The last inventory of Ratna Bhandar was taken 46 years ago in 1978

The best practices of tribal communities highlighted at the forum included the production of local seeds, water conservation at source, use of animals in agriculture, checking soil erosion through mixed cropping, and the use of uncultivated food for nutritional security

Police have arrested one person and seized the motorcycle used to commit the crime while claiming that two other absconding persons would be caught ‘very soon’

Policy offers employment and entrepreneurship opportunities post-service, with several exceptions in norms

The dog was shot and buried on Kazi Road in the State’s capital Gangtok on July 19

The BJP Government in Rajasthan is yet to take a decision on Disaster Relief Minister Kirodi Lal Meena’s resignation

CM Mann said the State Government has handed over appointment letters to 44,667 youth in various departments since it came to power

The players were going to participate in a hockey competition in Jhapla of the Tutikela Panchayat, and they stood under a tree to avoid the rain

While RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said the morale of “state-protected criminals and rapists” has increased under the “patronage” of Nitish Kumar, the Congress demanded a speedy probe

Police said masked men on a scooter fired five rounds on Tuesday evening. In July 17, miscreants had lobbed a grenade, but it did not explode and was later disposed of by a special squad

Aircraft with two persons onboard belongs to Alchemist Aviation flying school in Jamshedpur

Special Judge Vishal Gogne fixed the matter for the next week after noting that no further clarification was required from the ED on the matter

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Sanjay Kumar and R. Mahadevan partially set aside the Patna High Court verdict acquitting all the accused and asked convicts Mantu Tiwari and ex-MLA Shukla to surrender within 15 days

The attack on Pankaj Yadav, a state general secretary of the RJD, took place in Safiabad locality

The Cabinet has approved additional assistance of up to ₹3,900 per hectare to farmers under the Rani Durgavati Shri Anna Protsahan Yojana, over the minimum purchase price

At the last DLC meeting Becky Williams, an instructional designer with CITT, gave a presentation on CMS software issues and spoke about open source (such as SAKAI) vs. Vendor (WebCT/Blackboard) products and a new software system for teacher grading, called SWoRD. Here is a synopsis of what she presented, and feel free to take a look at her ppt for more information: (http://plaza.ufl.edu/rjwillia/swordtalk%20-%20learning%20consort-oct07.ppt).

The first four slides are about CMS vendors vs. open source:

A growing disillusionment with vendor products has many Universities moving or considering moving to Sakai (the most popular open source system available). WebCT and Bb have left many unaddressed issues, and they require universities to pay for upgrades or extensions if something does not work. Moving a CMS to open source has its own issues, but that the vendor situation is so aggravating more universities are considering it as an option. I thought these issues sounded familiar to our LMS experiences - I'll be interested in seeing where the CMS discussion goes.

Slide 5 through 42 are about a new, free software called SWoRD. In large classes, professors assign fewer papers as writing assignments due to the difficulty of grading a large number of papers. Despite writing less, student grades are higher and students feel they are good writers; and, yet, teaching faculty don't agree. SWoRD is a system by which papers are automatically assigned to other student writers, for peer-review. Each student peer-reviews 5 papers. Ms. Williams had evidence supporting the value of multiple peer reviewing of a paper; it is much more useful for a student to have 3 peers review their paper than it is for one student or one professor to review the paper. Read the slides if you are interesting in learning more. Currently the software is free, although Ms. Williams thought that would most likely change.

This meeting was held in the Digital Worlds Building at Norman and included a digital tour of the Gator Nation Island in Second Life. Someone at the meeting mentioned that the Libraries were holding reference hours within SL, which Laura Jordan was able to speak to.

I've put a link to the new Library Reorganization Blog to our list of links (look on the right hand side). It appears that it is open for comments, whether named or anonymous.

Chopra fell just 2cm short of Jakub Vadlejch’s effort, whose 88.38m in the opening round proved enough for the Czech to take first place

Chopra finished second at the Doha Diamond League as his big final effort of 88.36m fell short by just two centimeters of Jakub Vadlejch's winning effort on May 10

The move by AFI and SAI to send the athletes on a month-long camp helped them acclimatise and bounce back to qualify for the 2024 Olympics

The two champion athletes agree on both the crux of the problem — incorrect or insufficient guidance — and the reasons for it — increased competition and desperation to succeed — but differ in how accountability should be apportioned

India got a favourable decision and Herath was disqualified. Rinku, who originally finished third with an effort of 62.77m, was upgraded to second while Ajeet (62.11m) was handed a bronze

ATHLETICS | Junior international Jeyavindhiya also figures in NADA’s list; sprinter Neha banned for four years

Over the last decade, not-for-profit organisations as well as private academies and training centres have come forward to train Indian athletes, bringing them on a par with global standards

The Indian athletics team will now have 30 members; the track and field competitions will begin on August 1