United Kingdom, September 2004.

Hewlett Foundation awards new grant - 2004-08-23

The Hewlett Foundation continues their support of the Connexions project by awarding a new grant of $1,250,000 for 18 months. For more information, please read the news release from the Rice University Office of News and Media Relations.

Presentations at 2004 ASEE Conference - 2004-05-27

The Connexions team is presenting the following papers at the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) conference:

1. Peer to Peer Collaboration using Connexions (Session 2258, Tuesday 22 June, 8:30am - 10:15am)
2. Community Driven Digital Signal Processing Laboratories in Connexions (Session 3620, Wednesday 23 June, 4:30pm - 6:00pm)

Current Developments - 2004-05-27

We are working on many exciting things for Connexions this summer. Be on the look out for:

• Usability improvements - our team is working with usability experts to make the Connexions Web site easier to use and more user friendly
• Community features - new communications tools for you, like discussion boards and community pages
• MS Word conversion - tools to more easily convert Microsoft Word documents into Connexions modules

Server Upgrade - 2004-05-26

The Connexions website, including all content and author tools will be unavailable Friday May 28, 2004 at 9:00 PM during system upgrades. Total downtime should be 30 minutes or less. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Connexions Announces Launch 1.0 - 2004-02-19

The Connexions web site was officially launched on February 19, 2004. See the Rice News Release for the whole story.

New Course Composer - 2004-01-28

The Connexions Course Composer has a new interface and expanded functionality. Please see the How to Use the Course Composer module for a description of it.

Web-based Connexions Tour - 2004-01-14

Curious about Connexions? Take the new Connexions Tour, located under the About tab. This web-based tour explains how Connexions works and what it can do for you.

Edit-In-Place now available - 2003-12-04

The addition of Edit-In-Place to the growing list of Connexions features allows you to make quick, simple edits to your existing Connexions modules. These edits can be performed outside of the Author Interface and you can avoid the module check out procedure.

Connexions presentation at Plone conference - 2003-10-17

Brent and Cameron presented a case study on the use of Plone in Connexions at the first annual Plone Conference

New Website Look and Feel - 2003-10-14

As part of our upcoming launch in January 2004, we have updated our website with a new look and feel. The new interface is based on the Plone Content Management System.

Connexions Server Upgrade - 2003-08-20

Some of you might have noticed that we had outgrown our old server and had been experiencing some small outages and delays. These should now be a thing of the past since cnx.rice.edu is now running on a brand new, much faster machine. You shouldn't notice anything different in operation (other than being substantially faster and more reliable), but if you do run into problems, please email us at techsupport@cnx.rice.edu.

Doug Jones named Connexions Author of the Year - 2003-07-31

Dr. Doug Jones of the University of Illinois has received recognition as our third annual Author of the Year. Previous honorees have been Don Johnson and Bill Wilson, both of Rice University. Thanks for helping make Connexions a success!

CNXML 0.5 released - 2003-06-15

The newest version of the Connexions Project's markup language has been released, with new support for bibliographic references and other useful features. See the release notes for details.

Hewlett Foundation Grants Project $1 million - 2002-10-21

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has approved $1 million in support for the Connexions Project over the next two years. For more information, see the School of Engineering's news article.