CT Industry
:: NEWS
NACS JOINS IMS. The National
Association of College Stores has joined the IMS Global
Learning Consortium as a contributing member, to support
the development of interoperability
standards for digital learning materials.
NACS will provide co-leadership of
the consortium's new Dynamic Instructional
Content Exchange workgroup
(DICE). "DICE will develop use cases
and end-user requirements for a digital
substitute for the traditional printed
student textbook and apply the IMS
Common Cartridge for developing and
distributing the resulting dynamic,
interactive instructional content," says
Rob Abel, CEO of IMS GLC.
SECURING LOUISIANA. The
e2Campus emergency notification system
from Omnilert has been awarded a Louisiana state contract
for emergency notification services.
The contract, established by the
Louisiana Office of State Purchasing,
will enable Louisiana government organizations
(including state colleges and
universities, fire and police departments,
and other government
offices) to order pre-competed
emergency notification services
without the need for an additional
request for proposals process. Read
more here.
CREATE, SHARE, AND
TEACH. Content-sharing website
Neulio has
launched a public beta of its new hosted
platform for user-generated training,
instructional, and how-to content. The
site enables users to create multi-lesson
courses comprised of video and/or audio
files, provides an integrated quiz builder
that supports multiple question types, and
incorporates Web 2.0 tools such as rating,
sharing, and commenting.
FREE LECTURE CAPTURE.
Panopto, a provider
of rich-media knowledge-casting and
-management solutions, has announced
that its CourseCast lecture capture
technology is being made available to
qualified academic institutions free of
charge. The CourseCast system, developed
and first implemented at Carnegie
Mellon University (PA), enables educators
to capture, edit, index, archive, and
stream video and audio over the internet.
In exchange for free access to the
platform, participating institutions will
engage in ongoing beta and developer
programs aimed at continually enhancing
the technology for all users.
A DELL HPC cluster built on
PowerEdge 1950 dual-core
servers is aiding research at UAB.
POWERING UP FOR A CURE.
At the University of Alabama at Birmingham,
Dell is supplying
the computing power for the study of
neurological disorders. UAB recently
purchased a 70-node, 280-core Dell
high-performance computing cluster,
built on PowerEdge 1950 dual-core
servers with 4.5 terabytes of storage on a
Dell MD3000 storage area network. The
supercomputer will perform molecular
dynamics and quantum mechanics calculations,
to aid research toward a cure for
Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, as
well as for drug design using bioinformatics
and cheminformatics.
:: M & A, Etc.
LEARNING TOOLS MERGER.
Student response system and assessment
vendor eInstruction has entered into a definitive agreement
to purchase Interwrite Learning. The
acquisition doubles the size of eInstruction,
and significantly expands its product
portfolio, adding interactive
whiteboards, mobile teacher slates, the
Interwrite Workspace instructional software,
and more.
BEEFING UP SECURITY.
Security and communication solutions
provider Bosch Security Systems has announced its
plan to acquire Extreme CCTV, a Canadian manufacturer
of infrared technology and other
surveillance products. According to company
spokespeople, Bosch hopes the
merger will extend its reach in the video
surveillance market.
:: PEOPLE
WIRELESS VET TO SPRINT.
Sprint Nextel has named wireless
industry
veteran Daniel
Hesse as president
and CEO. Hesse previously
served as chairman, president,
and CEO of Embarq (a spin-off of
Sprint's Local Telecommunications
Division), and as
president and CEO of AT&T Wireless
Services and executive VP of
AT&T.
