News and Tips for Higher Ed Pros

Note from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you’ve attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion.

Universities struggle to find all the right solutions for their wide audience base. Everything has to be branded and easy for everyone to use. Products are required to meet accessibility standards that are often not considered by commercial software vendors. There are a multitude of software solutions available and many of have no upfront cost.

Open Source Solutions are designed with a different motive than conventional software. They are designed to accomplish a task or to fulfill a need, not to turn a profit. This encourages a sense of community and from this community comes free support, often directly from the developers. These products are often designed to be custom tailored to fit your specific needs, anything from custom themes and templates to custom data fields.

• Live from HighEdWebDev06: Open-Source, In Search of a New Business Model for College Web Site Development
• eduWeb 2008 in 140 words - Head in the Cloud: On-Demand Solutions for Processing, Storage and Content Delivery Needs by Mike Richwalsky and Josh Tysiachney from Allegheny College
• eduWeb 2008 in 140 words - Email Marketing for Higher Education by Kyle James, Webmaster at Wofford College
• Check out the results from a survey about CMS in higher education
• EduWeb 2008: Call for proposal open and familiar faces for the opening and closing keynote speakers