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Not that many years back, portals were nothing more than splash pages from which users could click on links to navigate a school's web-based resources. Today, however, they are much more: single sign-on gateways that easily enable users to do everything from pay tuition and view transcripts, to purchase parking permits, and sell used books. Still, engineering portals is not easy. This article presents five tips on how schools can make their portal projects more powerful.

Colleges and universities can never be too prepared, whether for physical attacks or data security breaches. A quick data slice of over 7,000 US higher ed institutions, using the Office of Postsecondary Education's Campus Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool Website and cutting across public and private two- and four-year schools, reveals some startling statistics: In 2006, over 31,000 burglaries, 1,800 robberies, 2,900 aggravated assaults, 2,700 forcible sex offenses, and 5,422 motor vehicle thefts were reported on US campuses. And according to nonprofit consumer organization Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, there have been more than 150 publicly disclosed data breaches at colleges and universities since 2005. In responding to these trends, a growing number of colleges and universities are bringing logical (or data) and physical security together. Though the process can be complicated at times, this convergence merges IT with physical security programs such as card access systems, mass notification systems, and network access control. By bringing all of these functions under one roof, controlling, containing, and reducing security breaches of all kinds can be easier, more cost-effective and, most importantly, more effective. In this article, the author discusses how schools such as Bryant University and Golden West College are embracing such convergence and leading the charge. The author also discusses how others are hesitant to embrace convergence, insisting that keeping IT and physical security separate makes each more secure.

Wikis and blogs may be today's Web 2.0 darlings, but forward-looking institutions are going after the next big thing: collaboration in real time. As mainstream technology has advanced and the cost of web conferencing has dropped, a growing number of institutions are finding creative ways to achieve synchronous collaboration. What's more, the innovations are infinite, and have uses even beyond eLearning or blended learning in real time. This article reports on how some institutions have adopted synchronous collaboration technology that is enabling IT workers to build programs together. It also describes how educators at other schools are turning to synchronous collaboration tools to revolutionize the traditional approach to teamwork. It highlights some synchronous collaboration examples which focus on one or two specific applications, and stresses that the most intriguing deployments of collaboration may be those that mix and match a diverse set of enterprise-level tools such as those offered as part of the free Google Apps Education Edition (www.google.com/a/edu).

Mary Jo Garcia Biggs never really considered herself much of a technophile. Sure, the assistant professor at Texas State University-San Marcos knew her way around a web page, but for years, she was painfully aware of all of the technologies she didn't know much about. More times than not, the limitations of her knowledge frustrated the heck out of her. But everything changed in 2005. As a faculty member in Texas State's School of Social Work, Biggs was eligible to participate in the institution's annual two-week Technology Integration Workshop. From 9:30 am to 4 every afternoon, Biggs and 14 other "students" learned everything from how to master PowerPoint, to how to get the most from videoconferencing. Biggs says she also mastered the basics of developing an online class. Texas State is not the only school inspiring faculty to increase their tech savvy. Across the country, a growing number of colleges and universities are offering similar programs and stipends designed to incent educators to embrace technology. The thinking behind most of these programs is simple: By offering educators an immediate motivation to embrace technology, colleges and universities hope to ensure that their best teachers will implement the latest and greatest technologies, and innovate with them, to bring new levels of learning to their students. In other words: Everybody wins. In fact, incentive programs come in many different flavors and run the gamut from educator workshops to investments in tech incubator classrooms, grants, and more. Whatever the strategy, one thing is certain: Incenting tech savvy is one way to keep curriculum moving full tilt toward Education 3.0.

These days, with learning management system (LMS) offerings just about everywhere, online courses are almost as prevalent as classes taught in traditional classrooms with professors and students present at lecterns and desks. Many colleges and universities turn to vendors to help them create these courses, a service that software providers such as Blackboard, eCollege, and Angel Learning offer as a supplement to standard LMS service. In whatever manner schools develop online courses, professionals who have grappled with the challenge say the process is closer to science than art. With that in mind, the author asked a number of online course experts what they consider the five most critical steps to building online courses that work. This article provides a discussion of these steps.

The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requires any school or library receiving funding from the federal E-Rate program to deploy web filtering technology to prevent users from viewing objectionable material while they are using the institution's computers. However, opponents of web filtering legislation question whether or not mandated Internet filters are the best way to achieve those safeguards due to the ease with which patrons may have such software disabled, and whether the filters are not up to the task and obstructing use of certain Web 2.0 tools, may be interfering with the educational mission. This article presents the arguments raised by educators who are against web filtering. It also advocates for educating children about online safety rather than policing Internet use.

Notification tools can do more than alert the school community to an emergency. New systems are cultivating parental involvement by sending home daily reports on students' behavior, attendance, and performance. South El Monte High School's new parent notification system, a service from TeleParent, contacts parents personally by text message or phone to let them know about their children's behavior, attendance, and performance in school. TeleParent and other "parent involvement solutions," are facilitating parents' efforts to keep watch over how and what their children are doing at school. While many of these systems fall under the broader umbrella of student information systems, which function both for the sake of the school as well as the home, many are stand-alone services that exist exclusively to keep parents clued in. While parent notification technologies are not without challenges, their benefits are indisputable.

