SPECIAL INFOCOMM ISSUE

Transcription

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SPECIAL INFOCOMM ISSUE
Empowering
t h e Wo r l d o f
Higher Education
June 2006
www.campus-technology.com
From the ‘smart classroom’ technology project managers:
meditations on product options and project priorities—
before bad decisions get made.
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prices may vary. Photography may not accurately represent exact configurations priced. Associated values represent HP published list price. HPFSC reserves the right to change or cancel this program at any time without
notice. Wireless performance is dependent upon distance and terrain between wireless network client and printer. Intel’s numbering is not a measurement of higher performance. Wireless access point is required and is not
included. Wireless Internet use requires separately purchased Internet service contract. Availability of public wireless access points limited. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Intel,
the Intel logo, Centrino and the Centrino logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. ©2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
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Contents
vol. 19 no. 10
June 2006
Features
22
Smart Classroom >>
Enlightened Choices
What do savvy project managers think about when
they head into tech-enabled teaching initiatives?
Here are the products they pick—and why.
34
Digit al/ Hi-Def Video >>
Picture Perfect
p. 40
Traditional television-based media are falling by the
wayside as colleges and universities embrace
high-definition digital video.
40
Digit al Repositories >>
Taming the Digital Beast
Focus
Is your digital institutional repository out of control? It’s time to step back and look at contribution,
access, rights, storage, and functionality.
48
16
by Will Craig
18
Technology Purchasing >>
The Art of the R FP
Smart Classroom /Are You in ‘Control’?
eLearning / P2P and Collaboration
by Judith V. Boettcher
54
When it comes to buying technology, one artful
document can safeguard the process.
The Web/Keeping It Personal
by John Savarese
58
IT Training/IT Late Bloomers
by David Starrett
p. 34
In This Issue
4
6
8
10
12
14
60
62
64
Seen & Heard
Upcoming Events
Campus Briefs
Industry Briefs
St ats
Visionary
CT Solutions
Indexes
Top 10 Countdown /Cyber Infrastructure
Hurry! Early Bird rates end June 23 for
Campus Technology 2006 (Jul. 31-Aug. 3)
in Boston, MA. Register Now! See page 56.
campus-technology.com
3
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SEEN&HEARD
www.campus-technology.com
volume 19 no. 10
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Katherine Grayson
[email protected]
EDITOR Mary Grush
[email protected]
How Boston Can
Change Your Life
Attention: The nation’s top schools are getting ready
to give you the ‘blueprints’ for technology action.
EDITOR-AT-LARGE Geoffrey H. Fletcher
[email protected]
MANAGING EDITOR Rhea Kelly
[email protected]
eCONTENT EDITOR Kanoe Namahoe
[email protected]
eMEDIA COORDINATOR Judi Rajala
[email protected]
eNEWSLETTER EDITOR Jim Schneider
[email protected]
WEB DEVELOPER Charles Freeman
een to a truly valuable conference lately? If you’ve had it with
technology events that deliver
“same old, same old” every year, I urge
you to seriously consider attending
Campus Technology 2006 in Boston
this summer (Jul. 31-Aug. 3)—our wholly new conference delivered in a unique
format, with the kind of depth of information and serious networking opportunities you will not find anywhere else.
CT2006 sessions are virtually all
panel-delivered—designed so that
cross-campus technology planning
and implementation teams can present powerfully to you whether you’re
attending by yourself or as part of your
own campus team of chief technology,
security, academic, and financial officers, directors, and managers.
And this year, the conference offers a
special insider’s tour of MIT’s Media
Lab, Stata Center, and learning spaces;
attendees also get full after-session
access to speakers, and unique networking dinners-on-the-town, arranged
by discussion topic.
Importantly, the conference sessions
are constructed across an exclusive
“cluster” matrix, designed to move
attendees through the hot-button issues
they’re grappling with right now: mobility, security, enterprise strategies, the
smart classroom, IT/telecom infrastructure and support, digital media/publishing, eLearning, open source, tech
funding, and professional development.
But we also have heard your complaints about industry conferences! So,
you’ll find no “talking heads” or boring
PowerPoint presentations at CT2006:
Presenters from the nation’s top colleges and universities will be taking the
B
4
CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | June 2006
dais in their teams, unscripted, to help
conference attendees find real solutions
to their special campus problems. You’ll
be able to take reams of suggestions—
a virtual action “blueprint”—back to
your own office, for immediate application and execution. I want you to hear
just two of the 49 session descriptions:
“From Tunes to Teaching: iPods on
Campus. What have we learned about
the academic and administrative uses of
iPods? Jim Wolfgang, CIO at Georgia
College & State University—the first
institution to explore iPods—will moderate a panel of his peers now focusing
on content generation and management, automating recording processes,
the utility of iTunes U, and the potential
of the video iPod.”
“Security Challenges: The Dark Side
of Technology. Is security at the top of
your ‘hot issues’ list? Incidents and
monitoring consume more resources,
and campuses now engage in serious
security planning, establishing campuswide standards. An executive panel,
led by Rochester Institute of Technology (NY) CIO Diane Barbour, will reveal
and critique emerging best practices in
security management. Find out what
you need to know—and what you don’t.”
Intrigued? I surely hope so. Come
join us in beautiful New England, at the
Sheraton Boston Hotel! See page 56
for registration information.
—Katherine Grayson, Editor-In-Chief
[email protected]
What have you seen and heard? Send to:
[email protected].
9121 Oakdale Avenue, Ste. 101
Chatsworth, CA 91311
818-734-1520 phone
818-734-1529 fax
Campus Technology has won another WPA
Maggie Award—now two years running!
November’s “Disaster Recovery: The Time Is
Now” (Dian Schaffhauser) was recognized
as Best Feature Article/Trade.
COMMENTARY EDITOR Kenneth C. Green
[email protected]
SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Matt Villano
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Mikael Blaisdell,
John Savarese
CONTRIBUTORS Judith V. Boettcher, Will Craig,
Andy Patrizio, David Starrett
ART DIRECTOR Scott Rovin
[email protected]
SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER Graye Smith
[email protected]
ASSOCIATE PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Jennifer Shepard
818-734-1520 x112 phone
818-734-1528 fax
[email protected]
PUBLISHER Wendy LaDuke
714-730-4011 phone
[email protected]
WESTERN REGION SALES MANAGER Navid Davani
949-265-1540 phone
[email protected]
EASTERN REGION SALES MANAGER M.F. Harmon
207-883-2477 phone
[email protected]
CENTRAL REGION SALES MANAGER Tom Creevy
847-358-7272 phone
[email protected]
SOUTHERN REGION SALES MANAGER Lisa Shemet
603-532-4608 phone
[email protected]
MARKETING DIRECTOR Kay Heitzman
818-734-1520 x158 phone
[email protected]
AUDIENCE MARKETING MANAGER Annette Levee
818-734-1520 x175 phone
[email protected]
SALES ASSISTANT Karyn O’Dell
714-730-4011 phone
[email protected]
EDITORIAL OFFICE
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U PCOM I NG EVE NTS
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
DIANE BARBOUR
June
JUNE 3 - 9
Information Communications Marketplace
InfoComm 2006
(www.infocomm.org)
Orlando, FL
JUNE 7 - 9
Academic Impressions
Integrating Emerging Technologies into
Admissions
(www.academicimpressions.com/conferences/0606-admissions-technologies.php)
Vail, CO
JUNE 7 - 10
New Media Consortium
2006 NMC Summer Conference
(www.nmc.org/events/2006summerconf)
Cleveland, OH
JUNE 19 - 21
Educause
Southeast Regional Conference 2006
Balancing Today with Tomorrow Through Innovation,
Collaboration, and Integration
(www.educause.edu/serc)
Atlanta, GA
JUNE 22 - 28
American Library Association
ALA 2006 Annual Conference
(www.ala.org/annual)
New Orleans, LA
July
JULY 8 - 11
The Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers
(APPA), the National Association of College and
University Business Officers (NACUBO), and the
Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)
The Campus of the Future: A Meeting of the Minds
(www.campusofthefuture.org)
Honolulu, HI
JULY 9 - 11
Council for Advancement and Support of
Education (CASE)
2006 Summit for Advancement Leaders
(www.case.org/conferences/summit)
New York, NY
JULY 23 - 25
The American Association of Collegiate Registrars
and Admissions Officers
2006 AACRAO Technology Conference
Applying Technology in Support of Student Services
(www.aacrao.org/tech06/)
Denver, CO
JULY 23 - 27
The Association for Communications Technology
Professionals in Higher Education
ACUTA 35th Annual Conference & Exhibition
(www.acuta.org/?1390)
San Diego, CA
6
JULY 31 - AUG 3
Campus Technology 2006
13th Annual Education Technology Conference
(www.campus-technology.com/
conferences/summer2006)
Boston, MA
CIO, Rochester Institute of Technology
RON BLEED
Vice Chancellor Emeritus,
Maricopa Community Colleges
GEORGE R. BOGGS
President & CEO, American Association
of Community Colleges
MARK S. BRUHN
August
Chief IT Policy and Security Officer, Indiana University
AUG 2 - 4
University of Wisconsin-Madison
22nd Annual Conference on Distance Teaching
and Learning
(www.uwex.edu/disted/conference)
Madison, WI
CIO, Santa Clara University
AUG 4 - 9
Educause
Seminars on Academic Computing (SAC) 2006
(www.educause.edu/sa06)
Snowmass Village, CO
Associate VP, Academic Technology
San Jose State University
AUG 20 - 25
TDWI World Conference—Summer 2006
(www.tdwi.org/education/conferences)
San Diego, CA
RON DANIELSON
RICHARD H. EKMAN
President, Council of Independent Colleges
LEV S. GONICK
VP for Information Technology Services & CIO,
Case Western Reserve University
MARY JO GORNEY-MORENO
RICHARD N. KATZ
VP, Educause
M.S. VIJAY KUMAR
Assistant Provost & Director
Academic Computing
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
LUCINDA T. LEA
VP for Information Technology & CIO,
Middle Tennessee State University
MARGARET MCKENNA
September
President, Lesley University
SEPT 10 - 13
Workforce Performance 2006
(show.techlearn.com/techlearn)
Las Vegas, NV
President, Buena Vista University
SEPT 10 - 14
Association of College and University Auditors
2006 Annual Conference
(www.acua.org/events)
Louisville, KY
SEPT 11 - 12
Educause Learning Initiative
ELI 2006 September Focus Session
Assessing the Role of IT in Improving Learning
(www.educause.edu/Activities/5540)
Broomfield, CO
SEPT 18 - 22
Interop New York 2006
(www.interop.com/newyork)
New York, NY
FRED MOORE
EDUARDO J. PADRON
President, Miami Dade College
JOEL SMITH
Vice Provost & CIO
Carnegie Mellon University
BRIAN D. VOSS
CIO, Louisiana State University
BARBARA WHITE
CIO and Associate Provost, University of Georgia
PRESIDENT & CEO Neal Vitale
[email protected]
CFO Richard Vitale
[email protected]
EXECUTIVE VP Michael J. Valenti
[email protected]
DIRECTOR OF IT Jerry Fraizer
October
OCT 22 - 25
Higher Education Web Professionals
HighEdWebDev 2006
Collective Intelligence
(www.highedweb.org/2006)
Rochester, NY
[email protected]
DIRECTOR OF CIRCULATION
AND DATA SERVICES Abraham Langer
[email protected]
DIRECTOR OF WEB OPERATIONS
Marlin Mowatt
[email protected]
DIRECTOR OF PRINT PRODUCTION
Mary Ann Paniccia
[email protected]
>> For more events, go to:
CONTROLLER Janice Ryan
www.campus-technology.com/events
[email protected]
>> To submit your event
Send an e-mail to: Rhea Kelly
([email protected])
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE Paul Weinberger
[email protected]
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD Jeffrey S. Klein
[email protected]
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technology may prevent or limit recording or viewing of certain optical media (e.g., CD or DVD). ConfigFree and Portégé are registered trademarks and EasyGuard is a trademark of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. and/or Toshiba Corporation. Celeron,
Celeron Inside, Centrino, Centrino logo, Core Inside, Intel, Intel logo, Intel Core, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Intel Viiv, Pentium, Pentium Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Wi-Fi is a registered certification mark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. While Toshiba has made
every effort at the time of publication to ensure the accuracy of the information provided herein, product specifications, configurations, prices, system/component/options availability are all subject to change without notice. For the most up-to-date product
information about your computer, or to stay current with the various computer software or hardware options, visit Toshiba’s website at pcsupport.toshiba.com. Reseller/Retailer pricing may vary. © 2006 Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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CAMPUS
TECHNOLOGY HAPPENINGS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Briefs
NEWS NO PLACE FOR MYSPACE. After determining that about 40 percent of the school’s Internet traffic was
to and from MySpace.com, administrators at Del Mar College (TX) have prohibited access to the popular social networking site via computers connected to the campus network, hoping that the saved bandwidth will be used for instructional
purposes. NAME THAT TUNE. UC-Berkeley (CA) has joined a small but growing group of schools distributing video
and audio recordings of course lectures and other content through Apple’s (www.apple.com) iTunes Music Store. “Berkeley on iTunes U” is open not only to Berkeley students and staff, but also to the general public, at itunes.berkeley.edu.
SUPERCOMPUTING SERVICES. Indiana University is acquiring what university spokespeople think will be
the fastest university-owned supercomputer in the US (or 3rd in the world for universities), capable of performing more than
20.4 trillion numerical operations per second. The new e1350 cluster, based on IBM’s (www.ibm.com) JS21 blade technology, will be paired with more than 1 petabyte (PB) of high-speed disk storage, plus tape amounting to 2PB. IU will spread
the supercomputing power among various disciplines, leveraging a services model for advanced research computing. NO
ASSUMPTIONS HERE. This spring, Missouri State University was among the 38-plus institutions in the first administration of the new Core version of the ETS (www.ets.org) Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy
Assessment. Sue McCrory, coordinator of Missouri State’s Computers for Learning course, explains why her institution gave
the test to 1,500 students: “There is an assumption that because students have grown up with computers, they are ICT proficient. Yes, they can IM and buy things online, but many of them have never used a spreadsheet or don’t know whether the
information they are finding on the Internet is from an authoritative source. This assessment can help us validate areas in
which our ICT curriculum is successful, and point out some areas where we may need to make changes.” USING
FUSION. Michigan Technological University has implemented Oracle (www.oracle.com) Portal, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, to offer an admissions and recruitment portal. Prospective students access the
TECH AS ART
Ball State’s
Shafer Tower:
a sensory
network
experience?
portal for general information and university content, applications, key deadlines, billing, and even roommate selection. Admissions personnel and recruiting staff can use the portal for secure access to reports,
and to offer individualized recruitment services. ADVANCEMENT OF TEXTING. With the
premise that 75 percent of all college students use text messaging, the Technology Advancement Center at East Carolina University (NC) is working on a project that will allow instructors to send out
course updates to their students’ cell phones, while the administration will be able to use the same system for weather and crime alerts. ART IMITATES NETWORK. Artists and IT managers at Ball
State University (IN) collaborated this spring on an interactive digital sculpture project depicting the
school’s wireless network infrastructure in a multisensory experience incorporating projection screens,
cameras, computers, speakers, lights, and even the carillon bells in the campus’s Shafer Tower. The
sights and sounds reacted to changes in network activity and traffic location in real time. The sculpture
will be recomposed and displayed permanently on a series of wall-mounted plasma screens; plans are
to overlay real-time and historical data that illustrate the full spectrum of campus wireless traffic.
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0606ct_IB
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INDUSTRY
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN TECH SECTORS
NEWS
Briefs
INFOCOMM 2006. More than 28,000 AV manufacturers, integrators, and professionals are flocking to
Orlando, FL, this month to see the newest technologies for audio, video, display, projection, conferencing, and more, at InfoComm 2006 (June 3-9; infocomm06.expoexchange.com). See you there! GET SMARTER. Interactive whiteboard vendor Smart Technologies (www.smarttech.com) is offering subject-specific training seminars for educators who have used a
Smart Board for at least one year, or have previously attended a Smart Master’s training session. The half-day sessions focus
on how to utilize advanced tools and applications to better engage students in specific subject areas. HOT POCKETS.
