| Thursday, November 13, 2003 |
| OPINION
IT NEWS
RESOURCES
NEW PRODUCTS
DEALS, CONTRACTS, GRANTS
SPONSORS
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OPINION
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Terry Calhoun, IT Trends Commentator
Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)
University of Michigan
The “Nittany Napster” Model
Are we at a “tipping point,” or just a smooth place in the
road?
At first glance, the Penn State/Napster deal, which gives
premium Napster music service to all Penn State students,
is a win-win for all parties. Penn State gets relief from
the RIAA, a nice service for its students, possibly some reduction
in staffing costs relating to illegal Peer-to-Peer issues,
and some great PR, including praise from the House and Senate.
Napster gets great PR and something that was missing in its
newly-hatched head-to-head fight with iPod: a built-in constituency
that naturally tends to use Napster services. Plus, the students
get what they’re going to make sure they get anyway lots of
music.
But this is not a precursor of the much-anticipated transformation
of the music industry, nor will the deal be without its own
issues and problems.
Read more
Terry Calhoun ([email protected]) is director of
communications and publications for the Society
for College and University Planning (www.scup.org).
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| IT NEWS |
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Penn State and Napster Reach a Deal
Beginning with the 2004-2005 academic year, students at PSU
will receive a subscription to Napster's premium service.
Starting next year, Penn State will provide students with
Napster's premium service. (Wired News)...
Read more
MIT's Library Access to Music Project (LAMP) is Suspended
Hailed as a groundbreaking innovation, MIT's program to let its students share
music has run afoul of various legal issues and is temporarily suspended.
(LAMP/MIT)...
Read more
ECAR Publishes New Study on Security in Higher Education
A 7-page executive summary is free to all. In addition to loads
of technical data is organizational information. The position
"chief of IT security," a new position since 1994, is now found
at 22 percent of responding institutions. (EDUCAUSE/ECAR)...
Read more
New, High-Tech Classroom at Cal State, Fresno
The high-tech classroom project, named New Education-Extraordinary
Technology, or NEXT provides connected, information technology
design and furniture rather than lots of built-in technology.
(FresnoBee.com)...
Read more
"Wiretapping" the Wireless Network at the U. of Maryland
Using "sniffers," students in the residence halls are learning
that what travels between their PC and the network may not be
secure. (The Diamondback Online)...
Read more
Students in Residence Halls at Ithaca College Criticize Network
A protest Web site, petitions, banners hanging from windows
ironically, the problems are mostly caused by students' poor
computing practices. (The Ithacan Online)...
Read
more
Mississippi State Gets New "Maverick" Supercomputer
Intended for research by creating cirtual environments and
circumstances, the 192-processor cluster device is 4 times
faster than the previous 1,000-processor cluster.
(The Clarion Ledger)...
Read
more
Minnesota State Mankato Computer Calibration Error to Cost $700K
In the latest of a series of such problems at several schools,
an error in calibration between the school's financial aid
computer and the Department of Education was caught after
creating a $700K discrepancy. (KARE11.com)...
Read more
DAMS: Harnessing the Power of Rich Media at U. of Michigan
This new project is in pursuit of a vision: In the classroom of
the near future audio, video, animation, and other rich media
are as easily found, and are conveniently usable as text
materials. (The University Record Online)...
Read more
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| RESOURCES |
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The Sloan Consortium for Quality Online Education
A consortium of institutions and organizations committed to
quality online education. Sloan publishes the Journal of
Asynchronous Learning Networks; maintains a catalog of degree
and certificate programs; hosts conferences and workshops to
help implement and improve online programs; and keeps an
effective practices database.
Learn more
Non-Profit Nicenet Internet Classroom Assistant
Nicenet is a volunteer, non-profit organization dedicated to
providing free services to the Internet community. Nicenet's
primary offering, the Internet Classroom Assistant (ICA), is
designed to address the pedagogical needs and limited resources
of teachers and their students.
Learn more
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| DEALS, CONTRACTS, AWARDS |
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Microsoft Picks Five Universities to Enhance Visual Studio .NET
Microsoft announced the winners of a worldwide request for
proposal (RFP) of projects designed to enhance the Assignment
Manager component of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Academic.
Chosen from a field of 20 proposals from 17 universities around
the world, the selected universities submitted projects under
the Visual Studio .NET Academic Tools Source Licensing Program,
part of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative.
