OPINION

Luddites in Our Midst?

By Terry Calhoun

REACHING ACROSS THE 'DIVIDE' BY ROLLING CARTS ACROSS CAMPUS

Actually, I only used the term “Luddites” to capture your attention. It is what some tend to rather casually call anyone who d'esn’t enthusiastically embrace a new technology. I have been thinking a bit lately about those poor folks on our campus who for many reasons are not adept with laptops, email, wireless, and some of what are becoming the very basic tools of people who work in offices.

My thoughts surfaced to consciousness when I read about the Student Technology Access Group (STAG) at Portland State University (OR). It’s a student-run organization. Because they lack space to create the lab they want to create for helping other students, they are putting 10 recycled computers on carts and plan to bring the carts to various open spaces on campus to create temporary computer labs as they are needed. Their goal is to reach out and assist students who may not yet have crossed that digital divide. Read more

IT NEWS

Blackboard and WebCT Seek to Reassure Campus Customers After Merger Announcement

Blackboard Inc., and WebCT, Inc., two of the leading purveyors of course management software, sought to reassure customers this week that their announced merger is good news on campus. (Campus Technology) Read more

Portland State University Sends Mobile Technology Carts Out Onto Campus

In a remarkable display of concern for students who may not all be as computer literate as we assume, PSU students have organized a fleet of 10 computer carts, with human assistants, to reach out to students outside of computer labs. (Portland State Univeristy Vanguard) Read more

North Carolina State University Joins Quest for Techies

A new coalition, the Coalition for America's High Tech Future, is investigating ways to graduate more science, math, and technology experts. North Carolina State University chancellor Jim Oblinger is one of its eleven members. (The News Observer) Read more

University of New Mexico Blocks Access to Facebook.com

No, it's not because of the materialism and the consumerism. It's just that we're not sure about how secure Facebook.com's privacy controls are. (The Badger Herald) Read more

RESOURCES

The 2005 National Survey of Information Technology in US Higher Education Finds Growing Campus Concern About IT Security; Slow Progress on IT Disaster Planning

Campus IT officials identify “network and data security” as the “single most important IT issue affecting their institution over the next two-three years” according to new data from the annual Campus Computing Survey. Almost one-third (30.4 percent) of the 2005 survey respondents typically campus CIOs, CTOs, or other senior campus IT officers cite network and data security as the most important IT issue currently confronting their institutions, up from one-fifth (21.2 percent) in 2004. IT security concerns are highest among campus officials in public four-year colleges, where more than two-fifths (44.1 percent) view network and data security as the most important IT issue for their institutions, compared to about one-third of the CIOs in public and private universities, and one-fifth in private four-year colleges and in community colleges. Find out more

Stay On Top of Blackboard/WebCT Merger

Blackboard and WebCT created a joint Website to keep campus customers informed as the merger of the two companies moves forward. Find out more

DEALS, CONTRACTS, AWARDS

GeoTrust Teams with EDUCAUSE to Boost Network Security for Higher Ed

EDUCAUSE has worked out an agreement with a top network security company to offer discounted pricing on a host of security services. (PR Newswire on Yahoo) Read more

NetSuite Signs Up Wharton and University of North Carolina Campuses

NetSuite, Inc., a vendor for business management software, announced that both the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a statewide college access program led by the 16-campus University of North Carolina (UNC) have implemented NetSuite for CRM. Read more