Pacific Media Associates (www.pacificmediaassociates.com), a market research firm specializing in large-screen displays,
has identified a hot new trend—pocket projectors. Pocket projectors typically weigh about one pound, use an LED light
source (relatively dim by front-projector standards), and are designed for individual or small-group viewing. Technological developments to boost brightness are positioning pocket projectors for more diverse application—and rapid growth.
M&A, ETC.
CHAT NOW WITH HOBSONS EMT. Enrollment management company Hobsons EMT
(www.emt.hobsons.com) has acquired Chat University (www.chatuniversity.com). Chat U’s blogging and message board
products will be integrated into the Hobsons EMT product portfolio, providing expanded tools for recruitment, communications and enrollment management. COLLABORATING FOR STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT. ERP vendor
Campus Management (www.campusmanagement.com) has announced a strategic alliance with Tegrity (www.tegrity.
com), the provider of class capture and digital notetaking tools. The parties are collaborating to find ways to integrate Campus Management’s CampusPortal and Tegrity Campus software, with hopes to impact student achievement and retention.
HORIZON WIMBA ACQUIRES BROWNSTONE. Horizon Wimba (www.horizonwimba.com) has acquired
Brownstone Research Group (www.brownstone.net), joining Brownstone’s Diploma and EDU (test authoring, online
homework management, and testing tools) with Horizon Wimba’s suite of collaborative software appli-
TO INFOCOMM!
cations for online education. Going forward, Horizon Wimba plans to incorporate its voice over IP technology into Diploma and EDU in order to create voice-enabled testing and homework assignments for
language learning courses. PEOPLE McNEALY LEAVES SUN. Scott McNealy has stepped
down from his post as CEO of Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com), but will remain with the company as
chairman. Taking the reins is longtime Sun exec Jonathan Schwartz. NEW HITACHI VP. Hitachi
America (www.hitachi.us) has announced the appointment of Pete Denes as vice president of its
Ubiquitous Platforms Systems Division. Denes will be responsible for sales of Hitachi LCD projectors, professional plasma monitors, interactive panels and whiteboards, and security and observation
system projects. TOSHIBA APPOINTS PRESIDENT AND CEO. Toshiba American
Information Systems (www.toshiba.com), Toshiba’s operating company for notebooks, projectors,
imaging systems, storage products, and telephony equipment, has named Masahiko Fukakushi as
Check out the
latest in AV
technology at
InfoComm 2006.
president and CEO. NEW CTO FOR MIRAPOINT. Secure messaging vendor Mirapoint
(www.mirapoint.com) has promoted Jaspal Kohli to chief technology officer, to drive the company’s
e-mail and e-mail security innovation. Kohli was previously Mirapoint’s chief engineer.
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S TAT S
Data Mining for Academic Success
Purdue’s academic analytics correlate data from the course management and student information
systems, to create predictive models that can support student retention strategies.
WebCT Logins and SAT Scores Relative to GPA
Exploring the Factors
Project lead John Campbell, Purdue’s associate VP for
Teaching and Learning Technologies, explains how the
study looks at the factors influencing academic success: “Academic success is really based on two different components: aptitude and effort. You can be the
smartest person in the world, but if you don’t put in any
effort, you’re not going to be successful. And people
with less aptitude, who put a lot of effort into it, can be
very successful.” So the researchers are rigorously
examining indicators of aptitude and effort, by mining
historical data such as SAT scores and GPA from the SIS
(reflecting aptitude), and data on student use of the CMS
from the Oracle (www.oracle.
com) back-end database conEXAMPLES OF
nected to their WebCT system
FACTORS INDICATING (reflecting effort).
APTITUDE OR EFFORT
The example in the graph
above is a representative sample
SIS Data: Aptitude
of 600 students across a range
• SAT scores
• GPA
of classes and departments at
Purdue. The chart shows the
WebCT Data: Effort
number of WebCT logins (where
• Number of logins
• Number of URLs visited
the fourth quartile is high and rel• Number of content pages visited
ative to the given class), the SAT
• Use of course features
scores (where the fourth quartile
is high and relative to student
Factors include historical data such as
grades and test scores from the SIS,
SAT records for the given class),
representing aptitude; and 25 tracked
and the earned grade for the
data items on student use of the CMS,
course (where A=4.0). This anarepresenting effort.
lyis demonstrates that the num-
12
SAT Scores
Fourth Quartile
4.0
Third Quartile
Second Quartile
First Quartile
3.5
3.0
2.5
The number of WebCT logins is
a very strong indicator of
course performance, especially
in students with relatively lower
SAT scores.
2.0
1.5
First
Quartile
Second
Quartile
Third
Quartile
Fourth
Quartile
WebCT Logins
ber of WebCT logins tends to impact the final grade—more
dramatically in the case of students with a history of lower
SAT scores and fewer WebCT logins.
Predicting Is in the Future
Ultimately, the end goals are to develop intelligent agents
that will automatically take actions (such as alerting the
instructor that a student is likely in trouble, or notifying the
student about help sessions that are available), and to provide trend data to administrators with an interest in retention. Campbell explains: “We have a lot of retention initiatives; the biggest challenge is getting the right people to
the right initiative.” He points out that early intervention can
be critical to success—and interventions may be more
timely when triggered by academic analytics.
Editor’s Note: John Campbell and a team from Purdue
will present their work on academic analytics at Campus
Technology 2006 in Boston. For more information, go to
www.campus-technology.com/conf.
Source: Purdue University, Instructional Development Center
Purdue University (IN) are developing models to predict academic success: academic analytics that will
eventually be used to create interventions for at-risk
students. Their first step was to identify data that could
be mined from the course management system (CMS)
and from the student information system (SIS), and
demonstrate which factors are most significant.
Researchers studied an initial sample of about 1,500
students during the Fall ’05 semester, and quickly
expanded their work to reflect the entire range of
WebCT- (www.webct.com) supported classes at Purdue in Spring ’06. Analyses now include data on some
130,000 seats in the CMS (individual students may be
counted more than once if they take more than one
course), representing more than 30,000 students.
INDICATORS OF SUCCESS
Course Grade Point
IN A PROJECT begun in 2005, researchers at
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VISIONARY
Changing the Gold
Standard for Instruction
An education scholar’s view of teaching,
learning, and technology change on campus.
By Mary Grush
s the Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard University’s (MA) Graduate
School of Education, Chris Dede is at the forefront
of change in technology for teaching and learning.
His scholarship spans emerging technologies, policy, and leadership. Here, Dede reflects on the changes many
hope for—and those that we can all expect to see—in technology adoption and change for higher education.
A
You’ve talked before about instruction that incorporates
face-to-face learning and virtual interactions across time
and distance. What are the current technologies you use?
I teach a class every fall at Harvard with seven different kinds
of technology for mediated interaction, plus some face-to-face.
As examples, we use asynchronous threaded discussion,
Internet-based videoconferencing, and synchronous interactions in a multi-user virtual environment—which is like a virtual
place where people interact together with digital avatars,
agents, and artifacts. We also use a form of groupware, so
people can do application sharing and work together on documents, images, or other types of design.
14
William McCallen
TEACHING AND LEARNING
scholar Chris Dede: “If I can’t
compete with a laptop, I
shouldn’t be teaching.”
Those technologies all seem fairly readily available—so
these are not extremely exotic, terribly high-end technologies that are hard for institutions to get a hold of, are
they? That’s exactly right. I could, teaching at Harvard, offer a
course that uses a lot of exotic technologies. But there would
be no point: What would the students do when they left and
couldn’t use any of the technologies that we had experienced
together in class? What makes this field so exciting now is
that, just by having access to the Internet, so many different
kinds of mediated interaction are possible without spending
more money in order to get those capabilities.
There’s a tremendous range of types of mediated
interaction; both in workplace settings and in their personal
0606ct_visionary
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lives, we see people using a lot of media, not just one or two,
to accomplish and learn things. Along with the Internet come
threaded discussions, synchronous conversations in a virtual place, and even Internet-based videoconferencing—all
pretty much “for free,” bundled with the connectivity itself.
How do these technologies change teaching and learning?
Some people find their voice in mediated interaction. There is
a widespread misconception that, for everyone, face-to-face is
the “gold standard” in education, and any kind of mediated
interaction is second-best. But we know from research, that’s
not true. Face-to-face may be best for most faculty; many faculty chose their profession because they are very comfortable
and adept, face-to-face. However, we know that many students
who are silent in classroom discussions find their voice and
participate actively in different flavors of mediated interaction.
What will influence the adoption of technologies that
change teaching and learning? What are the drivers for
these changes on college and university campuses?
“
part, because we lose so much human talent. Many students
don’t even graduate from high school, let alone get to college
and do well there. So, people like myself are working very
hard to try to help pre-college education do much better. If
we succeed, there will be a new wave of students coming to
college who have different learning styles and strengths than
the population that has historically gone to college. That’s
going to be a force for change in college settings.
What do you envision as the “next big thing” that might
cause a real shift in that “gold standard” for instruction?
I believe the next really big thing is going to be learning anyplace, anytime, through smart cell phones. People now think
of learning as something that takes place largely in chunks of
45 minutes to an hour or longer. So, that means you’re sitting
in class for a substantial period of time. Or, maybe you’re sitting down at night with your Web browser to work on some
kind of online learning experience for a significant amount of
time. What wireless mobile devices are opening up is the
chance—while you’re waiting for a subway train or for your
There is a widespread misconception that, for everyone,
face-to-face is the ‘gold standard’ in education, and any
kind of mediated interaction is second-best.
One big driver is going to be changes in student learning
preferences. Today’s incoming students of all ages generally
prefer to use a lot of media in learning and are discouraged
when they are placed in situations where they don’t have
access to those media. Here at Harvard, there is a controversy about whether students should be allowed to use laptops in classes, because professors are worried about the
students sending e-mail or surfing the Web instead of listening. My own point of view is, if I can’t compete with a laptop,
I shouldn’t be teaching. So more and more, even faculty who
are resistant are going to have to face that the student population expects them to be fluent in technology, and expects
learning activities and courses to involve modern media.
Another driver is that, as students graduate and apply for
jobs, fluency in information technology is going to become
mandatory. In fact, it’s ironic that faculty jobs are among the
few types of positions left where fluency in IT isn’t stressed.
But students certainly inform us that employers want them to
be adept in using applications, even if the occupation is not
a technical one. Overall, the combination of alumni and
employers wanting graduates fluent in interactive media, and
incoming students wanting to use technology in learning, is
going to put a lot of pressure on the academy.
Another driver we’ll soon see is a demographic shift. Right
now, the US is experiencing a lot of economic difficulties, in
”
dinner to come in a restaurant, or while you’re on a bus—to
choose to learn something in a much shorter chunk of time.
Of course, many things can’t be learned in one little
chunk of time. And it isn’t that all learning can take place in
15-minute intervals. But a lot of the things that take an hour
or more are really made up of smaller pieces that can, in
fact, be learned separately from one another. That’s possible if they are not so richly interconnected that you
absolutely must sit down and learn them all at once.
What we might see—not tomorrow morning, not in five
years, but maybe in 15 years—is a different pattern of
learning, where, while they’re doing other things in their
lives, people learn small pieces that provide a foundation.
When they’re ready, when they have the foundational parts,
that’s when they’ll take a longer period of time at their
workstations interacting through media or sitting in a classroom with a group of people, putting those pieces together. And, over time, that will be seen as a very big shift.
Editor’s Note: Chris Dede will give the opening keynote,
“Get Ready for a Sea-Change in Education: Immersive
Learning Technologies Across Cyberspace,” on August 1,
at the Campus Technology 2006 conference in Boston.
For additional information, go to www.campus-technology.
com/conferences/summer2006.
15
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SMART CLASSROOM
will craig
Are You in ‘Control’?
Common myths about integrated control systems may be taking the ‘smart’
out of your smart classroom. Here’s how to choose wisely for your campus.
IN HIS CHRONICLES OF NARNIA series, C.S. Lewis
attributed the following to a Calormene poet: “He who
attempts to deceive the judicious is already baring his own
back for the scourge.”
Not much has changed, it seems. How many times have
integrators, manufacturers, or even consultants sung the
praises of installing extensive (and expensive!) integrated
control systems for the classroom, even when contrary to
common-sense functional and budgetary concerns? To
make judicious decisions for your campus, beware of three
big myths about integrated control systems,
and what implications they have for classroom applications.
Myth Number One
16
Myth Number Two
IP control systems are so
smart, they manage themselves. Now, don’t get me
wrong—IP control systems
can provide significant benefits when properly implemented. But c’mon, how
many PowerPoint slides
should it take to explain
what the benefits are to
most users? The bottom line, not found
in the standard sales pitch, is that AV
systems are managed by people, not by
hardware and software. From a Web
browser on the other side of campus or the
world, it may be possible to monitor lamp life
Mick Coulas
Control system programming is too
difficult for the mere mortal to understand. There are two big players in the
classroom-integrated control system
market—AMX (www.amx.com) and
Crestron Electronics (www.crestron.
com). Both have traditionally used proprietary programming languages and
software to create the “magic” of
pressing a button and seeing
things happen. Consequently,
most AMX and Crestron programmers
are among the highest-paid technicians because of their specialized
skills. With only a limited number of
trained and qualified programmers
in each geographical market, these
individuals hold a strong bargaining
position with their employers for
wages and benefits. An important
part of maintaining this mystique is
convincing others that control system
programming is too hard for the average
person, even a savvy campus technology
specialist, to understand.
Yet nearly every AMX and Crestron competitor of the past
10 years has claimed that its own system does not require
knowledge of proprietary control languages. So can control
system programming really be that difficult?
The truth is, programming can be complex. However,
planning the way the room should work, laying out touch
panels, and creating control code are all based on logical
processes. The specific details of each manufacturer’s
software vary, but understanding how one system works
helps make the others more transparent. Both AMX and
Crestron offer classes to campus technology
specialists so they can learn about how to
design, program, and support
integrated control systems.
Once a solid programming
template exists, a campus
technologist with minimal
training can make basic
changes (such as changing
equipment models) without
extensive and expensive
outside assistance.
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usage on a classroom projector down to the minute, but if
there’s no campus technologist available to replace the
lamp, clean the filter, check the usage logs to see which
equipment is user-friendly enough to be favored by instructors, or be proactive in addressing maintenance issues,
then what is the point of having all this data generated
automatically? Successful outcomes are based on the
quality of the people committed to the process, not simply
the software version.
that perhaps the salesperson who specified and sold the
system (including the panel) had good intentions; that the
institution would now have potential for adding more equipment and complexity in the future. “But we already have
everything we’re going to have in here!” protested the dean.
Hmm; Narnia strikes again.
Will Craig, CTS-D, is a technology consultant with Elert &
Associates (www.elert.com), a nationwide multidisciplinary
technology consulting firm with offices throughout the US.
Myth Number Three
Bigger is always better. With some integrated control touch panels costing as
much as midsize cars (AMX’s NXT-1700VG
with RGB card lists for $16,550; Crestron’s
TPMC-17-QM-LB for $13,600), there’s little
wonder that some commissioned salesfolk
hawk the largest touch panel for every classroom application.
The rational argument for larger touch
panels is that controlling complex equipment (such as videoconferencing Codecs)
requires more buttons. And in order for buttons to be appropriately sized for human fingers, the panel needs to be large enough to
accommodate the necessary number of buttons. (I have never seen anyone, other than a
programmer or a consultant, use a stylus to
operate a real touch panel.)
However, most classroom systems are not
especially complex, from an equipment
standpoint. One or more projectors, a few
sources, audio volume, lighting presets, and
the like typically do not need more than 10 to
15 buttons. A physical button panel (instead
of a touch panel) can provide a tactile,
robust interface that costs only a few hundred dollars. Since all of the button choices
are visible and available all of the time, a
well-conceived and carefully designed button panel can provide adequate control for
many, if not most, classrooms with a basic
presentation technology complement.
