ALPHARETTA, GA. — Sept. 27, 2016 — Agilysys, Inc. (Nasdaq: AGYS), a leading global provider of next-generation hospitality software solutions and services, today announced that The Mill Casino Hotel & RV Park in North Bend, Ore., has selected Visual One® PMS and InfoGenesis® POS to enhance efficiency and guest service at the 203-room property. Owned by the Coquille Indian Tribe, the organization is a longtime user of Agilysys' Stratton Warren System (SWS), a leading gaming industry solution for comprehensive inventory and procurement management.
The Mill Casino Hotel & RV Park caters to both business and leisure travelers, with a 24-hour casino, five restaurants and multi-purpose conference and meeting facilities. The property also includes a large waterfront RV park. The executive team wanted state-of-the-art property management and point-of-sale technology that would increase operational efficiency and enhance guest service across the entire property.
Agilysys Visual One PMS is a comprehensive and fully integrated property management system that offers a wide range of best-in-class features and functionality, including front office operations, guest history, housekeeping, reservations management and more. Its user-friendly screens are laid out in an intuitive format, with quick-feature icons and drill-down capabilities. The system also offers optional modules for accounting, activities, club management, comp accounting, condo accounting, guest marketing, sales and catering, and spa management. Other features include a rate and availability calculator, enhanced guest stay search screens and an online shopping cart.
InfoGenesis POS is Agilysys' award-winning comprehensive point-of-sale solution that combines an easy-to-use terminal and tablet touchscreen application with industry-leading offline capabilities. Recognized throughout the gaming industry, it is designed to support both single-site and multi-unit complex operations. InfoGenesis POS features real-time reporting, support for packages and prix fixe menus, and multi-language capabilities that drive service flexibility and increase operational efficiency. The system easily manages any combination of food, beverage and retail services, and integrates with other Agilysys next-generation solutions and a wide variety of third-party providers.
The Mill Casino Hotel & RV Park is located on the waterfront in North Bend, Ore., making it an ideal base location for exploring the Coos Bay area, including the Oregon Dunes and Shore Acres State Park. The property features 203 rooms and suites, Vegas-style casino, five restaurants, lounge, gift shop and full-service business center. The property also includes a 102-space RV park and more than 14,000 square feet of conference and event space. The Mill Casino Hotel & RV Park is owned by the Coquille Indian Tribe.
Agilysys is a leading technology company that provides innovative point-of-sale, property management, inventory and procurement, workforce management, analytics, document management and mobile and wireless solutions and services to the hospitality industry. The company's solutions and services allow property managers to better connect, interact and transact with their customers by streamlining operations, improving efficiency, increasing guest recruitment and wallet share, and enhancing the guest experience. Agilysys serves four major market sectors: Gaming, both corporate and tribal; Hotels, Resorts and Cruise; Foodservice Management; and Restaurants, Universities, Stadia and Healthcare. A significant portion of the company's consolidated revenue is derived from contract support, maintenance and subscription services. Agilysys operates throughout North America, Europe and Asia, with corporate services located in Alpharetta, GA, and offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines. For more information, visit www.agilysys.com.
The information contained in this promotional material is for illustration purposes only. The actual product purchased by a customer may deviate in appearance and/or functionality from the product depicted in this promotional material.


