| Thursday, November 06, 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
From Computer Labs to Coffee Shops - About Time!
I recently walked through a number of buildings on various campuses and looked
into quite a few computer “labs” that were mostly empty. One thing
I didn’t do then, and could kick myself now for failing to do, was walk
in and ask some of the students who were in the labs why they were there. That
would be a pretty good idea, actually, asking them instead of their IT staff.
Is anyone doing that? Or are IT staff asking each other whether or not student
computer labs need to continue their existence?
That begs the question of why we even call them “labs”
anymore, of course, and my primary observation was that
there weren’t very many students in there anyway, whatever
their reasons were for being there.
Read more
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| IT NEWS |
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WYSIWYG Software Development - Everyone's a Programmer
Imagine "an architect being able to draw a blueprint that
has the magical property of building the structure it
depicts—and even, should the blueprint be amended,
rebuilding the structure anew.” Billionaire programmer
Charles Simonyi's working to get us there. (Technology
Review)
Read more
CMU Prof's Web site Targeted by ‘Time-Travel Spammer’
Starting on Oct. 20, Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor
David Farber's site?Interesting-People.org was slammed with hundreds of thousands
of "bounce" messages. (Wired)...
Read more
Carnegie Mellon Finds Better Ways to Cluster Web Searches
Researchers are now "making money" on the Vivisimo Document Clustering
Engine project. Other research aims at categorizing images in searches. (The
Tartan)...
Read more
U. of Virginia Institutes Server-based Spam Filtering
Addressing a recent series of e-mail inundation and server
crashes, the UVA "Abuve" team is implementing a system
which "scores" incoming e-mail and allows students to
select the "score" level at which they wish to receive
messages. (Cavalier Daily)...
Read more
Towson U. Tries Again on Distance Education
Efforts at distance education at Towson have failed but
the university believes the timing and the technology is
available now, and that substantial growth is likely.
Read more
U. Alabama Students Pushing for More Wireless Access
Even as the university adds building after building to
its wireless access networking, the campus student
government is pushing for more.
Read
more
Spam Costs U. Texas Medical Center $620,000 Each Month?
CIO of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University
of Texas figures that the institution's new spam-prevention
software has a serious ROI! (Internet Week)...
Read
more
Students Playing Virtual Hooky in U. Minnesota Classrooms
Most professors don't see a problem as laptops and Internet
access also enhance the experience?and there are myriad ways
to "not pay attention."
Read more
Kent State Antiviral Software Blocks Mimail.c Virus
In one day, Kent State scanned engines, found and stopped 3,477 infected e-mail
messages and at the time, the popular antiviral client software didn't recognize
this one!
Read more
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| RESOURCES |
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DiscounTech Provides Essential Tech for Non-Profits
DiscounTech, from non-profit resources guide Tech Soup, is
a source for technology donations such as office applications,
networking equipment, fundraising software, and accounting
software exclusively for non-profit institutions. For a
small administrative fee, nonprofits can order donated or
discounted software and other technology. To make
DiscounTech work, TechSoup partners with the philanthropic
groups of leading companies to provide nonprofits with
centralized access to technology product donations and
discounts.
Learn more
Portal for Select Government Tech, Science Resources
SciTechResources.gov is a government catalog derived from
ongoing U.S. research and development investments that
provide the scientist, engineer, and technologist access
to key U.S. government Web resources. Thousands of Web
sites are reviewed to select sites that will provide links
to government expertise, services, laboratories, and
information centers. When searching this site, you are
not searching millions of Web pages, but instead a
database catalog containing descriptions of just those
government Web sites that are entry points to government
science and technology resources.
Learn more
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| DEALS, CONTRACTS, AWARDS |
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Harvard B School Chooses Alumni Data Search Tool
The Harvard Business School's Department of External
Relations has purchased the search tool Endeca InFront,
to help users navigate the school’s alumni database. The
tool will enable users with only a limited amount of
information to search by characteristics such as last
name, class year, and profession. Endeca solutions help
businesses in sectors including retail, financial services,
manufacturing, information publishing and business-to-business
address information overload associated with content,
catalog and enterprise information access and retrieval.
The Endeca technology was a winner of Computerworld's 2003
Innovative Technology Award.
Colleges Become Beta Site for Datatel ERP System
Monmouth College in Monmouth, Ill., and Westmont College
in Santa Barbara, Calif., has agreed to become beta sites
for Datatel’s Colleague enterprise resource planning
system running Microsoft SQL Server. The beta deployment
will begin in December. Datatel’s approach consists of a
combination of single source solution and a “strategic
architectural framework” that lets higher education
institutions choose the database and supporting platforms
that best meets their needs.
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POLL
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Are commercial course management systems vendors doing a good job of providing support for their products?
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NEW PRODUCTS
Tool Expedites Flash-based eLearning Simulations
eHelp Corp. unveiled RoboDemo eLearning 5.0, a software
simulation tool for creating Flash-based SCORM and
AICC-compliant simulations of any software or Web-based
application. The new version enables trainers,
instructional designers, subject matter experts and Flash
developers to create software simulations that use Flash
and video content while maintaining a small file size.
Users will be able to record the use of any application,
or on-screen activity, and instantly create a simulation
in Flash with visible and audible mouse clicks.
Software simulations created with RoboDemo can be enhanced by adding rich media,
text captions, audio, images, interactive text fields, click boxes, special
effects, and more. Users can also implement eLearning-specific features like
quizzing, scoring, and branching, and can integrate their simulations with any
learning management system (LMS), plus Macromedia Flash and Authorware.
Mirapoint Offers Layered Strategy for Spam Warfare
Messaging tech provider Mirapoint released an upgrade to its e-mail security
technology, Full Spectrum that promises spam analysis, identification, filtering,
and management features that deliver “better than 96 percent effectiveness
with near-zero false positives.” The software addresses spam at the e-mail
gateway, while offering controls so end-users can define what is spam to avoid
lost messages. Current higher education customers include the College of William
and Mary, the University of Georgia and Wayne State University. For customers
with an existing mail server investment, like Microsoft Exchange or IBM Lotus
Domino/Notes, the Mirapoint Message Director appliance can be deployed quickly
to secure incoming and outgoing SMTP traffic.
DV eLearning Software Wins Japanese Quality
Award
Digital video software maker CyberLink Corp.’s PowerDVD 5 playback software
was”Best Software” ranking from Biglobe, the leading download site
in Japan. Founded in 1995, CyberLink makes advanced digital video and audio
software applications for the multimedia and eLearning markets. The company
said its PowerDVD 5 deliver a “theater-like DVD experience on a PC or notebook.’
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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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