A pet peeve of mine is seeing big, expensive touch panels with lots of wasted space.
A recent visit to an existing auditorium at a
new client’s campus revealed a 12-inch
color touch panel in the control room with
fewer than four small buttons on each page.
Upon seeing me shake my head with disbelief, the dean accompanying me asked,
“Why did the contractor sell this to us?” Yet
how could I respond? That the contractor
was greedy? Ignorant? Both? I answered
taking a test should be scary…
not taking a walk
Fear should never
be a part of campus
life. Give your
students and
teachers a safer
environment with
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Panasonic Security
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cameras, digital
video recorders,
biometric access
control and
IP-based systems,
Panasonic can
help make your
campus safer.
panasonic.com/security/education
17
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eLEARNING
judith v. boettcher
How P2P Will Change
Collaborative Learning
Once associated with illegal file sharing and RIAA lawsuits,
peer-to-peer services may now be the future of eLearning.
HOW WILL eLEARNING change as the next generation of
peer-to-peer (P2P) applications becomes commonplace?
Might P2P hold the seed of great pedagogical wins for
learning and collaboration? During the first wave of P2P, we
had little time to think about the possibilities these tools
might have for learning. After all, our first general awareness
of P2P focused on legal issues and the protection of copyright and intellectual property; six years ago, the wildly popular Napster (www.napster.com) file-sharing application
made P2P technologies almost synonymous with illegal
music sharing. (Today, Napster is a legal online music store.)
In any P2P technology, personal computing devices have
two roles, each enabling collaboration between users. First,
the devices act as “servers” to other computers, providing
files and/or computing power to be used by others in the
“club.” And they act as “clients” to other users, receiving files
and/or computer power. In true P2P applications, there is no
central computer, no technical support, no command/control or hierarchical structure. As P2P has evolved, though, a
popular hybrid model centralizes some functions, such as
indexing where files are located.
Dozens of legal services supporting self-publishing and
sharing are emerging. Most of these services appear to be
hybrids of P2P and client-server technologies. Some incorporate the ubiquitous text-blogging services, new photosharing services such as Flickr (www.flickr.com), or new
video-blogging and -sharing services such as Veoh (www.
veoh.com). Skype (www.skype.com), the free, high-quality
online telephone service, is built on P2P technology. Web
conferencing tools often use some features of P2P technologies, such as direct connection between personal
computing devices, including the so-called “third screen”
of our mobile handsets (e.g., cell phones and PDAs).
P2P for Learning and Sharing
CAMPUSMOVIEFEST.COM showcases the collaborative work of tens of thousands
of student filmmakers from around the world.
18
Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School (CA) professor and author of several books on intellectual property and cyberspace, calls P2P the “next great thing for
the Internet.” Others have called P2P a “disruptive
technology”—its “impacts can fundamentally change
the roles and relationships of people and institutions”
(Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Benefits of Disruptive
Technologies, O’Reilly & Associates, 2001). But whatever the future holds for these tools, they are sure to
have interesting applications for eLearning. Key P2P
features to watch for are how it supports sharing and
direct communication between students and enables
personal publishing.
We see the manifestations of new approaches to
sharing everywhere. In fact, a tremendous shift has
occurred: What was formally considered private and
personal is now considered open and public. Journals, diaries, and photo albums tucked away in closets, drawers, and shoeboxes have given way to text
and video blogs. Tools to create music, videos, and
continued on page 19
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eLEARNING
continued from page 18
other multimedia objects are readily available, perhaps
resulting in a greater inclination to share such media.
A colleague of mine, Pamela McQuesten, senior director
of Emerging Technologies at California State University,
recently observed that illegal music sharing is just one
example of how teenagers willingly share everything in the
physical world, such as clothes, books, makeup and, often,
families. Sharing music in the digital world thus seems natural. While record companies battle to defend the line
between copyrighted and user-created material, Generation
Y may not see the distinction.
Creating and Sharing Movies
One manifestation of the new sharing and personalpublishing culture is Campus MovieFest (CMF; www.campusmoviefest.com), a filmmaking competition started in 2000
by students at Emory University (GA). It has since grown
March 2006), I suggested that there are three main types of
content in any eLearning course: prepackaged authoritative
content, usually from a publisher; guided learning materials
developed by the faculty and customized to current learners;
and spontaneous performance content developed by the
learners themselves, in the process of learning. Students’
CMF films are indeed examples of performance content—
and some of that content might have staying power.
The P2P Paradigm
P2P services and applications, now on the edges of the
eLearning tool set, will soon be front and center. We already
see a quickening of the adoption of Web conferencing and
synchronous tools that support real-time collaboration and
application sharing. Each day brings new announcements
about content publishers “trying on” new models of distribution, usually reaching out directly to consumers—e.g., TV
At Campus MovieFest, students create spontaneous
eLearning content as they design, edit, and share films.
into an international event involving tens of thousands of college students, faculty, and staff. Teams of five to 10 people
are loaned laptop computers, digital camcorders, and technical support for a week, to produce a five-minute film. Films
receive awards in four categories: Best Comedy, Best
Drama, Best Documentary, and Best Picture. The CMF Web
site stores much of the student work online, and sells DVDs
of the movies from each school.
The CMF project is the type of learning experience that
builds hands-on skills and teamwork, and really gets students’ juices going—or in the jargon of instructional design,
“involves active, engaged learning experiences.” It hearkens
back to the days of guilds and the apprentice model: immersion experiences integrating learning with experts and handson production. In the process of creating a movie, students
share and build their knowledge about planning, designing,
and editing films. Most use P2P technologies to quickly move
video segments between student computers; no need to set
up Web sites to “host” interim versions. Students often use
instant messaging (another P2P technology) rather than email, to quickly contact each other and share ideas about content and editing. They also get involved with reviewing, judging, and evaluating movies, learning what makes a film work.
As learning experiences shift from a focus on reading
prepackaged content to more active learning where students explore, research, problem solve, and create, the
P2P capabilities of file sharing and collaboration become
ingrained in the learning process. Teenagers use these
types of technologies naturally and almost automatically. In
“eLearning: The Rise of Student Performance Content” (CT,
shows now becoming available on PDAs and cell phones.
The Millennial student prefers doing, creating, and talking,
to listening or reading. He prefers rolling up his sleeves and
immersing himself in projects; he likes to find ways to complete the learning requirements as quickly as possible without
too much “hassle.” The Internet and P2P add a new dimension of communication and collaboration to learning, and the
coming generations of eLearners are already comfortable in
that space: Researchers at the Pew Internet & American Life
Project (www.pewinternet.org) have found that Internet users
between the ages of 12 to 28 are more likely than other age
groups to IM, play online games, and create blogs.
The P2P paradigm is not restricted to music sharing or
moviemaking. Clearly, two key P2P features are fast becoming essential to the future of eLearning: instant communication between peers, and file sharing (which includes more
control over content). Add in the growing culture of sharing
and collaboration, and sprinkle with the continuing evolution
of the faculty member into the role of producer and director,
orchestrating learning from the sidelines. These are the elements of the eLearning experience we should be preparing
and designing for. The relationship between faculty and students will continue to change, and adjusting our tools and
systems to benefit, not collapse, from these changes is our
challenge. Where P2P services will lead is yet unknown, but
their future application to collaborative eLearning will no
doubt hold surprises for us all. What do you think?
Judith V. Boettcher is an independent consultant specializing in distance learning and the applications of new media.
19
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“AT ANY ONE TIME, students are surfing the internet, downloading
music, Instant Messaging fellow students, downloading video, and writing
an occasional paper for an English class. As they are downloading various
media, sometimes they also are downloading viruses, spyware and worms
that can infect the entire university network when they are connected.”
THE CIO’S DILEMMA...
AND SOME SOLUTIONS
by Geoff Fletcher
A Special Report sponsored by AT&T
AT&T 4-pg insert
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Page 2
C
HIEF INFORMATION OFFICERS and network managers at colleges and
universities across the country are faced with similar problems. The “elevator
speech” of the problem sounds something like: “More students and faculty are
requiring more services. This means more connections and more bandwidth, but I
have to keep data secure, watch out for viruses, support the network and its
services, and somehow pay for it all. Therefore, I need increased bandwidth and
security delivered in the most cost effective manner possible.”
TO ILLUSTRATE, let’s look at a hypothetical University in the Midwest (UM) with
15,000 on-campus students and an additional 5,000 students living off-campus.
Ninety percent of these students bring their own computers to campus, and over
one-fourth of the students have more than one computer. All students want to be—
expect to be, demand to be—connected to the internet, each other, and all
capabilities of the university 24/7. To the student demand add faculty and staff who
connect to the internet not only at work, but also at home with their own
computers. The result is more than 30,000 computers connected at various times
to the university network. The university has direct managerial control over only the
faculty and staff computers on campus, a relatively small percentage of the total
number of devices using the network. Even though the university controls the jacks
on campus and the wireless connections, students will take their own computers
wherever they go and connect from anywhere.
Because all students are not equally facile with the technology, supporting such a
clientele is even more difficult. Tom Davis, the security officer at Indiana University
wrote a short article for the student newspaper called Computers are Not Toasters.
There are very few options in buying toasters—color, number of slots, vertical or
horizontal load and not much more. Buy it, take it home, pull it out of the box, plug it
in, put bread in the slot and you have toast. Many students treat the computer like a
toaster when they buy it. They take the Styrofoam off, plug in the CPU, install Instant
Messenger and a music downloading program and make sure the network works.
Most of the students don't realize that software vendors regularly release patches for
security or other fixes to their software. Many do not have up-to-date virus protection.
At any one time, students are surfing the internet, downloading music, Instant
Messaging fellow students, downloading video, and writing an occasional paper for
an English class. As they are downloading various media, sometimes they also are
downloading viruses, spyware and worms that can infect the entire university network
when they are connected. In addition, downloading video and audio, especially by the
large numbers of students enrolled in UM, is an enormous bandwidth hog.
At the same time all these students are accessing and using the university network, there
are strict federal laws about protecting data. One piece of legislation is the Financial
Services Modernization Act, otherwise known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, protecting
financial information. In higher education, this act is particularly relevant because it includes
student financial aid information. Another law is the Health Insurance Portability
Accountability Act (HIPPA) that protects medical records. This legislation also poses a high
liability concern in so far as universities have medical records for athletes, benefits for
employees that involve medical records, campus clinics, and, in some cases, medical or
nursing schools with an abundance of medical records. In all these situations, HIPPA will
have implications on a campus. These two more contemporary pieces of legislation with
their own specific security and privacy regulations, join the Family Education Right to
Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 that has been guiding educational records in education for
three decades. All three share the need for security and privacy regulation.
Just as nagging a concern is data theft. For example, for the six months of November
2004 through April 2005, there were 14 incidences of sizable information security
breaches at colleges and universities across the country. A survey of 501 officials at
AT&T 4-pg insert
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Page 3
public and private institutions in the fall of 2004 found that all had experienced virus or
worm attacks in the previous year and 73% indicated the attacks had accelerated. Fortyone percent said that hackers had succeeded in infiltrating their institutions’ computer
systems. (Foster, Andrea L. “Colleges Face Rising Costs for Computer Security,”
Chronicle of Higher Education, December 17, 2004.) In addition to the moral, ethical and
legal requirements of protecting data, a university’s reputation can be damaged for
years by the negative press and embarrassment that results from a breach of privacy.
In short, CIOs have to manage thousands of
devices over which there is no technical
managerial control, support the extremely diverse
group of users, ensure that there is sufficient
bandwidth to accommodate all their needs, and
make sure the data and identities of thousands of
students, faculty and alumni are safe and secure.
And those are just the big issues.
Universities have addressed these problems in a variety of ways, often in an
incremental, piecemeal fashion. Adding bandwidth is not difficult, but it can be expensive.
Sometimes, a solution is more about managing traffic congestion than adding bandwidth;
other times it is improving performance; usually it is a combination of factors. Louisiana
State University in Shreveport (LSUS) needed to implement a higher bandwidth solution
to address traffic congestion and improve deficiencies within their network. LSUS
selected AT&T to address its problems. Working closely with LSUS, the AT&T team
inspected the network, documented improvements that needed to be implemented, and
made a series of recommendations. A special concern was segregating the Computer
Science department so that the department’s cutting edge approach to teaching would
have the flexibility to simulate any type of environment without fear of causing harm to
the live campus network. LSUS and the AT&T team selected Cisco security equipment, a
firewall and intrusion detection sensors. They also increased core bandwidth from 100FXs
to gigabit speed. All was carefully staged and integrated, resulting in an improvement in
the overall performance of the network and round-the-clock monitoring and
management of the network security realm by the AT&T team..
Sewanee, the University of the South, had bottlenecks and network latency problems
that were affecting productivity and user satisfaction. After much study and consultation
with other universities, Sewanee determined it needed to double its existing bandwidth,
but doubling the cost of connectivity was not a choice for a small, private university.
Sewanee turned to AT&T and together decided on a solution that combined voice and
data services into one Managed Internet Service with Voice over IP Service. This has more
than doubled Sewanee’s bandwidth with no increase in cost. The University pays a flat
rate for its bandwidth. VoIP uses idle bandwidth on the University’s MIS connection to
delivery cheaper outbound voice calls to anywhere in the world. Voice calls are converted
to IP packets and transported over the AT&T IP backbone with no loss in quality.
These two examples are just two among many where AT&T has helped universities
solve problems with bandwidth, security, and a host of other network and IT
implementations.
For more information on these and other case studies,
go to http://www.youratt.com/edu/Case-Studies.cfm.
AT&T 4-pg insert
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Page 4
© 2006 AT&T Knowledge Ventures. All rights reserved.
I’m the guy with the big, virtual flashlight roaming the server room
of my institution at all hours. But I like knowing there’s an even
bigger flashlight looking out for me.
Dynamic Networking from AT&T delivers hosted firewall, intrusion
detection and anti-virus options that safeguard your existing application
infrastructure. And because Mike’s security is integrated, not bolted on,
his student and faculty data remains protected, even as enrollment grows.
To learn more about security and safety, go to att.com/edu.
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO
att.com/edu
47794_C3-Mike.indd
1
5/8/06
7:43:16 PM
Project1
5/4/06
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Time’s up on his paper.
Just as the printer goes down.
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last thing they need is a printer problem when they need to print. That’s why you need to
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0606ct_TET
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SMART CLASSROOM
Enlightened
Choices
by Will Craig
Here’s the thinking behind the ‘smart classroom’ products that
savvy project managers pick, and how two unlikely buzzwords can
help guide your own technology-enabled teaching initiatives.
I
t’s April 1993, and you’re on board
my time machine, landing now at
an unnamed liberal arts college
somewhere in the Midwest. The
Management Economics professor strides into a classroom, toting two
sleek, black leather bags. His students eye
him—and the bags—warily. After all, this
instructor has a dangerous reputation: He
used to work in the business world; the
real world. And he knows a lot about technology. The students watch with bated
breath as the professor pulls an IBM laptop out of the first bag, then an ungainly
square box with lots of wires attached to it
from the second. He writes his name and
the course name on the chalkboard in
front of the classroom, then proceeds to
attack the laptop and the strange box
(which he has placed on top of the overhead transparency projector). As the class
minutes tick by, he continues his assault
on the laptop and the box, turning the
computer on and off, flicking the overhead
transparency projector switch on and off,
hooking and unhooking cables, and muttering things under his breath. This goes
on for 20 minutes until he finally gives
up, turns to the chalkboard, and angrily
scrawls his notes there.
23
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SMART CLASSROOM
Now it is two months later, June 1993,
and our time machine has once again
landed in the classroom being used this
day for Management Economics. It is
the final week of classes, and the professor has finally gotten his panel working reliably on an everyday basis—after
trying to hook it up nearly every class
period since early April.
Why have I taken you on this little
excursion back in time, you may ask?
