LOCAL/STATE

The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, October 1, 1996 - 5

'U' web sites visited
500,000 times each day

By Jeffrey Kosseff
For the Daily
Students can now travel to Venice,
attend lectures and have their English
papers critiqued without leaving their
computers.
The World Wide Web is becoming a
necessity of University life. Bruce
Spiher, marketing services manager for
Information Technology Division, said
University web sites are visited more
than 500,000 times every day. That figure
has more than doubled since last year.

would still try to attend class - unless
I was tired.'
Goldberg is aware that some students
may try to use the notes as more than a
supplement to her lectures.
"I made it clear to them that the lec-
ture notes are not verbatim, and there
are things covered in the lecture that
may not be online;' she said.
For students who would like to have

their essays
CompositionI
Writing Lab,

A

"There
are few
technolo-
gies that are
growi n g
faster than
web tech-
nol ogy,"
Spiher said.
" N e w
develop-
ments are
taking place
almost on a
daily basis."

There are few
technologies that
are ,growing
faster."
- Bruce Spiher
Marketing Services, ITD

critiqued, the English
Board offers the Online
a service in which stu-
dents either e-mail or
upload their essays
over the web to a
peer tutor.
The 30 paid peer
tutors go through a
rigorous training
process, which
includes two semes-
ters of ECB seminars
on peer tutoring.
Although OWL

tion between students and professors, it
also serves as an outlet for creativity.
The art history department created
an online exhibit titled "Virtual
Venice," which is a tour of Venetian
architecture. The site contains a map
of Venice divided into districts, and
users simply click on the district they
want to explore.
Supervised by Museum Curator
Annette Dixon and art history graduate
student Monika Schmitter, students in
the School of Information and history of
art department developed Virtual Venice.
"We knew that it would be nice for the
students to have as a research tool to help
them with their courses," Dixon said.
The history of art department is plan-
ning a Claude Monet exhibit for-the
winter 1998.
While the web is a great benefit to
many students, some are also finding it
difficult and frustrating.
"I don't understand a lot of the tech-
nical lingo,' said Crystal Johnson, an
LSA first-year student. "Also, some-
times it says 'waiting for a response'.for
a long time, and it takes forever to-see
the image."
Spiher said there is a variety of rea-
sons for slow downloading.
"Web sites that use a lot of graphics
can take longer to download than text-
based sites," he said. "Other reasons for
slow downloading include how the
page is set up and the modem speed of
the receiving computer."'
OWL can be accessed at
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/ecb/owl/owl.
html.
Virtual Venice is located at
http://www.umich. edu/-hartspc/his-
tart/VENICE/venice. html.

AP PHOTO
United Auto Workers President Stephen Yokich smiles as he announces that the company has reached a tentative agreement
with Chrysler Corp.
or works rtf UAW
r-contract, turn- now to GM

Many University professors are tak-
ing advantage of this new technology to
help students gain access to course
aides. Biology Prof. Deborah Goldberg
created a site "to make it very easy for
students to access material."
Goldberg's site contains practice
exams and detailed lecture notes. But,
some students said that if their profes-
sors put lecture notes online, they would
be discouraged from attending class.
"If I had a class which offered free
lecture notes, I would not be into the
lecture very much," said Engineering
first-year student Eric Gonzalez. "But I

has been available
over e-mail for two
years and on the web since spring semes-
ter 1995, OWL Coordinator Rebecca
Rickly said most students are unaware of
the service because of a lack of publicity.
"We do not advertise very much
because we might get a huge onslaught
of papers we would not be able to han-
dle,' she said.
In addition to peer tutoring, OWL
also offers online versions of Roget's
Thesaurus and Webster's Dictionary.
Rickly said an increasing number of
students are taking advantage of OWL,
and the program expects to receive 200
essays per month by the winter of 1997.
While the web increases communica-

I

0 GM negotiating on
two fronts: Toronto
and Detroit
DETROIT (AP) - Ford Motor Co.
*orkers overwhelmingly ratified a new
three-year contract, as the United Auto
Workers turned yesterday to the diffi-
cult task of negotiating a similar pact
with General Motors Corp.
With a tentative agreement awaiting
expected ratification at Chrysler Corp.,
GM now faces negotiations alone 'on
two fronts.
In Detroit, the world's largest
automaker continued to talk with the
*AW yesterday after a weekend of low-
level negotiations. In Toronto, the more
militant Canadian Auto Workers union
also was bargaining, but amid a threat
to strike if no agreement is reached
before midnight tomorrow.
Analysts said the Canadian union
was the wild card.
"I get a feeling the UAW views our
Canadian friends as being something of
loose cannon on the deck in this
hole thing;' said Dale Brickner, a
labor professor at Michigan State
University. "They're sort of swerving
and veering to avoid fouling up each
other's negotiations."
Conventional wisdom holds that the
UAW will wait to see whether the
Canadians strike before initiating high-
level talks with GM. But this round of
talks has been anything but convention-
al or predictable.
"These negotiations have been off the
Tough law
signed for
oung teen
drivers
LANSING (AP) - As Gov. John
Engler yesterday signed into law a
tougher system for young people to get
their drivers' licenses, a grim statistic
hung over the room.
It was cited by Senate Majority
ader Dick Posthumus (R-Alto):
one-third of all deaths among people
ages 16 to 19 are caused by teen-age
drivers.
"We're going to require some new
things for young drivers in Michigan,"
said Rep. Dan Gustafson (R-
Williamston), the bill's sponsor. "It's
going to make them better drivers. It's
going to prevent accidents and injuries,
and stop a lot of heartbreak out in our
lmmunities."
The new graduated licensure system,
three years in the making, will take
effect in April.
"We're here to improve the way our
state licenses young drivers," Engler
said at the bill signing, joined by sever-

