OPINION

No More Clear Skies? No More Privacy?

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

Thinking about the growing problem of data aggregation abuse and cyberspace pollution, which impacts our daily lives on campus and off, brings to mind comparisons with other assaults on our world.

Eight days before September 11, 2001, my family moved our oldest daughter into her college dormitory in Manhattan. In the days following 9/11 the skies over North America were a constant reminder of how much things had, at least temporarily, changed. We had clear blue skies, we had partly cloudy and partly sunny skies, we had cloudy skies – but there was something missing from those skies.

It was something that drew my attention constantly, especially on any clear day with blue skies. On September 3, we had stood atop the twin towers on a bright, clear day, and watched as a team of a six computer-controlled skywriting planes puffed commercials onto the sky above New York. Then, a little more than a week later, there were no contrails anywhere. Everything we saw in the skies during those days was natural – puffy clouds, solid clouds, but no contrails. No straight or jagged lines across the sky degrading into the usual modern art canvas that once again covers the skies every time we look up.
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IT NEWS

B-School Applicants Axed for Sneaking Around Servers

If it's really not all that secure, can you get into trouble for looking around? Several business schools in the past few weeks have answered that question with a resounding "Yes." (USA Today)
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The Technology of Tracking

The University of Maryland College Park is doing some interesting work with tracking individuals and items throughout campus using GPS. (Washington Times)
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Is Supercomputing Dead?

More importantly, are the dollars drying up? Maybe, but a lot are going to what the NSF calls its "shared cyberinfrastructure" initiative. Also, a lot of today's biggest problems don't "need" supercomputers. (InformationWeek)
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Fly “AirRowdy” at U Texas San Antonio

The many new AirRowdy hot spots on the UTSA campus are marked by colorful, visible stickers; but don't look for the transmitters as every attempt is made to keep them from being visible. (UTSA Today) Read more

U Iowa Ending Student Computer Loan Program in April

The once very popular program's usage has declined by 40 percent as the cost of computers has gone down. Last year UI loaned just under $1M to 541 students. (I-Newswire.com)
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RESOURCES

The Future of the Digital Library: An Interview with Tom Peters

LibraryCity is a new project, in the planning stages, that hopes to avoid a number of issues that plague some digital libraries: Little things like copyright protection and stuff like that. (Journal of Online Education)
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DEALS, CONTRACTS, AWARDS

Texas-size Deal for Vignette

Texas State University-San Marcos, the largest campus in the Texas State University System, and the sixth-largest campus in the state, is implementing Vignette content management products. (dBusinessNews Austin)
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