The Visual Studio .NET Academic Tools Source Licensing Program
provides access to source code for Assignment Manager Server,
Assignment Manager Faculty Client and Assignment Manager
Student Client. As part of the Shared Source Initiative, the
program enables developers to use, modify and redistribute the
licensed source code of the Assignment Manager for both
commercial and noncommercial purposes. Licensees also are free
to use the source code to develop, debug and support their own
software tools for integration with Visual Studio .NET.
The universities selected for this RFP include the Federal
University of Pernambuco (Brazil), Monash University
(Australia), Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita
Filho (Brazil), University of Hull (United Kingdom) and Yale
University (United States).
WebCT, Capella University, to Enhance eLearning
WebCT and Capella University joined forces to deliver the next
generation of distance learning, according to WebCT. The two
organizations will begin piloting an enhanced eLearning
environment for Capella learners built on the WebCT Vista
academic enterprise system. WebCT Vista gives institutions
like Capella the ability to support multiple educational
entities, such as separate schools, in a central installation;
create, store, tag, reuse, import, export, manage and share
content beyond course boundaries.
Cal Irvine Contract with AcquireX to Improve Purchasing
The University of California, Irvine, picked AcquireX, it’s
application service provider, for a pilot program on electronic
procurement. The AcquireX system, known as iBuy, will help UCI
to further streamline purchasing processes across the 24,000
student campus. David Tomcheck, UCI's Associate Vice Chancellor,
and executive sponsor for this program, said, “W have been searching
for a hosted solution that will expand our strategic sourcing
initiatives while offering accountability and comprehensive
reporting."
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POLL
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Sponsored by: Mitsubishi
A wireless connection between a laptop and certain classroom projectors is now possible, but you may have to make some choices about the cost and configuration. Would you choose:
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NEW PRODUCTS
Third Generation of SCT’s Content Management Suite
SCT announced the next-generation SCT Luminis Content Management
Suite 3.0 for enterprise-class Web content management in higher
education. General availability is currently scheduled for
spring 2004. The Suite gives institutions the ability to create,
manage, deliver, and maintain Web content and other digital assets.
policies, and design. Highlights planned for the new SCT Luminis
Content Management Suite 3.0 include an improved user interface,
an enhanced templating system, in-context editing, site management,
page componetization, and Macintosh support.
Blackboard Integrates Tutoring Package Into Learning System
Blackboard will integrate the Personal Trainer - an online
homework tool – into the Web Tutor Advantage on the Blackboard
Learning System. South-Western, a provider of business and
economics curriculum materials, plans to roll out Personal
Trainer 3.0 for 13 introductory accounting textbooks available
in the first quarter of 2004. As part of this program, the new
edition of Warren, Reeve and Fess' Accounting, 21e will be one
of the textbooks to include the new integration feature for
Personal Trainer 3.0.
Personal Trainer 3.0 is an online homework tool hosted by
South-Western that allows students to complete end-of-chapter
exercises and problems. Students' work is automatically graded
upon submission, giving students instant feedback and saving
time for instructors by automatically grading the assignments.
eCollege Releases Enhanced Gradebook
eCollege, a provider of outsource eLearning solutions released
the Enhanced Gradebook, its first application built entirely
upon Microsoft .NET technology. By enabling all electronic
student submissions to be available in one central location,
the eCollege Gradebook is integrated with all aspects of an
online course for convenient grading and instructor feedback.
The latest advancements in the Enhanced Gradebook include:
functionality that enables faculty to use calculations based
on points possible or to show straight letter grades:
Grade-to-Date report displaying current cumulative averages for
the entire class on one screen for easy progress tracking; and
enhanced navigation that allows faculty to sort and accommodate
large amounts of information by various criteria and number of
records per page.
TechSmith Unveils Tools for Learning-On-Demand Content
TechSmith Corp., which makes screen capture and recording
solutions, introduced Camtasia Studio 2, multimedia screen
recording and production software for application demonstrations,
software simulations and video tutorials. It also released SnagIt 7,
the newest version of its screen capture utility. Camtasia Studio 2
is an integrated screen recording solution that produces highly
compressed, high-fidelity Macromedia Flash and streaming media output
that can be burned onto compact discs, or broadcast via the Internet.
This guarantees that educators, librarians, and technology coordinators
can use the appropriate delivery format for their content regardless
of an end user's installed media player or browser.
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Selecting a CMS
This week's interview features Kathy Cristoph.
Kathy Christoph explains how the University of Wisconsin selected a new course
management system, through an in-depth study of campus requirements and user
input, and a rigorous evaluation of potential CMS vendors.
Click Here
to Listen
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