CT Briefs
:: NEWS
YOU'VE GOT RHYTHM. Users
of sensitive information at Berry College (GA) verify their identities through
an effective authentication system that's
not cumbersome to use. The BioPassword system
utilizes keystroke biometrics along with
the credentials and knowledge-based
authentication users are accustomed to.
The system recognizes a user's unique
typing rhythm in combination with his
or her normal login procedure.
INPUT TO OUTCOMES. Two-plus
years ago, Blackboard approached Seton
Hall University (NJ) to join its product
development partner program, to work
on the Blackboard Outcomes System
assessment solution. "We jumped at the
chance to provide direct input on a
broad new solution that would meet
many assessment needs," says Paul
Fisher, who heads up the university's
Teaching, Learning, and Technology
Center. Now he expects that in the
coming year the system will be in use
across the campus for
reporting and learning outcomes
activities. Read more
here.
Stanford School of Education CTO Paul Kim (left) with Inetoo founders Robert Brouwer and Ahmed Abdulwahab (middle and right).
BETA TO THE
FUTURE. Stanford
University (CA) School of
Education CTO Paul Kim
is always on the lookout
for education technologies
that are truly new and may
change the way we teach, learn, and
create learning content. Among the
diverse tools he's examining this fall is
Inetoo, an interactive
learning content delivery system
developed by L-Point Solutions that
integrates digital content and communications
in the context of the course
materials, and offers a high level of
performance intelligence. Kim's
"Web-Based Technologies in Education"
class will be the first beta tester
of the platform.
KERBEROS CONSORTIUM. The
Kerberos network authentication protocol,
which originated at MIT, will continue
to grow and develop with the
benefit and oversight of a new Kerberos
Consortium. The
group plans to "implement the solutions
it promotes in the form of open source
reference implementations that can be
used by consortium members within
their products and organizations without
licensing fees," according to a statement
released by the consortium.
INTERESTS IN ARCHIVING.
Stanford librarian Michael Keller will
join other leading digital archiving
experts this month in Paris for the inaugural
meeting of Sun Microsystems' Preservation Archiving
Special Interest Group, a group dedicated to working on
the unique problems of storage and data
management, workflow, and architecture
for very large digital repositories.
PASIG brings together a large group of
organizations for an ongoing global discussion
of their research and sharing of
best practices for preservation and
archiving. Read more here.
βIT COULD HAPPEN HERE.'
Campus communities across the country
shed a little more of the feeling
that "it won't happen here" each time
a disturbing incident jolts their awareness.
Case in point: a stabbing-related
threat on the first day of classes this
fall at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Administrators used Rave
Alert to notify
students. Student signups for the
mobile alert system tripled overnight.
NOT A SMALL NANOTECH
GRANT. The Network for Computational
Nanotechnology (NCN) at Purdue
University (IN) has been awarded
an $18.25 million National Science
Foundation grant to
extend its work to more researchers,
educators, and others. The NCN was
launched five years ago to develop
tools to advance desktop-based nanotechnology
research.
:: PEOPLE
AN ED FOR TU'S ISEC. The University of Tulsa (OK) has
announced the appointment of
David Greer as the first executive
director of its newly
formed Institute for
Information Security.
Previously operating
as the Center for
Information Security,
iSec will expand
TU's information security research
to include private partnerships
along with the government contract
work it has done for more than a
decade. Read more here.