text:
Specialized Mexican directories. July 2019
[Spanish]
Directorio del Gobierno
Directorio de Funcionarios
CD ROM de Funcionarios
Directory of Mexican Corporations
Directorio de Importadores
Directorio de Exportadores
Directorio de Grandes Compradores
Directorio de Cómputo
Directorio de Juristas
Directorio de Consultorios
Directorio de Ejecutivas
Directorio de Recursos Humanos
Directorio de Centros de Información
For orders and other messages
45 years publishing directories
Directorio de Colonias
Directorio de Empresarios
CD ROM Ejecutivos
Industridata por Tamaño
Industridata por Región
Industridata por Giro
CD ROM Industridata
Canciones completas de Cri-Cri
Coming to see our directories
Gutenberg 224, Col. Anzures, CDMX, D.F. Zip Code 11590
Corner with Herschel, one block from Mariano Escobedo
Tel. 011 (52) (55) 52 55 45 77 switch and fax with six lines.
Personal attention Monday through Friday from 9 to 18.
Answering machine from 6 pm to 9 am and weekends
(US Central Time).
ibcon@ibcon.com.mx
We don't publish advertising nor charge for insertions
Your orders are welcome in our office, or by phone, e-mail, fax or mail.
Immediate delivery, after payment, at our office. Delivery at your office by courier, one or two days after payment.
Shipment is free of charge in Mexico. For shipment to most countries, the cost of DHL delivery is included in the price in dollars.
We accept cash, bank deposit, bank transference, company check, bank card (only in Mexico City) or American express Card.
Bank deposits or transfers from Mexico should be made in pesos in advance in favor of IBCON, S.A.
We send electronic invoices registered at the Mexican IRS. Besides your general data, to invoice we need the last four digits of your account or card charged.
Our printed and CD ROM directories are licensed for unlimited internal use of the buyer specified in the invoice, not for selling or giving the content to third parties, by any means.
In accordance with the Mexican law (Ley Federal de Protección de Datos Personales en Posesión de los Particulares), IBCON, S.A. states that none of its directories contains personal data. We neither ask personal data, nor search for it indirectly, when creating or updating the records.
We neither ask or search indirectly personal data from our clients, suppliers or visitors to our web site nor use cookies, web bugs nor any other device to observe their visits.
Directory of Human Resources Departments
In Spanish. In print since 2009
9th edition August 2018 590 pages US$355
To see sample pages
2,098 departments of human resources in 2,725 companies and institutions in Greater Mexico City occupying at least 30 people, with the name and position of the principal executive of human resources, address, telephones, fax, hours, e-mail (2,248), web site (2,116), RFC (tax identity number) and NAICS number (North American Industry Classification System). Three indexes: company names (including key words), geographical and NAICS (North American Industry Classification System). Perfect binding.
Directory of Exporters,
In Spanish with bilingual products index
In print since 2003
15th edition November 2018, 370 pages US$303
1,208 companies exporting at least one million dollars a year, with exports, executive in charge, address, phones, fax, hours, e-mail (1,303), web site (1,231), tax identity number and industry classification. Indexed by exports, company name (key word), location, and industry code. Perfect binding.
Directory of Women Executives,
In Spanish. In print since 1996.
17th edition March 2014, 706 pages US$334
5,128 top women executives in business, government, and charities, including some independent professionals and business owners, all in Mexico City, with companies, positions, office address, phones, faxes, e-mail (4,897) and classification of activity. Indexed by company, location (town hall), position and industry. Web site (2,466) of companies. Perfect binding.
Directory of Associations,
14th edition April 2018, 268 pages US$303
991 specialist associations (companies, professionals, academics, researchers) throughout the country that are organized for the development of a topic or activity and can also be called: academies, societies, bars, schools, councils, chambers, federations, confederations and unions; we registered (794) of the CDMX and (197) of the rest of the country. Full name and acronyms, name and position of the president or chief executive, complete address, telephone numbers, fax (if it still exists), e-mail (1,524), web page (897), office hours and (if available) a directory of partners specifying availability. Index by name or acronyms of the association in alphabetical order (simple or with reversions of the name) and a list of associations by city (except CDMX). It has been published since 2003.
2019 edition in preparation
Directory of Government,
50th edition January 2018, 834 pages US$366
All the public sector: 1,681 executive, legislative, judicial and federal entities, of all the states and of the 100 main cities with the 9,273 main posts (from CEO to top). It includes all kinds of agencies, commissions, trusts, institutes, universities, parties and companies with at least 50% government participation. It brings names, posts, telephones, fax, web page (3,013), but not addresses, nor e-mails, that do come in the Directory of Officials. Annexes: list of liaison officers IFAI (access to information); index of sectors and a general index of names of entities and surnames of officials. It has been published since 1983. Free: weekly announcement by e-mail of changes announced and verified directly with the official or his secretary. This service is suspended when a new edition comes out.
Directory of Government Officers,
36th edition May 2019, 898 + 898 pages US$510
See sample pages
Ordered by last names Ordered by Entities
The same 8,929 principal officers and entities of the 51st edition of the Government Officers Directory; only that it they deliver two volumes with the same content, one in alphabetical order of LAST NAME and another of DEPENDENCIES and with separate records for each official. Brings professional title, name and surname, position, dependence (acronyms and sector), direct telephone or switch, e-mail (8,688) and full address of your office. There are 234 officials who hold two or more charges for presiding over a commission or covering an internship. It has been published since 1995. Free weekly announcement by e-mail of changes announces and verified directly with the official or his secretary. This service is suspended when a new edition comes out.
Cd Rom of Government Officers,
27th edition May 2019 100 MB US$ 829
The same 8,929 top officials and entities of the 36th print edition with an orderly program in tables by last name, professional title, position, dependency, telephone, e-mail, zip code, city (delegation or municipality in the case of Mexico City ), state, country, sector and sex. Four auxiliary indexes to locate the correct entry for any word you remember, or to select a set of records that have in common the position, the dependency or the city, including a second selection within a selection already made; as well as printing labels (with space to add key), lists, envelopes (with space to add sender or advertisement) and recipient in pre-printed letters (not personalized), sending messages from the disk to a set of records (or to only one) ) of those who have e-mail (8,688) in plain text or HTML. There is a list of corrections that allows to block the printing or sending of e-mail of one or several registers, or to modify the e-mail (only during the sending). The information is not exportable. License for a single user on an isolated computer with Windows 7 or later operating system of 64 bits. Download the free demo from our website. It is published since 2000. Free: weekly announcement by e-mail of changes announced and verified directly with the official or his secretary. This service is suspended when a new edition comes out. NO REFUNDS
Demo disc
with CD
Directory of Information Centers
31st edition September 2016, 686 pages US$345
1,424 academic and research centers of the CDMX and Metropolitan Area that have specialized information, statistics, publications, maps, verbal or online information. Addresses, telephones, fax, e-mail (3,131) and web page (1,997), names of those who attend, positions, schedules, prices. Describe the information available in associations, chambers, federations, unions; specialized or encyclopedic libraries; newspaper libraries, map libraries, photo libraries, film libraries, video libraries, music libraries; own databases, CD ROM, online access to other sources, web pages; archives, collections of cuttings, minerals, biological specimens, museums; offices (federal and state) of the government that inform; directories, yearbooks, bibliographies, indexes; publishers who publish their own research; embassies and international organizations; official and institutional publications; informants and authorized spokespersons; institutes and universities. Index of the subordinate centers or entities (simple or by distinctive word), acronyms, publications and concepts about which there is information. Lists complementary to the index. It has been published since 1973. Key 1AE. Includes CD ROM in PDF file only for on-screen queries licensed to a single user on an isolated computer with Windows 7 or later 64-bit operating system.
(Directory of Jurists, in Spanish). In print since 1997.
4,508 jurists and auxiliary services in Mexico City: corporation legal counsels and managers; law firms; notary's offices and public brokers; bonding and depository companies; collecting services; testing laboratories, appraisers, experts; translators; overseeing and law enforcement; law and arbitral courts; law makers; law libraries, associations, information centers and publishers; law schools. Perfect binding.
23rd edition July 2018 498 pages US$384
12,203 companies of the City of Mexico and Metropolitan Area S.A., S.A. of C.V. or S. de R.L. of C.V. arranged alphabetically by the company name (as they came before in the white section of telephone directories). Includes company name, address, telephone, fax, name and position of its chief executive, e-mail (11,783), large company size (1,176), medium (5,792) and small (5,235); as well as the rotation with its code and classification P (roduce), D (istribuye), S (ervice). In addition to a list with the code of descriptive turns and the number of records for each one. It has been published since 1992. Perfect binding.
DIRECTORIO POR COLONIAS
Directory of Companies by Quarters
23rd edition July 2018, 596 pages US$408
The same 12,203 companies of the CDMX and Metropolitan Area of the 23rd edition of the directory of companies orders by zip code, delegation or municipality, colony and, within each colony, by business activity. Includes business name, address, telephone number, fax number, name and position of your chief executive, e-mail, size and rotation with your code and classification. Useful for locating customers and suppliers nearby. To do telemarketing, surveys, public relations campaigns by zones. To assign sellers by zones. To send by mail to delimited areas. To make promotions by fax. To study franchises and branches. In addition a colonies index and the list of the code of descriptive turns. Perfect binding. Published since 1992. Perfect binding.
Directory of Vendors
The same 12,203 companies by yellow pages classification, simplified to 600 codes. Perfect binding.
Directory of CEOs
18th edition July 2018, 504 pages US$384
The same 12,203 companies of the CDMX and Metropolitan Area of the 23rd ed. of the company directory but sorted alphabetically by the surname of its chief executive. Includes business name, address, telephone number, fax number, name and position of your chief executive, e-mail, size and rotation with your code and classification. In addition the list of descriptive code of business activity.
CD ROM DE EJECUTIVOS
Cd Rom of executives
19th edition July 2018, 100 MB US$850
