Features
- Electronic Transcripts at the Tipping Point
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3/13/2008
In an age of electronic information, it seems obvious--exchange student transcripts electronically, thereby cutting costs, speeding the process, and making fraud more difficult. But in a process that has taken many years, student transcripts are just now being pushed and pulled into the 21st century. Often on a state-by-state basis, high schools and colleges are gradually adopting technologies to allow them to exchange transcripts electronically.
- Engineering Collaboration at Virginia Tech
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3/12/2008
What does it take to convert a soon-to-retire engineering professor enamored of the chalkboard into someone who loves a technology tool? For Virginia Tech Alumni Distinguished Professor Charles Bostian, it took a collaborative teaching tool that he is using in engineering classes as large as 180 students.
- Trustworthy Computing: Examining Trust
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3/11/2008
When Richard Kemmerer first joined the board of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Academic Advisory initiative as one of its inaugural members, he had a caveat for the software giant. "One of the things I told (Microsoft) was that if you're looking for a yes man, you're barking up the wrong tree, looking in the wrong place, you got the wrong guy. I'm going to call it like I see it."
- Social Networking: The New Face of Recruiting
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3/6/2008
Social networking sites aren't just for fun. In what may be the future for college recruiting efforts, some 300,000 students now use a social networking site called Zinch specifically to network with colleges. On Zinch, prospective students can enter a personal profile that gives colleges in-depth information well beyond grades and test scores. From the other side, Zinch says that more than 450 colleges and universities are using Zinch as a high-powered recruiting tool.
- Micro Blogging with Twitter
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3/5/2008
Depending on your point of view, Twitter--an online social networking/micro-blogging service--is either a cool new way to connect with people or yet more online noise. But Twitter as an academic tool? In this interview, we talk with David Parry, Assistant Professor of Emerging Media at the University of Texas at Dallas, who recently blogged about using Twitter in class.
- Creating a Collaborative Syllabus Using Moodle
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2/27/2008
A "collaborative syllabus" is one in which the students have the ability to help determine the specifics of a course. Those specifics can be any element that a professor is willing to be flexible with and include such items as the objectives, grading, attendance policies, types of assignments, and so on.
- Adobe Releases AIR Runtime for the Desktop, Opens Flex
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2/25/2008
In a move that will let Web developers use their existing skills to build rich Internet applications for the desktop, smart clients and browsers, Adobe Systems Monday released the first version of its widely anticipated AIR cross-operating system runtime, along with updates to its Flex framework for Windows and Mac OS X platforms.
- Silverlight 2.0: The Wait Is Almost Over
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2/21/2008
The first public beta of Silverlight 2.0 is expected from Microsoft in the next few weeks. By all accounts, those that have seen the private beta report that the features outlined by the General Manager of Microsoft's Developer Division, Scott Guthrie, in a November blog posting are pretty much on track.
- Print Management Automates 'Greening' of IT at Saint Mary's
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2/14/2008
Rarely do bad habits change just because somebody has brought your attention to them. Most of the time, change requires some form of vigilance, whether self-imposed or provided by others--or even better, by automation. In the case of Saint Mary's College, a women's college in Notre Dame, IN, the bad habit was paper waste.
- Ashes2Art: Modeling the Past in 3D
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2/13/2008
An art history project focusing on the ancient Greek site of Delphi has students themselves using three-dimensional modeling software to create exact renderings of ancient structures. The project is part of a collaboration between two universities called Ashes2Art, in which students use computer modeling software to recreate and study ancient ruins.
- Sun SPOTs Go Open Source
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2/13/2008
Recently Sun Microsystems announced that it would open source both the hardware and operating system for Sun SPOTs, its sensor networking product based on Java technology. CT talked with Arshan Poursohi, a staff researcher in the Sun SPOTs lab on Sun's Menlo Park, CA campus to find out how higher education institutions can incorporate Sun SPOTs in research and instruction.
- How Network Management Speeds Research at Baylor College of Medicine
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2/7/2008
Although the research environment in which he works is highly complex, systems administrator Justin King has an uncomplicated goal for his infrastructure: "To simplify it as much as possible from an end user standpoint." King works as the sole IT person for the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine in the Department of Neuroscience in Houston, TX. This private medical school is one of the few places on earth where scientists can have access to more than a single functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanner simultaneously for their research.