Simply put, to illustrate the importance
make this process easier. One excellent
resource is the Programming Information Index from CSI’s (www.csinet.org)
Project Resource Manual. Defining as
primary factors the people, activities,
relationships, locations, intended performance levels, budgets, schedule, and
operating/lifecycle costs are usually
fairly straightforward activities. Resolving the multitude of goals, concepts,
needs, and problems that tie back to
each of these primary factors, and pri-
CONSIDER THIS
Will the installation of standard, 12-inch LCD monitors in front of each student
obscure sightlines and prevent students from interacting effectively with their
professor or peers? Watch stand height and bezel size, and you can even install
15-inch LCDs like those from NEC (www.nec.com).
of two vital concepts in the minds of
smart IT project managers, when they
begin to consider smart-classroom
installations and implementations, and
the technologies they will choose.
Those watchwords are: standardization
and boring.
Certainly, nearly every project manager would mention the first watchword:
standardization. The second word—
boring—nobody says, per se. But technologists intimate it in the other things
they say; as my little time-machine
example above illustrates, they certainly allude to it when they say they want
reliability. And the additional things
they must have—contingency backups,
low cost of ownership, technical support
simplicity, and reduced training requirements for users—are not bells and whistles, but boring requisites. The good
news, however, is that the journey to
standardization and boringness can be
an interesting, if not downright exciting,
process.
Charting the Course
The first step in any technology project,
especially as it relates to classroom
technologies that will not be primarily
operated or used by technologists, is carefully setting goals and priorities. There
are many methodologies available to
24
oritizing them appropriately, are often
the most difficult part of planning, especially when resolutions of certain of these
issues are proven to be mutually exclusive
early on in the planning process.
Following a previous CT article (“If
You Build It, We Should Come,” July
2005), I was taken to task by a CT reader who felt that I had not made clear
the importance of conferring with end
users when setting goals and priorities
(“Where’s Zachman When You Need
Him?” Letters, September 2005). Certainly, a great importance must be placed
on gathering information from end users
and giving them an ownership stake in
the process, from the beginning of a
project. However, project managers who
do this must keep three important points
in mind:
Expectations set early tend not to be
malleable later on: If the scope of the
project must change due to budget constraints, then these changes must be
explained (repeatedly) in terms of modifying specific promises of system
performance, number of rooms, and/or
available features. Otherwise, trust
between users and project managers is
lost, and users may never be satisfied
with the results, even if the technology
meets all basic needs.
Technology changes may make sys-
tems that are desired now, obsolete soon.
For example, instructors who want the
functionality of an electronic whiteboard
and who have seen an annotation liquid
crystal display (LCD) monitor will usually demand the LCD product. Yet, on an
increasing number of campuses (and
even in high schools), the prevalence and
use of tablet PCs and wireless networking are threatening the place of the annotation tablet in terms of providing a
flexible, interactive experience for teachers and students.
Mixed messages come from users
who are at different levels. On a recent
auditorium project for a medical school,
the user representatives asked for the
systems to be simple and reliable. But
one professor demanded to know
whether the projection system would
support stereoscopic imaging, surround
sound, and HDMI inputs. (The answers
were no, no, and yes.)
Critical Decisions Based on
Design Priorities
At Macalester College in St. Paul, MN,
a recent project involving the outfitting
of a data statistics exploration classroom (the brainchild of Daniel Kaplan,
DeWitt Wallace professor of Mathematics and Computer Science) demonstrated the value of careful planning and the
inclusion of input from the users. The
professors felt strongly that putting
standard LCD monitors in front of each
student would obscure sightlines and
prevent students from interacting effectively with the professor or with each
other. The technology project managers
evaluated the ergonomic relationships
between users, furniture, and technology,
and in the end, chose NEC (www.nec.
com) 15-inch LCD monitors and small
Wacom (www.wacom.com) touchscreen
monitors for the student workstations.
Barron Koralesky, associate director
for Academic Technology Services,
explains, “We chose these monitors
because all the others had higher stands
or larger bezels. Now, the faculty members are happy and the room is booked
solid every class day.” (Demand for
teaching and learning in this type of lab
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SMART CLASSROOM
has also increased campuswide since the
room was installed, says Koralesky, and
Kaplan is now working to enhance the
lab’s capabilities through image capture
and joint-annotation software, and is
encouraging collaborative notetaking
through computers.)
Steve Wyffels, Instructional Technology Support supervisor at Normandale
Community College in Bloomington,
MN, recently had a similar experience.
When specifying a preview monitor for
Normandale’s new podiums, he and his
integrator selected a movable arm to
allow the preview PC monitor (a 17-inch
model) and the Crestron (www.crestron.
com) touch panel to be positioned in a
flexible fashion. But, Wyffels reflects,
“We found that the 17-inch was still too
big for the sightlines to the instructor.”
The school switched to 15-inch monitors,
which turned out to be just right.
Balancing Competing
Priorities
Perhaps no smart-classroom decision
that falls into a project manager’s lap is
as challenging to deal with as the common question of rear vs. front projection.
There are some (at least one reader that I
know of, for sure!) scanning this article
AT MACALESTER COLLEGE, Daniel Kaplan (left) and Barron Koralesky (right) watched sightlines and
opted for monitors with lower stands and smaller bezels.
tion is being implemented is an excellent
study of competing issues and priorities:
This particular university charged the
project manager with delivering a reliable, cost-effective system that would
be simple to use and maintain. The user
groups requested that the system offer
the highest-possible resolution. The
architects requested that the system
have the highest brightness level possi-
CONSIDER THIS
Your institution cannot afford higher capital outlay for pricey “dream” equipment—
a Barco (www.barco.com) iCon H600 $50,000 projector, or two stacked $25,000
Panasonic (www.panasonic.com) PT-DW7000U-Ks. Are you willing to go for a single
PT-DW7000U-K, some inconvenience, and pricey bulb replacement, in order to offer
quality projection in a large room?
who cannot accept that front projection
is a viable technology for use in a classroom, just as there are some readers who
could not contemplate devoting the necessary resources (in terms of space and
dollars) to implement rear projection as a
standard in all classrooms. Yet, where it
makes sense—in terms of program, budget, and space—rear projection can be an
extremely useful tool in creating an
effective learning environment. An
ongoing university project in a large
auditorium renovation where rear projec-
26
ble. Everyone agreed that both the
screen and the projection system needed
to have a 16:9 native aspect ratio.
The consultant dreamed of specifying
a Barco (www.barco.com) iCon H600
or a Sanyo (www.sanyolcd.com) PLVHD10, each offering 1920x1080 native
resolution and greater than 5500 ANSI
lumens brightness. However, the high
cost of these projectors (around $50,000
each) and the university administrators’
desire to standardize (meaning that it
would be cost-prohibitive to put these
projectors in other rooms, even if the
budget supported them for this particular project) overruled the consultant’s
initial ambitions.
The second plan was to step down to
1366x768 WXGA projectors, double
stacking a pair of Panasonic (www.
panasonic.com) PT-DW7000U-K projectors (6000 ANSI 3-chip DLP). At
this brightness, the projectors could be
run at the reduced light output level,
providing an 8000 ANSI image with
long-life lamps. At around $25,000
each, the university balked at this outlay, too, and also was concerned with
the lamp-replacement implications of
four bulbs burning at a replacement cost
of over $1,200 a pair.
The third plan was to go in on the low
end, double stacking a pair of 3000
ANSI Sanyo PLV-80 projectors (around
$10,000 each; $20,000 for two). The
advantage of double stacking is that if
one projector or lamp fails, then the
other will still provide an image, even
though it will be half as bright as the
two projectors. This is especially important with this model of projector, as it
has only the single lamp—good news
for the lamp replacement budget, bad
news if the lamp goes out just before a
major event or lecture and the tech folks
don’t have a contingency plan (such as a
Project3
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SMART CLASSROOM
double-stack arrangement).
Then, the screen and mirror manufacturers—Draper (www.draperinc.com)
and DaLite (www.dalite.com) are two—
weighed in on the physical space constraints. The installation of doublestacked projectors requires careful alignment of the two images on the vertical
plane. With most mid- to high-level
projectors, this is possible through the
vertical lens-shift feature. However, the
ultra-wide-angle lenses required to fill
a rear-projection screen from a short
distance (typically .8:1.0 throw:width
ratio) are generally not capable of being
used with a lens shift, making them
unavailable for multiple-stack installations. The next larger throw ratio,
1.2:1.0, required the second mirror in
the projection room to be larger than
what the screen and mirror manufacturers could fabricate.
The vendors offered two suggestions:
reduce the screen size, or go to a sideby-side edge-blending scenario. The
architect and consultant immediately
recommended against reducing the
screen size—the auditorium is historic
CONSIDER THIS
You’re standardizing on new projectors in all of your smart classrooms, but wish you
could salvage the investment in previous projection equipment, while also providing
some backup redundancy if a projector fails. Check the back of your integrated control
system: Crestron (www.crestron.com) and AMX (www.amx.com) controllers have extra
serial ports that can accommodate two different models of projector. Eureka!
and the available screen size was
already limited by the proscenium opening, which could not be modified.
Reducing the screen size even further
would dramatically reduce the useful
capacity of the room for the graphicsintensive curriculum activities planned
for the space.
In edge blending, two projectors (typically non-16:9) are placed side by side
and spaced so that each fills half the
screen, with the line at which the two
images meet being digitally blended so
that (in theory) it is not apparent to the
audience that the image is coming from
two projectors. When comparing this
approach with the university’s project
priorities—namely, having a contingency plan for projector failure at the
worst moment—this approach, too, fell
short. If either projector or lamp fails,
then there’s only half an image on the
screen, which is not useful. The other
problem with this approach is budget:
The rear-projection mirror assemblies
cost almost as much as the projectors
themselves. With the edge-blending
strategy, the project requires not one, but
two separate mirror assemblies (albeit
slightly smaller ones), making this solution not especially budget-friendly.
The final decision was made by the
project manager to balance these competing priorities of budget, performance,
and reliability. A single Panasonic PTDW7000U-K projector (at a cost of
$25,000) was selected, with a .8:1.0
ratio lens, and set at full brightness
(6000 ANSI). This compares favorably
with the performance of the edge-blending solution. Budget-wise, this configuration is half the cost of the double-stack,
half-power configuration of this model
(if it were even possible, given the limitations of lensing and mirrors). The
downside is higher cost of ownership,
given the 1500-hour life expectancy of
the lamps and their relatively high
replacement cost ($1,200 per pair).
Standardization:
Costs and Benefits
“Up until five years ago, we were throwing classrooms together,” Macalester’s
Koralesky notes, adding that “we are
now pushing for presentation technology
in 100 percent of classrooms.” Accordingly, says Koralesky, “We are now
designing and selecting standardized
controls and laptop interfaces, so that
things are the same for instructors wherever they go.”
Normandale’s Wyffels has taken
standardization one step further. “We
used to spec and use all Sony (www.
ARE YOU EVALUATING the ergonomic relationship between users, furniture, and technology?
28
continued on page 33
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Project10
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SMART
CLASSROOM
continued from page 28
sony.com) VPL-PX41 projectors
and were happy with them until
we found that replacement lamps
took four to six weeks to obtain.
We had vendors come in and do
a shoot-out to find an alternative, and we then selected a
Panasonic model for new rooms
to be upgraded.” Working with
his control system programmer
in an effort to make replacement
of projectors simpler, Wyffels
and his team noticed that they
had extra serial ports on the Crestron control systems in each
room. Now, all of their rooms
have programming for two projectors: Sony VPL-PX41 on one
RS-232 port, and Panasonic on TWO BETTER THAN ONE? Double stacking a pair of Sanyo PLV-80 projectors may be a budget-friendly and reliable
the second serial port. When a option for your auditorium, but space, lensing, and screen constraints could make the configuration unsuitable.
projector needs to be replaced
for service or repair, they simply switch lation procedure, wiring, and labeling.
Touch-panel and button-panel laythe DB-9 connector from one port to Rooms built by different contractors (or
outs and functions.
another on the control system—no even different installers from the same
Securing high-risk theft targets, such
reprogramming necessary.
vendor) can look and function very difas projectors and flat-panel monitors.
Control systems are usually among ferently from each other, if standards are
Importantly, an independent technolthe first areas where campuses stan- not implemented and enforced.
ogy consultant can often assist in fordardize. Once a control system manuSpecific areas where standards should mulating and documenting standards, as
facturer is entrenched on campus, there be enforced for classroom instructional he or she usually will have standard lanis often little chance that other manufac- technologies include:
guage available for each of these issues.
turers can gain a toehold. Indeed, the
Intellectual property rights for control If hired as part of a specific project, the
marketplace tug-of-war between AMX
system programming and audio DSP consultant’s standard specification (or
(www.amx.com) and Crestron had long
configurations.
elements from it) often can be incorpoSpecific types of cables, wires, connec- rated on an ongoing basis for additional
left competitors out in the cold, but
tors, and termination methods.
projects taken on by the institution.
recently Extron (www.extron.com) has
Installation of wiring. BICSI (www.
been gaining ground. AMX’s ceding of
the low end of the hardware market to
bicsi.com) standards are the norm A Final Word
Extron, and the integration of Extron’s
in the structured cabling world and Project managers are faced with difficult
IP Link systems into AMX’s Meeting
apply equally well to audio/video decisions every day, and the pace of techManager IP interface software, has creinstallations.
nological change does not make their task
ated low-cost control capabilities for
Rack and station wiring. This should any easier. Yet, by implementing stancampuses long standardized on AMX.
also include use of heat-shrink, dardization and working hard to make
(Crestron’s cost-effective QM-RMC
expandable sleeving, and appropriate their projects as “boring” as possible,
controller has made real inroads into the
wire ties (Velcro and plastic).
project managers can bring a higher quallow-cost technology-enabled classroom
Consistent labeling methods, for cables ity of teaching, learning, and life to their
market, but it lacks the convenient butas well as equipment.
students and faculties—and can themton interface of the Extron MLC 104 IP.)
Documentation of rooms—including selves enjoy a better quality of life on the
Control-panel product wars aside, an
as-built drawings, manuals, quick- job (no small feat!).
institution’s cost of standardization can
reference guides, warranty registrabe assessed by looking at the time and
tions, and electronic submittals Will Craig, CTS-D, is a consultant with
expertise needed to establish standards,
including control system code and Elert & Associates (www.elert.com), a
as well as to monitor and update them as
CAD backgrounds.
multidisciplinary technology consulting
necessary. Just as important as the equipCustom plates and rack panels: fin- firm serving higher education clients
ment are the standards regarding instalishes, engraving, and layouts.
across the country.
33
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D I G I TA L / H I - D E F V I D E O
PICTURE
PERFECT
Traditional television-based media are falling by
the wayside as colleges and universities embrace
high-definition digital video. By Matt Villano
U
sing videotaped lectures to practice American Sign Language
(ASL) used to be a pretty tiresome process for hearingimpaired 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.
“You have no idea how inconvenient accessing this information used to be,” she
says. “Now, if a student wants flexibility in accessing this information, he can get it
whenever he wants it.”
0606ct_video
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While the application of digital video
for 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 highdefinition 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.
From a performance perspective, the
new technology is better than traditional
The Wave of the Future
HIGH-DEFINITION VIDEO isn’t just a bigger
and better version of “the same old stuff.” In
most cases, the technology that colleges and
universities are streaming over the Internet is
made possible by a video compression scheme
called MPEG-4 (www.mpeg.org), the latest in a
series of compression approaches that makes
video easy to watch over the Internet.
MPEG-4 is an extremely comprehensive system for multimedia representation and distribution. Based on a variation of QuickTime from
Apple (www.apple.com), MPEG-4 offers a variety
of compression options, including low-bandwidth
formats for transmitting to wireless devices, as
well as high-bandwidth for studio processing.
MPEG-4 also incorporates Advanced Audio
Coding (AAC), which is a high-quality audio
encoder. AAC is the newest audio coding method
selected by MPEG and became an international
standard in April 1997. It is a state-of-the-art
audio compression toolkit that provides excellent performance relative to the alternatives,
even at bit rates as low as 16 Kbps.
Another major feature of MPEG-4 is its ability
to identify and deal with separate audio and
video objects in the frame, which allows separate
elements to be dealt with independently and
compressed more efficiently. User-controlled
interactive sequences that include audio, video,
and text, as well as two-dimensional and threedimensional objects and animations, all are part
of the MPEG-4 framework.