The same 12,203 companies of the CDMX and Metropolitan Area included in the printed directories (Colonies, Entrepreneurs, Companies and Suppliers); Only with an orderly program for on-screen queries in tables by surname, professional title, post, sex, company name, telephones, fax, e-mail, delegation or municipality, colony, street, zip code, size classification The company (small, medium, large), turnover and PDS (produce, distribute or service). In addition to four auxiliary indexes to locate the correct entry by any word you remember the person, company, colony or business turn. Allows selections with simultaneous criteria, even a second selection within an already made selection; (With space to add sender or message), or create a delimited ASCII file with the necessary information to customize pre-printed (non-personalized) letters, export to a file with TXT format, send messages from the disk to a set of records (or only one) of those who have e-mail (11,783) in plain text or HTML. There is a list of corrections that allows you to block the printing or sending of e-mail from one or more registers, or modify the e-mail (only during sending). The information is not exportable. License for a single user on an isolated computer with 64 bit Windows 7 or later operating system. Ask for demo or pass to our office to see it operate. Published since 1999. NO RETURNS.
Directory of Computing
19th edition September 2018, 482 pages US$324
2,324 companies S.A., S.A. de C.V. or S. DE R.L. de C.V. from Mexico City and the Metropolitan Area in 2 sections: the first of LARGE USERS with 1,640 computing departments of large companies in alphabetical order of business name, with the name and position of the executive director of systems, acronyms, address, telephones , fax (if they have one), email (1,833) and web page (1,792) and the second one of SUPPLIERS with 684 companies and schools that can be SC and AC in alphabetical order of company with the name and position of the executive director, acronyms, address, telephone, fax (if they have), RFC (Tax Id), e-mail (880), web page (607); In addition to the classification of manufacturers, wholesalers or distributors of what they offer, includes brands of equipment, accessories, spare parts, consumables or software packages or services such as equipment rental, processing, maintenance, programming, courses, systems development and Internet. Three indices: in alphabetical order of companies (simple and distinctive words); by brands and services; Geographical (delegations and municipalities). It has been published since 1998.
Directory of Importers
Bilingual product index, in Spanish. In print since 1991
2,500 Mexican companies importing at least one million dollars a year, for their own supplies or commercial distribution, with executive in charge of imports, address, phones, faxes, e-mail (2,114), web site (2,076), products imported, NAICS. Indexed by imports, company name (key word), NAICS and location. Perfect binding.
Directory of Big BUYERS
Bilingual product index, in Spanish. In print since 1982.
32nd edition January 2019, 989 pages US$513
The top 3,575 Mexican purchasing departments (business and government), including executives, titles, addresses, phones, faxes, e-mail (3,096), web site (3,113), rank of budget, hours for salesmen visits, products wanted, NAICS. Indexed by company name (key word), location, products and services wanted, NAICS. Perfect binding.
DIRECTORIO DE CORPORACIONES MEXICANAS
In English. In print since 1992.
23rd edition April 2018, 766 pages US$408
1,576 corporations selling at least US$10 million a year. Entries include: Chief operating officer with full address, phones, faxes and e-mail (if any); the new North American Industry Classification System code (superseding the SIC code), foreign associates, Mexican affiliates, ownership (private, government, listings in the Mexican and American stock exchanges), members of the board (for corporations in the stock exchange) and in many cases: sales, exports, imports, e-mail (1,746), web site (1,704), year established. Fully indexed by company name, key words in the name, ticker symbol, companies related to them, NAICS code, products exported, products imported, geographic location (headquarters and foreign offices), names of CEOs and members of the board. Perfect binding.
(Directory of Physician's Offices, in Spanish). In print since 2000.
6,319 physician's offices in Mexico City with name, specialty, full address, phones, fax, e-mail (3,258). Listings by name, specialty and postal code. The 45 specialties include anesthesiologists, angiologists, dermatologists, phonatricians, gerontologists, gynecologists, radiologists, etc., but also general practicioners, dentists, homeopathists, acupuncturists, and veterinarians. Key word index of quarters and specialties. Perfect binding.
Complete song of Cri-Cri
1st edition October, 1999, 474 pages
Hardcover US$71
Leather binding and protection case US$113
All the lyrics of all Cri-Cri songs, with all the trappings of a classic edition. Careful transcriptions, organized for easy reading and reference searches. Margin notes: year composed, type of song, variants, recordings, films, literary notes by writers. Four indexes: titles and first verses, animals, trades, singers. Chronology, list of recordings, list of films. No records, it is a luxury book. ISBN 968-6289-92-5 leather. ISBN 968-5097-38-0 hardcover.
ISBN 968-6289-92-5 leather
ISBN 968-5097-38-0 hardcover.
LISTA DE NOMBRES DE MUJERES.
LIST OF WOMEN'S NAMES. As a free service, based on the names of executives, businesswomen and officials, we have built a database of more than 2,000 names of women. Click
DIRECTORIES INDUSTRIDATA
6,122 industrial, commercial, service, construction and group companies with commercial purposes at a national level organized by business activity and then alphabetically by the name of the company name. Includes the name of the company and brand, address of the general offices and of its industrial plants, telephones, office hours, business e-mail (5,975), web page (5,959), social media identifier (6,963), Tax ID number, year of foundation, key and description SCIAN, number of employees, main executives with name and position as (General Manager or General Manager, Manager or Director of Sales or Marketing, Administration or Finance, Production, Human Resources, Purchasing, Systems , etc.), in total there are 39,206 executives. In many cases subsidiaries, sales figures, capital participation (state, national private, foreign), commercial activity (ALTEX exporter or IMMEX importer), main products, brands.
INDUSTRIDATA PRINT DIRECTORIES BY SIZE
PACKAGE OF THE FOUR BUSINESS DIRECTORIES BY SIZE
(6,122 enterprises) 1,598 pages US$1,384
DIRECTORIES BY SIZE AAA
(1,924 enterprises with more than 500 employees)
42nd ed. January 2019 522 pages US$445
DIRECTORIES BY SIZE AA
(1,654 enterprises from 251 to 500 employees)
37th ed. January 2019 423 pages US$445
DIRECTORIES BY SIZE A
DIRECTORIES BY SIZE B
INDUSTRIDATA BY REGION PRINTED
PACKAGE OF THE THREE DIRECTORIES OF COMPANIES BY REGION
CENTER – SOUTH - SOUTHEAST REGION
Directory in two volumes with information of 3,502 companies and 22,682 employees of companies with 100 or more employees of the Center-South-Southeast of the country, includes the states: Campeche, Chiapas, Ciudad de México, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Estado de México, Morelos , Oaxaca, Puebla, Queretaro, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, Veracruz and Yucatan.
Directory with information of 1,461 companies and 9,253 executives of companies from the Northwest of the country, includes the states of: Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Colima, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit, Sinaloa and Sonora.
Directory with information of 1,159 companies and 7,271 executives of companies in the North of the country, includes the states of: Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas.
MEXICO CITY AND METROPOLITAN AREA
With 100 to more than 500 employees
2,509 Industrial commercial and service enterprises with commercial purposes included in AAA, AA, A, B ordered by zip code and street. Addresses of General Offices and 256 industrial plants, telephones, fax, office hours, corporate e-mail (2,446), website (2,490), & identifier in social networks (3,033). Tax ID number (RFC), year of foundation, SCIAN code. Includes 16,525 top executives
INDUSTRIDATA DIGITAL DIRECTORIES
by SIZE and REGION
The same 6,122 companies included in Industridata by size but with reduced information and sorted by state, city, zip code and street. At least the name of the company and brand, address of offices, telephones, fax, office hours, corporate e-mail, website, RFC, year of foundation, SCIAN code and description, as well as name and position of the main executives and the number of employees.
Cd Rom ENTERPRISES SIZE AAA
5th ed. January 2018
Cd Rom ENTERPRISES SIZE AA
Cd Rom ENTERPRISES SIZE A
1st ed. January 2018
Cd Rom ENTERPRISES SIZE B
Cd Rom NATIONAL ENTERPRISES
28th ed. January 2019
Cd Rom NORTH REGION
Cd Rom CENTER – SOUTH – SOUTHEAST REGION
Cd Rom MEXICO CITY AND METROPOLITAN AREA
2,560 Industrial commercial and service enterprises with commercial purposes included in AAA, AA, A, B ordered by zip code and street. Adresses of General Offices and 256 industrial plants, telephones, fax, office hours, corporate e-mail (2,488), website (2,595) and identifier in social networks (3,865). Tax ID Number (RFC), year of foundation, SCIAN code. Includes 16,453 top executives.
Cd Rom COMPANIES REGION BAJÍO
Information of 581 companies and 3,594 executives of Bajío Region of Mexico companies, includes the states of: Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Querétaro and San Luis Potosí
Cd Rom DIRECTORY OF BIG HOTELS AND HOTEL CHAINS IN MEXICO
7th ed. October 2017 US$466
1,273 hotels and timeshares with 100 or more rooms, including suites, and 23 major chains nationwide. Includes the General Manager and Purchasing, address, telephone numbers, corporate e-mail (91%), website (96%), facebook (89%), twitter (64%), YouTube (28%), number of rooms, schedule, year of inauguration and last remodeling; sorted by state, city; as well as additional information for the chains when they are groups of three or more hotels with operation in Mexico or hotel projects. Index of hotels and chains, executives, state entity and population or tourist region.
DIRECTORY OF BIG HOTELS AND CHAINS IN MEXICO
7th ed. October 2017 553 pages US$376
INDUSTRIDATA DIGITAL BY SECTOR
FOOD INDUSTRIES AND FOOD WHOLESALERS
16th ed. January 2019 US$413
Database of 689 companies and 4,553 executives of the food industry with more than 100 employees nationwide ordered by company name.
BUILDING AND REAL ESTATE COMPANIES
Database of 407 companies and 2,338 executives from the construction and real estate industry with more than 100 employees nationwide ordered by company name.
CHEMICAL AND PHARMACEUTICAL AND WHOLESALER INDUSTRIES OF CHEMICALS AND PHARMACEUTICALS
Database of 353 companies and 2,539 executives from the chemical and pharmaceutical industry with more than 100 employees nationwide ordered by company name.
MERCAMETRICA OF 80 MEXICAN CITIES (2 vols.)
40th ed. June 2016 US$411
80 cities and major metropolitan areas of the country in alphabetical order, according to the state to which they belong, grouping the profile of physical, demographic, housing, by activity (economic, industrial commercial and banking), banking, public finance, Local advertising media, etc. To determine the size of markets, distribution channels, necessary sales outlets, sales forecasts, the required sales force, to plan the promotion and advertising, to do market research, etc.
Cd Rom 80 MEXICAN CITIES
3rd ed. June 2016 US$571
80 cities and metropolitan areas of the country in alphabetical order, according to the state to which they belong, grouping the profile of physical, demographic, housing, by activity (economic, industrial commercial and banking), banking, public finance, various services, Local advertising media, etc. to determine the size of markets, distribution channels, necessary sales outlets, sales forecasts, required sales force, to plan promotion and advertising, to do market research, etc.
Send a message to IBCON SA
ventas@ibcon.com.mx