Everyone seems to have a different definition for "Web 2.0," but most people agree the phrase describes a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services that aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users. Technically speaking, these new technologies include blogs, wikis, folksonomies (collaborative or social tagging), and social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us. In the business world, these technologies enable colleagues in different offices to work together on projects, and thus move those efforts ahead quickly and more easily than traveling to an in-person meeting or even teleconferencing. In higher education, however, achieving measurable results with these tools is a bit more challenging. Maybe that's because--for the academic community, at least--questions continue to swirl around the use of these technologies. Questions such as: What do these tools bring to the table? How can educators be certain students will use them? How does restructuring a curriculum around Web 2.0 actually make a difference in how students learn? Across the country, as more and more colleges and universities consider embracing Web 2.0, the educators and technologists involved feel a certain amount of trepidation, and even ponder the future of the movement. Yet, a handful of schools are starting to figure things out. For instance, at Boston College (Massachusetts), the State University of New York-Delhi, Lake Superior College (Minnesota), Grand Rapids Community College (Michigan), and Bentley College (Massachusetts), technologists recently have adopted Web 2.0 tools in an effort to improve collaboration. What works at these schools? In this article, the author provides examples of Web 2.0 components and tools--and the techniques being employed to foster their successful use--that one should consider before moving forward with one's own campus initiative.

There is no shortage of online learning platforms available today. Whether it is Blackboard (www.blackboard.com), Desire2Learn (www.desire2learn.com), Sakai (www.sakaiproject.org), Moodle (www.moodle.org), Angel Learning (www.angellearning.com), Datatel (projected to be a CMS player in Q4 2008; www.datatel.com, or another product, chances are that someone has evaluated it at some point in the not-too-distant past. But investigating the value of the "assessment" components of these tools is, according to the author, a much more complex process. Many higher education administrators trust their CMS (Content Management Systems) vendors implicitly, but a growing number are engaging in their own forms of metrics to gauge how well students are doing when they are educated or accessing education content online. The author discusses how savvy educators and technologists are meeting the challenge.

In the old days, professional development didn't extend any further than the workshops teachers would attend to learn new applications. After the workshop, the teachers were on their own once they returned to school and had to figure out how to use their new tools. Today, things are different as technologies are too complex and the need to integrate them into the classroom is too urgent to leave teachers unsupported. In this article, the author presents a panel discussion with five educators that talked about the effort school systems are making to help teachers with their technology needs, and what more needs to be done. These educators include: Kristine Hokanson, technology integrator and Classrooms for the Future coach at Upper Merion Area High School in Montgomery County; Jim Gates, instructional technology trainer for the Capital Area Intermediate Unit 21; Bob Keegan and Cathy Groller, executive director and assistant executive director, respectively, for Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit; and Sylvia Martinez, president of Generation YES (Youth and Educators Succeeding), a provider of student-centered technology programs.

In the early days of computer technology, few, if any, school districts had chief information officers (CIOs). Information Technology (IT) was handled by computer or technology coordinators, many of whom were classroom teachers with passing interests in computers and associated high-tech gadgets and gizmos. As districts began embracing CIOs, the earliest administrators upon whom the title was conferred, bought technology, installed it, and tried to keep it running. Most of these folks were focused on instructional technology. Occasionally they bought PCs for the computer lab and maybe for a classroom or two. Software in those days was Apple Works or the early forms of Microsoft Office, as well as teacher tools like crossword puzzles or word-search programs. Modern education technology, however, has become more sophisticated, and so has the role of those charged with the administration of IT in schools. Today, many K-12 CIOs have responsibility for technology that is mission-critical throughout the school district, including everything from applications software to networks, testing, and reporting systems that transmit results to local government, and student information systems that capture attendance records upon which funding is based. Today's CIOs sometimes referred to as CTOs (chief technology officers) are expected to make tactical decisions, always keeping in mind how technology will impact the business operations of their district. This article provides an up close look at the challenges some of these K-12 IT chiefs are currently experiencing. A discussion of coping strategies is also presented.

The technology is simple: Mobile technologies such as handheld computers and global positioning systems work in sync to create an alternate, hybrid world that mixes virtual characters with the actual physical environment. The result is a digital simulation that offers powerful game-playing opportunities and allows students to become more engaged in the learning process. Matt Dunleavy, assistant professor of instructional technology at Virginia's Radford University, says that augmented reality is a step forward from conventional multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs), which exist exclusively in virtual space. As a postgraduate student at Harvard University in 2005 and 2006, Dunleavy worked with researchers from MIT and the University of Wisconsin-Madison on a special venture known as the Handheld Augmented Reality Project, or HARP. Alien Contact! was the initial result of their research; since then, a number of other games have been moved along into development.

