Campus Briefs
:: NEWS
iDECISIONS, iDECISIONS: Will Apple's iPhone
be coming to a university near you?
LISTENING FOR THE PHONE. Wake Forest University (NC) CIO Jay Dominick says that Apple’s new iPhone, expected to ship in June, could factor into many students’ back-to-school purchasing decisions over the summer. But whether the university will choose to support the device in the fall is a tricky question: “We’re
going to have to make some decisions in April, before we even have a chance to see the device.”
OU GETS A SECOND LIFE. Some instructors at Ohio University are holding class in Second Life, the popular online 3D world currently inhabited by more than 3 million people. The university’s two
connected “islands” in the virtual environment include representations of future construction along with existing buildings;
visitors can take classes and join real student organizations at the virtual student center.
PROSECUTION PRACTICUM. In a high-tech courtroom in Delaware, OH, supervised law students from Ohio State University’s Moritz
College of Law are participating in real cases and sharing the experience with their classmates via a live digital feed to a
“smart” classroom on campus. They’ll receive DVDs of their trial work to add to their portfolios.
STAYING ALERT. At Central Virginia Community College, students, faculty, and staff will be notified of urgent college news via their choice
of communications methods—such as a text alert to a mobile device, an e-mail, or through an RSS feed or web page. Using
an e2Campus centralized interface, college officials simply type a single message and select the group
or groups it’s destined for. Administrators are considering other, non-emergency uses for the system, such as student recruitment
communications.
WIRELESS WATCHFULNESS. Lewis University (IL) is working with wireless internet
service provider Fiber in the Sky and Proxim Wireless to not only expand its
WiFi mesh network outdoors, but also increase campus safety with wireless security cameras on the network.
KEEPING IT LEGAL. IT Services staffers at Vanderbilt University Law School (TN) estimate
that the school has saved $10,000 in software upgrades over three years since implementing an asset
management system. The software from Express Metrix inventories the
school’s 350 desktops and helps identify unused applications, and also ensures license compliance.
BOOSTING RESEARCH. The University of California-Riverside has unveiled its first supercomputer,
an SGI Altix 4700 housed at the Bourns College of Engineering. The supercomputer
will be shared among investigators from UCR’s colleges and research centers, and with
scientists at federal and state agencies.
:: PEOPLE
SDSU’S FIRST CIO. Rich Pickett has joined
San Diego State University (CA) as that institution’s first-ever chief information officer. Previously,
Pickett was director of administrative information services at the University of San Diego (CA). Don’t
miss his presentation, “Making the Transition: Diary of a New CIO,” at Campus Technology 2007 in
Washington, DC, July 30-Aug. 2.