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


By my calculations, Stoner Chick went 10-2-4 against the spread with her NFL picks, burying me in the win column and the loss column. Basically, I'm on the hook for a huge dinner and will probably have to yield to SC for the remainder of the picks (unless she proves this week to be a fluke). So there you go football fans. A 19 year old girl knows more about football than I. Feel free to rip me mercilessly. I deserve it.
I spent this weekend in seminars to prepare for a state mandated test I have to take tomorrow. At these seminars I learned that a) there are a lot of stupid people out there b) there are a lot of stupid tests out there and c) there are a lot of stupid government agencies out there. Unfortunately this information probably won't be on the exam.
In the grand scheme of things, was it really that important for us to know what Willis was talking about?
If you ever want to make sure that your colleagues leave you alone at business seminars, do not bring any business cards. This is your way of saying, "I have no interest in hearing about your job, and by extension, anything else about you" when someone hands you a business card. You may not realize it now, but this advice probably just saved you a lot of annoying moments. I mean, no one hands you a business card and starts talking about football.
Speaking of football: Old Friend Doug texted me the USF scores all through the seminar, making me the most popular guy in the room for a few minutes. Even the proctor (who said cell phones had to be off and silent) wanted to know the score. Because I told some of the guys in the seminar that Doug would text me every time USF scored, my little text message ring tone gimmick was almost always accompanied by a shout of celebration. It is fun when we're united by what we wish we were doing, but not as fun when we're united by what we are doing. I think that goes without saying, but I'm study fried so I'm leaving it in.
After all these years, I'm still never sure about where to put a comma. I like to think that I use them for aesthetic purposes, like fake breasts and show towels.
SC is pretty awesome. I always enjoy reading the picks more when she's involved.
In other news, WVU is gonna walk all over USF on Friday. Sorry about that in advance.


text:
Роузалия () е град в окръг Уитман, щата Вашингтон, САЩ. Роузалия е с население от 648 жители (2000) и обща площ от 1,6 km². Намира се на 682 m надморска височина. ЗИП кодът му е 99170, а телефонният му код е 509.

Бележки

Градове във Вашингтон
Окръг Уитман

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Actress and singer Demi Lovato has long been an advocate for open dialogue surrounding mental illness. She acts as the spokesperson for "Be Vocal: Speak Up For Mental Health" and has been very open about her struggles with bipolar disorder. Following the recent shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon last week, Lovato speaks out in the video below regarding the stigma attached to mental illness.
Click here to read more from Stephanie Marcus for Huffington Post.


text:
Q: Ayuda Sopa de letras Hola tengo un pequeño problema desde hace días que no logro resolver tengo una sopa de letras que se rellena de manera aleatoria pero debo "ocultar" las palabras de el arreglo en la sopa de letras sin que se repitan y sin que se salga del tamaño como puedo hacerlo ?
public class SopaLetras {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        sopa s = new sopa();
        s.genera(20);
    }

}
class sopa {
    String[] animal;
    //String [] caracter = new String[50];

public sopa() {
    animal = new String [] {"FOCA","TIBURON","CONEJO","RATON","GATO","PERRO","PERICO","RANA",
        "SAPO","ARDILLA","CUYO","SERPIENTE","GORILA","BALLENA","LEON","TIGRE","CABALLO",
        "BURRO","OSO","ELEFANTE"};
}
public void genera(int N){
for(int i=0;i<N;i++) {
    for(int j=0;j<N;j++) {
        int letra = (int)(Math.random()*26+65);
        System.out.print((char)letra);

}
    System.out.println();
}

}
}

A: Primeramente para validar que no se requieren más elementos de los disponibles, puedes validarlo en tu método:
public void genera(int N) {

  if(N > animal.length) {
      System.out.print("El número máximo debe ser " + animal.length);
      return;
  }
  ...
  ...

En cuanto a obtener elementos aleatoriamente del array animal , lo puedes realizar de esta forma usando la clase Random:
   String[] animal = new String [] {"FOCA","TIBURON","CONEJO","RATON","GATO","PERRO","PERICO","RANA",
    "SAPO","ARDILLA","CUYO","SERPIENTE","GORILA","BALLENA","LEON","TIGRE","CABALLO",
     "BURRO","OSO","ELEFANTE"};

  Random rand = new Random();
  String randomAnimal = animal[rand.nextInt(animal.length)];

Si deseas varios elementos puedes usar un bucle, y un array donde se vayan almancenando los elementos, pero en este caso debes revisar si el elemento existe en el array usando el método contains() :
if(animals.contains(randomAnimal)){
  //Ya existe!
}else{
  //No existe, agregarlo.
}

Este sería una opción para realizar la sopa de "palabras":
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Random;

class sopa {

    String[] animal;

    public sopa() {
        animal = new String[]{"FOCA", "TIBURON", "CONEJO", "RATON", "GATO", "PERRO", "PERICO", "RANA",
            "SAPO", "ARDILLA", "CUYO", "SERPIENTE", "GORILA", "BALLENA", "LEON", "TIGRE", "CABALLO",
            "BURRO", "OSO", "ELEFANTE"};
    }

    public void genera(int N) {

      //Valida que la cantidad de elementos no sea mayor al total disponible
      if(N > animal.length) {
          System.out.print("El número máximo debe ser " + animal.length);
          return;
      }

