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

Let’s Build More “Learning” into Even Basic IT Tools

In the past year, I’ve become a big fan and user of what University of Michigan members of the Sakai Project called WorkTools, which then became Course Tools the Next Generation (CTNG), and now is CTools. For those of you who have not experienced the nifty tools that are coming out of that project, I find it easiest to explain to people that it is “sort of like Yahoo! Groups, but without the ads.”

Lately, I’ve been wondering if maybe that tool and some of our other IT tools on campus shouldn’t have more advertisements built into them. By “advertisements” I mean “ads” that could provide regular learning experiences for users in how to become better, more efficient, and safer users. Not something like “This e-mail communication has been brought to you by the Diet Cola Company of America” inserted as a footer in each message your e-mail server transmits or receives. Well, I do mean the “inserted as a footer” (or header) part, but my suggested “educational messages” would read something like, “If you think you detect a security or privacy breach in University of XYZ online data, notify [email protected], and do not tell anyone else.”
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New Warning Pop-Up Alarms Towson U. Students About E-Mail Monitoring

It's not a new policy, or even a new implementation of old policy. But the pop-up window that Towson uses to let students know their e-mail is monitored is definitely catching their attention.
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Everything IT Students Need To Know

A Web committee at U. Tennessee-Chattanooga is working to make IT information and problem-resolution more available to students, and easier to find. And maybe it'll help keep IT staff from having to answer generic university-type questions.
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The IT Staffer as Hero!

The University of Seattle technology crew is praised for its dedication to customer service and its hard work. "To outsiders they are her'es - solving technology problems at the drop of a hat anywhere on campus under any pressure."
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For Some, the Blogging Never Stops

In vacation on the beach at Key West, even in the bathroom, some bloggers never stop blogging. The case in point for this article is a senior IT staffer at Michigan State University. Do you know him? Do you read his blog?
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India Has Big Plans for a Network of Internet2-Like Gateways

The Virtual Learning Campus (VLC)-India Mission is planning a network of regional broadband clusters of colleges and schools with close-knit, high-speed networks, using satellites and a physical backbone.
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The Tablet: Big Machine on Campus?

Tablets haven't quite taken off yet. Microsoft and other companies seem to be gearing up for large-scale inexpensive or free campus giveaways (425 at U. Virginia alone), in the hope of attracting attention and users. But, the usual problems remain - among those, faculty who want to ban communications devices from classrooms.
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Social Networking G'es Mobile at UCLA

SmallPlanet's CrowdSurfer technology, running on Nokia 6600 and 6230 phones, uses Bluetooth radio signals to find "friends" up to 100 feet away. Relationship information is made available via GPRS connections to the SmallPlanet.net Web site. Students meet new people with who they had previously, unknown to themselves, share come common bond.
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Presbyterian College Addresses the Unique Situation of Higher Ed IT

"At most places of business, the hardware and software systems offered to an employee are already agreed upon by the IT department. Here, we have no control over what systems, devices or applications are brought into the network. It's a unique situation."
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Techie Dreams or Student Nightmares?

Technology fees, what are they good for? Budget cuts exacerbate a situation at Middle Tennessee State University. Some students complain that IT staffers live in a parallel reality that has nothing to with staffers. Some faculty complained that the university's technology plan has skewed priorities.
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Portland State University Web Site Redesign Is More Than That

With a miserly redesign budget of only $7K, the redesign is intended to be everyone's front door to PSU and will eventually merge with a student portal system, as well as a host of other back-end information connections.
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LearnLink Defended at Emory University

Apparently, the Emory student network underperformed this past academic year. However, student criticisms are ill-founded, and students are part of the solution.
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Second Wave of Oklahoma Christian University Dell Laptop Initiative

Three years ago, OCU was the first institution in Oklahoma and one of only a handful that combined comprehensive, campus-wide wireless with laptops in the hands of every student and faculty member. The second wave upgrades those machines.
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Case Competition for Future CIOs in British Columbia

Funded by SAP Canada, teams of students from various institutions applied theory to real-life business situations. Eight four-person teams competed in the contest's first year.
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Science Middleware Initiative G'es Open-Source

The NMI, National Middleware Initiative, has swept across the U.S. and into other countries, developing and deploying open-source, open-standards middleware - so scientists can share data and collaborate on research - has released the fifth version of its software. NMI has also added two new development teams recently: the Open Grid Environments Collaboratory ( OGCE) and Common Instrument Middleware Architecture (CIMA).
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Creighton U. Receives ‘Technology Innovator in Communications’ Award

General Cable and NextGen Fiber Optics recognized Roderick Brokofsky with the ‘Technology Innovator in Communications’ award. “The award recognizes communication market leaders that have demonstrated a high level of innovation in their approach to network design and cable system installations,” states Cedric Lindsay, Director of Marketing at NextGen Fiber Optics L.L.C. As Director, Telecommunications at Creighton University, Rick’s forward-thinking approach to their 21st century network infrastructure lead to the deployment of Blolite — blown optical fiber technology, as a financially strategic approach that provides built-in capacity. Award recipients typically adopt innovative products that contribute to the robustness of data and voice networks.