When it comes to getting the most out of IT, the majority of two-year schools face very real challenges. For starters, community college budgets are generally smaller than those of most four-year schools. Then, of course, there's the issue of refresh: Because students come and go every two years, there's the expectation that schools will continually invest in the latest and greatest technologies. This one-two punch creates a true conundrum for many of the nation's feeder schools. No wonder both community college tech administrators and their users feel frustrated at times. But the challenge needn't be insurmountable. A number of community colleges, including Santa Rosa Junior College (California) and Macomb Community College (Michigan), have managed solid, highly cost-effective technology deployments simply by putting an eye to getting the most out of every dollar they spend. This article presents six top tips from tech officials at these schools and IT leaders at other community colleges on how they get the biggest bang out of their IT bucks.

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the company's iPod in October 2001, it was the first portable media player of its kind, and he predicted the technology would change the educational landscape forever. Today, more than six years later, a growing number of educators are using the iPod and a bevy of other tools to supplement lessons with that digital file-sharing activity, podcasting. Still, while anyone can podcast, creating podcasts with true academic value can be tough. How can K-12 educators make the content unique, and relevant to teaching and learning? Technology coordinators from districts all over the country say there are nuances to making worthwhile podcasts, and simple tools that can empower teachers to turn run-of-the-mill podcasts into compelling educational exercises.

Multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) are gaining momentum as the latest and greatest learning tool in the world of education technology. How does one get started with them? How do they work? This article shares 13 secrets from immersive education experts and educators on how to have success in implementing these new tools and technologies on the campus.

Some of the worst collateral damage from a tragedy does not occur till after the smoke clears; namely, the usurping of the name of the location where the event took place, which over time gets repurposed into metaphor and served as a caveat. Vietnam has resonated for decades as a reference to protracted war. Kent State is likewise laden with meaning. Now Columbine and Virginia Tech have become ingrained as shorthand for campus killing sprees. Both events pointed up in the starkest way the fragility of school security and ratcheted up safety efforts at educational institutions across the country. Around-the-clock video surveillance is the Holy Grail of K-12 safety efforts. It raises many questions, including whether or not the cameras are a wholly benign presence. This article discusses some key issues that must be resolved before launching video surveillance in the school.

Nowadays, college and university auxiliary services departments are turning to text messaging types of technologies to move a host of programs and offerings into the mobile environment. A July 2007 study by Youth Trends indicated that 95 percent of college freshmen come to school with a cell phone or other handheld device, and 78 percent of them have sent a text message. As these technologies have become increasingly prevalent, institutions have responded accordingly. Today, every school with an eye to the future is investing in mobility. Text messaging, however, seems to be popular for personal matters, but not as an advertising or promotion tool. While there is growing retailer interest in mobile marketing, this tells that retailers need to be relevant to this audience to make it an effective channel to communicate. Students are skeptical about subscribing to text-messaging services because of so many negative experiences being bombarded with junk mail and spam. In order for higher education institutions to move auxiliary services into the mobile environment and make good use of technologies such as short message service (SMS), school officials must understand that no user will tolerate redundant and harassing messaging. Those considering a move into this arena need to formulate a text-messaging strategy that revolves around concise messages, infrequent blasts, and an open invitation to opt out if a service becomes too much.

Data is a daily reality for school systems. Between standardized tests and tools from companies that offer data warehousing services, educators and district superintendents alike are up to their eyeballs in facts and figures about student performance that they can use as the basis for curricular decisions. Still, there is more to assessment than student performance. A growing number of K-12 school districts across the country have turned to traditional technologies to collect new information about non-academic indicators, such as employee retention, transportation efficiency, or how many students purchase lunch when the cafeteria offers hot dogs. This article reports how a growing number of school districts are turning to companies that offer data warehousing applications for their data management requirements. This article also illustrates how data--both the academic and non-academic types--can help school districts in its decision-making efforts.

Back in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was president and the internet was still a novelty, college recruitment was remarkably low-tech. Most prospective students visited high school guidance offices, wrote away for information about schools, attended college fairs, and visited campuses they were considering. Most admissions and recruiting activities were paper-based; student requests came in on letterhead and colleges replied with printed catalogs that cost a bundle to produce and mail. This article describes how the power of the web has changed the way higher education institutions handle recruitment, admissions, enrollment, and retention. Administrators may still utilize spreadsheets, but they are no longer dependent upon them; they are now happily exploiting the era of web-based student information systems, custom direct marketing projects, online scheduling software, and data-mining and analytics initiatives. The change is perhaps the best news for trees--nowadays, just about the only thing missing from these processes is paper.