      //Crea arrayList para almacenar elemntos aleatorios.
      List<String> animals = new ArrayList<String>();

      for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) {
       Random rand = new Random();
       String randomAnimal = animal[rand.nextInt(animal.length)]; //Obtiene elemento aleatorio
       if(animals.contains(randomAnimal)){ //¿Ya se contiene en el array?,
          //busca nuevamente.
          i--; //decrementa variable i.
       }else{
          //No se contiene en el array, lo agrega.
          animals.add(randomAnimal);
       }

      }

      //Imprime array resultante.
       System.out.println("Total: " +animals.size() + " elementos: " + animals.toString());

   }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
European Court condemns Turkey for failure to investigate Kurdish extra-judicial killing
A Kurdish man whose brother was extra-judicially executed in Turkey has won his case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) (Buldan v. Turkey).
Savas Buldan was leaving a casino with two friends in Istanbul on 3 June 1994 when they were approached by seven or eight people with walkie-talkies, firearms and bullet-proof vests who introduced themselves as police officers. The three men were then forced into three cars. That night, three bodies - shot at point-blank range - were discovered in an area near the river.
An investigation was undertaken and murder charges brought against Savas Buldan's suspected killer, who was acquitted for lack of evidence on 18 November 1999.
KHRP took a case to the ECtHR on behalf of Savas Buldan's brother, Nejdet Buldan.
On 20 April 2004, the Court held unanimously that Turkey had violated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) for its failure to investigate the abduction and killing of Savas Buldan (Article 2). It found a further violation of the right to an effective remedy under Article 13, ECHR.
In its judgment, the Court noted that the Susurluk Report, which stated that it had been a State strategy to kill wealthy Kurdish people who supported the PKK, had referred to the killing of Savas Buldan. In addition, Hanefi Avci, former head of Istanbul and Diyarbakir Police Intelligence, had maintained that the kidnapping and assassination of Savas Buldan had been carried out by a special team made up of State officials and civilians. The Court nonetheless recalled that the Susurluk Report could not be relied on to establish to the required standard of proof that State officials were implicated in any particular incident. Accordingly, there was insufficient evidence on which to conclude that the applicant's brother was, beyond reasonable doubt, killed by or with the connivance of State agents in the circumstances alleged by the applicant.
Kerim Yildiz, KHRP Executive Director, says, "We will continue to monitor the Turkish Government's implementation of this and other judgments."
[1] The judgment of Buldan v. Turkey (28298/95), is available from the European Court of Human Rights Website


Physical form is one of the integral and necessary parts of our lives. If you want to keep fit, healthy and full of energy you should train, train and train. But at the same time you should know how to do that the right way and fallow the tips carefully. Otherwise you might harm yourself instead of becoming healthier.
I found a few free iPhone apps that might be very useful prompting you how to train by yourself without a personal trainer.
iPump Workout is available with over 400 ready-made Workouts, 4,000+ exercise images & videos, Drag & Drop Workout Builder, Exercise Image Creator and a lot more. Free Workout includes a sample exercise from each of our 19 Apps available on the App Store. Some great Fitness Facts & Myths, exercise philosophy, our Exercise Physiologist's bio and other educational information is included to help educate you the right way. With the intuitive LOG interface all you have to do is enter your reps, sets and weight for each exercise. Once you've completed a workout, all your tracking information gets automatically copied into your workout Log.
2. Another app is Fatburner Coach Lite. This app is designed for women willing to lose their weight. You can build your own workout plan by choosing from a list of 50 training plans defining the training for an 8 week period. Your personal trainer will show you every single exercise and will give you the right instructions what to do the best and what to avoid. He will give vocal advice on the speed of the exercise as well. The app proposes also a fitness test to determine your fitness level. This lite version allows you to use 1 training plan for 1 day and is available for about 5 languages (English, German, Spanish, French, and Italian). The app is compatible with iPhone and iPod touch and requires iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later.
Try out these apps to keep always fit and easy.


Fitting a residential kitchen with the right storage units is typically all about finding the right cupboards and it mostly comes down to taste, but fitting an industrial kitchen is a whole different matter. Industrial kitchens, on the one hand, have significantly greater storage needs and, on the other hand, need to comply with tough food and hygiene standards. Whether we're talking restaurants or hotels, hospital kitchens or any other type of industrial environment, one thing is for sure: they need specially designed shelving and storage systems. Up until recently, most of them were based on the same principles: extensive cold rooms and big, walk-in freezers, but lately kitchens have come across the same space limitations as most businesses out there, which shifted the focus from standard systems to mobile shelving units, which weren't a common occurrence in these environments before.
Although space may definitely be an issue and new systems such as mobile shelving may respond to these new incurring needs, when it comes to industrial kitchens, there are other requirements that come first and foremost. Hygiene standards are such requirements, as kitchen environments need shelves that reduce the risk of cross contamination. There are different ranges available on the market that provide strong and durable units with Camguard protection. This is a silver-ion technology that offers antimicrobial protection, in the sense that it inhibits the growth of bacteria, mould and fungus. This protection is embedded in the shelf plate, so that shelves can be scrubbed and washed without scrapping off the antimicrobial protection.
Apart from the fact that industrial kitchen need storage units that meet tough hygiene standards, they also need shelving that can withstand somewhat harsher environments. For instance, these shelves must be rust resistant or corrosion resistant, as to make a good investment over time. Also, since most of this shelving is probably dedicated to cold rooms or freezers, it's important for the units to be cold resistant. Fortunately, there are systems available on the market that have working temperatures as low as -38 degrees Celsius. All these different environment-related needs are important aspects, but complying with them is not a difficult task, as it all comes down to researching the market properly.
Last, but not least, as mentioned above, industrial kitchens may face space limitation problems, in which case space-saving storage solutions like mobile shelving may need to be considered. Mobile units are not regularly used in the food industry, but their versatility and flexibility allows for adjustments and adaptations. This means that clean environment shelving that meets your hygiene needs and your environmental needs can simply be mounted on tracks and turned into a mobile unit, should you face space limitation issues. However, checking shelf capacities before investing in a certain system is highly advisable, as even if you succeed in fitting as much units as you wish into a limited space, you can't overload shelves without risking damage.
Just How Fun Is It to Design Your Outdoor Kitchen?


