CT Briefs
:: NEWS
NC AND NM REPORT BIG BB
WINS. The University of North
Carolina and the North Carolina
Community College System have
signed on with Blackboard to deploy that company’s
electronic learning platform across
68 individual campuses. Through the
implementation, campuses will be able
to share courses and learning materials
with one another and work in a more
collaborative manner across institutions.
And New Mexico, as part of the state’s
Innovative Digital Education and Learning
initiative, is launching a statewide
program to standardize on a single electronic
learning platform—Blackboard—
spanning K-12, higher education, adult
education, and government. The initiative
will also support a new statewide
virtual high school.
OPEN SOURCE LAPTOP
TRACKER. A new and free open
source system from researchers at the
University of Washington and the
University of California-San Diego promises to track down the location of a
lost or stolen laptop without requiring
the use of a proprietary or central service.
Users install a client utility called
Adeona (after the Roman goddess who
guides children home safely), which
continually monitors the
current location of the
laptop via IP addresses
and nearby routers and
access points. Location
data and associated text
are encrypted, keeping
the info anonymous
and unlinkable, while
still accessible by the
machine’s rightful owner
or an agent of that person.
Read more here.
THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO is building a high-end tabletop
display device for interactive exploration of visual 2D and 3D data.
LOOK MOM, NO
GOGGLES OR
GLOVES! The Electronic Visualization
Laboratory at the University of
Illinois at Chicago is building a highend
virtual reality device with a major
research instrumentation grant of
$450,000 from the National Science
Foundation. The device,
called the OmegaTable, is a modular
multisensory touch tabletop for interactive
exploration of visual 2D and 3D
data (and follows in the footsteps of its
predecessor, the LambdaTable). The
OmegaTable allows users to engage in
visualizations without special goggles,
gloves, or handheld controllers, opening
up a range of possibilities for research
and instruction.
SAAS AT THE HEART OF THE
MATTER. The Heartland Centers at
the Saint Louis University School of
Public Health (MO) is implementing
the software-as-a-service (SaaS) version
of the Meridian Learning Management
System (LMS) from Meridian Knowledge
Solutions.
The new system will provide preparedness
training, among other types of education,
for first responders and health
workers in Missouri and nationwide. Read more here.
A CRM FIRST. Mercyhurst
College (PA) is implementing customer
relationship management and
digital recruiting tools from Azorus. Mercyhurst, with
about 3,000 students, is the first institution
in the US to use the Azorus
Digital Recruit solution. The service
optimizes recruiting efforts by delivering
personalized communications to
students interested in attending the
college. Read more here.
DATA-INTENSIVE CARE. The
University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign will manage the latest
addition to the National Science Foundation’s
Cluster Exploratory initiative
(CluE). The HP, Intel, Yahoo! Cloud
Computing Test Bed, named for some
of its collaborators, will
allow researchers to find better ways to
support the inevitable increase in dataintensive
computing that may include
petabytes of data.
:: PEOPLE
NEW VALPARAISO CIO. Over the
summer, interim Chief Information
Officer Michael
Tucker became
CIO of Valparaiso
University (IN).
Working in various
IT roles at the
university since
1995, Tucker is now at the helm of
the institution’s IT organization and
will set strategic directions for the
operations of Valparaiso’s Office of
Information Technology.