News 06-18-2002
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Foreign Students Dominate GIS Competition
Foreign university entries swept most of the top awards in a competition for
best GIS technology practices and posters sponsored by the Integraph Corp. The
competition recognized projects and programs based on Intergraph's GeoMedia
and MGE technology. Students were invited to display their creative and innovative
use of GIS software in the classroom by submitting posters. Educators were asked
to submit entries that illustrate groundbreaking GIS programs in the classroom.
In the poster competition, open to community colleges, technical schools, universities,
and distance-learning programs, the winners were:
-- Thomas Hilker, first-place, Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences, Germany
-- Russell Bigley, second-place, Northern Illinois University, U.S.A.
-- Doria Tai Yun Tyng and team members, third-place , University Putra Malaysia,
Malaysia
In the best practices competition, the winners were:
-- Michal Kucera and Jiri Machacek, first-place, Masaryk University of Brno,
Czech Republic
-- Rainer Ketteman and Dietrich Schr'eder, second-place, Stuttgart University
of Applied Sciences, Germany
-- Catharina Riedemann and Werner Kuhn, third-place, University of Muenster,
Germany
For biographies and abstracts of the winning entries, visit: http://www.intergraph.com/education
Phil Long, MIT senior strategist for academic computing, to lead panel at
Syllabus2002
Leadership, timing, advocacy, serendipity and a touch of intellectual insight...all
requirements for achieving consensus on software specifications on campus. Join
MIT's Phil Long in a panel discussion on learning systems specs, and share the
panels' insights on and frustrations with the process of developing and publishing
standards in a university environment at Syllabus2002. The ninth annual conference
on education technology will be held July 27-31 in Santa Clara, Calif. Joining
Professor Long is Ed Walker, CEO of IMS Global Learning Consortium.
Courseware Firm Seeks Life as National Brand
Academic Systems, a provider of interactive instructional programs for college
students, has licensed a national commercial retail company to distribute its
content for national retailers. The deal calls for Topics Entertainment, the
10th largest software publisher in the nation, to bundle and distribute select
Academic System titles for outlets such as Walmart, Costco, Best Buy and CompUSA.
Titles include CollegePro Mathematics, a four-CD set containing algebra, calculus
and statistics; CollegePro Science, a five-CD set including microbiology, genetics,
chemistry, and biochemistry; and CollegePro Business: a five-CD set with economics,
statistics, and operations management. Jim Dredge, CEO of Academic, a subsidiary
of Lightspan Inc., said the deal would "allow us to tap into a sizeable
new market outside of the campus environment and significantly extend the Academic
Systems brand."
Kettering U. Lays Out Wireless Campus Vision
Kettering University in Flint, Mich., is laying the groundwork for a wireless
area network to give students, faculty and administrators campus-wide information
via wireless kiosks, as well as network access for wireless PCs. The infrastructure
is being launched with a $107,000 gift from HP Inc. The gift will fund a wireless
deployment design, the two wireless kiosks, and three wireless access devices.
In the future, the school plans to add interactive campus maps and an infrared
download capability for hand-held PCs. "Ultimately, faculty and students
will have access to administrative systems and academic systems including online
course content anywhere on campus without tying them to specific physical locations,"
said Don Guthrie, Kettering's vice president for technology.
For more information, visit: http://www.kettering.edu
U Memphis Gets Campuswide IT Training
The University of Memphis signed a three-year agreement with Element K, which
markets electronic training programs for information technology and business
skills, to give 2,500 students, faculty, and staff access to desktop training.
The school said the tool will be used as an adjunct to its business and engineering
curriculum and to supplement staff IT training. It will also be rolled into
the university's Advanced Learning Center, a campus-wide initiative to accelerate
the faculty's use of technology in the curriculum, set to kickoff on July 1.
Jim Penrod, CIO and vice president of the university, said the deal would "ensure
that the Memphis educational experience moves into the 21st century."
For more information, visit: http://www.memphis.edu
Educaid Starts Internet Transaction Processing
Student loan provider Educaid said it implemented an Internet-based transaction
processing system that will let schools process student loans in real-time,
even when a borrower has multiple lenders or guarantors. The system, which uses
ELM Resources ELMNet system, is in Beta test with the University of Nevada,
Reno, and Linfield College. Paul Arietta, vice president of systems and technology
at Educaid, said the firm could process loan certifications with turnaround
times of less than 30 seconds. ELMNet will ultimately support real-time transaction
processing and loan status reporting directly on Educaid's current loan processing
system. It will not be necessary for the loan data to be stored by ELM, rather
ELMNet will send school-initiated updates and changes directly to Educaid via
XML messages.
Awards, Deals, Contracts in Higher Education
-- Virginia Tech deployed 600 seats of MSC.Software Corp.'s Adams virtual prototyping
software. It is the largest installation of Adams in the world, and was granted
through Mechanical Dynamics' association with Partners for the Advancement of
CAD/CAM/CAE Education (PACE) initiative headed by General Motors, EDS and Sun
Microsystems. Since 1999, the PACE program has donated more than $200 million
in computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering software, hardware and
training to academic institutions in North America to integrate 3-D modeling
and simulation technologies into their curricula.
-- The University of Maryland Medical System signed a multi-year content licensing
agreement with A.D.A.M., Inc., a publisher of interactive health content. Among
the products included in the agreement are A.D.A.M.'s proprietary Health Illustrated
Encyclopedia, a reference source on 3,700 medical topics, and A.D.A M.'s Well-Connected
Patient Reports, which provide greater detail on symptoms, diagnostic tests,
risk factors and treatment options for over 100 health conditions.
