Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
In This Issue
Digital Tweed: Shameless Self-Promotion
9/19/2005
Fall 2005 marks the 15th anniversary of The Campus Computing Project (www.campuscomputing.net)—of my Campus Computing Project. Campus Computing is the largest continuing study of IT planning and policy in American higher education. Later this month, at the October 2005 Educause Conference in Orlando (www.educause.edu/e05), and the League for Innovation Conference on Information Technology in Dallas (www.league.org/2005cit), Campus Computing will release the results of the 16th Campus Computing Survey.
Some months ago, as the 15th anniversary began to loom large, I offered my friendly editors at Campus Technology the option of an exclusive interview to celebrate this notable occasion. Okay, to be honest, I flooded them with e-mails and I pleaded with them: This is a big deal and a magazine interview would convince my mother I really am doing honorable work. But the editorial content for this issue, I was told politely but firmly, had been carefully planned months earlier; precious space in the magazine was already allocated. However, the Digital Tweed column (now in its sixth year) is mine. So I decided to throw my own party, be my own interviewer, and generate my own sound bites. Here then, dear reader, is an interview with myself, to mark the 15th anniversary of The Campus Computing Project. These are the questions an informed (Campus Technology) reporter would have asked.
What is The Campus Computing Project, and why should I care? When asked to explain the Campus Computing Project, I often comment that we have data, and that as the director of the project, I am the equivalent of the one-eyed guy with glaucoma in the land of the blind.
But is there any meaning in this awful metaphor? We have data! In fact, Campus Computing collects data on a wide range of campus IT planning and policy issues. When the project began in 1990, there were lots of opinions about campus issues, but there were really were no data about a wide range of IT planning and policy issues, especially in the context of the nascent “microcomputers” that were popping up all over campus and creating some havoc for some of the traditional IT folks. When the project began in 1990, the focus was on IT planning and policy issues affecting academic computing—teaching, learning, research, and scholarship—with a special interest in the evolving role of what were then called microcomputers.
How has the focus of the annual Campus Computing Survey changed over time? Good question. Survey respondents (typically, campus CIOs) who remember the early questionnaires would no doubt say (complain!) that the survey is now longer, and it is.
Recommended Reading
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
- The Quilt Coalition Rolls Out XO Communications for High-Capacity Network Services
The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates.
- Wimba Classroom 5.2 Expands Classroom Capture Support, Adds MP3 Downloads
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
- Automation Chimera: Education Is Not Management
The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning.
- Cognos Releases BI Software for Linux-based IBM System z Mainframe
Cognos, which IBM acquired in January, has released an update to its business intelligence software that will run on the Linux operating system on IBM System z mainframes. IBM Cognos 8 BI was being developed by the two companies prior to the acquisition, but assimilation of Cognos into IBM accelerated development.
- Facebook and Collegiality: A Serendipitous Social Niche
Facebook is a way to greet a colleague as if she or he is on your own campus: a wave at a distance, a hello at the corner burrito place, a honk as you both leave the campus parking lot. Informal collegiality has been extended over the miles.