Many colleges and universities are doing their part to react to environmental challenges without breaking the bank. For most, intelligent response involves technology. Schools such as Pennsylvania State University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Adelphi University (New York), Hamilton College (New York), and Fairfield University (Connecticut) are turning to new technologies and tech products to cut down on energy usage, control HVAC systems, and save big bucks. Still other schools, such as the University of California-Berkeley, have invested in renewable energy measures While many of these efforts have been successful, they are not without their tests. For instance: How do IT managers justify capital expenditures on new tech products, when the goal is to save money? How do campuses raise conservation awareness among students and faculty members? Academic technologists are compelled to answer questions like these, but sometimes the answers aren't easy ones. This article offers a look at the strategies employed by these universities.

This article explores different approaches that facilitate online collaboration. The newest efforts in collaboration revolve around wikis. These websites allow visitors to add, remove, edit, and change content directly online. Another fairly affordable approach involves open source, a programming language that is, in many ways, collaborative itself. Currently, in the higher education arena, the most well-known open source effort is Sakai (www.sakaiproject.org), which provides a set of collaboration tools including e-mail archives, chat room, and message center. Even traditional and more commercial approaches have reinvented themselves. Services from vendors such as WebEx (www.webex.com), Autodesk (www.autodesk.com), and GoToMeeting (www.gotomeeting.com) each have been upgraded in recent months. While most of these are geared toward the business world (yet have education applications and clients), a number of other vendors have released products specifically for higher education.

This article describes a whole new way to communicate news and information to students and other campus members. The College of Business Administration at Creighton University (Nebraska), which has close to 900 students and provides instruction in everything from economics and finance to entrepreneurship and marketing, recently installed four 40-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) screens from NEC, in prominent areas of its main facility. The goal: to make campus information and news from Wall Street more accessible on a regular basis. The screens provide news, weather, and market updates to students as they move between classes, revolutionizing the way the school communicates with students overall. Insiders call the approach "digital signage," and hail it as the future of communication. Logistically speaking, the technology mixes LCD hardware with software that facilitates updates over existing IP communications networks. From a practical perspective, it enables users to be better informed, and allows school officials to deliver information more quickly than ever before.

Today, in the age of real-time and anytime electronic assessment, it's a safe bet that just about "everything" will "be on the test"--if the "test" is the ongoing assessment of learning and performance, that is. With technologies such as ePortfolios, in-class student response systems, and simulation/assessment software, schools can now assess their students' ability to grasp course material from the outset, and instructors can gauge the effectiveness of their course delivery methods "before" students fall behind. The result: better understanding across the board. Next to paper-based tests, ePortfolios have become a highly effective method of assessment in recent years. On the most basic level, this technology relies on a website to which students can upload anything they feel represents their knowledge on a subject--papers, pictures, essays, and more. More sophisticated ePortfolio approaches are integrated into a campus assessment system that allows the collection of scores and the creation of reports.

In the corporate world, the notion of customer relationship management (CRM) is nothing new. That particular technology sector is now jam-packed with software that enables organizations to monitor and manage every interaction with a customer, from the very first experience on, throughout the lifecycle of the relationship. That relationship spans the gamut from prospect to customer; from referring customer to repeat customer; from displeased customer to satisfied service recipient, and so on. In the world of higher education, however, CRM takes on an entirely different face--a face once known as client, or constituent relationship management and now generally referred to as "student lifecycle management," or SLM. In this scenario, the "customers" are the students themselves, and the technology manages all interactions from the moment students express interest in a school as potential recruits, through their first day on campus, then to graduation and beyond. In their book, "Strategic Marketing for Educational Institutions" (Prentice Hall, 1995), authors Philip Kotler and Karen Fox put the notion of SLM into perspective by equating students to customers (a concept that really rankled higher ed administrators, when they were first exposed to it some years back). SLM is now broadly accepted as the process of developing and maintaining long-term relationships with students. The author provides scenarios in which a school can set the stage for SLM to expand naturally into other areas, moving beyond recruitment and retentions into human resources, financials, and more.

MySpace and Facebook may have been pioneers in the world of social software, but nowadays, colleges and universities across the country are embracing better and more targeted forms of technology, to enable their campus users to interact. Today, the world of social software includes traditional venues and formats: (1) blogs; (2) wikis; and (3) podcasts. It also features fresh spins on these old standards, as well as newer, more robust technologies designed to facilitate collaboration for students and administrators alike. In this article, the author explores the social software revolution and its impact in an academic setting.

More and more colleges and universities today have discovered electronic record-keeping and record-sharing, made possible by document imaging technology. Across the country, schools such as Monmouth University (New Jersey), Washington State University, the University of Idaho, and Towson University (Maryland) are embracing document imaging. Yet there remain campus administrators mired in paper records, unaware of the relief the technology offers. Document imaging provides the capability to capture, store, manage, and route documentation in a secure electronic manner. With this technology, paper documents, photos, and graphics can be scanned and saved as images, organized into electronic folders, linked to business applications, and retrieved by users. Benefits of this approach include: (1) Documents are easy to find and retrieve; (2) Enhanced ability to share documents across campus; (3) Replacement of microfiche; and (4) Preservation of document integrity. Additionally, document imaging can save money on both printing and storage costs. Four institutions with varying needs, challenges, and budgets share their stories.

