It’s Cow-Hunting Season Again

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

Last week we examined some staffing-related sacred cows – areas that should be looked at in the current fiscal crisis our institutions face. Many institutions are handling budget cuts of up to 30 percent. Even though the IT infrastructure is so important that it demands a portion of available dollars, we have an obligation to find ways to save money and increase efficiency – possibly eliminating some sacred cows in the process. This week we’ll look in areas less closely related to IT staffing...

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PeopleSoft Charges Oracle Takeover a Disruption Tactic

While we're all still watching to see what shakes out in Oracle's takeover bid for higher education's premier enterprise solution company, PeopleSoft has amended its lawsuit to claim that the takeover bid is as much about misleading customers and hurting its business as anything else. Read more

Wi-Fi vs. Cellular – The Campus Business Model to Shift

A new technology enables a Wi-Fi hot spot to cover 30 miles instead of 30 feet. Will a convergence of Wi-Fi and cell phone technology permit campuses to purchase campuswide wireless services inexpensively, instead of having to building it in? After all, we still support large modem pools. (Christian Science Monitor)...
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Over 3,000 Wintel Computers Hacked Recently at Stanford

Exploiting the Windows "RPC buffer overflow," which officials say was probably brought in by unprotected student laptops, stealth attacks have hit over 3,000 Windows computers at Stanford in the last few weeks. Affected machines had to be "wiped clean and rebuilt," a time-consuming process. (The Stanford Daily)...
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U. Delaware ‘Do You Know’ Web Site Focuses on IT Staff

The IT staff at the University of Delaware – dubbed Campus IT Associates -- has launched a new Website that updates them about campus IT news, alerts them to threats, keeps them current on their IT knowledge, a few of many other benefits to make their jobs easier. (UD Daily)...
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Bio Computing: Using Proteins to Compute Zer'es and Ones

A single gram of DNA, about the size of a sugar cube, can hold as much information as a trillion CDs. On some campuses, researchers are already using DNA to crunch algorithms and solve problems. (Boston.com)...
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Approved; Thank You; Your Details . . . Argh!

First we got hit by the Blaster worm, now it's the "Sobig.F" virus. Having fun yet? This article from the Ann Arbor News draws on interviews from several IT staffers at the University of Michigan to describe the latest virus and its impact on support staff. (Ann Arbor News)
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Global Campus Collaborative Multimedia Database

collaborative multimedia database containing a variety of images, sounds, text, and video for educational purposes. The goal of the project is provide a central "campus" where institutions may make their resources available to each other on the World Wide Web...
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Pedagogical Language Usage Server

The Pedagogical Language Usage Server is a browsable database of educational terms as used by educational researchers in journals affiliated with the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Users can see how terms are used (or defined) in the context of research literature...
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Microportals Turn Classrooms Into Collaboration Centers

College professors getting ready for the fall semester might find the Virtual Classroom system, the latest from the Alfa-XP Web Software Company, a simply way to "Webify" teaching and learning. Virtual Classroom is a "portal-on-demand" service offering everything needed to teach a class. It's template-based, reliable and secure. Professors with minimum computer skills can easily customize and manage it in real-time, using nothing but Web browsers...
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Jenzabar Launches CRM Events Management Module

Jenzabar, Inc., expanded its flagship Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS) suite of products by rolling out a Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) Events Management module. The software is designed to allow a college/university event planner to manage details involved in planning an event, from registration, housing, meals, activities, travel arrangements, financial reports and post-event reports. The module also contains database components that allow event planners to conduct post-event marketing analysis on attendees, based on interests...

McGraw-Hill Interactive CD Presents Sociology Choices

McGraw-Hill Higher Education introduced "Reel Society: An Interactive Movie" on CD-ROM. The program is designed to enhances students' understanding of sociology by providing interactive real-world choices and perspectives on a college campus. Students take on the role of different characters and influence plots through a decision-based branching storyline capability. The movie was developed in collaboration with WILL Interactive, Inc., which specializes in interactive movie training solutions...
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NEC Introduces High Performance Portable Projection System

NEC today introduced the successors to its VT460 projector, which beat out 10 competing units to win the PC Magazine Editor's Choice designation. The new products offer classroom, meeting room and multi-purpose users a choice in affordable high-performance desktop/portable projection. NEC claims the VT46, priced at $995, offers the lowest total cost of ownership of any projector to date...