By Sarah Pinkerton | Staff Writer
As students across the nation begin online classes, the challenges of not being on campus have become much more prevalent. With these challenges in mind, many online resources such as JSTOR, Adobe and Comcast have made parts of their experience free or are offering them at a reduced price.
While JSTOR, an online source for academic journals, typically has many articles open to the public, they have made an expanded set of content free for many institutions during this time.
These journal collections include topics such as arts and sciences, business, ecology, Hebrew journals, Ireland, Jewish studies and life sciences. There are also a number of thematic collections and primary source collections.
There are also 35,000 e-books available and 26 public health journals.
In addition, the Adobe cloud has granted universities and kindergarten through 12th grade educators the ability to request “at-home” access for those who currently utilize their creative cloud apps through May 31 at no additional cost.
This allows students the ability to continue creative projects from home.
San Mateo, Calif., sophomore Olivia Martin, said she is utilizing the Adobe creative cloud in her media design course and that it is almost exactly the same on her home computer as it is on the computers on campus.
“Downloading it and installing it was no problem and Adobe walks you through each step when getting it set up on your own computer,” Martin said.
She said that she is mainly using Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator in her course and that the same work that was being asked of her on campus is still required after the university switched to online classes.
“We are still using the skills we were taught on the different programs to create graphics, edit photos, make posters and things like that,” Martin said. “We will also continue to work on our portfolio that is due at the end of the semester.”
Adobe also offers a free 90-day access to Adobe Connect for online conferencing until July 1, which allows meetings to continue to be conducted from home.
In a statement released by the Adobe Communications Team last week, they said they believe they have a vital role to play in the schools and businesses.
“We also know that delivering engaging experiences through distance learning is a new paradigm for many teachers and faculty,” the statement said.
Comcast, an internet service company, has also come forward with offers to the public during this time as many low-income households don’t typically have internet access.
Comcast has stated that they will offer their Internet Essentials Service package, typically $9.95 a month, for free for 60 days to new members of their company. In addition to this, the speed will be improved during this time for all new and existing customers.
Comcast President and CEO Dave Watson said in a statement released by the company that they also feel it is the company’s responsibility to help their communities.
“During this extraordinary time, it is vital that as many Americans as possible stay connected to the internet – for education, work, and personal health reasons,” Watson said in the statement.
