Activity 1.4 – Resources: e-Zines and e-Newsletters

What is an e-Zine? An e-Zine is ” a magazine that is delivered in an electronic form. An online magazine may be online-only, or may be the online version of an otherwise print-published magazine. Today, most online magazines are Internet websites.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-zine)

What is an e-Newsletter? Similar to an e-Zine, an e-Newsletter is a newsletter delivered in an electronic form. These would differ from e-Zines as their content woud be much less. Magazines tend to cover much more material than a newsletter would. Newsletters generally just update readers on current issues whereas magazines, as well as covering current issues, may also address reader’s opinions, produce polls, promote things and so on.

How do you judge their relevance? With any publication, judging relevance will be based on the publisher and their credibility, whether they are an authoritative body or just someone with a hobby interest in the subject (generally these people are bias in their opinion). Also looking at the date of publication and perhaps the sources they cite.

Where do you start searching? Start by using a search engine.

How do you subscribe? Some e-Zines and e-Newsletters can be subscribed to via online registrations in which users will have the material delivered to their email. This can be available free of charge or may come at a cost (for example, the Learning Circuits e-Zine, produced by the ASTD, can be subscribed to at cost, however it provides subscribers with a bi-weekly opt-in email newsletter, LC Express, sends news, teasers, and links). Also e-Zines and e-Newsletters can be trasmitted via an RSS Feed such as the e-Learning Magazine which is published on the site http://elearningmag.org.