36
Internet video: 1280x720 pixels—more
than 10 times the quality of the technology of yesteryear. The older technologies
suffered from disruptions during highvolume sessions, and pixilated pictures.
Newer, high-definition feeds run at 1MB
per second and rarely, if ever, experience
major problems. Charles Phelps, provost
at the University of Rochester, says that
on his campus, the new solutions have
revolutionized the way data is delivered,
setting the stage for an exciting era.
“Compared to the video technology
we’ve seen in years past, what we’re dealing with today is light-years ahead,” says
Phelps, who notes that school educators
plan to expand the hi-def video program
in the months ahead. “These technologies
really are delivering television-quality
images over the Internet, and the bottom
line is that having educational video of
this caliber opens up whole new worlds
beyond entertainment alone.”
Using a ‘Brick’
Yet the University of Rochester isn’t only
using cLabs for teaching ASL; in all, 39
classes across various departments have
embraced the technology. Hi-def video
technology on campus is relatively new;
while classes have used other services
from cDigix for years, the cLabs component was added as a pilot program at the
beginning of the 2005-2006 school year,
and is expanding each semester. At last
check, teachers had uploaded more than
230 video and audio objects to the system—everything from sign language files
to National Geographic videos.
At the University of Nebraska, technologists have turned to their own solution choice: VBEduCast from VBrick
Systems (www.vbrick.com). VBEduCast
is an out-of-the-box video streaming and
multimedia solution that empowers the
university’s schools to deliver dynamic
presentations easily and economically. It
includes a video camera; a briefcasesized appliance to stream live video; and
VBPresenter, providing seamless PowerPoint and related multimedia content.
VBrick CTO Rich Mavrogeanes maintains the solution is perfect for live presentation recording and archiving. “Just
as it took 40 years for the overhead projector to make its way out of the bowling
alley and into the classroom,” he jokes,
“today, our video solution is a simple kit
that makes virtually anybody instantly
successful at streaming video.”
With this in mind, officials at the university’s remote campus in Kearney, NE,
recently installed the VBEduCast solution for 59 different distance-education
courses, as well as for 15 other classes
with live streaming. Together, the offerings provide both synchronous and asynchronous (one- and two-way) communication. According to John Horvath,
director of Distance Education Services,
this approach enables professors to deliver lectures while students, in real time,
can send in questions or respond to polls.
Students also are able to view course content, any time of the day or night.
As Horvath explains, those classes
that incorporate streaming video utilize
the technology to provide a blended
approach to learning. A biology course,
for example, requires course text, a professor’s visual instruction and lectures,
and video that provides further insight
into the animals or species that are being
studied. Students can access this information directly through accounts with
Blackboard (www.blackboard.com),
which handles the back-end technology
for all of the school’s distance-learning
programs. The cost to the students for all
of this? Nothing beyond ordinary tuition.
“Whether users want to watch a class
live or watch it in the archive, thanks to
this new system we have everything available for students—the way they want it,
when they want it, and in a format that
they want. And they can use it no matter
what kind of computer they are running,”
says Horvath, who notes that if students’
connections aren’t fast enough to support
video streaming, the school will mail
them a CD-ROM with the materials, free
of charge. “When it comes to distance
learning, the more interactive something
is, the better it will be.”
Larger Than Life
At Case Western Reserve University,
CIO Lev Gonick feels the same way
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Page 38
about the importance of interactive
media. In recent years, Gonick has
poured tens of thousands of dollars into
making sure that university students who
aren’t on campus can experience the educational process online without missing a
beat. Today, he notes, department goals
are to integrate providers of rich media
and high-definition media services into
the advanced network infrastructure as a
whole—a perfect reason to turn to a technology like digital video.
At the heart of this effort is a videoconferencing solution from LifeSize
Communications (www.lifesize.com).
The solution consists of a high-definition
camera, a VCR-shaped box to compress
video signals into the right format, a conference phone, and a small handheld
remote. With these pieces in place,
Gonick says the school is now delivering
hi-def video over the Internet for a multitude of purposes, from teaching classes to
holding board meetings with members in
different parts of the state. The technology also enables students in Ohio to inter-
VIA A SOLUTION FROM LIFESIZE COMMUNICATIONS, Case Western students—and those
worldwide—can now access Case’s hi-def video classes.
act with students all over the world.
“This takes us away from the idea of
local, ‘postage-stamp’ delivery, and closer to the notion of the ubiquity of watch-
I Did It My Way
SURE, THERE’S A WAVE of new high-definition video technologies sweeping academia. But you
don’t need expensive solutions from high-profile vendors to deliver video content. At Creighton
University (NE), Brian Young, VP of Information Technology, is doing all of it himself. The best part,
of course, is that his approach is working wonders.
Young has devised a weekly routine by which he delivers his MBA course about IT management
and leadership via a hi-def video file that students can download to play on their computers or
handheld media devices. According to Young, the online lectures free up class time for guest
speakers, discussions, and other topics.
“Students are mobile; they learn differently,” he says. “As educators, we need to adjust to this
and plan accordingly.”
The process begins on Sundays, when Young spends a few hours planning his lecture and
developing a PowerPoint file that he’ll use during the talk. Next, on Mondays, he presents the
lecture to an empty office, working off the presentation on his laptop as he directs his gaze toward
a Logitech (www.logitech.com) QuickCam.
Young makes the lecture available immediately even though, technically, the class isn’t held
until Thursday evenings. This way, he says, students can download the lectures and watch them in
time for class, so they are prepared for whichever guest lecturer or discussion will take place that
night. Young says students love the flexibility of listening to lectures on their own time. He notes
that while this approach is extra work for him, transforming the class to this new delivery method is
a pleasure because of the way students interact with and embrace the new content.
“Who says classes have to be taught traditionally?” he asks rhetorically. “With all of these new
technologies, we can approach the same subjects in a variety of new ways and make them more
appealing to everyone.”
38
ing the Super Bowl,” he says. “With us,
especially now, the sky’s the limit as to
what we’ll try on this new solution.”
Implementations of the new technology at Case vary wildly. In one, an educator is using this solution to empower
students in the school’s medical school
to work with scientists in the lab. In
another, students can use their computers to receive reference-desk training
in the physical library—a procedure
that used to be handled in person but
now can be carried out with the help
of videoconferencing online. Regardless of a student’s connection speed,
Gonick says the files come over the network transom quickly; thanks largely
to MPEG-4 (see “The Wave of the
Future,” page 36), the newest and
fastest video connectivity today.
Still, performance isn’t always stellar.
Reports indicate that at a recent LifeSize
trial for an audience of representatives
from Internet2 (www.internet2.edu)
schools, the image of a cellist playing
her instrument appeared pixilated when
the system could not keep pace with her
bow strokes. What’s more, subtle color
mismatches clued viewers that this was
not something they would see on any
TV. Craig Milloy, LifeSize CEO, insists
that these kinds of service hiccups will
0606ct_video
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Page 39
Big image,
little prices.
not to degrade network
performance.
“If people go through
the trouble of watching
something digitally, they
definitely don’t want to
look at garbage,” he says.
“The flipside is: They want
high-quality images, but
they don’t want the process
of downloading the files to
take all day. There’s got to
be a balance.”
Buell decided that to
maintain a high level of
DIGITAL MEDIA PORTAL. Rochester’s Cdigix service provides
lightning-fast access to movies, MP3 files, and course content.
available, quality video
files, the school would
decline as bandwidth increases, noting have to foot the bill for some post-prothat the higher the transmission speed at duction services, in order to make sure
a particular school, the better the picture all files meet the same standard of excellence. The process is lengthy and Buell
quality will be.
says that for every one hour of video, he
spends four hours using Apple’s Final Cut
In Their Hands
While technologists at many institutions Pro to edit and sharpen files. Progress has
are focusing on delivering video over the been slow for the new video program: At
Internet, those at the University of Michi- the eight-month mark, only six videos
gan are trying a different method of dis- were in the queue. With a staff of three
tribution: the Video iPod from Apple handling all of the work, Buell says he’s
(www.apple.com). Via what’s come to be simply moving as quickly as he can.
Still, he certainly isn’t giving up. To
known as “video podcasting,” certain
departments at the school have embraced expedite the video-capturing process,
making hi-def video something students Buell has started taping certain dental
can download and take with them on their procedures himself, with the help of a
handheld digital media players, wherever DSR-250 DV Camcorder from Sony
they go. In the School of Dentistry, for (www.sony.com). He’s also put together
example, professors are delivering videos a faculty questionnaire, so that his departof critical procedures so that students can ment can create a verbal storyboard to
watch and learn no matter where they capture the high points of a particular tapare—even on a bus, or hanging out at the ing. Via questions such as, “What’s the
student commons.
professor trying to tell?” and “What’s the
The effort wasn’t exactly a concerted educator trying to show?” educators can
one. Dan Buell, director of the school’s give Buell a crystal-clear sense of what
Digital Learning Lab, says the project they want, and make possible communibegan when one professor in Orthodon- cation that was lacking in previous years.
tics and Pediatric Dentistry wrote a grant
“Video is a critically important comfor a dozen iPods from Apple and initi- ponent of digital learning,” Buell
ated a pilot program to offer video con- explains. “Anytime we can use technolotent for these tools. Other professors gy to give our students something to
soon followed suit, developing their own learn, we’ll take that opportunity—and so
hi-def video files and making the lot of should every other university.”
them available for download. According
to Buell, these videos can deal with just Matt Villano is senior contributing editor
about anything. The only requirement: of this publication, and is based in Half
Files must be under 100MB apiece, so as Moon Bay, CA.
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TAMING THE
DIGITAL
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D I G I TA L R E P O S I T O R I E S
by Andy Patrizio
L BEAST
Is your digital institutional
repository out of control?
It’s time to step back and
look at contribution,
access, rights, storage, and
functionality—issues you
don’t want to monkey with.
o one will dispute that academic institutions excel at generating
and collecting knowledge and information, but when it comes to
incorporating modern technologies, students have been farther
ahead of the curve than their institutions. Too many schools are
still mired in paper admissions processes, for instance, while their
students are actively trading MP3 files across the school’s Internet connection.
Though more gradually than their charges, schools are moving to modern
digital media as a means of archiving and accessing their vast stores of knowledge. And campus library sciences professionals are partnering with IT to lead
the way as the data and information explosion propels the cause forward. Sharing content has been a leading driver of the digital repository initiative,
because, simply put, unshared knowledge isn’t knowledge—it’s a secret.
“We’ve always been good at finding, selecting, acquiring, storing, and distributing content in a variety of non-print media formats,” says Peter Deekle,
dean of University Library Services at Roger Williams University (RI). “But
we realized that much of the content we were generating was unique and
hadn’t been published in non-print formats. We thought: Shouldn’t we have a
hand in publishing this content?” In the past two to three years, the same
notion has occurred to other educators, as well.
In fact, an early adopter of digital repositories was Denison University (OH),
which set up an institutional repository using CONTENTdm from DiMeMa
(www.dimema.com), software first developed at the University of Washington.
The Denison project was primarily used by the arts school to scan its large library
of images, and served as a learning experience for future projects, says Scott Siddall, assistant provost and director of Instructional Technology at the school.
Still, the ramp-up has been slow at Denison and elsewhere because professors
haven’t been sold on the idea, he says. “It’s still a real push to get people to Illustration by Ryan Etter
N
41
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contribute material to a repository, based
on the sense that they will be sharing it,”
he explains. “They’ll say, ‘I have a unique
collection of such-and-such. Why do I
care if my colleague at XYZ University
wants access? Why should I take three
months to make it available?’”
The solution, he maintains, is a different kind of carrot. “Institutions have to
say, ‘If you create a unique collection,
digitize it, put it up online, and let people access it, that is scholarship; that is
valued, and we’re going to count it in
promotion and tenure.’ Then people will
put it on their radar screen,” says Siddall.
Geneva Henry, Digital Library Federation (www.diglib.org) distinguished
fellow and executive director of the Digital Library Initiative at Rice University
(TX), concurs. “You’ve got to have faculty buy into it. And getting faculty to
agree to allow their publications to
reside in an institutional repository is
not easy, because publishers have them
convinced not to do it. So there’s a lot of
trust building that needs to go on with
the faculty,” she says.
Public Domain, to Start
Just what is going into the repository is
another matter. The potentially thorniest
issues—those of copyright and surrounding concerns (who can access
what; when rights or access should
expire or content should be replaced/
updated)—has been ducked somewhat,
at least for the start, by putting only public domain materials online.
Denison, for one, has used only public
domain materials, or materials created
by Denison faculty who have given permission or have released the works under
a Creative Commons (www.creativecommons.org) license. Creative Commons is
a nonprofit organization founded in 2001
by Stanford University (CA) law professor and copyright scholar Lawrence
Lessig and several colleagues. The CC
license has a number of variations, and
the goal is to provide flexible copyright
options so that creators can specify conditions under which they will share their
rights publicly—in essence stating,
“some rights reserved.”
42
In Rice University’s Connexions
repository (www.cnx.org), intellectual
material is freely distributed, and can be
used by any academic in his or her
courseware. Currently, the repository
contains more than 3,000 modules covering 143 different courses. A professor
could quite literally assemble a courseware “book” on anything from the
British Parliamentary system to digital
signal processing, simply by mining the
contributions in the Connexions database. On the flip side, contributors can
“If you’re not giving
the repository the
organization and
metadata capability
Library Sciences
administrators can
give it, it’s just a pile
of junk.”
—Paul Fisher, Seton Hall
write and submit a whole book or just a
chapter on a given topic.
This means that a single book assembled from the Connexions database can
comprise a dozen authors. If Rice had to
deal with copyright issues for each
author, the project would grow unwieldy
and eventually would become unusable.
“If you start getting restrictive, it gets
viral, and more and more material is
locked down,” says Henry. “It totally
ruins reuse when you start [using copyrighted materials].”
Yet, there is quite a faculty education
process that needs to be undertaken,
because authoring material designed to
be given away online is not what academics are used to doing, Henry points out.
“The initial reaction is always negative,
especially with the humanities,” she adds.
Those in engineering and the sciences,
where information changes so rapidly,
“get it” much more quickly, she explains,
and that is because those ever-changing
fields have a harder time keeping their
textbooks up-to-date, and are in general
more willing to embrace a communally
accessible concept like Connexions.
The aim of such repositories is to share
knowledge others may not be aware of,
and most are sticking with public domain/
non-copyrighted information. According
to Deekle at Roger Williams, that university, for example, is sharing its many
unique resources about its namesake, the
founding father of the state of Rhode
Island. Other Rhode Island institutions
will also be sharing their unique information: Brown University’s repository,
for instance, will share its resources on
public policy, and the University of
Rhode Island will share its extensive
collections in the biological sciences, a
field in which it excels. Institutional
repository projects can be broadly
focused, or they can be highly specialized, like DialogPlus, a collaborative
project of Pennsylvania State University, the University of Leeds (UK), UCSanta Barbara, and the University of
Southampton (UK). This particular project, launched in February 2003, was
designed solely to share geological data.
The Project Team: Design,
Functionality, Support
Most librarians and technologists agree
that a digital repository must be a campuswide effort that involves administrators, campus technologists (particularly
developers), Library Sciences administrators, and the heads of every department.
Of course, Library Sciences must be
involved because these individuals are the
experts in cataloging information, says
Paul Fisher, director of the Teaching,
Learning and Technology Center at
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Seton Hall University (NJ). “Ask yourself this question: Why are we putting
these items in a digital repository?
Answer: We want to give access to people—and those people are probably other
academics doing research, either professors or students. But those who best know
how to conduct research are librarians;
that’s library science. So, not having
librarians help you design the database
and point out what data you need to collect would be a major flaw in any project,”
he says. Clearly, without Library Sciences on the team, proper planning can-
information experts, absolutely, but
they’re not database administrators.
