The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, announced a new nonprofit group last week to promote the study of "Web science," arguing that his creation deserves its own specific research focus.

The group, Web Science Trust, has set up a Wiki where universities offering Web-science programs can list their offerings and links to their course syllabi.

Why set up a separate Web-science program when other fields already cover the topic? "Most computers science isn't about the Web, and most information science isn't about the Web," said James Hendler, a computer-science professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who is a leader of the new effort. He named climate science as another new research area that has emerged in recent years by pulling people from different...

Colleges working with Google on the company's effort to scan millions of library books today unveiled their own search tool to comb the full text of some 500,000 volumes.

The tool has a few features that Google lacks, said John P. Wilkin, an associate university librarian for the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He is leading the group formed by the colleges, which is called HathiTrust Digital Library. The killer app: HathiTrust's search lists every page that contains a user's search term, while Google's might return a partial list, said Mr. Wilkin. "That's a small amenity, but I think you'll see us continue to devote energy to that sort of tool," he added.

For years major newspapers have given away free copies on several college campuses to try to get students hooked on their print products. Now USA Today has added a digital edition to its free offerings at three campuses, hoping to test how students use its new premium electronic version.

Anyone using a computer on the three campuses can now get free online access to the newspaper's e-Edition, for which the company usually charges $99 per year. The e-Edition is formatted to look like a printed newspaper, though it also includes videos and interactive Sudoku and other games. The three colleges participating in the pilot project are Pennsylvania State University, Indiana University at Bloomington, and the University of Missouri -- all of which have long been part of "newspaper readership...

Denver -- A panel of Google programmers wearing green T-shirts talked last night about the company's newest product -- called Wave -- but it was clear that they had come here to learn a few things about education.

Wave is a new kind of communication and collaboration service that is so hard to explain that the company usually points people to an hour-and-a-half video to explain how it works. It essentially combines several existing services in one interface -- chat, e-mail, word processing, video and photo sharing, and more.

At one point, a college leader asked the panel from Google if Wave would be compatible with IMS Global standards, which helps education software from various vendors work together. "What's IMS?" said Anna-Christina Douglas, a Google product-marketing manager. "That's why we're here," she added,...

Denver -- Thousands of college technology leaders have gathered here this week for the annual meeting of Educause, the education-technology group.

During the kickoff reception in the corporate exhibit hall Tuesday night, Chronicle reporters talked with a variety of attendees about what they see as the latest trends, and what concerns keep them up at night.

See the video below the fold for highlights of their answers.

Music schools have a tradition of bringing in famous musicians to hold master classes with a handful of students, but many of those visits have been cut this year because of tight budgets. Free software developed at the University of Southern California promises to make videoconferencing clear enough to hold such classes remotely over high-speed Internet connections.

The software is called EchoDamp, and it was developed by Brian K. Shepard, an assistant professor of composition at Southern California's Thornton School of Music. "There's a great deal of information that is there if you're in the same room with somebody singing or performing an instrument, but that is often not transmitted in a videoconference," he said. The goal of his software, he added, is "to maintain a sonic environment online that is musically effective."

Two recent graduates of Yale University's law school have settled their lawsuit against several people who posted derogatory comments about them anonymously on an online forum for graduate students.

The case, filed in the U.S. District Court in Connecticut, was a rare legal challenge to harassing speech made on gossip Web sites, which have proliferated in recent years and sparked controversy on many campuses.

At issue in the case was a string of comments made about the two law students on a Web forum called AutoAdmit, which describes itself as "the most prestigious law-school discussion board in the world." The comments about the two women, who filed the suit anonymously, included sexual remarks and fantasies about them, along with insults.

Mark A. Lemley, a lawyer and a professor at Stanford Law School who helped represent the women, would not discuss...

Blackboard Inc. plans to ask the Supreme Court to review its patent battle with its rival Desire2Learn after a federal appeals court last week denied the company's request to have a larger panel of the court reconsider the case.

The company will soon file its request for consideration by the nation's highest court, said Matthew Small, Blackboard's general counsel, in an interview Monday, though he acknowledged that "it is very unlikely that any case is ever heard by the Supreme Court."

"I think we have a very good reason to ask for the decision to be reheard," he added. But he declined to give specifics, noting only that "it would be inappropriate for me to characterize a future legal pleading here."

He played down the latest ruling and the company's request for Supreme Court consideration, noting that Blackboard officials have long said they would...

Google argues that its new Google Wave system could replace e-mail by blending instant messaging, wikis, and image and document sharing into one seamless communication interface. But some college professors and administrators are more excited about Wave's potential to be a course-management-system killer.

"Just from the initial look I think it will have all the features (and then some) for an all-in-one software platform for the classroom and beyond," wrote Steve Bragaw, a professor of American politics at Sweet Briar College, on his blog last week. 

Mr. Bragaw admits he hasn't used Google Wave himself -- so far the company has only granted about 100,000 beta testers access to the system. Each of those users is allowed to invite about eight friends (who...

More than 300 students at Bucknell University got hit with letters from a collection agency last week charging that they had illegally downloaded material from Cayman Academic Resources and must pay $500 "to settle this matter."

Several of the students who got the letter contacted university officials and said that they had never heard of the company and that they did not do the downloading. Now Jason Friedberg, chief of public safety for the university, suspects that the letters were part of a scam. He contacted the collection agency, Advanced Collection Services, which told him it is now having trouble contacting the client and plans to rescind the letters.

When The Chronicle called Advanced Collection Services today, a woman who answered refused to answer questions about the incident and hung up abruptly. Messages to other employees of the company were...