The Shandong Sino-American College of Humanities and Management, co-founded by International East-West University, has started recently (November and December 2001) two classes of business courses under its own auspices, one class in Jinan City and another class in Qingdao in collaboration with Qingdao University.

The founding of the Sino-American Shandong College for Humanities and Management (Zhongmei Shandong Renwen Guanli Xueyuan> by International East-West University with its foundation money was approved in March of 2000 by Shandong Province Commission of Education (Lujiaowaizi # 2000-10).

Professor Chung-ying Cheng has recently visited China twice and gave Seminars at Shanghai Economic-Trading Training Institute in China.

Professor Cheng is also invited to serve as an external member of the Committee for Assessment of some educational programs at Hong Kong Polytechnic University during the early period of June 2002.

Two philosophy books written by Professor Chung-ying Cheng have been recently published: his book "The Way of Uniting the Outer and the Inner: A Theory of Confucian Philosophy" (431 pages) in Chinese has been published by Chinese Social Science Press, Beijing, China. His book "Contemporary Chinese Philosophy" (450 pages) in English has been published by Blackwell Publishers in London and Boston.

Professor Cheng as Founder of IEWU has signed an agreement of collaboration and cooperation with Professor Kai-Alexander Schlevogt, head of projected Schlevogt Business School in Schwerin, Germany.

Dr. Dong Yu, our webmaster and adjunct professor in computer science, has recently visited and taught advanced seminars on E-Commerce at the collaborative units of IEWU in China: Northwest Normal University in Lanzhou, Shandong Sino-American College for Humanities and Management in Jinan and Qingdao, and the business class in Shenzhen. His seminars were warmly received by our students at the Chinese locations.

Vice President Dr. Morton Cotlar will supervise the development of long distance education project for IEWU.

The New York Times (Feb. 21, 2002) published an article by Lisa Guernsey on digital libraries, "In Lean Times, E-Books Find a Friend: Libraries" which discusses the services and fate of three companies that offer e-book services to libraries: Ebray, Questia and NetLibrary. It said:

"By clicking on links that are integrated into the library's own catalog, computer users will be able to read the full text of any book in Ebrary's database, a collection of about 5,000 titles. The system enables people to search electronically through a book and read its pages on the screen, while ultimately encouraging them to check out a physical copy when they want to read it in full. No option is available for downloading the books to portable devices."

"The company said it was working with more than 100 publishers, including Random House and McGraw-Hill (news/quote), and expected to make several thousand more titles available in coming months. So far most of the books are nonfiction titles in the fields of business, education or technology, but a recent deal with Penguin Classics will bring some literature into the mix."

The web sites referred in the article are:
http://www.ebrary.com/
http://www.netlibrary.com/
http://www.questia.com

This message comes from the Instructional Technology Council: The Community College Distance Learning Organization * http://www.itcnetwork.org