Having the technology and information
experts at the same table is critical.” If a
database is well-designed from the start,
there should be little maintenance needed unless something goes wrong, he
adds. “A repository should have the
capability to grow constantly, with only
one maintenance concern: ‘We’re running out of storage.’”
But Henry at Rice believes there
should be an individual dedicated to the
task of maintaining the programming and
government contractors like the Department of Defense. Not surprisingly, cost
issues are always a concern for any campus technology effort, and when it comes
to keeping costs down, the advent of
free, open source software has been a
blessing for many schools. Because so
many open source projects have their
roots in academia, it’s also not surprising that there are some significant open
source digital repository efforts—top
among them, DSpace, developed by MIT
and Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com).
DSpace is in use at 138 universities and
Institutional repository projects can be broadly focused,
or they can be highly specialized, like DialogPlus—a
collaborative project of Penn State, the University of Leeds,
UC-Santa Barbara, and the University of Southampton.
not take place. Planning at the start of a
digital repository project will make the
difference between a repository that
grows and remains highly usable, and one
that becomes an unwieldy monster.
Says Siddall at Denison: “I see a lot
of subject-matter experts diving into a
project of this sort, without involving
the right people immediately. They start
to catalog things into a metadata schema
that’s incomplete, and end up having to
go back and redo a lot of it later.” Proper planning and defining of metadata
will help the repository remain easily
searchable as it grows and more content
is added.
Fisher at Seton Hall agrees. “If you’re
not giving it that organization and metadata capability, it’s just a pile of junk.”
Library sciences personnel are not the
experts on the best ways to deliver the
data, however; that’s where the technologists come in. They are the ones who’ll
advise that the dream repository can or
can’t be executed as envisioned; they’re
also the arbiters of cost.
“You have to carry out planning and
design with a database administrator,”
says Fisher. “Forgetting that is a big
mistake people make. Librarians are
44
databases. She has a full-time programmer dedicated to the university’s repositories. “I would strongly recommend
someone dedicated to programming,
because you will always run into new features you want to add,” she points out.
As to responsibility for content management and the determination of access
parameters, those things should be left up
to the departments, all those interviewed
here agree.
“We [Library Sciences administrators]
don’t want to be the exclusive gatekeepers
with an absolute final say,” says Deekle.
“That’s why the faculty have the responsibility to say, ‘This is really important
and must be there,’ or, ‘You’ve made this
expansively accessible and we don’t want
everybody to access it.’”
Open Source vs.
Packaged Software
Another concern when building a repository is the choice of software: packaged
or open source? Siddall says the digital
asset management software market is a $3
billion industry with almost 600 vendors
and more than 1,000 products, but as consumers of these products, higher education is just a “little blip” compared to
institutions worldwide, including at Rice.
“We looked at some commercial software as well,” says Henry, “but we’re
very much committed to open source at
Rice, and DSpace is becoming a more
and more mature platform.” She also
likes the way DSpace is designed with
digital media for an academic environment, and she appreciates the fact that
the management tools are structured for
a university system. “You can control
access in a number of ways and delegate
authorization to submit materials at a
number of levels,” she explains. “We
don’t have a huge staff to support these
projects, so I needed a system where I
could push those privileges down as
deep as possible into the organization.”
Thus, DSpace allows the Chemistry
department, for instance, to define what
content it will accept, in what format,
and who can access it.
Still, Roger Williams decided against
DSpace for the same reason so many
other institutions and corporations have
shunned or minimized their use of open
source: The software may be free up
front, but you can get bitten on the back
end, they complain. Says Deekle, “Open
source is great from the acquisition
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Page 46
standpoint, but the back-end support
required to maintain some of these solutions—the custom programming needing programmers of different languages
—was prohibitive. We don’t have the
kinds of resources available to handle
apps like that.”
Ultimately, Roger Williams went with
a commercial package from ProQuest
Company (www.proquestcompany.com),
which specializes in document management software for campuses. The university liked the software’s management
functionality. “ProQuest will let us
make access as restricted or permitted
as the submitter requests. It handles
public rights and access very well, and
allows us to let the different departments define who can access what,”
says Deekle.
However, the choices of software
aren’t as important as the format used to
store the data. Making sure to utilize
open, widely used data formats (and lots
of metadata) is what really matters, says
Siddall. “What’s nice about standards is
that there are so many of them,” he says,
reciting the old joke. “As long as you use
standards that are international in scope,
you’ll be fine.” That means, he says,
using the Dublin Core metadata standard, JPEG 2000 for images, and the
Adobe (www.adobe.com) Portable Document Format (PDF), among others.
You’re Set Up. Now, What
Belongs in the Repository?
Deciding what to put in your repository
can be a bigger task than some may realize. The initial temptation is to throw
everything into it, but that impulse has
to be tempered by the reality of bogging
down your database with lengthy
searches—not to mention scanning all
of the data and attaching metadata information, the latter of which is prohibitively time-consuming, offers Siddall.
The reality is, “You have to fan the
embers to get people to contribute
because creation of metadata takes so
much work,” he says. “Performance is an
issue we can get around. The signal-tonoise ratio [i.e., hits vs. misses], where
people find exact matches to what they
46
are seeking, is critical. That’s a qualityof-metadata issue, and that’s why upfront planning is required.” Yet, even with
optimal design, terabytes of storage, and
fast computer systems, there is a functional consideration: Do you take the
“library” approach, where everything is
gathered in a single, large, central repository, or do you break up the information
by schools or departments?
Seton Hall has taken the monolithic
“With DSpace, you can
control access. We
don’t have a huge
staff to support these
projects, so I needed a
system where I could
push those privileges
down deep into the
organization.”
—Geneva Henry, Rice
route, at least for now, says Fisher. “I
might be making a big mistake, but it
seems to me that part of the power is to
search all Seton Hall publications for a
keyword, or one publication for a keyword, and I don’t know how I would do
that full-swoop search if they were separated,” he says. “If we had them separated, people wouldn’t be able to search
them in a single search.” It all depends
on your back end, he adds, pointing out
that Seton Hall is using IBM (www.ibm.
com) blade technology and an Oracle
(www.oracle.com) database with a campus license. “I guess if I were building
this on an Access database I’d be really
worried, but I’m not working with itty
bitty tools,” he jokes.
Management of the data is an important issue, however, because if academics scan in information, they want it
—all of it—readily available. Lesserused data can’t be relegated to slower
servers or to magnetic tape; it must be
as readily accessible as the most popular
searches, says Joe Pangborn, CIO at
Roger Williams.
“In an ideal world, data would be
placed based on access statistics,” he
says. Some institutions practice lifecycle
management: Rarely used content is
archived, while frequently used material
remains on the fastest servers for quick
access. “But the culture here doesn’t permit that,” says Pangborn. “Our faculty
and staff want to have access to all their
info at their fingertips at any time.” Like
Seton Hall, Roger Williams has designed
its repository as a single system, where all
of the content can be searched from a
single point of entry.
Looking Forward
As more and more schools move to
digital repositories, it seems inevitable
that the knowledge accumulated across
universities—yours, as well—will go
digital. How smoothly your institution
makes that transition will depend on
how well your project is planned from
inception, and how well you structure
your data.
All of the administrators and educators
we spoke with here say that they expect
their future needs will only involve
adding more disk space. Proper design
and planning carried out by a combination of the faculty (the providers of the
content), technologists (builders of the
repository), and librarians (the cataloging experts), have created repositories
that should be able to grow—without
growing out of control.
Andy Patrizio is senior editor for Internetnews.com and a freelance writer
based in San Francisco, CA.
0606ct_confAD_1PAGE
5/18/06
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MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN
0606ct_RFPs
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CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | May 2006
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TECH NOLOGY PU RCHASI NG
Yes, there’s also a good deal of
science behind the Request for
Proposal process, but the bottom
line is: When it comes to buying
technology, one artful document
can safeguard the process.
It’s Request for Proposal (RFP) season, so CA-based e-mail management and security vendor Mirapoint
(www.mirapoint.com) recently sponsored the Campus Technology-produced Webinar, “The Art of an RFP:
An E-Mail and Messaging Security Case Study.” The Webinar was so successful—and the information presented in it so universally valuable—that we’ve decided to publish highlighted segments of that presentation here, for the benefit of our readers. Our thanks to Mirapoint for their work on this presentation, and to
Matt Villano, CT’s senior contributing editor, for his work as moderator of an outstanding panel discussion.
B
y this time of 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 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.
“We’ve used this process to buy just about every technology we have today,” says Roy
Teahen, director of Internet Applications and Systems at Baker College (MI). “When we
want to procure something new, an RFP is pretty much the only way to go.”
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What Is an RFP, and Why Do
You Need One?
No discussion of the RFP process can
begin without a brief explanation of
what, exactly, an RFP is. According to
Allen Eskelin, author of Technology
Acquisition: Buying the Future of Your
Business (Addison-Wesley, 2001), the
RFP is a tool that colleges and universities can use to research and evaluate
vendors thoroughly. The document outlines the specific functionality and technology the buyer seeks, as well as the
potential for strategic partnerships and
the cost requirements for prospective
vendors. At the same time, the docu-
RFP TIP!
literature, is a clear indicator
that the vendor didn’t feel your
Has it been a while since your school methodically
business was worth a considerevaluated its own technology needs? The process
able effort on its part,” writes
of creating an RFP can force you to better define
Eskelin. “An RFP tells you a lot
those requirements.
about the prospective vendors.”
Yet, there are a number of
other benefits to using an RFP for tech- “How is this vendor going to benefit the
nology purchases. For starters, because organization? What types of attributes
all vendors receive the same document does this technology have to have in
with the same list of requirements, an order to provide the service that you are
RFP offers a consistent platform for looking to employ?”
researching prospective vendors. Next,
the document helps to solidify a com- The Master Plan
mitment and the expectations attached As Teahen explains it, the most important
to it, capturing in writing what a school part of the RFP process is researching the
“
RFPs allow us to ‘cover our bases’ with
the latest technologies—and help us make
sure we are including newer, smaller vendors
—Ellen Yu Borkowski, University of Maryland
in the mix.
ment requests that vendor responses are
submitted in a predefined format.
Eskelin writes that because an RFP
requires so much input from each
responding vendor, the document both
directly and indirectly tells buyers a good
deal about the vendors who respond. If,
for instance, a vendor is meticulous and
thorough in responding to questions in an
RFP TIP!
Was the vendor not thorough completing the RFP
process? It’s a good bet this company has other
priorities, and doesn’t value your contract as
much as it should.
RFP, it’s safe to assume that the vendor
will go to great lengths to win the
school’s business. If, on the other hand, a
vendor is not thorough at all, it can be a
sign to the buyer that the company has
other priorities, and doesn’t value this
particular contract all that much.
“A sloppy RFP, chock-full of standard
50
”
anticipates it will receive from a vendor,
and what a vendor promises to deliver.
In the event that a vendor misrepresents
its solution and a dispute arises, the RFP
serves as a legally binding document
that can be called upon in a court of law.
RFPs also help familiarize institutions with their own requirements and
the technologies in the marketplace.
The process of creating an RFP forces a
school to define its needs in more detail.
As they prepare the document, schools
investigate the market, vendors, and technologies, becoming keenly aware of
everything currently available. By documenting these requirements, the RFP
formalizes the procedure, capturing the
decision-making process in writing.
Teahen says the RFP forces schools to
be objective in evaluating vendors, and
likens the process of hiring a vendor to
the art of hiring a new employee.
“In the case of acquiring technology
and building an RFP, you have to ask the
vendor the same kinds of questions you
would ask about having a human
resource join your team,” he explains.
document itself. At Baker, this usually
begins with a series of interviews. First,
Teahen and colleagues Google the latest
research on the technology they need.
Then they talk with users about the functionality they seek. Next, the group turns
its attention to the market itself: If they’re
buying e-mail solutions, for instance,
they’ll get a sense of which vendor boasts
the biggest market share, and who is fading fast. Finally, the team conducts a thorough survey of the vendors themselves,
and what each has to offer.
The process is similar at larger public
institutions. Ellen Yu Borkowski, director of Academic Support for the Office
of Information Technology (OIT) at the
University of Maryland, says that her
organization puts together a unique
committee of representatives to research
each RFP, and notes that the school
works on up to 10 OIT-related RFPs at
a time. Committees are different for
each RFP, but usually each is comprised
of IT administrators, professors, staff
members, and even students. As part of
their research, some committees put out
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a Request for Information, or RFI, to get Putting the RFP Together:
vendor feedback on product specifica- 6 Critical Sections
tions and the market at large.
Once a school has researched an RFP,
“The RFIs enable us to get more it’s time to sit down and compose the
detail from vendors about what their document. Borkowski and Teahen agree
services do and what their products that every RFP should contain a miniare,” Borkowski says. “They also let mum of six critical sections. These secvendors know that we’re in the market tions, in no particular order, are:
for a particular product, and that an RFP
1. The synopsis or mission statement,
will come next.”
which summarizes the technology
As part of the research process, many
problem and the solution required.
schools also ask themselves the critical
2. A list of technical requirements that
question of whether they want to put out
outlines mandatory functionalities
a project for competitive bid, or whether
of a vendor’s solution.
they want to eschew the bidding process
3. The timeline for project completion,
altogether and go with just one vendor.
including deadlines for completed
This latter approach is known as “soleRFPs and incremental milestones.
sourcing,” and is much more
common among small, private
colleges that lack the time and
resources to go through a
Make sure your RFP includes: mission statement,
lengthy bidding process. Many
list of technical requirements, timeline/deadlines;
institutions will sole-source
budgetary expectations, nitty-gritty details about
one-off technology purchases
warranties/payment schedules, and essential
that require minimal cash outlegal stipulations.
lay and will not need to be
RFP TIP!
repurchased in the future. Or
they will sole-source jobs for which one
vendor offers technology that’s unique.
Teahen says Baker is one such school.
Borkowski notes that at many large
public institutions, technology officials
are required by state law to spark competitive bidding to guarantee that the
procurement process is open and fair. In
many cases, Teahen says this forces
some schools to go through the motions
of researching an RFP, even though they
have a good idea of which vendor they
plan to use. According to Borkowski,
however, the process enables schools to
“cover their bases” and see what technologies are available. She adds that
this kind of due diligence also serves as
a great way for schools to make sure
they are including newer, smaller vendors in the mix.
“Whether we sole-source or go
through the request-for-proposal process
is largely dictated by the functionality
we define as a need,” she says. “Most of
the time, it’s good to put a project up for
bid just to make sure we’re getting the
biggest bang for our buck.”
4. A sketch of budgetary expectations,
to give vendors a ballpark idea of
what a school would like to spend.
5. Specific information pertaining to
warranties, payment schedules, and
other “nitty-gritty” details.
6. Legalese stipulating that the RFP is a
full-fledged legal document enabling
institutions to hold vendors liable for
the solutions they promise therein.
No one of these details is more important than the others; Borkowski says that
while some of these details may seem
“boring,” each is equally critical to the
process as a whole. “It is important to be
clear about each requirement and not
make any of them too ambiguous, while
still being careful to not include too many
things in each,” she says. “You want to be
clear so a vendor can respond in a way
that you can evaluate.”
Other RFP Must-Haves
In addition to the six key sections, many
schools add other, “softer” must-haves
of their own. At Baker, one of these
extras consists of nothing but specific
questions about how the vendor will
handle certain needs and issues pertaining to the technology itself. Teahen estimates that the school’s average RFP
consists of two or three dozen questions,
noting that in some cases, questions
make up the bulk of the RFP. He adds
that in some instances—particularly if a
vendor has sent over a product for realworld testing—Baker’s purchasing committee follows up with a second batch of
queries after they’ve tried out the product.
These questions range in scope from
the broad to the specific, querying vendors about everything from how they’ll
handle upgrades to how they’ll oversee
product registration. Teahen adds that
the questions frequently cover issues
pertaining to implementation, troubleshooting, and compatibility with alternate environments such as open source.
Queries cover: What type of service levels will you guarantee? How many users
can partake simultaneously? What is the
system capacity? How will it interact
with existing network security measures? Teahen says he asks all of these
questions, and more.