- U Colorado Classroom Capture Supports Distance Learning for Military
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2/6/2008
Soldiers in the United States military who want to take college courses while they’re deployed overseas face some tough challenges. But they can also represent an attractive market for universities, especially those interesting in recruiting more business graduate school students to specific programs.
- Lessons from a Yahoo Scrum Rollout
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2/5/2008
Many campuses have fewer developers doing more, making the techniques used in development essential. Yahoo--a leader in Agile development (getting applications off the ground quickly with improvements throughout)--is taking its process to the next level with Scrum, a collaboration-focused technique that it says lets the company get out lightweight, high-impact applications quickly. Find out more about Scrum and what it might mean for your team in this Q&A with Yahoo's senior director of methods and practices, Gabrielle Benefield.
- Making the Switch to iSCSI Storage
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1/31/2008
Client by client, iSCSI is claiming ground against fibre channel in the external storage wars. For Queensborough Community College in Bayside, NY, that day of reckoning came a week or so before Thanksgiving 2006 when the school's fibre channel storage system went down.
- Collaborative Computing at the University of Washington
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1/30/2008
Perhaps more than anything else, the sight of a group of students clustered around a single computer screen, jostling for space and a better view, made Karalee Woody aware of the need for better collaborative computing tools at the University of Washington.
- Web 2.0 Threats Loom Large for IT
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1/25/2008
With the seemingly exponential growth of Web 2.0 technologies, IT professionals in education--and all other sectors, for that matter--face new challenges as control over technology slips away and moves into the hands of users.
- Can a Dedicated Call Center Boost Enrollment?
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1/24/2008
When a prospective student phones a college for information, answering questions quickly might mean the difference between enrolling that student and having that student decide to go elsewhere.
- iTunes U--Educators Do 'Cool Stuff' with Technology
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1/24/2008
Speaking to a standing-room only crowd at FETC 2008 in Orlando, FL Thursday, presenters Ann Barron, James Welsh, James Takacs and Luis Perez--all from the University of South Florida (USF)--shared their insights on planning, producing, and administering the university's educational podcasts, hosted through Apple's service, iTunes U.
- Digitization and DRM at Ball State
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1/23/2008
A years-long project at Ball State University to digitize a huge range of content is using advanced encoding technology and digital rights management (DRM) to help manage and make available thousands of hours of content stored in its libraries. The university has also recently expanded its digital offerings to include high-definition TV.
- Podcasting and Education
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1/16/2008
Is podcasting spreading like wildfire across campuses, or does it just seem like it? Can good podcasts on your school's site boost enrollment? How can educators get started in podcasting on a budget? What's the first rule to follow in considering whether or not to create a podcast?
- U Alabama Mines Data To Boost Enrollment, Retention
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1/10/2008
First-year enrollment at the University of Alabama is up 40 percent, at least in part because the school is using a sophisticated data analysis product to gauge which students to target in enrollment and retention campaigns.
- Creating Life-Size Molecules in Second Life
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1/9/2008
The debate continues over just how useful virtual worlds like Second Life are for educational purposes. We spoke with Drexel University's Jean-Claude Bradley, who is e-learning coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences, and an associate professor of chemistry. Despite his initial skepticism, in 2007 Bradley helped establish Drexel's presence in Second Life, Drexel Island, and used Second Life last semester to augment portions of his Introduction to Organic Chemistry course. He has blogged extensively about his use of the medium. Here, he discusses the benefits--and drawbacks--of the much-discussed virtual world.
- Snapshot: Personal Electronic Devices Owned by Students
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1/8/2008
Eduventures conducted research to better understand the views, attitudes, usage, and future demand/ownership of various technologies and brands among college students. The research, conducted via a Web survey, targeted 18- to 24-year-old students enrolled full-time at a four-year college or university.
- Trojans 2 Crimeware Exploits Web 2.0 Technologies
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1/2/2008
Just when you thought life couldn't get any riskier for Web app developers, a new species of malicious code is poised to begin oozing onto our networks. Dubbed "Trojans 2.0" by Web security vendor Finjan, this new Web-borne threat leverages Web 2.0 technology--RSS feeds, social networks, blogs and mashups--to provide crackers with easy and scalable command-and-control schemes.
