CT Industry
:: PEOPLE
SOCIALTEXT
CEO. Wiki and
social software
company Socialtext has
named Eugene
Lee as CEO and
member of the board of directors.
Prior to joining the company, Lee
held senior management positions
at Adobe and
Cisco Systems.
Socialtext Founding CEO Ross Mayfield will transition to the role of
chairman, president, and co-founder.
:: NEWS
INVESTING IN KUALI. The Kuali
Foundation’s Student
Services System project has received a
$2.5 million grant from the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation to
advance the development of a new open
source student services system for colleges
and universities. The first Kuali
Student modules are expected to be
released in 2009.
HELP FOR EARLY BIRDS. Financial
aid management company Regent has
announced an early needs analysis program
and digital Free Application for
Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as a fully
integrated part of the Regent Student
Self-Service Portal. This new functionality
allows prospective and current students
to receive an early estimate of financial
aid eligibility without a fee or third-party
service provider. (Previously, students
had to either complete an application
from a third-party provider or wait until
Jan. 1 to complete the FAFSA electronically
through the federal Department of
Education.) Additionally, the early needs
analysis results enable schools to immediately
package an early financial aid
award offer, giving them a competitive
edge in student recruitment.
SECURITY BREACHES ON THE
RISE. CDW-G has
released the results of its third annual
Higher Education IT Security Report
Card,
a survey of 151 IT directors and managers
from a variety of higher ed institutions.
Among the findings: Fewer than
half of campus networks are safe from
attack-58 percent report at least one
security breach in the past year. In addition,
data loss or theft (including the loss
or theft of staff and student personal
information) has increased 10 percent in
the last year. Lack of staff resources is
the biggest barrier to improving campus
IT security, the survey shows. Read
more here.
GOING 360. Purdue University (IN)
has selected the recently unveiled
Echo360System lecture capture solution
from Echo360, to
upgrade and expand the school’s Boiler-Cast podcasting service. The platform
features a second-generation management
server with web-based scheduling, creating
a centralized control center for lecture
capture operations across multiple classrooms,
buildings, and campuses.
SONY'S FeliCa technology will enable contactless
transactions for the Blackboard Commerce Suite.
CONTACTLESS PARTNERSHIP.
Blackboard and
Sony are partnering to
support Sony FeliCa contactless technology
in the Blackboard Commerce Suite, a
family of applications enabling one-card
transactions for identification, payment,
and access. FeliCa can be integrated with
near field communication (NFC)-enabled
devices including door access readers,
point-of-sale terminals, mobile phones,
and a variety of attended and unattended
readers. The solution allows for read/write transactions to be completed within
0.1 second, an advantageous feature for
multiple campus applications that require
high-speed processing.
DEARTH OF SURF? According to a
new survey from eContent services and
technology provider Ebrary, 50 percent of responding higher ed
faculty members prefer using online
resources for research, class preparation,
and instruction. Yet 57 percent of respondents
believe students do not know how
to use electronic resources provided by
the library. The 2007 Global Faculty
E-book Survey, designed to help better
understand faculty experience with electronic
resources and printed materials,
was developed by librarians and completed
by 906 faculty respondents from
approximately 300 higher ed institutions.
:: M & A, Etc.
INTEGRATED MARKETING
SERVICES. Halyard Education Partners
has integrated its four divisions-
Educational Directories Unlimited,
eLearners.com, GoalQuest, and World-
Class Strategy-into one enterprise,
renamed EducationDynamics. Via a portfolio
of websites and online marketing services
(such as EarnMyDegree.com), EducationDynamics
helps higher ed institutions
find, enroll, and retain students.