“At the end of the day, asking a lot of
questions gives you the best understanding of each vendor’s solution,” he says.
“The RFP is your chance to interview
each individual vendor, and you want to
be sure to take full advantage of that.”
Evaluating Replies
Once a school’s IT department has
researched and written an RFP, officials
post the document on the school’s Web
site or send it out to interested vendors.
Then the waiting game begins. While
the development and writing phases can
be completed in as little as two weeks,
vendors generally take a minimum of
another two weeks to review the proposals and respond. Responses generally
come back en masse within days of the
deadline. From that point, the burden is
on the institution itself to review the
completed proposals and select a suitor
or suitors from the bunch.
Many large public institutions evaluate completed RFPs in the same fashion
that professors evaluate student exams:
51
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by scoring on a curve. In this approach,
the evaluation committee determines
which areas in the document are “mandatories,” and which are more secondary
needs. Some schools, the University of
Maryland among them, won’t even
grade completed proposals that fail to
respond to all of the mandatory questions. Others will grade everything, but
weight significantly those proposals
that place emphasis on the areas deemed
most important—usually price, functionality, and support, among others.
“While everything on an RFP is important, vendors should be evaluated first and
foremost by the mandatory items on the
list,” says Borkowski, who notes that at
her school, one committee evaluates
completed proposals for content, and
another evaluates them for financial feasibility. “If a vendor doesn’t answer these
RFP TIP!
What’s your evaluation strategy? Institutions often
assess completed RFPs on a curve, determining
which respond to mandatory and/or secondary needs.
Some won’t even grade proposals that fail to answer
all mandatory questions; others weight proposals
that emphasize price, functionality, and support.
key questions, the proposal falls flat.”
While large public school systems generally grade completed proposals on a
pre-established scoring system to ensure
objectivity, the practice is much different
among private schools. In recent years, an
increasing number of these independent
institutions have taken to evaluating completed proposals on a holistic basis. This
is how Teahen and his colleagues at Baker
review completed RFP documents—not
by how each vendor scores on a specific
set of questions but, instead, by how the
companies reply overall. According to
Teahen, the process provides a much
more accurate assessment.
If, for instance, a vendor neglects to
answer certain questions, the Baker team
may automatically move that response to
the bottom of the pile. Conversely, if a
vendor goes above and beyond the field of
respondents, that vendor will receive
52
RFP TIP!
additional plaudits. While each
RFP still has a set of unofficial
On average, how much time should you spend on
“mandatories” that every venyour RFP? Answer: Two weeks on planning, two
dor must address, the holistic
weeks on writing, two weeks waiting for vendors to
approach takes into considerarespond, and two weeks evaluating those responses.
tion a broader spectrum of proposed solutions. Teahen says
this enables those vendors offering top- thing that’s a nightmare to manage,”
notch features but midlevel price points to Borkowski reveals. “It’s definitely an
compete against the lowest bidders.
investment to put all the effort into the
“There’s more to an implementation process from the beginning, but when all
than one or two things,” Teahen says. is said and done, it should be worth it.”
“Sure, some areas are more important
Teahen agrees. When asked to identithan others, but when we evaluate pro- fy other potential pitfalls, the Baker Colposals, we try to take everything into lege RFP guru says there are a number of
account and make sure that we’re going additional missteps to avoid throughout
with the best all-around solution for us.” the RFP process, each of which represents a critical step that schools too often
think they can take for granted because
Takeaways
Borkowski and Teahen agree that ven- they’ve done everything else right:
Be sure to get input from constituents;
dor references are critical to evaluation,
and note that, in completed RFPs, research the market to get a good sense of
schools should ask vendors to include which vendors have the most to offer.
Be clear and concise so vendors
customer references. Teahen advises
schools to seek other customer refer- know exactly what types of information
ences on their own, since vendors rarely schools expect them to provide.
Outline technical requirements; the
put prospective customers in touch with
existing customers who have anything more specific the RFP is, the more tarbut positive things to say. (Some schools geted vendor responses will be.
Inquire: How, specifically, will vendors
ask for a listing of a product’s installed
base so that they can randomly choose meet needs? The more questions an RFP
their own references.) The thinking here contains, the more specific the response.
In Teahen’s opinion, it’s easy for
is that only references without a vested
interest will provide truly objective schools to write a bad RFP, and those
opinions; sometimes the best way to see that fail to look at the big picture and
how a vendor will deliver is to ask some identify what they’re trying to achieve
of its least-suspecting customers for a will falter no matter how much time
they put in. All told, Teahen says his
status report.
More good advice: Take the RFP own school spends an average of two
process seriously. Teahen says that time weeks on the planning phase, two weeks
spent honing his school’s RFP processes on the writing phase, two weeks waiting
has proven to lower the total cost of own- for vendors to respond, and two weeks
ership (TCO) of technology purchased by evaluating those responses. He deems
up to 30 percent—a huge savings no mat- the process quick but critical, a “must”
ter how you slice it. By investing consid- for the successful long-term developerable time and resources into preparing ment of the school’s IT infrastructure.
“The truth is that RFPs have made our
the RFP on the front end, both Teahen and
Borkowski say their schools have select- network what it is today,” he says. “If
ed technologies that save time and you want a solid approach for purchasresources on the back end—true “win- ing the best technology at the best price,
this is the only way to do it.”
win” situations for everyone involved.
“The whole purpose of doing [an
RFP] is that you don’t spend a serious Matt Villano is senior contributing ediamount of money and end up with some- tor of this publication.
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THE WEB
john savarese
Keeping It Personal
University admissions offices are making valuable connections with
prospective students through personalized Web recruitment technology.
PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS WHO
venture onto La Salle University’s
(PA) portal are invited to “Ask Dr.
Jones.” But this Dr. Jones is not a fictional dispenser of canned advice, nor
a pseudonym for a back room staffed
by admissions counselors. Dr. Nancy
Jones is a real faculty member at La
Salle; in fact, she chairs the Integrated
Science, Business, and Technology
program. Jones spends her evenings
responding to student e-mails—one by
one. Sometimes she refers technical
questions to other individuals who are
LA SALLE’S PORTAL allows prospective students to interact with students, faculty, and Dr. Jones.
experts in areas like housing, financial
aid, or specific academic disciplines. But, often as not, she ’90s. “The key is personalization in a way that teens feel is
follows through and e-mails answers directly to the students. personal, not the way we feel is personal,” says Kappler.
This is part of La Salle’s effort to make its online recruit- His advice: “Don’t fall in love with the technology when
ing initiative personal, not just personalized. Is it worth the personalization is what they want.”
effort? “Communicating with an actual faculty member
Schools can get hooked on technology and forget this
means more to students than talking to an admissions crucial fact. The technology must be in service to personal
counselor or getting a mail-merged letter,” says Jones.
relations, not a substitute for them. Used right, technology
The La Salle approach to online recruiting is based on an can be a valuable tool to help create a personal connection.
important insight: Though many of us tend to think that members of the iPod generation are technology fanatics, that The Power of Technology
doesn’t mean that they accept mechanized responses. In While the genuinely personal e-mails of “Ask Dr. Jones” at La
actuality, they use technology as an enhancement to building Salle reach students in a way that little else can, even an instiand maintaining personal relations, even intimate ones. Their tution with that level of commitment to person-to-person conlove of gadgets aside, they put an especially high value on tact needs a strong technology framework to fill out the
personal contact—even if it is mediated through text mes- relationship. La Salle uses the SunGard Higher Education
saging, e-mail, or an online forum.
(www.sungardhe.com) Luminis portal to provide customized
Steve Kappler has been studying teenagers for 11 years information and online services to prospective students, such
at Stamats (www.stamats.com), a higher ed marketing as forums and a message board, e-mail contact with a student
firm, and says he has seen the pendulum swing back “CyberAmbassador,” and an online application form, as well
toward a more personal touch, away from the emphasis on as portal features for the rest of the campus.
For La Salle, there has been an unexpected payoff from
technology that began with the rise of the Web in the mid
54
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integrating the recruiting portal with portal features for other
groups like students, faculty, and alumni. As activity on the
campus portal has grown, it has nourished the recruiting portal. The school’s on-campus announcement forums, for example, have provided content about lectures, academic events,
sports, and volunteer activities that all can be fed to prospective students who share those particular interests. “At first we
had to sit down and generate the content for the prospective
student portal,” says James Sell, director of Portal Communications at La Salle. “Now it’s being generated for us.”
The recruiting portal is a natural extension of La Salle’s
core values. “We are into building community—apart from
any online tools that we might use, that is who we are,” says
Sell. “Students can actually see our personality from the
nature of the portal.”
Directing the Portal Experience
Case Western Reserve University (OH) has chosen heavyduty recruiting-portal software to mold the way a prospective
student gets to know the university over time. For instance,
a student can browse the Case admissions site without making the commitment of filling out an inquiry form. As a gentle
reminder, though, “My To-Do List” follows the visitor from
page to page, guiding prospective students along a gradual
path, from easy steps like “Customize Your Experience” and
“Receive More Information,” to more serious moves like estimating financial aid and applying online for admission. On
subsequent visits to the Case site, the personalized To-Do
List maintains checkboxes that display how far the student’s
individual relationship with Case has progressed, and the
checklist always invites him or her to take the next step.
Case’s personalized recruiting experience is based on
Datatel’s (www.datatel.com) ActiveAdmissions software, the
result of Datatel’s acquisition of LiquidMatrix. Kevin Guyton,
expense. But Franklin & Marshall has gotten very savvy
about using Web-based technology to serve up a personalized experience of the college. Using Macromedia (www.
macromedia.com) Flash animations and streaming video,
along with a good measure of humor and a non-stuffy
attitude, Franklin & Marshall tries to hook the interest of
prospective students and help them to feel personally involved with the school.
Franklin & Marshall’s most recent innovation is student
video blogs, or vlogs. The concept is a bit risky: Give video
cameras to four lively university students and let them
chronicle what is happening in their lives—behind the
scenes and hanging out in the dorms. “No scripts, no
rehearsals,” the vlog homepage promises, and the results
seem to bear that out: Vloggers record their friends trying to
study and juggle the TV remote at the same time; a student
rides a bike through the dorm hallways. Meanwhile, the
vloggers slip in some serious talk about their volunteer
activities and close relationships with the faculty.
Even Franklin & Marshall’s virtual campus tour, a staple of
admissions sites, comes in personalized flavors. You can
pick your student tour guide by viewing four video selfintroductions (Austin, Roshni, Beth, and Leslie). Then, as
you cruise through the campus looking at the buildings and
facilities, you can click on your tour guide’s picture to get
his or her impromptu comments about each site, in a brief
video clip. You’re not just seeing bricks and mortar; you are
learning about the kinds of attachments to the place you
might develop if you lived and studied on the campus.
Dennis Trotter, VP for Enrollment at Franklin & Marshall,
calls the approach “experience marketing,” adding, “How
do you provide students with an emotional attachment to
the institution every step of the way? We try to use technology to let the personality of the college shine through.”
With four personalized flavors, Franklin & Marshall’s
virtual campus tours create an emotional attachment
with prospective students, every step of the way.
one of the founders of LiquidMatrix and now sales manager
at Datatel, says that the system was deliberately designed to
be non-invasive. “ActiveAdmissions doesn’t require a login,
so personalization is gradual,” says Guyton. “But there is
always a call to action; the floating To-Do list. That’s where a
lot of sites fail—sites that have a lot of glitz can distract the
prospective student from what you want them to do.”
Following Through
Making Virtual Connections
John Savarese is a consulting principal with Edutech
International (www.edutech-int.com), an independent consulting firm serving higher education.
Franklin & Marshall College (PA) decided that installing a
formal software portal for recruiting wasn’t worth the
There is one caveat to creating an online recruiting experience, however. Remember that when students finally do get
to your campus, they had better find that this personal interaction, mediated by technology, is actually part of the institution’s culture. Otherwise, your careful branding will seem
like false advertising.
55
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REGISTRATION PACKAGES
Campus Technology 2006 is designed for cross-departmental teams to attend together and
develop solutions for new technology implementations on their campus. Whether you attend
with your team or as an individual, sessions address the specific needs of:
>
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ALL FOR ONLY $699
GET READY FOR A SEA-CHANGE IN EDUCATION:
IMMERSIVE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES ACROSS CYBERSPACE
CHRIS DEDE
Harvard teaching and learning scholar Chris Dede will take conference
attendees on an unforgettable journey into the future of learning in the
21st century.
PRE-CONFERENCE
WORKSHOPS AND
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P A N E L S
IN CASE OF DISASTER, BREAK GLASS:
REACTING TO EXTREME CHANGE
Campus Technology Board Member Lucinda T. Lea, Vice President
for Information Technology and CIO, Middle Tennessee State University,
moderates a discussion with two CIOs who have personal and unique
perspectives on Hurricane Katrina, operational change, and preparedness.
> Exhibit Hall Reception
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K E Y N O T E
Save $100 through June 23
Save $100 through June 23
PANELISTS:
Brian D. Voss
CIO, Louisiana State University
John Lawson
Former CIO, Tulane University
VISIONS FOR TECHNOLOGY IN HIGHER EDUCATION
A lively discussion led by M. S. Vijay Kumar, Associate Provost and
Director, Academic Computing, MIT, will tap the collective vision
of technology change and the key advancements that will have
the greatest impact on higher education.
PANELISTS:
Daniel A. Updegrove
Vice President for
Information Technology
University of Texas-Austin
Jay L. Dominick
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Wake Forest University
Barbara A. White
CIO and Associate Provost
University of Georgia
Diane Barbour
Chief Information Officer
Rochester Institute of Technology
SPECIAL TEAM
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www.campustechnology.com/conf
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IT TRAINING
david starrett
How to Handle
IT Late Bloomers
Faculty reluctance to embrace technology can be
overcome with open discussion of their concerns.
I ONCE WALKED into a faculty member’s office to find an
extraordinary Post-it noteboard on his desk. The off-white
plastic cube with one glass side, conveniently angled
toward his view, was a field of yellow with reminders,
phone numbers, and messages. He told me that this was
the most effective use of his computer monitor that he
could think of. While he is in the minority, and a shrinking
minority at that, there are still some faculty who have not
yet caught up with the computer age.
To be sure, some instructors will never use a computer
as a productivity-boosting tool, let alone an enhancement
to teaching and learning. For some, it is simply a matter of
not wanting to be bothered. Some faculty may be nearing
retirement and don’t want to learn something new (though
some near-retirees still relish the challenge and do make
58
the effort to learn a new trick). For others, it is a disbelief in
the technology that keeps their resistance up. They refuse
to learn about IT because they do not believe there is any
great benefit to using computer technology.
Defining Faculty Concerns
Various terms have been used to describe faculty who are
behind the times in their acceptance of technology: laggards, late-adopters, trailing edge, reluctants, and even
luddites (a name derived from a movement of textile workers in early 19th-century England, who rejected the technological developments of the Industrial Revolution, seeing technology as threatening to their way of life and
livelihood). Regardless of the terminology used, it is
important for us to keep in mind that in our push to get faculty to embrace IT, those most resistant, fearful, or
reluctant may best define the undertaking.
It may be tempting to dismiss the concerns of the
faculty and try a brute force approach—something
along the lines of “accept IT or find another job.” But
this, of course, is not an effective way to address the
problem. It is more useful to investigate just what
these faculty concerns are. What is keeping faculty
from fully embracing IT? What can we do to alleviate
their concerns, or at least work to address them? Following are several questions to consider in areas that
can truly impact our faculty development efforts.
Support. Is campus leadership visibly on board?
Is technology part of the school’s mission and
strategic plan? Is adequate funding being provided
or budgeted for the technology, including hardware,
software, and personnel? Is the appropriate infrastructure in place or being implemented in the near
future? Are personnel in place to do the training and
support for faculty? What faculty development
opportunities are being provided—training, travel to
conferences, software, etc.?
Incentive and reward. What encouragement is
there for embracing IT? Are there incentives such
as stipends, release time, or recognition? Does the
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promotion, tenure, and merit process adequately recognize the efforts and products of faculty technology usage?