Among the old-school resources that the digital age is making obsolete, or at least less consequential, count the chalkboard. For decades, the chalkboard was the focal point of all instruction, the big screen on which teachers wrote out and directed lesson after lesson after lesson. Today, while chalkboards still exist, they are losing their status as the classroom centerpiece--districts are now investing in technology to modernize classroom displays. From interactive whiteboards to handheld tablets, from digital projectors to newfangled video-editing systems, the most successful of these products are those that grab student attention and do not let go. Statistics indicate that kids prefer to learn in a visual world and like to have information at their fingertips. Across the board, the latest and greatest classroom display products meet these needs. This article discusses a spate of new multimedia tools that is putting a whole new face on the learning process.

With tuition on the rise, Auxiliary Services departments at a variety of colleges and universities are proving that they can innovate and still save their parent institutions cash. Primary areas of innovation include: (1) With advancements in technology, institutions are moving campus purchasing programs into the wireless space; (2) As junk mail proliferates, learning centers are finding new ways to eliminate paper waste and improve efficiency across the board; and (3) As environmental conservation becomes a bigger concern, schools are embracing buildings that don't harm the Earth, and many of the services involved in those efforts make use of "green" approaches and innovative technologies. The author reports on how auxiliary services are used at various institutions.

October is national Cyber Security Awareness Month, and for the world of higher education, that means it is time to take a look at defense systems and plan for the future. Clearly, more planning is needed now than ever before. According to the majority of IT market research firms, phishing and identity theft have leapfrogged spam and spyware as top concerns; viruses and e-mail worms are at an all-time high; and other affronts to the network are occurring with greater and greater frequency. Even hackers are getting in on the act: A recent "USA Today" review of 109 computer-related security breaches reported by 76 college campuses since January 2005 found that 70 percent involved hacking of one form or another. Faced with this multitude of threats, security administrators across higher education are fighting back on four major fronts: (1) the perimeter; (2) inside the network (internal); (3) e-mail; and (4) the administrative level. While "perimeter" defenses revolve around next-generation firewalls, "internal" network strategies focus on something called "cooperative enforcement" to make sure endpoints are secure. "E-mail" security is its own beast altogether, and at the "administrative" level, security experts are implementing a mix of penetration-testing and security-event-management tools to identify and repair security problems proactively. These are groundbreaking security strategies that work. The author suggests that it is time to drop the ad hoc approach, take a stand, and strengthen those network defenses with products and approaches that deliver. In this article, campus technologists discuss security measures that are working now.

This article discusses the rise of cut-and-paste plagiarism in schools. Students are constantly searching for essays online, however, they did not know that their teachers are using the same technology to catch them cheating. Plagiarism is happening on campuses nationwide. Yet, with veritable libraries at their fingertips, students see nothing wrong with borrowing a sentence or paragraphs or page from something they find online. Teachers are so busy to track down original sources unless the offense is obvious. Therefore, students have been getting away with plagiarism for quite a while. Now, educators are fighting back. Some have taken matters into their own hands, using free internet technologies to nab students in the act. Other schools have turned to vendors to help fight their battles--with solutions from companies such as iParadigms and Questia. Finally, a small group of academic experts has taken a more philosophical approach, rethinking key facets of the educational process and proposing to eliminate cheating by changing the nature of the assignments. All of the solutions have merit, the key for school district officials is finding the one that works best.

Across the U.S., a growing number of schools are turning to ePortfolio assessment technologies to help them monitor and evaluate student progress in a variety of disciplines--and to help them and their students do even more. Across the board, educators report that their ePortfolio efforts have revolutionized the learning process, and the technologies they utilize seem to improve every day, further enabling and enhancing the efforts. Moreover, given the bells and whistles (and price tags) of all sorts of recent technology releases, those tools commonly utilized in the ePortfolio paradigm are relatively inexpensive, easy to use, and scalable to an expanding user environment. Perhaps most importantly, students--the ones who use electronic portfolios every day--like them. This article discusses the challenges and benefits of adopting ePortfolio, as well as ways of exploiting the power of this technology.

True excellence in technology implementation emerges when IT, administrative, and academic leaders link IT to mission-critical institutional objectives, investing in hardware and software to serve an explicit purpose and a distinct population of users. This article illustrates that at public institutions of higher education in New Hampshire as well as at schools like the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fordham University (New York), and Cornell University (New York), this is precisely the case. The benefits of these projects are many, from improved efficiency to increased cost savings across the board. At one institution, an investment in electronic documents even managed to get users excited about reading reports. Still, linking IT to mission-critical objectives is not without its challenges. Any time a system is revamped, it takes time and energy to convince users that the change is worthwhile. The very best approaches to tying IT to mission-critical applications incorporate innovation with a respect for the status quo, never pushing users too far too fast. Projects like these take patience on both sides. Done correctly, the results can be incredible.