text:
Game Over: McConnell Concedes Pelosi Has Outmaneuvered Trump on Border Wall
March 05, 2019 Posted by Spandan Chakrabarti Donald Trump immigration Mitch McConnell Nancy Pelosi
News crossed the wires last night that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has conceded the battle to stop a Congressional resolution to disapprove of - and end - Donald Trump's fake border emergency.
Four senate Republicans have now announced that they will vote with Democrats to block Trump's move, and that puts the count at 51, enough to pass. As I explained on the day of Trump's illegal emergency declaration, the Senate's usual 60-vote threshold for ending debate on legislation doesn't apply to Congressional review of presidential declarations under the National Emergencies Act. McConnell also does not have his usual power over the Senate calendar, since the law requires the remaining body in Congress to act within 18 days of one body passing such a resolution.
The House passed its resolution blocking Trump's declaration a week ago.
Trump is expected to veto the resolution, of course, and there does not appear to be enough votes to overturn it. However, such a veto will mark the first time Trump has ever had to exercise that power, underlining the defeat of Mitch McConnell, who, until now, has always managed to scuttle legislation that Trump didn't like, whether or not it had enough votes to pass. With this vote, for a moment at least, Congress will have stopped relinquishing its power to write and pass legislation to the president. For the first time in Trump's time at the White House, both and his lackeys in Congress are powerless to stop something from getting to his desk.
But that isn't all. Donald Trump's veto of the legislation will set up a second vote in the House to overturn the veto, putting House Republicans on the record a second time on Trump's fake emergency.
For Speaker Pelosi, the Congressional resolution to put Republicans on the spot and outmaneuver McConnell and Trump is just one battle in a multiprong fight against the unconstitutional, racist, fake emergency to try to conduct an end-run around Congressional appropriations. The Speaker declared that Trump will face opposition in Congress, in courts, and the court of public opinion.
The Congressional fight itself is part of a broader war against Trumpian anarchy. Already, California is leading 16 states in a lawsuit against it.
And I quite suspect Pelosi is not done either. Not only can she set up votes of disapproval again and again whenever she likes, the National Emergencies Act also requires the president to report to Congress every six months, and allows Congress major oversight. There is a lot Pelosi and Democrats chairing House committees can do - both to expose the sham and to create a Congressional record making it clear that there is no emergency - which will subsequently make it easier for federal Courts to do the same.
Thank goodness for Nancy Pelosi.
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text:
Blémerey, commune française de Meurthe-et-Moselle
 Blémerey, commune française des Vosges

Homonymie de toponyme
Homonymie de communes et d'anciennes communes en France


Flash animation for web sites and web pages.
Flash can be used to entertain, inform or as a navigational tool to lead the visitor through your web site. Use the power of animation on your web site.
All images and content, © McBain 2005, all rights reserved.


