Academia, Industry, Feds Form ID Theft Research Center

A group of influential information technology firms, government agencies, colleges, and universities has formed a joint academic center to spearhead research in the area of identity management, information sharing policy, and data protection.

Partners in the Center for Identity Management and Information Protection, to be based at Utica College in New York, include LexisNexis Inc., IBM Corp., the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI, Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute's CERT/CC, Indiana University's Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, Syracuse University's CASE Center, and Utica College.

Sponsors said the Center will drive research into causes, detection, and prevention of identity fraud, including threats from cyber criminals, insiders, and organized crime groups. The Center will be headed by Gary Gordon, a professor of economic crime management at Utica College. House Science Committee Chairman Rep. Sherwood B'ehlert (R-N.Y.), said the “new national center will give us better, more powerful tools to combat the pernicious threat of ID theft.”

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Spellings Commission Report Mum on Education Technology

A first draft of a report by the Spellings Commission, the Bush administration’s panel (named after Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings) established to study the future of higher education, includes just two references to technology.

The first reference notes that colleges and universities “are somewhat insulated from the consequences of their own spending decisions” by the prevalence of third party payment sources in higher education, including from student loan agencies and private donors. “They lack incentives, for instance, to substitute capital for labor by using technology to lower their instructional costs.”

The second reference to technology is to a 1999 program in course redesign developed by the National Center for Academic Transformation, which “ helps institutions enhance quality of instruction, improve learning, and reduce costs through the use of technology and innovative teaching.” Charles Miller, chairman of the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education, said the draft is likely to undergo significant changes as the full Commission starts providing its input.

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Kauffman Gift to Broaden Campus Entrepreneurial Education

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation last week said it would give its second major grant – of $35 million – to broaden entrepreneurship education throughout the academic community. The program was launched in 2003, when eight schools were awarded $25 million to transform campus culture by starting entrepreneurship programs within liberal arts, engineering, and other disciplines outside of the business school.

"We want all students, not just those in business schools, to see the value of thinking like entrepreneurs. We want them to be able to recognize and seize opportunity when it presents itself, no matter in what field they find themselves,” said Kauffman Foundation president and CEO Carl Schramm.

With the investment, combined with matching commitments from other funding partners, the Foundation expects more than $200 million will be raised over the next five years. "Through the Kauffman Campuses Initiative, hundreds of thousands of students will learn that entrepreneurship can be applied to any discipline…” said Judith Cone, the Kauffman Foundation's vice president of entrepreneurship. “A fine arts student can learn how to open an art gallery, or a pre-med student can learn how to identify an emerging opportunity and then champion that idea so that it can lead to a new innovation in medicine."

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eUniversity Releases Podcast Trumpeting Online Benefits

Capella University, a for-profit online university, has launched a podcast series titled "Inside Online Education" that will feature interviews with Capella students, faculty, and staff on the experience of online education.

The first installment features the story of Chris Xaver, a Ph.D. candidate at Capella who survived the 2004 Asian tsunami and subsequently decided to pursue a Ph.D. so she could have a greater impact on the students she teaches.

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UT San Antonia Names Chief Information Officer

The University of Texas at San Antonio named John McGowan as associate vice provost for information technology and chief information officer. McGowan was hired from Florida International University in Miami, where he was vice president for information technology and chief information officer. At UTSA, he succeeds Jeffrey Noyes, who recently retired.

USTA provost Rosalie Ambrosino said McGowan’s “contributions will be crucial in leading our efforts to maximize the use of technology as UTSA continues its pursuit to become a premier research university." The UTSA Office of Information Technology includes 145 full-time staff in six departments, in addition to a central executive support staff.

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