Penalty. Is there a risk to the faculty member in learning to
use technology? Will a faculty member be penalized because
of the time, cost, or effort in incorporating technology?
Autonomy. Does technology encourage and/or allow
faculty members a greater degree of oversight or control
over their teaching? Do faculty still have the same degree
of freedom in their teaching, classroom, and scholarship
when they use a lot of technology?
Workload. Does the learning, implementation, or use of
technology increase workload? If workload is increased by
using technology, is there allowance or compensation for it
elsewhere in faculty’s overall workload?
Copyright and ownership. Who owns the technologybased teaching materials faculty develop? Can faculty
copyright materials they develop? How do copyright laws
affect the use of technology-based materials—for example,
putting materials on the Web?
Quality. Does technology-enhanced teaching have the
same level of quality as teaching without technology? Are
there assurances, markers of quality, or best practices to
benchmark against?
Plagiarism and cheating. Does the use of technology
lead to a higher likelihood of cheating or plagiarism by students? Is the campus providing training or tools to detect
or reduce plagiarism and cheating?
Validation. Are technology-enhanced teaching materials
as effective as non-technology-enhanced materials? How
can faculty validate the effectiveness of their technologyenhanced teaching tools or scholarship?
A more detailed discussion of these questions and more
can be found in CT’s “Faculty & Technology: Rewarding
TET” (October 2004; www.campus-technology.com/article.
asp?id=10067).
Creating a Forum for Discussion
Once we are aware of the concerns, the next step is
addressing them. First off, campus leadership support
needs to be demonstrated; it will be evident in the provision
of budget, personnel, and infrastructure for technology initiatives. And communication is key: We need to disseminate information and design training opportunities to provide answers and reassurance to faculty.
Discussions on controversial topics such as workload,
autonomy, intellectual property rights, and faculty roles and
rewards are important and should be initiated. The earlier in
the process these are discussed and resolved, the better.
Structured campus discourse such as teaching, learning,
and technology roundtables (TLTRs) can be an effective
way to address concerns (see the TLT Group’s page on
TLTRs at www.tltgroup.org/programs/tltr/home.htm).
An effective faculty development program is essential.
Training and follow-up support are important components
in getting faculty to embrace IT. A good program gains a
good reputation, which goes a long way in getting the necessary faculty buy-in. Enticements may be needed initially to
get faculty to attend training programs, but eventually the programs should become self-sustaining and attract attendees
simply by being offered. See CT’s “Top 10 Countdown:
Recipe for Faculty Development” (February 2006; www.campus-technology.com/article.asp?id=17899), for tips on creating successful training programs.
As with anything new, there are usually human emotions
involved, including trepidation, reluctance, and fear. Training
faculty (often an independent-minded crowd) to embrace
IT can be challenging. But the concerns of faculty need to
be taken into consideration and addressed. Effectively
doing so can lead to a very involved and committed faculty, which can lead to effective implementation of technology into teaching, learning, and scholarship—a necessity in
the 21st century, and certainly of value to students and
campuses alike.
David Starrett is dean of the School of University Studies
and director of the Center for Scholarship in Teaching and
Learning at Southeast Missouri State University.
Improving Faculty IT Training:
Additional Resources
TLT Group’s Why Bother Web site (www.tltgroup.org/whybother.htm).
Provides a good general discussion of IT professional development
issues.
Educause Review’s “Faculty Engagement and Support in the New
Learning Environment” (September/October 2000; www.educause.
edu/apps/er/erm00/articles005/erm0052.pdf). This article by
Educause Learning Initiative (ELI; www.educause.edu/eli) Program
Director Paul R. Hagner has a good set of definitions of levels of
faculty acceptance.
Technology-Enhanced Teaching and Learning: Leading and Supporting
the Transformation on Your Campus, by Carole Barone and Paul
Hagner (Jossey-Bass, 2001). From the Educause Leadership
Strategies book series (www.educause.edu/librarydetailpage/
666?ID=PUB700A); a good general resource.
TLT Group’s F-LIGHT newsletter (www.tltgroup.org/resources/
flight.html). Offers case studies on effective use and evaluation
of technology.
TLT Group’s “Flashlight Online” evaluation tool (www.tltgroup.org/
flashlightonline.htm). A useful instrument for evaluating the impact
of technology on teaching and learning.
Syllabus’s “Master Planners: Faculty Development” (November
2003; www.campus-technology.com/article.asp?id=8456).
Evaluates why faculty development programs should be given a
more central role in IT planning.
59
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CTSolutions
The latest releases, services, and new product versions
17-Inch MacBook Pro
Apple has unveiled its 17-inch MacBook Pro notebook, featuring a 2.16 GHz Intel
Core Duo processor and the latest release of the Mac OS X Tiger Version 10.4.6
operating system. The MacBook Pro is up to five times faster than Apple’s PowerBook G4, and includes a built-in iSight video camera for videoconferencing,
recording a video podcast, or taking digital snapshots on the go. Also included is iLife ’06, Apple’s suite of digital lifestyle
applications such as iPhoto, iDVD, GarageBand, and iWeb, a new iLife application that allows users to create Web sites
with photos, blogs, and podcasts, and publish them on .Mac with one click. The 17-inch MacBook Pro is 1 inch thick and
weighs 6.8 pounds. MSRP: $2,799; $2,599 with education discount. www.apple.com.
New Installation Projector Line
Projector and plasma display vendor NEC Visual Systems is now
shipping a new line of digital installation projectors, the NP1000
and NP2000. The NPs include integrated high-speed wireless LAN
IEEE 802.11b/g (via an optional wireless card), and are equipped with presentation, broadcast, data conferencing, and
training modes, to ensure flexibility for virtually any wireless application. The projectors also feature remote diagnostics,
increased lamp life, sensors to prevent overheating, and security settings. MRSP for the NP1000 and NP2000: $5,995
and $6,995, respectively. www.necvisualsystems.com.
Toshiba Tablet
Toshiba’s Digital Products Division has announced the Portégé M405-S8003, its latest highperformance tablet PC. The Portégé M405-S8003 has an Intel Core Duo processor T2400 that
reduces power consumption while boosting overall performance, from graphics to wireless
capabilities. The tablet also features Toshiba’s EasyGuard technology, a series of hardware
and software enhancements designed to improve mobile security, system integrity, and network connectivity. Its 12.1-inch XGA diagonal display easily switches from monitor to “slate” mode, and users can manipulate information with a mouse, keyboard, digital-ink-enabled pen, or their voice. Price: $1,999.99. www.toshiba.com.
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Advertiser Index
ADVERTISER/URL
PAGE
AG Neovo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
www.neovo-usa.com
Campus Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
www.campusmanagement.com
Campus Technology Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47, 56-57
www.campus-technology.com/conf
Canon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
www.canonprojectors.com
Upcoming Events
CDW-G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20-21, 30-32
www.cdwg.com
Dell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
www.dell.com/hied/campustech
Hewlett-Packard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C2, 11, 25
www.hp.com/go/HEDmag8
Hitachi Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4
www.hitachi-soft.com
Jenzabar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
www.jenzbar.net
LG Electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C3
www.lgcommercial.com
Mitsubishi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
www.mitsubishi-presentations.com/education
Novell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
www.novell.com/connect
Panasonic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
www.panasonic.com/security/education
Projector People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
www.projectorpeople.com
Sanyo Fisher USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
www.sanyolcd.com
SAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
www.sas.com/samepage
Toshiba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
www.education.toshiba.com/reliable
Troxell Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
www.trox.com
This index is provided as a service. The publisher assumes no liability for errors or omissions.
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0606ct_index
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College/Company Index
COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY INDEX
Baker College (MI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48, 50-52
Ball State University (IN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Brown University (RI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
California State University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Case Western Reserve Univ. (OH) . . . 36, 38, 55
Creighton University (NE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Del Mar College (TX) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
University of Maryland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50-52
IBM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 23, 46
University of Michigan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 39
Internetnews.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
University of Nebraska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 38
LifeSize Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38-39
University of Rhode Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
LiquidMatrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
University of Rochester (NY) . . . . . . . . . 35-36, 39
Logitech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
University of South Hampton (UK) . . . . . . . 42, 44
Macromedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
University of Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Mirapoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 48
University of Wisconsin-Madison . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Napster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
NEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Denison University (OH) . . . . . . . . . . . . 41-42, 44
COMPANY INDEX
NEC Visual Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Emory University (GA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Adobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Oracle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 12, 46
Franklin & Marshall College (PA) . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
AMX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-17, 33
Pacific Media Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Georgia College & State University . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Apple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 36, 39, 60
Panasonic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26, 28, 33
Harvard University (MA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14-15
Barco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
ProQuest Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Indiana University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
BICSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Sanyo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
La Salle University (PA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54-55
Blackboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Skype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Macalester College (MN) . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 26, 28
Brownstone Research Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Smart Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Michigan Technological University . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Campus Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Sony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33, 39
Missouri State University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Campus MovieFest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Stamats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
MIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 44
cDigix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Sun Microsystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Normandale Community College (MN) 26, 28, 33
Chat University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
SunGard Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Pennsylvania State University . . . . . . . . . . . 42, 44
Crestron Electronics . . . . . . . . . 16-17, 26, 28, 33
Tegrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Purdue University (IN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 64
Datatel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Toshiba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Rice University (TX) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42, 44, 46
DiMeMa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Toshiba American Information Systems . . . . . . 10
Rochester Institute of Technology (NY) . . . . . . . 4
Edutech International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
VBrick Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Roger Williams University (RI) . . . . 41-42, 44, 46
Elert & Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 33
Veoh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Seton Hall University (NJ) . . . . . . . . . . . 42, 44, 46
ETS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Wacom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Southeast Missouri State University . . . . . . . . . 59
Extron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
WebCT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Stanford Law School (CA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Flickr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Stanford University (CA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Hewlett-Packard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
UC-Berkeley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Hitachi America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
UC-Santa Barbara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42, 44
Hobsons EMT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
University of Leeds (UK) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42, 44
Horizon Wimba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
East Carolina University (NC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Campus TechnologyTM (ISSN: 1553-7544, USPS: 0012-499) is published monthly by 1105 Media Inc., 9121 Oakdale Avenue, Ste. 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311. Periodicals
postage paid at Chatsworth, CA 91311-9998, and at additional mailing offices. Annual subscription rates for U.S./Canada $24.00 (U.S. funds), rate for International $75.00 (U.S.
funds). Subscription inquiries, back issue requests, and address changes: Mail to: Campus Technology, P.O. Box 2064, Skokie, IL 60076-9531, e-mail [email protected]
or call (866) 293-3194 for U.S. & Canada; (847) 763-9560 for International, fax (847) 763-9564. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Campus Technology, P.O. Box 2064,
IL 60076-9531. Canada Publications Mail Agreement No: 40039410. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to Circulation Dept. or DHL Global Mail, 2-7496 Bath Rd,
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trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners.
63
0606ct_topten
5/18/06
11:57 AM
Page 64
To p 1 0 C o u n t d o w n
Cyber Indicators are HIGH
Don’t look now: Your campus
cyber infrastructure
is burgeoning
Cyber infrastructure has taken
hold. If you’re thinking cyber
infrastructure isn’t really that
big at your institution, think
again. Herewith, Krishna P. C.
Madhavan interprets all the
cyber signals
our campuses
are sending us.
Madhavan is a
research scientist with the
Rosen Center for
Advanced Computing at Purdue
University (IN). His work centers on the new and emerging
area of cyber infrastructureenabled science education. He
is the Education Technology
director for the NSF-funded
Network for Computational
Nanotechnology (NCN), chair
for the Supercomputing 2006
Education Program, and coleader of the Zecosystem effort
(all at Purdue).
EDITOR’S NOTE: At Campus
Technology 2006 (www.
campus-technology.com/conf),
Madhavan will moderate the
panel, “Cyber Infrastructure
for ‘Immersion’ Learning
Environments.”
Want to be considered for Campus
Technology’s Top 10? Send your
countdown and a brief background/bio
summary to [email protected].
64
10
9
Middleware is everywhere.
If you have a cell phone, you are a serious middleware user.
Over the next 10 years, millions—or perhaps billions—of our tax
dollars will go toward ushering in the petascale computational era.
The National Science Foundation (www.NSF.gov) and the federal government
are working toward the next major leap in the way computation affects big
science, which affects research on campus.
8
The gaming boxes that students now use for entertainment have more
computational power than the supercomputers of yesteryear.
Increased computational power appearing in ever-shrinking form factors is
driving science and learning forward. Remember Moore’s Law [which states
that the number of transistors on a chip doubles about every two years].
7
The ‘big data’ orchestra is in full swing (though sometimes not in
complete harmony).
Research at colleges and universities increasingly relies on large datasets to
solve problems and provide insights into scientific phenomena.
6
Nationally funded science gateways to specific cross-disciplinary
domains are supporting increasingly large user databases.
These gateways provide specific science content, simulation tools, and data
within a single environment.
They fuel the next generation of learning and discovery.
5
Top-notch models of central IT support for research and learning have
emerged at US universities.
Centralized consolidation of IT services (such as storage, network, computational power, software support, and security) is the new paradigm.
Such central services allow researchers and educators to focus on their institution’s dual mission of research and education.
4
3
2
1
Time and space are now referred to as ‘anytime, anywhere.’
The maturity of IT services has led to mobility, social networking, and the
ability to contribute to one’s field more easily than ever.
‘Service-oriented’ cyber infrastructure for education and research will
provide the layer of integration for bridging discovery and learning.
Integration of cyber services—hardware, middleware, or applications—
provides a competitive edge in science and education.
Simulation has emerged as the third leg in the stool of science
and education.
Theory and experiment are the paradigms of the past century.
Cyber infrastructure truly affects a substantial part of everyday living.
More than we realize, cyber infrastructure is all around us.
In the end, it’s all about relevance to daily life.
10/31/05
3:45 PM
Page 1
Our most
effective feature
is staring you
right in the face.
Presenting the
remarkably affordable
15" high-definition
USB Tablet Monitor from LG
© 2005 LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc. LGEDU1005
Project1
Includes wireless stylus...
...notation software...
...graphics software and more
Don’t turn your back on your students. Look ahead with the LG 15" USB Tablet
Monitor. Make on-screen notations, open files and change sources without interruption.
Thanks to face-forward design, this remarkably intuitive pen-based monitor connects
you to your lesson plan and your class. It’s compatible with all leading software,
PCs and large-screen displays. Learn more at LGcommercial.com or contact us
directly at [email protected].
UniversityBusinePage
Project4Star Performer,
4/12/06
11:59 AM 1 4/11/2006
Page 14:23:27 PM
Maybe it’s for StarBoard’s celebrated ease of use.
And the way it engages student attention with its
interactivity, brilliant images, electronic inks and
rich multimedia.
StarBoard T-17SXL Interactive Display
Why do educators give StarBoard ® Interactive
Presentation Systems such consistently glowing reviews?
Perhaps the reasons lie in StarBoard’s unmatched value
and reliability. Or its superior engineering – from sleek
ergonomically designed panels to interactive whiteboards
with field-swappable electronics.
Perhaps it’s about the thoughtful details, like the
T-17SXL’s programmable function buttons that
deliver all the functionality of software menus while
eliminating them from your screen. Or maybe it
simply reflects how educators everywhere value
the Hitachi support committment, and the toll-free
hotline to the Hitachi Support Team.
There’s a world of great reasons to discover
StarBoard. To review the entire StarBoard product
family, download a brochure, watch an online
demo or find a dealer, visit www.hitachi-soft.com
or call us at (650) 244-7880.
Then maybe you’ll be the one to write our next
rave review.
Configurations for every room size and budget
T-15XL Interactive Panel
BT-1 Freedom Tablet ™
P-50X/55X Interactive Plasma Display
FX-63/77/82W Interactive Whiteboard
© Copyright 2005-2006, Hitachi Software Engineering America, Ltd. Hitachi and the Hitachi logo are registered trademarks of Hitachi, Ltd. StarBoard is a registered trademark of Hitachi Software Engineering America, Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

SPECIAL INFOCOMM ISSUE

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