Metaphysically speaking, the idea of self-reflection has been the subject of discussion for thousands of years. The idea carried human beings through the Renaissance, and an entire movement tied to it sparked a sociopolitical movement called the Enlightenment. In more recent times, thought leaders such as Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud all have opined on the subject of people's ability to look inside themselves and act accordingly. It is, as Kant once wrote, the very thing that makes humans "rational animals." The art of self-reflection is alive and well in academia today. College and university administrators apply the same philosophical tenet to their own operations, utilizing a variety of methods to figure out how to maximize efficiencies and minimize waste. By reflecting on their priorities, goals, and processes, schools can get a better sense of important quantifiable data such as student matriculation, average class size, employee benefits spending, financial aid awards, and research dollars, to name a few of the more commonly aggregated and mined data. Administrators no doubt are familiar with the process termed "institutional assessment," but they may not fully realize just how critical it is to their school's ability to meet its institutional goals and fulfill its mission, not to mention meet its more routine--but no less essential--needs. Though institutional assessment practices are not perfect, many of them have helped schools get a better sense of how performance varies over time. In the past, in fact, staffers at most schools carried out many assessment functions by hand, cross-referencing spreadsheets and other forms of paperwork in an attempt to chart mission-critical performance. Nowadays, however, a growing number of schools are embracing data-driven web-based interfaces and new data analysis techniques to ease the process. This article describes how schools such as Texas A&M University, the University of Central Florida, the University of California-Davis, Western Washington University, and Flagler College (Florida) are utilizing new advances in institutional assessment tools in order to improve performance across the board. While some of these colleges and universities are using homegrown systems, others have turned to the vendor community for help.

School districts discover that the secret to implement a good laptop program is to find a good partner. This article features educational partnerships that provide tools and support districts need to roll out successful laptop programs. At Cincinnati Country Day School district administrators joined with Toshiba and a solution provider to provide good deals for parents. At Catskill Central School District (NY), school officials teamed up with a local vendor IBM to lease equipment that can be refreshed whenever the hardware becomes antiquated. What makes these partnerships work is not exclusively good technology, but a combination of good technology and great service. Joe Hofmeister, technology director at Cincinnati Country Day School, says this one-two punch is essential to any successful partnership, and can be the difference between a revolutionary endeavor and a colossal waste of money and time.

Increasingly, colleges and universities are turning to open source as a way to meet their technology infrastructure and application needs. Open source has changed life for visionary CIOs and their campus communities nationwide. The author discusses what these technologists see as the benefits--and the considerations.

At a time when colleges and universities are struggling to plan the mobile campus of the future, many of those with laptop programs have found refresh programs to be their key to success. Planned well, these efforts establish a strategy to rotate the latest laptop products into the campus technology portfolio, ensuring that schools stay up-to-date. In addition to hardware that can perform at maximum levels, the programs also help universities minimize help desk expenditures and improve total cost of ownership (TCO) figures across the board. Nationwide, higher ed institutions such as Hartwick College (New York), Seton Hall University (New Jersey), Coppin State University (Maryland), and Minnesota's Walden University (affiliated with Laureate Education; www.laureate-inc.com) are embracing regular refresh programs as a critical component to extend and amplify their existing laptop efforts. While some of these programs present logistical challenges in the sheer number of laptops to be distributed in an often short time period, technologists in the trenches report that the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks, and offer institutions a viable method of controlling tech adoption moving forward.

By this time of the year, springtime rituals are blossoming like begonias, and that's true for higher education, too. Students move inexorably toward the end of another year; professors get ready for summer session; and in campus technology departments, CIOs and other decision-makers furiously set their plans to purchase hardware and software for the fall semester. At most schools, the annual purchasing routine revolves around official documents called Request for Proposals (RFPs). These documents, which can be up to 200 pages long, serve as academic calls to arms; ways for colleges and universities to notify vendors that they're looking for new technology solutions, and want solutions fast. Even for schools that have done it for years, the process of writing an RFP is a daunting one--a rigmarole that requires time and resources to complete. When handled correctly, however, the RFP process approximates an art, and can yield huge benefits for everyone involved. This article discusses everything that an institution needs to know about RFPs.

