Terms Defined on the Survey Form
Advanced telecommunications - modes of communication used to transmit information from one place to another including broadcast and interactive television, networked computers, etc.
Broadcast television - network television such as NBC, CBS, etc.
Cable television - subscription television such as CNN, Learning Channel, Discovery, etc.
Closed-circuit television - the transmission of television on noncommercial lines (e.g., in-house broadcast).
Distance learning - the transmission of information from one geographic location to another via various modes of telecommunications technology. For example, an advanced high school math class in Richmond, Virginia, could receive a college-level math seminar from the University of Virginia via two-way video.
Instructional rooms - rooms in the school building used for any instructional purposes (includes classrooms, labs, media centers, art rooms, rooms used for vocational or special education, etc.).
Local area network - the linkage of computers and/or peripherals (e.g., printer) confined to a limited area that may consist of a room, building, or campus that allows users to communicate and share information.
One-way video with two-way audio or two-way computer link - the ability to transmit or receive picture in one direction with the capability to communicate in two directions (interactively) via computer or some audio method.
Two-way video and audio - the ability to transmit and receive picture and sound simultaneously in real time.
Wide area network - a data communications linkage designed to connect computers over distances greater than the distance transmitted by local area networks (e.g., building to building, city to city, across the country, or internationally), that allows users to communicate and share information.
Terms Used in the Survey Report 2
Archie - a research tool on the Internet for finding network host computers that have programs or data files which can be transferred to your machine.
E-mail (Electronic mail) - written messages (sending or receiving) transmitted across networks (or within the same computer) and usually accessible only by the addressee either by using an online mail user agent (mail reader) or by downloading for reading and other processing offline.
56Kb - a digital transmission speed of 56 Kilo (thousand) bits per second.
Gopher - software which permits searching files on the Internet on remote hosts using layered menus. Text from these files can be read online or the files can be transferred to your computer.
Internet - the Internet, with definite article and capital I, is a network of networks all running the TCP/IP protocols, sharing the same underlying network address space as well as the same domain name space, and interconnected into an internet.
Modem - a device which connects between a computer and a phone line to translate between the digital signal of the computer and the analog signal required for telephone transmission.
Newsgroups - electronic conferences/discussion groups similar to mail.ists. Newsgroup messages, called articles, are not mailed to a subscriber's e-mailbox but are distributed to a subscribing system's news server. This single copy is then accessed by all users on their network-connected machines. Each newsgroup focuses on a subject area.
PPP (Point to Point Protocol) - a protocol that allows a computer to use the TCP/IP (Internet) protocols (and become a full-fledged Internet member) with a standard telephone line and a high- speed modem. PPP is a new standard for this which replaces SLIP. Although than SLIP, it is quickly increasing in popularity.
SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) - See PPP.
T1 rate - a digital transmission speed of 1.544 Megg (million) bits per second. PPP is less common
VERONICA (Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives) - an Internet search tool that does keyword searches of indexes of Gopher documents at FTP and Telnet sites.
Sample Universe and Classification Variables
Common Core of Data (CCD) Public School Universe - a data tape containing 85,000 records, one for each public elementary and secondary school in the 50 states, District of Columbia, and 5 outlying areas, as reported to the National Center for Education Statistics by the State Education Agencies for 1991-92. Records on this file contain the state and federal identification numbers, name, address, and telephone number of the school, county name and codes for the state, school type, enrollment size, and other selected characteristics of the school.
Instructional level
Elementary - schools beginning with grade 6 or lower, but having no grade higher than 8.
Secondary - schools with no grade lower than 7.
Combined - all other regular schools.
Metropolitan status
City - a central city of a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA).
Urban fringe - a place within an SMSA of a large or mid-size central city and defined as urban by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
Town - a place not within an SMSA, but with a population greater than or equal to 2,500, and defined as urban by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
Rural - a place with a population less than 2,500 and defined as rural by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
Geographic region
Northeast - Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Southeast - Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Central - Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
West - Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
2As defined in Building the Future: K-12 Network Technology Planning Guide, California State Department of Education; see Appendix E.