charts of what we've become used to in
the last 50 years of UAW bargaining,"
Brickner said.
Few expected the UAW and Chrysler
to reach a deal so quickly. The three-
year contract announced Sunday night
came just 13 days after the Ford pact
was announced.
There was no strike deadline set, no
announcement that Chrysler was the
second negotiating target, and none of
the threats and rhetoric that have
marked past UAW-Big Three negotia-
tions.
At GM, spokesperson Chuck Licari
said talks resumed yesterday "at all lev-
els," but he declined to say whether
UAW President Stephen Yokich and
GM Chairman Jack Smith were direct-
ly involved.
Licari also declined to say whether
Smith had left town as scheduled earli-
er to attend this week's Paris auto show,
but another GM spokesperson con-
firmed Smith would stay in Detroit this
week to monitor the talks.
UAW spokespeople did not return sev-
eral phone calls for comment yesterday.
The UAW said in a news release that
Ford production workers approved their
contract by a 90 percent majority. Skilled
trades workers endorsed it by 83 percent.
After making a point of avoiding the
old UAW term "pattern bargaining"
earlier in the talks, Yokich on Sunday
warned GM at a news conference that a
pattern clearly had been set with Ford
and Chrysler.
Chrysler's contract is believed to

include the same wage terms, including
a $2,000 lump sum in the first year and
3 percent raises in each of the following
two years.
The Ford contract contains a land-
mark provision guaranteeing the com-
pany will maintain at least 95 percent of
its 105,025 union workers during the
next three years.
It also allows Ford to hire workers at
a lower wage in any new parts busi-
nesses it enters, a move aimed at dis-
couraging "outsourcing,' the practice
of contracting out work to outside, usu-
ally nonunion suppliers.
Chrysler's 66,126 workers covered
by the national contract will vote over
the next two weeks. Details of the con-
tract are expected to be announced
Thursday, when UAW local leaders
plan to meet in Detroit.
Several contacted yesterday said
they had not been given any details.
CAW President Buzz Hargrove said
he had not talked to Yokich since last
week, but that he did not expect the
UAW to enter high-level talks at GM
this week.
"Steve's got some work to do in
meeting his leadership at Chrysler on
Thursday," Hargrove said. "I think he'll
be busy until then."
Hargrove said the announcement of
the UAW's contract with Chrysler
would put added pressure on GM to set-
tle in Canada. "It reinforces the argu-
ment that once the pattern's established,
the other companies have an obligation
to follow suit."

Welfare recipients must work

DETROIT (AP) - For welfare recipients, the message of
reforms that take effect today are simple: Go to work, or else.
New welfare applicants in Michigan who refuse to show
up for job help programs will not get benefits. Those on the
rolls must at least seek work or the checks stop coming
within four months.
Nearly everyone on the dole, working or not, will be cut off
after five years.
"The first and foremost change is the whole emphasis on
work," said state Rep. Jack Horton (R-Belmont), chair of the
House Human Services Committee.
"Even though our current regulations have been focusing
on work, our ability to enforce it was rather weak. Now we
have the flexibility to enforce."
Advocates of the welfare changes say they are designed to
help recipients find and keep jobs.
More money is funneled into child care and transportation.

Recipients will be assigned personal caseworkers with the
Family Independence Agency, formerly the Department of
Social Services, who will handle everything from assistance
checks to child care.
"Our workers will have smaller caseloads," FIA
spokesperson Margarete Gravina told The Detroit News for a
story Sunday. "They will get to know clients better and will
be able to work with them more closely to achieve indepen-
dence."
Some fear the changes were made with the ultimate aim of
reducing welfare caseloads and little attention to education,
job iraining and the welfare of children.
"These reforms will create new holes in the safety net,"
said Sharon Parks, lobbyist for the Michigan League for
Human Services.
"Children will be less secure because their parents will be
less secure."


I

!\i