CT Industry
:: NEWS
POWERING UP WITH SOLAR. Lewis & Clark College (OR) has teamed with Honeywell on a solar energy project that is expected to save the school at least $200,000 over the next 20 years. Honeywell will install solar panels on the roof of the college's Pamplin Sports Center, and sell the electricity produced by the panels to Lewis & Clark. In addition to offering cost and environmental benefits, the solar installation will serve as an educational tool: Professors and students will be able to see the real-time electrical output of the solar technology via a web portal, to learn how the system operates.
Students at the University of Miami now will be able to access a blazing-fast WLAN from anywhere on campus.
INVESTING IN 802.11N. The University of Miami has selected Meru Networks to supply a campuswide wireless network based on the IEEE 802.11n standard, which allows wireless access at speeds up to 300 megabits per second. The deployment will include 525 wireless access points and fully redundant controllers, providing internet access in classrooms, residences, and outdoors for the university's 15,000-plus students and some 10,000 faculty and staff. Plans also call for adding VoIP capability to the network in the coming months.
MOBILE MARKETING. Text messaging applications provider Vesta Mobile Solutions has entered into a partnership with Morgan State University (MD) to power the school's mobile marketing program, an effort to market to prospective students and potential donors via cell phones. The program is designed to actively engage the target audience in the university community, add interested parties to the school's database, and then, via text message, periodically share information with them regarding what's going on at the university.
INTEGRATING WITH OPEN SOURCE. Cdigix, a provider of rich digital media services for colleges and universities, has unveiled its Sakai integration tool. The integration enables students and faculty to seamlessly access C-Labs digital media content directly from within the Sakai course management system (CMS). eLearning and web collaboration vendor Elluminate is also integrating with open source: The company has announced the Elluminate Bridge for Moodle, which will allow institutions using the Moodle CMS to add synchronous distance learning and collaboration to coursework.
SECOND LIFE GOES MOBILE. Linden Lab's Second Life virtual world platform will soon be available on 3G mobile handsets, via a streaming mobile games service from Vollee. The mobile service reformats Second Life to fit on a cell phone screen, and maps the handset keys to in-world commands.
DOUBLE-DUTY DATA. BI consulting firm ASR Analytics has debuted its Accountability Framework for Higher Education, a new solution focused on using business intelligence to create sustainable accountability reporting for colleges and universities. The offering aims to help institutions take advantage of data already collected for accountability initiatives like IPEDS, by optimizing those data for strategic institutional reporting and analysis.
:: PEOPLE
CHANGES AT CAMPUS MANAGEMENT. Timothy Loomer, former president and CEO of Scantron, has been named CEO of Campus Management. Loomer's appointment comes on the heels of the company's agreement to be acquired by Leeds Equity Partners, a New Yorkbased private equity firm.
HIGHER ED PRODUCT MANAGER. Enterprise content management software provider Perceptive Software has announced the appointment of Mike Wessel as higher education product manager. Wessel transfers to the position from sales, where he served as a higher ed account executive for four years.
NEW eTELEMETRY COO. Network management vendor eTelemetry has appointed Shiblie O. Shiblie to the position of chief operating officer. Shiblie's track record includes management experience at Ericsson, LCC, and Tecore Networks.