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

Public Good or Private Benefit?

In the broader world of higher education policy, finance, and decision-making, perhaps the hottest issue at the moment is whether state-supported higher education is a public good or a private benefit. As a public good, it's primarily seen as benefiting all of society, with everything from indirect spin-offs from having a highly-educated populace to the results of research conducted at public institutions, public funds. Those who view it as a private benefit point to the fact that access is still quite restricted to students who come from more affluent families. They also note that the individual students who get degrees derive substantial personal lifetime benefits from their education.

D'es this matter to IT professionals on campus? Maybe it really matters. Maybe it matters only a little. Even if it d'esn't really directly matter all that much, it is still useful to understand the terms of the debate going on near the top of the ivory towers, among the folks whose policies determine our institutions' strategic aims. I think it matters. I think the "public good" perspective is part of what has created such a unique IT culture in higher education institutions, even private ones. It's something I've given some thought to recently.
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Japanese P2P Software Author Arrested

Isamu Kaneko authored Winny, a program that perhaps 1 million people in Japan have used to swap files. Because the separation of civil and criminal liabilities is different under Japanese law, Kaneko was recently arrested by Japanese police and could face up to three years in jail if convicted of a crime.
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Bloggers Set Up Defense Fund for Developer of File-Sharing Tool

A fast set up group of bloggers are raising funds on the Internet for the defense of Isamu Kenko, the author of the file-sharing program Winny, who has been arrested in Japan for authoring and distributing that software. They have raised about three million yen so far.
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Oracle Lowers Its Bid For PeopleSoft

Timing the change for just one day before PeopleSoft's annual conference for customers, Oracle announced that less favorable market circumstances for higher education enterprise software had caused it to reduce its offer for PeopleSoft downwards about $2B, to $7.7B, which is $21 per share instead of $26.
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ICANN Coping Not Just With United Nations Turf Issues

Apparently, having just (sort of) dodged the UN bullet, ICANN now faces legal challenges that may help determine whether public good or personal gain drives future development of the World Wide Web.
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Faculty Petitions Cal Poly Campus's Plan to Install PeopleSoft Software

The California State System has been moving to PeopleSoft since 1998. Despite delays, currently there are eight campuses using it. However, a faculty group at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo is asking that its implementation there be delayed or cancelled.
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Howard U. Hit Hard During Finals By Sasser

And the students complain about the network, while the university points out that it is student users who get contaminated and clog the network. Meanwhile, some bright students turn to dial-up using their phone lines, instead of the hardwiring in the dorms.
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Kalamazoo CC New Media Center In Downtown Kalamazoo

The New Media Center will serve professionals and students involved in new media technologies activities, especially graphic design, business technology, and computer information systems.
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Harvard Faculty Arts and Sciences Network Temporarily G'es Down

Actually, it wasn't the entire network, it was the network's connection to the wider Internet. According to a university spokesperson, it was the first time the school has experienced such issues with a DHCP server.
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Ball State Researchers Testing New Technology

This writer spent few days last fall in the hospital and the results of recent research at Ball State University would have been very welcome. Researchers there are working on user-friendly converged technology setups for patients that include touch screen technology and full Internet capacity, plus video and television. (I hope it can also get NPR.)
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Viruses Worm Their Way Into UCLA Computers

In the past two weeks, more than 2,300 campus computers were found to have one infection or another. Most were in residence halls. In an unexpected twist, the problems were not mainly with Sasser, but with Phatbot, Agobot and Gaobot.
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Apple Transitioning Into Bioinformatics Research?

Actually, Apple wants more people to take its hardware seriously for research of all kinds. That's why it is offering five really nice workgroup clusters - hardware, software, everything - to bioinformatics researchers. The application deadline is June 13.
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Stanford Might Gain Up to $250M From Google IPO

This interesting article explores how many more institutions are mining their researchers' projects for patentable, and possibly profitable, outcomes. Twenty years ago about 30 schools did that, now it's more than 300.
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U. Wisconsin and State of Wisconsin To Go Separate Ways on New Networks

The state won't let UW build a shared network, and UW d'esn't want to let the state bid out and award the whole project to an outside company, so each is going to build its own new next-generation digital network.
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U. Maryland System To Hold Summer Conference On File Sharing

Student representatives from a number of campuses, as well as RIAA representatives, may be present as the entire system examines, in context, the entire issue - from the technology, through the intellectual property issues, through user education, to lawsuits.
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CampusEAI Consortium Oracle Portal Grant Program

This program is designed to cover the costs of software, hardware and services associated with the implementation of the CampusEAI Oracle Portal system, an intranet portal that integrates with online learning, administrative computing and student services systems. The Grant offering includes hardware, software, project management, installation, and training costs necessary to install and operate a CampusEAI Oracle Portal, in the form of a grant which ranges between $250,000 to $1,000,000 in software, hardware, and services, depending on the size and requirements of the school.
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Microsoft Focuses on Research

Recognizing that computing is about more than creating work documents, sending e-mail messages or putting a photo online, the software giant gears up to make the best tools for users to find things online. (Technology Sunday)
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