In July of 1999, Marge Callahan, Assistant to the Vice Provost, Sally Springer, Assistant Chancellor, Celeste Hunziker, Institutional Researcher, and Joe Kiskis, Professor of Physics and Vice Chair of the UC Davis Academic Senate were invited to represent UC Davis at a two-day WASC meeting in Berkeley, California. This meeting introduced a newly emerging accreditation process to campuses scheduled for WASC review. The new model of accreditation outlined at this initial meeting emphasized outcomes rather than inputs. It was intended to replace a highly structured process that forced institutions to adhere to a prescriptive set of 268 standards. In 1999 WASC envisioned sweeping changes, and the UC Davis team represented at the meeting recall hearing that virtually every dimension of the old process of accreditation was under scrutiny and likely to be overhauled.
Rather than pursuing a process designed to satisfy only an external set of demands, the new WASC approach was constructed so institutions could define their own needs and transform the accreditation process into one it could use to pursue its own goals. WASC also committed itself to like comparisons; research university team members would evaluate peers at other research campuses, faculty from faith-based institutions would scrutinize colleagues from campuses with a comparable profile. While WASC guidelines would have to satisfy the Federal Department of Education, the architects of the new process were confident that a viable system could meet both internal and external demands. Although the exact nature of the changes was still under discussion and yet to be approved by the Commission and the Department of Education, the WASC timetables indicated that UC Davis should prepare for its reaffirmation of accreditation. In the three and a half years since that have elapsed, UC Davis representatives have attended several other WASC-sponsored meetings and workshops. Dozens of steering committee meetings have been held on campus, and numerous campus constituencies have been engaged in the accreditation process. The campus faculty/staff newsletter has run many articles; the student paper has also documented the process. In this ostensibly paperless age, reams of paper have been expended upon multiple drafts of WASC-driven documents. "WASC update" is a common agenda item on numerous campus committees.
Many things have changed for the better since the 1999 meeting. UC Davis has reorganized the way its division of the UC Academic Senate oversees the undergraduate curriculum. Faculty have received and begun to implement a $150,000 Hewlett grant for general education improvement. The campus has approved a set of educational objectives and has begun the process of assigning metrics to them. These new educational objectives have stimulated an overhaul of the program review process. As our institutional proposal indicates, we have had the standard amount of leadership turnover in these years, but by a fortunate splash of serendipity, Callahan, Springer, Kiskis, and Hunziker are still in roles, albeit several of them with different titles, that connect them to the WASC accreditation process.
In December of 2002, UC Davis hosted the WASC capacity team. That sojourn allowed the visitors to follow up on issues embedded in our on-line institutional portfolio. Based on comments delivered at the December 5 exit interview, this team concluded that UC Davis has satisfied WASC's requirements for the capacity portion of the review process and is ready to move to the next phase, which is the educational effectiveness review. It includes the essays on educational technology and student research and this final essay that incorporates our perspectives on the whole of the WASC review process.
Stimulated by the questions posed for the WASC review, the steering committee began its deliberations by informally comparing undergraduate education practices on the UC Davis campus against a context of national trends. Like most card-carrying academics, we surveyed the literature. We quickly learned that Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities, also known as the Boyer Report, is probably the most frequently cited report on the status of undergraduate education. Although it was published in 1998, it was familiar to only a handful of UC Davis campus administrators. Given its prominence in discussions about undergraduate education in research universities, it has proven to be a good tool for campus discussions. Our fall 2001 Chancellor's Conference extended it beyond the steering committee to a much broader campus audience. One of the first sessions of the conference evaluated UC Davis activities in terms of those identified in the Boyer report.
Thus the years of the current WASC re-accreditation process at UC Davis have coincided with other sources of increased attention to undergraduate education. This climate has led to many positive developments. The combination of the new WASC standards and the recommendations of the Boyer report has been most timely. While the WASC standards emphasize the development of a culture of evidence and a focus upon educational effectiveness, the Boyer report lays out specific suggestions for the particular strengths that research universities can draw upon to achieve that effectiveness.
Predating our current attention to the WASC process, there was a proposal to reorganize the Academic Senate committee structure. Senate leaders were eager to facilitate a more focused and organized approach to undergraduate education. The proposal to form a Undergraduate Council was first put forth in the fall of 1999. The Senate Representative Assembly ratified the final version in the spring of 2002. WASC provided a significant part of the motivation for positive action rather than further delay.
In September 2001, the Chancellor's Fall Conference was devoted to undergraduate education. The agenda for that meeting was, to some extent, influenced by the WASC priorities that we had set for ourselves. Some of the developments that followed the conference will be discussed.
A major issue that we identified at the beginning of the WASC process was our lack of formalized educational objectives. Thus a goal for the conference was to identify and develop a consensus on educational objectives. We were successful in that, and by April 2002, the Committee on Educational Policy endorsed the objectives. We were pleased by the December site team's positive comments on these objectives and the ways that we are beginning to use them.
Program review is one of the few existing campus-wide mechanisms by which we can hope to cultivate a culture of evidence and an attention to educational effectiveness and implement other positive changes. Thus the guidelines for program review are currently being revised by the Undergraduate Council to encourage those changes and to give the educational objectives operational significance.
Another item on the agenda of the fall conference was general education, an issue with which the campus has struggled off and on for many years. We detail GE developments in Standard 2 and the appendix of the institutional portfolio. With the formation of the General Education committee of the undergraduate council, we intend to align administrative initiatives such as the Hewlett grant with Senate priorities for undergraduate education. The December site team congratulated UC Davis on its progress in general education. In an Undergraduate Council meeting almost immediately following the exit interview, the chair of the GE committee articulated a cogent set of goals for upcoming GE committee meetings.
Participants at the fall conference recommended that the freshman seminar program be enhanced. As a consequence, there is now more flexibility on the number of units, and there is additional support that makes more seminars available. As our research essay indicates, these courses provide key curricular foundations for student research processes.
A topic that has been discussed extensively at UC Davis and at the fall conference is writing. Like GE, to which it is somewhat related, this subject has developed a mythic aura of intractability. Nevertheless, because it is such an important element of the Educational Objectives, the Undergraduate Council has decided to initiate an ambitious investigation of the current state of student writing as a foundation for possible recommendations to strengthen the requirements or modify instruction. Coincidentally, writing has also become a subject of discussion at the system-wide level of the Senate and administration.
Thus the impact of the WASC process has been both a generally increased attention to undergraduate education and also to some specific accomplishments in that area. In the exit interview, the WASC team recognized these positive developments and the foundation that they provide for the educational effectiveness review.
The historical development of UC Davis led us to the present situation in which there is an unusually large number of students, faculty, facilities, and other resources outside of the traditional humanities and science core of a university. So in addition to the College of Letters and Science with its three divisions, we have the College of Engineering, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and the Division of Biological Sciences. Then there are the graduate professional schools of veterinary medicine, medicine, law, education, and management. So that each of these parts can develop to its full potential, we have avoided excessive centralization.
Within our decentralized structure, individual initiative in creating and implementing innovative strategies is encouraged. The decentralized environment facilitates experimenting with new ways to achieve shared goals. While seeking and providing consultation is a community value that is always encouraged, within the decentralized organization, it is not a burdensome disincentive. Thus it is possible for an individual or a very small group of people with a vision to see it through to reality. Our capacity report offers many examples such as Science 1, the geology capstone course, and the Remote Collaboration Tool.
On the other hand, with this decentralized and sometimes ad hoc approach, there may not be as much attention given to dissemination or evaluation as might follow from a more rigid and centralized organization. Thus in our studies of both student research and educational technology, we happily discover a wealth of successful and impressive examples. However, the processes of systematic evaluation and dissemination that might lead to institutionalization of the benefits of the many success are somewhat uneven. Especially in the area of campus-wide policies on the evaluation of the educational effectiveness of initiatives, we have a ways to go. The presence of evaluative components that are built in from the beginning is quite variable and largely controlled by the circumstances of a given project and the interests of its leaders. While some improvement in evaluation and certainly in dissemination would be desirable, we must be mindful of the risk of creating a centralized evaluation bureaucracy that discourages innovation.
In a somewhat different category, there are well-established efforts in undergraduate student research and in educational technology. While they are generally associated with units that undergo periodic review, those reviews often do not require direct evidence of student learning in the context of stated educational objectives. In the case of academic units, the guidelines for program review are currently being revised to include increased attention to educational objectives and evidence of student learning.
In the case of educational technology and more generally information technology, many of the projects, especially some of the most expensive ones, are in administrative rather than academic units. In this case, the most natural body to deal with evaluation is AC4. This council already has an education subcommittee, which might take on this responsibility.
The Undergraduate Research Conference is an example of an established program supporting undergraduate research that operates outside of an academic unit. It seems manifest that it is a great benefit to the students involved and is confirmed by exit surveys of conference participants. Nevertheless, a more careful and focused evaluation of its effectiveness could be helpful. Although the program has grown, and many students participate, it is still a small fraction of all undergraduates and may even be a small fraction of all the undergraduates actively involved in research. While we believe that it would be good to increase participation, there are practical limits to how much the conference could be expanded in its present format. Thus it would be desirable to identify the aspects of student participation that are actually most beneficial and try to preserve those in a larger conference.
Thus in both of the areas of our self-study, we find a tension between the benefits of decentralization and centralization and the possibility that the careful addition of some additional evaluation of educational effectiveness would be desirable.
Many of our findings were quite encouraging while others were somewhat sobering. It was encouraging to learn that for over a decade we have been consistently improving our students' access to educational technology. As UC Davis faculty adopt new technologies, they foreground pedagogy and avoid flashy hardware and software that merely showcases technology for technology's sake. The directors of Mediaworks and the Teaching Resources Center exert enthusiastic leadership in this arena. Opportunities for undergraduate research continue to increase. On the other hand, there is a widely held view that more effort is needed to improve our students' communication skills. This is a problem with which many comparable institutions also struggle. The new Undergraduate Council has taken up the matter.
Because of the breadth of disciplines reflected within it, the WASC steering committee functions as a microcosm of the whole campus. We quickly learned that gathering evidence and implementing change are uneven across the campus. For engineering faculty, adherence to a serious standard of evidence is routine, the ABET requirements for their fields have fostered this approach. Faculty who have pursued external funding for undergraduate initiatives also embrace more structured approaches to evidence gathering. For many other departments the age-old benchmarks of academic success, e.g., graduate school acceptance and job placement, suffice.
