Top Reasons Why IT Staff Should Attend Conferences!

Terry Calhoun, Commentator
Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)
University of Michigan

Sometimes you have to travel away from home to learn things about home. But travel away from home is threatened right now by the fiscal crisis with which our institutions are coping. (And there's evidence that the crisis may actually be a new way of functioning and will never end.) What d'es this mean for your travel budget? Or are you at an institution where travel has been completely banned, and you have no budget at all? Who's getting to travel anyway? We think it's important, even in this virtual age, for IT staff to experience face-to-face professional development and networking.

So, we've queried some folks on the discussion lists for the American Society of Association Executives and the University Web Developers (UWEBD) and have come up with a list of points you can use to keep or increase your budget for travel and other expenses for IT staff development.

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Notebooks Overcome Desktops

In the information technology realm, students are a little ahead of the rest of the population, so it comes as no surprise that laptop sales figures for May 2003 exceeded those of desktops for the first time. LCD monitors also passed tube-based CRTs in May. This is another indicator that wireless expansion on campuses must accelerate! (InternetNews.com)
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National Council on Disabilities Says ADA Applies to Web Sites

The National Council on Disabilities recently authored a white paper that concluded that the Americans with Disabilities Act legislation d'es apply to Web sites. The paper explains the practical and economic arguments for the law, and suggests strategies to implement the accessibility principle without disruption and with benefit to consumers and business alike. (Distance-Educator.com)
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Dartmouth College Provides No-Cost Long Distance for Students

"We finally realized that it was costing us more to do the billing than it was to make the calls," Dartmouth telecommunications and network services director Bob Johnson said. He noted that a realistic cost includes the billing and marketing costs, as well as the costs of enforcing compliance and accounting. (The Dartmouth Online)
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College Students Got Game

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SUNY Stony Brook's On-Campus Computer Store Closes

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Plattsburgh State Computer Fees Increase Significantly

Avoiding a statewide cap on increasing student fees, Pittsburgh State administrators funneled this fee through the student association. It recognizes a need to continue with desktop support for student machines far beyond what is offered at most four-year institutions. (Cardinal Points)
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AskERIC Clearinghouse on Education and Technology

The ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology is hosted by the Information Institute of Syracuse at Syracuse University. It is one of 16 clearinghouses in the ERIC system, and specializes in library and information science and educational technology. ERIC/IT acquires, selects, catalogs, indexes, and abstracts documents and journal articles in these subject areas for input into the ERIC Database.
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Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences

The Institute of Education Sciences was created by the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 and is intended to advance the field of education research, making it more rigorous in support of evidence-based education. The Institute consists of the National Center for Education Research, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.
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MIT Calls on Sapient for MIT OpenCourseWare Implementation

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is working with management and technology consultant Sapient Inc. to launch the initial phases of MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), an electronic publishing initiative to promote the open sharing of knowledge around the world. When complete, MIT OCW will offer educators, students, and individual learners free access to all MIT course materials online. Sapient's education practice is providing strategy, program management, technology development, and implementation, as well as content migration and application management services, for the initiative.
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Connecticut Community Colleges Seek Uniform Mail Directory

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