News 12-11-2001
Syllabus2002 Call for Papers Deadline December 15
Proposals to present at Syllabus2002 are due December 15, 2001. The annual
summer conference will be held July 27-31 at the Santa Clara Convention Center
in the heart of Silicon Valley, Calif. The conference covers a wide variety
of topics relevant to technology in higher education.
Tracks include: New Technologies Update; Administrative Systems for the Academic
Enterprise; Technology Infrastructure and IT Planning Issues; Standards, Interoperability,
and Open Source; New Publishing Models and Intellectual Property; Web-Based
Environments for Teaching and Administration; Evaluation and Assessment Strategies;
and Faculty Innovation-Case Studies. Complete track descriptions are posted
with a detailed Call for Papers on the Syllabus Web site.
Interested parties are encouraged to submit proposals online at <http://www.syllabus.com/cfp2002/index.asp>
Pepperdine Launches Digital Democracy Laboratory
Pepperdine University, eNeuralNet, and IBM Corp. have joined forces to open
the Murray S. Craig Digital Democracy Lab at Pepperdine's School of Public Policy.
The lab is dedicated to promoting political accountability via the use of artificial
intelligence software. eNeuralNet is donating its Minutes-N-Motion political
accountability software, a 50-seat license, and an IBM server. Craig, the software's
creator, will serve as a strategic advisor to lab director, Pepperdine professor
Mike Shires, in developing curriculum and research applications.
For more information, visit: <http://www.pepperdine.edu>.
Pa. Schools Push Single Web Student Information System
Pennsylvania's 198,600-student state higher education system will convert to
a single Web-based student information system. The 14-school system decided
to build a comprehensive Web-based solution after a Gartner Group study concluded
that replacing legacy systems would save $29 million over 10 years. The network
will run on Sun Microsystems, Inc. servers. SAP will provide the application
software. The $100 million project will start by implementing mySAP Financials,
with student administration tools expected in spring 2002. Khalil Yazdi, vice
chancellor for information technology, said, "ultimately, all of the students
and faculty in our system will have access to resources across all of our universities."
For more information, visit: <http://www.penn.edu>.
Employers Court Hearing-Impaired Techies at Job Fair
The National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology
this week will hold a job fair for employers to interview some 500 deaf and
hard-of-hearing people for high-tech jobs. The job fair will be held Dec. 11,
between 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., at NTID/RIT. Students and alumni will use sign
language and interpreters to interview with companies, including IBM and Kodak,
as well as engineering, financial services firms and government agencies such
as the IRS and NASA Space Center. The day will start with an interactive workshop
from 9:30 a.m.-11 a.m. covering ways to integrate deaf employees into the workplace.
All employers will receive a CD from the New York State Department of Labor
containing each job seeker's resume.
For more information, visit: <http://www.rit.edu/NTID>.
Seton Hall University Project Targets Digital Divide
Seton Hall University unveiled a program to provide technology resources and
training to economically disadvantaged people. Project SHUTTLE, for Seton Hall
University Technology Training for Lifelong Education, aims to provide technology
education, resources and training to people without a personal computer or technological
resources. The project will collaborate with the school's Educational Opportunity
Program (EOP) and Upward Bound Program to provide laptop computers to participating
high school seniors. The students receive training in laptop use and are encouraged
to take the computers home for schoolwork and home use. EOP director Carol McMillan-Lonesome
called SHUTTLE "a conduit for families to embrace lifelong learning through
technology, understand the ... importance of higher education and achieve personal
... aspirations."
For more information, visit: <http://academic.shu.edu/shuttle/index.html>.
Blackboard, CollegisEduprise Expand Partnership
Blackboard Inc. and CollegisEduprise, Inc. said they would bundle their respective
tools and services to strengthen their offerings to the higher education market.
The collaboration will blend the Blackboard 5 Learning System, software licensing,
application hosting and integration services from Blackboard with education
assessment, strategic planning, end-user help desk services, and faculty pedagogical
training from CollegisEduprise. Clients of both companies include the Community
College of Denver, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Montgomery Community College,
New York Institute of Technology, Norfolk State University and the University
of Baltimore.
Architecture Students Incorporate Latest Design Tools
The Program of Computer Graphics at Cornell University is using beta versions
of Autodesk Architectural Studio and Autodesk VIZ 4 as part of an fall design
studio for third-year undergraduates in the Department of Architecture. The
program will integrate the use of traditional analog design tools with new media,
including Autodesk Architectural Studio, a conceptual design tool to be commercially
released in early 2002, and Autodesk VIZ 4, an advanced visualization tool for
use in modeling, rendering, and lighting studies. The tools will make it possible
for students to receive traditional design evaluations or "desk crits"
remotely.Don Greenberg, professor of architecture, said, "we're embarking
on a new way of teaching architecture in the 21st century."
For more information, visit: <http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/academic/archartpcg/>.
Pataki Announces Buffalo High Tech Research Center
New York Gov. George Pataki last week announced up to $150 million in private
sector support for building a Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics in Buffalo,
part of the governor's $1 billion plan to create public-private partnerships
to build high-tech and biotech research centers throughout the state.
Companies
supporting the project include: Compaq, Dell, Sun, SGI, Veridian, InforMax and
Stryker. Academic partners include the University of Buffalo, the Roswell Park
Cancer Institute, and the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute. N.Y.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said, "By building on our ... academic
infrastructure, and by working with corporate partners ... we will continue
this region's historic role as a place where academics and commerce come together
to benefit not just residents of the region but all New Yorkers."
CSC Wins $229M Dept. of Education Contract Extension
Computer Sciences Corp. and the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Student
Financial Assistance (SFA) agreed to extend a student loan data center task
order by an additional four-and-a-half years to the year 2011. CSC estimates
the extension will add $229 million to the task order agreement. CSC and the
agency also converted the agreement to a performance-based contract, as part
of the SFA's strategy to focus on business results rather than delivery details.
Since 1997, CSC has helped consolidate eight SFA legacy systems into a system
for the office, students, and bank and university personnel. The Department
of Education is currently modernizing the delivery of major federal student
aid programs, including Pell Grants and Stafford Loans, which provide more than
$50 billion a year to help students pay for the costs of college.
Northwestern, SBC, Launch Optical Networking Trial
Northwestern University has joined with Ameritech parent SBC Communications
Inc. to build a experimental network to assess next-generation optical technologies
and applications in metropolitan networks. The trial, dubbed OMNInet for Optical
Metro Network Initiative, will provide a test bed for all-optical switching,
high-speed technology such as 10 gigabit Ethernet(10 GE) and next-generation
applications for healthcare, industrial design, finance and commerce. Applications
being tested include high-resolution streaming video for telemedicine, 3D visualization
for industrial design, financially focused large-scale data transfers, data
mining for scientific and commercial use, and computational, data intensive
science for high bandwidth applications.
For more information, visit: <http://www.icair.org>.
eCollege Says Courseware Exceeds Disability Standards
Courseware developer eCollege said the software it will release this month
will exceed Section 508, the federal accessibility standard for information
technology. The comany said its software targets student users as well as disabled
faculty authoring online courses. It will also provide a support staff trained
in assistive technologies. The software will be available without requiring
a new version purchase, upgrade or implementatioin, the company said. Mike Gibson,
coordinator of the Professional Training in Adaptive Technology Program at the
Colorado Center for the Blind, said, "working with an e-learning company
that is proactive in understanding and meeting the needs of the blind helps
us to change what it means to be blind."