Using videotaped lectures to practice American Sign Language (ASL) used to be a pretty tiresome process for hearing-impaired and other students at the University of Rochester (NY). In order to access the videos, students had to trek to the campus library, reserve an audio/visual station in the media center, take out the appropriate tape, and watch it right then and there. In the spring and summer months, the process was manageable but inconvenient. In winter, however, with lake-effect snow blowing off Lake Ontario, the journey to and from the campus library became possible only for the intrepid. But last year, digital video revolutionized the ritual for Rochester's ASL students. With the help of the cLabs digital video solution from cDigix (www.cdigix. com), the school has been able to digitize the entire library of videotapes and offer them online through a portal of digital media that includes movies, MP3s, and more. Lisa Brown, manager of the school's Educational Technology Center, says that today, students in all of the school's 14 ASL classes can practice hand signals from the privacy of their own dorm rooms, all with a few clicks of a mouse. ASL at the University of Rochester is unique, the school certainly isn't the only institution to improve its video technologies. A handful of other colleges and universities are starting to deliver high-definition video in various formats, both online and via handheld devices. In particular, schools such as the University of Nebraska, Case Western Reserve University (OH), and the University of Michigan are blazing trails, adopting exciting video initiatives that are opening up new avenues of learning for students and teachers alike.

There was a time when being a teacher at Lenawee Intermediate School District (MI) meant getting in line--a long line--if a teacher wished to get hold of audiovisual equipment for the class. Teachers had to reserve the equipment weeks in advance. Next, once the time came to use it, representatives from the district's A/V department had to quite literally schlep it all to the classroom themselves. However, in 2005, the arrival of media carts changed the whole routine. Clustering certain equipment and placing it as a unit on a refrigerator-sized wheeled cart revolutionized Lenawee's A/V delivery system. With laptops, projectors, document cameras, televisions, and VCRs affixed to movable carts, technicians simply wheel the equipment into a classroom, and everything a teacher needs is right there. Carts do not merely help organize heavy and hard-to-transport equipment, but they also provide a tidy solution for storing equipment, not to mention a manageable way to distribute limited resources around a particular school or wing. The best part, of course, is that the carts themselves are relatively inexpensive and frequently come at a discount for those willing to buy enough media to qualify.

In the age of electronic media, some say producing textbooks is a dying art. And it may be true that every day, devices with names such as iPod and eBook threaten to replace the age-old "technology" of the traditional book with a newer, faster, and equally (if not more) portable approach. In many cases, at colleges and universities across the nation, students and teachers alike are embracing these new technologies. At the University of Virginia, for instance, technologists have created an entire library of e-texts designed to eliminate the process of taking out books. Elsewhere, at schools such as Central Florida Community College, Valencia Community College (FL), West Chester University (PA), and Indiana University, technology leaders have embraced a variety of vendor tools that combine traditional textbooks with eLearning, for an entirely new experience. These tools differ in scope and approach from more traditional learning materials, but it appears that across the board, they work. Nobody knows what lies ahead for old-fashioned books, but as it becomes easier to grant reproduction permission online, and as textbook prices continue to rise, one can only wonder: Will the book go the way of the Dodo bird and someday be studied on an eBook, as scholarship of the past? Will book-based learning survive the onslaught from the learning technology sector? Will colleges and universities move in a different direction entirely, linking learning forever to cutting-edge technological development? Only time will tell.

The benefits of deploying a communications system that runs over the Internet Protocol are well documented. Sending voice over the Internet, a process commonly known as VoIP, has been shown to save money on long distance calls, make voice mail more accessible, and enable users to answer their phones from anywhere. The technology also makes adding and transferring extensions around a district easy. Despite its growing popularity, however, VoIP has generated a certain amount of frustration. Even though communications tools have proliferated, users' increasing mobility has made the users difficult to reach on the first try. In response, some school districts are expanding their IP communications to include a whole host of other technologies in addition to VoIP. This article discusses unified communications, an approach that links together a variety of communications applications and runs them over the Internet, providing parents and users alike with virtually limitless ways to get in touch. As indicated by case studies from academic organizations such as Farmington Municipal Schools (New Mexico), the Santa Clara County Office of Education (California), and the School District of Cheltenham Township (Pennsylvania), unifying communications has improved communication across the board.

Across the country, public and private school districts alike are hiring CIOs and IT managers with volumes of experience in the business world. The thinking behind this trend is simple: Hire someone from the private sector and he or she will run the district's IT like a business. For the big-city district of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the midsize city district of Denver Public Schools (DPS), and the rural district of Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), the move has paid huge dividends, both on and off the ledger sheet. This article presents the stories of the organizer, the consultant, and the turnaround artist.

When most academic technologists tackle computing, their time is occupied by laptops and servers--relatively small-scale stuff. A couple of blades here, a couple of blades there. Generally, even for network managers, the processing power rarely stacks up to anything awe-inspiring. Sometimes, however, computing can be bigger and broader than many individuals can imagine, requiring more juice than some small nations use in a year. Then, of course, people find themselves in the 21st-century realm of high-performance computing. High-performance computing efforts at four schools--Indiana University, the University of Florida, the University of Utah, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (FL)--demonstrate that the latest and greatest in supercomputing on the academic level far exceeds the computing power that most people can conceive. As computing power continues to grow, however, these tales undoubtedly are only the beginning. Descriptions of two systems--Myrinet and Beowulf--are also presented.

