OPINION

The Impending End of Traditional .forward-style Forwarding

By J'e St Sauver, University of Oregon Computing Center

J'e’s back, with a finely detailed scenario of one of the many ways in which getting clear communications to our constituents, especially students, is becoming more complicated. It’s an issue of utmost importance to institutional missions but it’s not clear that anyone but techies and a few exceptionally alert marketing people understand what’s happening. Enjoy J'e’s piece!

Way back when, at the dawn of Internet time, spam was not a scourge upon the land. Hard to believe, but yes, it is true: There *was* once an online world without spam. The rules then were "be conservative in what you send, and liberal in what you accept," and "deliver or return, never discard any message," and systems acting as open relays were widespread and convenient, rather than a conduit for abuse and a cause for summary blacklisting.

Another dying artifact of those earlier, simpler, times is (or perhaps I should say "was") e-mail forwarding using the traditional .forward file.

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IT NEWS

Oracle Reveals Challengers for PeopleSoft's Board

Now that the oversight agencies have said it can happen, and more than half of shareholders in PeopleSoft agreed to sell their shares to Oracle, what Oracle needs most of all is to dissolve PeopleSoft's "poison pill." But to do that, they need to elect some new PeopleSoft board members. (New York Times)
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U Minnesota Creates Virtual Laboratory

Earth and planetary studies is getting a boost from NSF, which has funded a multi-university consortium to create a virtual collaboratory, thus pooling as many resources as possible into one available pool for those rare earth and planetary scholars. (mndaily.com)
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Report Questions Learning Outcomes

'ECD report is casting doubt on positive learning from student use of computers. At first the data looked supportive, but after taking into account students' soci'economic status and rendering that as a non-variable, this European study found out that the more computers in a student's home--the worse their learning experience is. (BBC News)

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Indiana U to Includes Top-Notch IT Gear for Best Applicants

The plan also calls for tuition payments and stipends to study abroad. It's aimed at top Merit Scholarship finalists with the intent to keep at least 30 of them at home for undergraduate study. (FortWayne.com)
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UNLV to "Secretly" Close Library Computers to Non-Students?

It depends on what "secret" means. The new, not-yet-accepted policy at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas would forbid "general public patrons" from using library computers for recreational use in the facility, despite 80 percent of the library's capital funds coming from state dollars. Not everyone's happy about this. (CityLife)
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Lexington’s Wireless Cloud for Business, University

Students carry laptops like they used to carry books, at the University of Kentucky. The university is the core and the leader, but local businesses are working hard to extend Lexington's wireless cloud. Maybe the happiest students are the ones who work as cabbies and can now pick up wireless as they wait for customers at the city airport. (Kentucky.com)
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How Your Home Computer Could Prove Einstein Right

The Einstein@home project expects to use the spare capacity of home and office computers to help confirm the existence of gravitational waves. No doubt it'll also gobble up some of your bandwidth. (Times Online)
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ICT Budget is Growing Fast--If You Look Worldwide

When you do look at the entire world, it turns out that the US is going to lose the lead in per-capita IT spending in the next couple of years--and that the largest growth in ITC investment, relatively speaking, is happening in the Third World. (ITAA)
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RESOURCES

A Source for Downloads

U of Denver is using Cflix to let students download movies, video, and educational materials. It's one of 13 campuses now using that company's system to provide video, music, and educational downloads to students. (Rocky Mountain News)
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DEALS, CONTRACTS, AWARDS

Datatel's ERP Makes Gains in Higher Education

The software, Datatel Colleague, is being adopted by Alpena Community College in Alpena, MI; Lewis & Clark Community College in Godfrey, IL; California College of the Arts in San Francisco and Oakland, CA; and the University of West Alabama in Livingston, AL--in one case taking over from another, previous vendor, and in the other three places replacing "homegrown" systems. (Business Wire)
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