In search of best practices, we discovered some very fine efforts on campus. Stellar efforts such as Physics 7 and the English Department's Computer-Aided Instruction Program stand out. Were it not for WASC, many of us would be unfamiliar with these and other well-developed projects. We plan to do a better job of circulating and sharing our own successes.
Prior to this review, many faculty members of the steering committee had only a limited familiarity with the Student Affairs Research and Information office (SARI), and the SARI Staff did not aggressively pursue connections with the academic realm. SARI staff supported the WASC steering committee by sharing existing data and incorporating new questions into instruments scheduled for deployment. Again, we were cheered by some of the results of SARI efforts and chagrined by other outcomes. Many UC Davis faculty members have resisted the efforts it would take to develop a tightly structured General Education curriculum on the grounds that our students were satisfying the goals of GE by taking a wide range of courses and selecting co-curricular activities that develop their skills. A SARI analysis conducted for WASC during the summer of 2002 demonstrated that our students are, in fact, selecting numerous courses from outside of their majors and colleges. See Criterion 2.2 of our capacity report for the details.
While this news was quite gratifying, the 2001 SARI survey asked undergraduates how their educational experience had been impacted by attending a major research university, and open-ended replies led us to the realization that we have more work to do in communicating the value of attending a research university to some of our students. The survey indicates that we need to be more proactive about promoting the benefits of attending a research university at an earlier point in students' academic careers.
Perhaps even more important than the particular results of these studies is the fact that faculty leadership is likely to look to SARI for consistent support in the future, and SARI has initiated efforts to keep their services in the view of the faculty. The WASC capacity team clearly recognized SARI's commitment to our mission and its value to our campus.
Given our commitment to undergraduate research, we clearly need to do a better job of sponsoring students from the humanities, arts, and social sciences. UC Davis is not alone in its efforts to improve in this arena. We may opt to emulate efforts at UCLA and SUNY Stony Brook. On these campuses unique venues for students in the non-sciences have been developed and promoted with some success.
The WASC process has reminded us that the value, benefit, and unique role of a research university is not self-evident to all. From our very first communications to our students through the graduation speeches, campus leaders and faculty need to explain and define the goals of a research institution.
The Undergraduate Council will enable us to be more responsive to the academic needs of students and faculty. The present chair of the council has been extensively engaged in the WASC process since the 1999 workshop in Berkeley. His leadership will provide a concrete connection between the two endeavors. Further, we have observed that the most functional of undergraduate councils on other campuses thrive when a strong partnership between the administration and the faculty council members can be maintained. Such a partnership was successfully forged to develop the materials for WASC, and we are confident that we can build on this foundation.
The innovations in General Education we have been able to make have been fueled in large part by grants from the Mellon and Hewlett Foundations. The Chancellor's Fall Conference for 2002 initiated campus discussions about pursuing a comprehensive fund-raising campaign. Recommendations from that conference reinforce suggestions from the previous fall conference on undergraduate education; our educational objectives warrant the pursuit of external dollars.
Although we are very pleased by the ratification of our educational objectives, they will be much more meaningful after we have assigned metrics to them. We are addressing this through revision of the program review guidelines and development of a strategic plan.
We have made much more progress on our freshman seminar program than on capstone courses. To stimulate more proposals, the vice Provost--Undergraduate Studies will be issuing a call for a Presidential Chair in Undergraduate Education. Priority will be given to proposals for capstone courses.
As noted earlier, campus units have a very uneven track record on demonstrating the educational effectiveness of projects. UC Davis stimulated creative attention to educational technology by offering small grants to faculty willing to pilot course reforms. Through the auspices of the Teaching Resources Center, we will offer small grants to faculty or departments who propose innovative projects for the evaluation of educational effectiveness.
We recommend that the Academic Computing Coordinating Council, and in particular its education subcommittee, be charged with ensuring that all new educational technology projects involving a significant campus resource investment contain an evaluation of educational effectiveness. Of particular importance is the inclusion of an evaluation mechanism for educational technology projects with broad budgetary, technological, or pedagogical implications and/or applications. Mediaworks and TRC will collaborate in developing expertise, methods, and instruments to support the evaluation of projects in departments, campus organizations, and by individual faculty members.
Were the Goals and Outcomes of the Project Achieved?
The first general goal was to "develop educational objectives for the integration of teaching, learning, and research." As a result of efforts that began at the 2001 Chancellor's Fall Conference and continued with campus-wide consultation into the spring of 2002, we now have a set of seven educational objectives. There was an immediate convergence of these general goals and no enthusiasm for more specific statements. Thus while the objectives do not refer to research explicitly, we believe that undergraduate involvement in the research activities of the university can ideally contribute to obtaining most of the general objectives. In light of the new objectives, the Undergraduate Council is presently revising the guidelines for program review. The revised guidelines call for program-level objectives that are both specific to the major and also contribute to the general objectives. Since undergraduate participation in the department's research programs can be an important contributor to meeting educational objectives, it should be covered in the program self-study. Reviews will also describe how the program can help non-majors to meet the campus-wide objectives.
Our second general goal was to identify best practices for integrating research into the student learning experience. The research part of the self-study follows a chronological approach that shows, for each stage of an undergraduate's life on campus, the possible research activities or, at the earlier stages, those activities that prepare him or her for research. This is a catalog of successful approaches that can be referred to in expanding programs or in planning new ones. In addition to the many research opportunities that exist, we have found a broad range of activities that inform students about and prepare them for research. Over two-thirds of baccalaureate recipients reported having carried out independent research or creative projects for class, and three-fifths reported having worked with faculty on research and creative projects. Finally, with participation in the Undergraduate Research Conference or publication in Explorations, students can communicate their results. As mentioned, research experience is one of the most effective ways to reach the educational objectives, and the present process of revising the guidelines for program review will produce elements that encourage programs to involve students in research as a means of reaching the objectives of the major and the campus.
Our original intention of developing research goals for the ten academic initiatives has not turned out to be timely. Most of the initiatives are themselves still in early stages of development and are preoccupied with the first steps of getting started. At the exit interview, the WASC site team wisely reminded us of the campus's investment in these initiatives and urged us to scrutinize them in terms of their impact on undergraduate education. This is sound advice and the Vice Chancellor--Research, the campus administrator charged with oversight of the initiatives, immediately offered to convene a meeting so that we could follow up on that suggestion. We will recommend that each of the new directors develop a plan for involving undergraduate students in the research programs of the initiative.
The third general goal was to ensure that sound pedagogical principles inform our use of educational technology. The self-study reveals that we are well on the way to that goal. We are accumulating a solid base of evaluated experiments in the pedagogical aspects of educational technology. A number of examples are described in the self-study. To the extent that any general conclusion is possible, it might be to say that dramatic impacts should not be expected. An extensive application that is thoughtfully done can have either mildly positive or negative impacts on student learning. A middle ground that mixes traditional and new technology is often the most successful. The role of information technology in information transfer (email, class websites, etc.) related to instruction is completely routine. Its convenient aspects are uniformly appreciated. In addition some students are more likely to engage their professors in email discussions than they are in class or in office hours.
The deeper questions relate to pedagogy. Through Mediaworks, SITT, the Arbor, and other programs, support for the development of faculty members and their projects is excellent. With regard to the largest scale efforts, our best evaluations present a mixed picture. Based on those studies, it is difficult to make the case that a large-scale move to online classes would result in significantly improved student learning or acceptance. The most successful experiments mix traditional human interaction with the use of technology to illustrate concepts that are not otherwise easily presented. Furthermore, the cost analyses are not compelling in either direction. It seems clear that the use of technology for its own sake or for major cost savings is not justified. However, in the cases where technological means add something that cannot be done in another way, e.g., animate a concept or substitute for a new building, it can make a real contribution. Thus it appears that our relatively conservative and decentralized approach has been wise. In this way, individual initiative and creativity explores many paths, and successful approaches are discovered. A centralized gung-ho approach would probably have been a much more expensive endeavor with no proportional increase in student learning.
We find we have been quite successful in preparing our students for the use of information technology while on campus. We have a variety of means to accomplish that, and survey data indicate that our processes are meeting the needs. Through the computer expectation, summer orientation, Bovine Online, and fast Internet connections in the residence halls, new students easily get off to a good start. We have first hand knowledge of student needs while they are with us, so it is relatively easy to do the job well. For computing resources and skills that are related to majors, we find that departments are identifying the needs and taking the initiative to fill them. Although we have not carefully investigated the processes by which we identify the needs that students will have after they graduate, alumni surveys reveal that our present informal methods are working rather well. There is a high level of satisfaction with the preparation that they received at UC Davis. While it might be argued that a more organized approach is advisable, it would be complicated by the fact that future technology needs are notoriously difficult to predict. At the moment, we do not see a compelling reason to pursue this.
Thus we have accomplished the majority of the goals that we set for ourselves in the institutional proposal. In the process, we find many gratifying examples of important accomplishments in both areas. Many of those examples have associated studies of educational effectiveness. In our next steps, we will endeavor to widen awareness of educational objectives and the benefits of using direct evidence of student learning to evaluate educational effectiveness.
Since the WASC process began in 1999, we have not waited to remedy problem areas identified through the course of the WASC review. We will keep these items on the agendas of the campus. It may be that another fall conference on follow-up will be in order, and if it is, the Chancellor will devote one to this subject. We think the WASC website is quite strong and we plan to keep it current.
In their closing comments, the December WASC team acknowledged the pervasiveness of UC Davis good will and commitment to the pursuit of excellence. Even after a few short days they could see that all segments of the campus community care very deeply about our students and their well being. As we write this document, we face a very uncertain financial future and the possibility of war is everyday discussed in the media. Our educational objectives, our GE program, our students' ability to problem-solve and communicate are all essential if they are to excel in these troubled times. If the future is to be one that is more civilized and enlightened and in which each person has the opportunity to achieve his or her full potential, it will be built by young people who spend a few years with us to seek the benefits of higher learning.