Terry Calhoun, IT Trends Commentator
Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)
University of Michigan

IT D'esn’t Have It Easy, Trying to Be Green

What’s the fastest growing “waste stream” in the United States? It’s “e-waste” – and it’s incredibly toxic. A monitor might contain 3-9 pounds of lead. Circuit boards contain beryllium, cadmium, and many other toxic elements and compounds. But it d'esn’t seem that many IT staffers accept much responsibility for trying to “be green,” or at least greener. We should, because if we don’t, someone’s going to come along and make us do it.

Really? Yes. A series of news items recently got the attention of manufacturers, when mounds of broken and discarded IT equipment were shown in photographs – photographs which also included small children from third world countries, where that equipment had been dumped by end-disposers, playing in it - playing in the toxic waste that used to be on our desk.

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PeopleSoft Moves Annual Meeting to Thwart Oracle Takeover

In order to out-maneuver an attempt by Oracle to influence the election of PeopleSoft board officers, PeopleSoft's annual meeting has been moved ahead two months ...
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Antivirus Feature Creates A Burden

It was a good idea, maybe 5 years ago, to have your e-mail client or server notify the sender of a message that it was infected with a virus. But nowadays most viruses spoof the "From" line in messages, so some feel that this "feature" just wastes bandwidth....
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Central Michigan Not Relying on Legislation To Stop Spam

CMU is implementing a new SPAM filter, but as we all know, academic and free speech expressions make it more difficult to do that on campus than just about anywhere else....
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Stanford Faces Rising Fees for CourseWork

Now that the initial grant, which paid for CourseWork implementation on campus, has expired, Stanford faces annual fees of nearly $750K. Who's going to pay?...
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More Universities Moving To Open Source

George Washington University is replacing Microsoft technology with Linux, partly due to the cost and burden of security patches. At Cornell, there is "no overarching university policy" but decisions are made "locally"...
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How to Sell Your Body to Science While You're Still Alive

In a new course at Can'e University, called "Body Bucks: How to Sell Your Body to Science While You're Still Alive,” students learn that they can make as much as $20K a year from "income opportunities" that are "coursing through [their] veins."...
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Remote Accessing Seen By Students As A Privacy Risk At Loyola

"It's a rude awakening for a lot of people that what you do on your computer can potentially be seen by anyone else using a network ... and people act as if they would in private, only they're not," said Dr. Elliot King, a Loyola University communication professor. "It's up to the institution to publish rules and make them clear to students." ....
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Interactive training (WebCT) gives skating judges immediate feedback

The University of Delaware and the US Figure Skating Association have teamed up to create this state-of-the-art training class for judges. It's likely the forerunner of many more similar tools....
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MyDoom Knocks SCO Offline

As expected, the target date for MyDoom came, and the SCO Website went - offline. SCO has offered a $250K bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for MyDoom. ...
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Yale University Little-Affected By MyDoom

For the first time, the university activated a program that looks for the signature of the virus - files names known to contain MyDoom - and just deleted them....
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Yet Another Microsoft Internet Explorer Vulnerability Announced

This is a "remote code execution" vulnerability that is rated "critical."...
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Network G'es Down At Idaho State - Not MyDoom-Related

Students suspected MyDoom, but it was actually just as simple, last Friday, as a burnt out card in the main ISU router....
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Engineering G'es Virtual w/Student Portfolios at Penn State

Students who are working on their senior thesis store and publish their efforts in the "Capstone Project Electronic Portfolios" (CPEP). ...
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Ball State Speeds Up Wireless Network

In this case, it's not speeding up coverage, campus wide, so much as increasing data speed from 11 Mbps to 54 Mbps for the wireless network's 3,000-plus users.....
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Top Ten Technologies That Refuse To Die

You'll be surprised - typewriters, vacuum tubes, mainframes, and Fortran are all on this interesting list. What would you add? ...
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NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources

Seeks to promote the health and continued vitality of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education. Resources include publications, programs, and outreach activities for all educational levels. ....
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University of Central Arkansas Sets Wireless Strategy

The University of Central Arkansas (UCA) signed an agreement with IBM to develop a complete wireless data and voice communications network across the 300-acre campus. IBM will help develop the wireless convergence plan, and work with UCA to evaluate solutions that will enable the university to transform its communications across campus and eventually off-campus. UCA's goal is to build an infrastructure across the university campus for wireless, community broadband, and cellular technologies.

Central Michigan University “Unwires” Library, Classrooms

Central Michigan University chose Airespace Wireless Enterprise Platform to deliver wireless LAN services on its main campus in Mount Pleasant, Mi. Initial deployment of the system will be in CMU’s remodeled library and throughout its Health Professions Building, which includes an operational healthcare clinic. CMU said it chose the Airespace platform because it provided an integrated wireless protection system; HIPAA-compliant WLAN security, and lower operational costs.
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