For years, doing laundry at Columbia University (New York) was just as labor-intensive as it is at most universities. Fortunately, as of last spring, laundry life at Columbia has changed dramatically. Today, with the help of a real-time Web-based service called LaundryView, students can log on to the system via the LaundryView Web site from a link off the student information system (SIS) portal, to see which machines are free--even before they head to the laundry room. Students can use their campus debit cards to pay for the wash, and once they put a load in, they can monitor its progress from the same Web page, making sure they get back to catch their load as it finishes. If students prefer, they can even program the service to e-mail them when their load is done. This article reports that Columbia certainly isn't the only school embracing this wow factor; at a time when students are demanding improvements in technology across the board, other colleges and universities have moved student services online as well. Some, such as Ohio Northern University and George Washington University (District of Columbia), are making use of innovative ideas that "Webify" services once confined to the off-line world. Others, such as Mountain State University (West Virginia) and the University of Alaska system, have focused on the "administrative core" of student services: (1) admissions; (2) registration; (3) student accounts; (4) financial aid; (5) class scheduling; and (6) course management. Still other schools have opted to set their sights on making technical support easily accessible online.

Technology product procurement can be a daunting task for a college or university--especially a smaller institution--to accomplish alone. Perhaps this is why schools are tackling it by banding together. When it comes to purchasing technology, a little help from friends is the key to economies of scale, which frequently net schools the best bargains available. Simply put: Buying in bulk can offer significant advantages. Over the years, a number of consortia have experienced these benefits firsthand. In the Midwest, the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities buys laptops as a unit, and distributes the hardware among its 20 member schools. In Appalachia, via the Maryland Independent College and University Association and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, educators do the same with other technologies. In fact, each of these academic federations spend millions on technology every year. But without the consortium approach they have adopted, the individual schools that comprise each of them would be spending a great deal more. In this article, the author explores the realities of technology purchasing consortia by talking with prominent leaders of two such organizations: (1) the Claremont University Consortium in California; and (2) the Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium (MHEC). While Claremont is a relatively small consortium consisting of seven schools, MHEC is mammoth, comprising 83 schools, with more to come. Across both consortia, many campus leaders hail the pros of the collaborative buying approach, while some are keenly aware of the cons. Still, there is no disputing that consortium buying has changed the face of procurement forever. Perhaps two heads really are better than one.

Keeping a history of peace studies. Cataloging audio and video broadcasts important to the Northwest. Digitizing images and other documents older than the state of California. All of these efforts are important steps toward preserving the history of the nation's development. Digital library initiatives are nothing new; the effort to digitize data for posterity has been alive and well now for the better part of two decades. Still, the world of digital libraries changes furiously every month, and it seems there's always something new to explore. This article provides details on some library digitization projects.

This article reports that at many institutions, fight songs are now playing all over campus: on the quad, on the bus, in the cafeteria, and sometimes (though not the ideal situation) even in class. Just about any place one would find a cellular phone, one can hear a school's fight song in all of its rah-rah glory. Thanks to a new and lucrative form of content delivery, the songs actually come from the phones themselves, as special polyphonic ring tones that students can purchase, program to replace the phone's traditional ring, and play every time they receive a call. Students buy the ditties for anywhere from $2 to $3 apiece, and download them from a variety of Internet sites. But that's only part of the transaction. Because the fight songs are licensed, colleges and universities receive a percentage of every sale. Taken individually, these fees don't amount to more than 10 or 15 percent of the total price. As thousands and thousands of students sign up, however, colleges can see tidy new revenue streams. Though the mobile content business for higher education is still in its infancy, opportunities surrounding mobile content delivery could be veritable goldmines for colleges and universities. Those schools that have been licensing content for some time have earned tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of months since the industry took off in the summer of 2005. Other schools can't sign up for the services quickly enough; across the country, campus VPs and marketing officials have been scrambling to get mobile content delivery programs up and running before the fall football season ends and the big-money winter basketball season begins. Most of these deals are built around ring tones, still images (such as graphical-logo wallpaper for cell phone screens), and video clips; the basic trio of mobile content in higher education today. In some cases, however, trailblazing schools are also inking mammoth licensing agreements for anything and everything: sports scores via text-messaging, breaking news updates, sales on merchandise, and more.

When the author discovered that the majority of fifth-grade students in her classroom were comprehending very little in their social studies textbooks, she decided to revamp the methods and materials in order to help all students acquire the content. The textbook not only held new and abstract content, but also contained transition words, vocabulary, and sentence structure with which most of the students were unfamiliar. Therefore, the teacher began to integrate other genres of social science text with her classroom instruction, specifically children's books and poetry that helped students gain background knowledge. Students benefited from the familiar format of read-alouds and choral reading and soon began using the illustrations and content of the textbook to help them recall literal facts and make inferences about the information presented. This article presents the teacher's accomplishments and frustrations in using nonfiction and historical fiction read-alouds and poetry to activate schemata and promote comprehension of social studies topics taught in the intermediate classroom.