Archive for the ‘Information Technology’ Category

Ball State University re-launches its website

Yes, that’s right. BSU hasn’t just redesigned its website: the university is relaunching it tomorrow (October 1st) as Nancy Prater, University Web Coordinator, told me in an email a couple of weeks ago. The project including the redesign, a revamped information architecture and a CMS implementation took 18 months as explained in “Extreme Makeover: Web […]

Interested in Web CMS adoption in higher ed? Take UC Davis online survey!

Reader and HEE member Elliot Lopez, Project Manager for University Communications at UC Davis, has beaten me to the punch with his online survey about Web CMS in higher ed. This was indeed on my to-do list for September ;-) Anybody contemplating a CMS selection and implementation in higher education will kill for some fresh […]

Need help to launch your online video initiative this Fall (or later)? Register by Friday for “Lights, Camera, Action – How to Add Online Videos to Your Marketing Mix”

I’ve already posted a couple of times about this 3-webinar series about online videos scheduled on September 11, 12 and 13 (with the 50% discount for HEE members, the total price for the webinars is just $150 – more information is available at www.higheredexperts.com/onlinevideos) I designed for Higher Ed Experts, so this is just a […]

Higher Ed TV: Great and funny YouTube video to promote BlackBoard Conference to SecondLife aficionados

I usually don’t cover vendor-related news, but BlackBoard has really done a nice job using YouTube to promote an upcoming conference to a specific audience while surfing on a very popular phenomenon, i.e. the growing popularity of Second Life in academic technology circles. I came across this video titled “Adventures in First Life Redux” on […]

47% of Internet users have enough bandwidth to watch your online videos at home

Just a quick post today for Independence Day in the US. According to a report about broadband usage released yesterday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 47% of Internet users had a high-speed connection to the Internet at home in March 2007 (vs. 42% in 2006 and 30% in 2005). The survey of […]

“Portal 2007 – up and running” at Gettysburg College on June 5-8, 2007: an affordable conference about web portals and CMS’s

After my post about a $0 conference for admissions folks, Gettysburg College’s Portal 2007 Conference looks like another option for higher ed professionals – working in web and IT departments, this time – interested in attending an affordable conference to learn a couple of things and network with their peers. The conference will take place […]

How do adult Americans like their technology? Pew Internet Life & Project’s Typology of information technology users

The Pew Internet Life & Project has just published its latest report: “A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users.” It is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans’ use of the Internet, data gathered through telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between February 15 and April 6, 2006, […]

Scholar.com, a del.icio.us Blackboard?

Sorry for the would-be smart post title – couldn’t help myself ;-) As confirmed in a post titled “Scholar’s in open beta!” by Karen Gage on the company’s blog, Educate/Innovate, Blackboard has quietly launched in public beta a social bookmarking web service for its online learning platform clients: “What makes Scholar different from other social […]

Could Bowdoin College have found an efficient and cost-effective solution to the student portal problem?

Many universities and colleges have poured a lot of money into very expensive but not always very efficient web portals. Portals were supposed to be the technical solution to all communication problems on campus by becoming the start page of students’ internet browsers. Problem is most of them are still underused due to their poor […]

It’s 10PM – Do you know where the hackers are?

Sorry for giving into cable-TV-style news headlines, but it seems that some inspired hackers have realized how much information is (easily?) available on higher education servers. After Boston College and California State University, another security breach was discovered at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management on March 20, 2005 as reported in NU business school […]

Campus emergency alerts: time to switch to RSS?

Email was a great way to communicate a message to the masses, before spammers realized how much money they could make by delivering their junk directly to our inboxes. Nobody likes spam: it wastes a lot of our time and eats up a lot of our internet service providers’ (ISP) bandwidth. As a result, millions […]

Any Social Security numbers in your alum database?
Make sure your security experts check it

Well, Social Security numbers are probably not the best unique id for your alums (or students). With identity theft horror stories in the news and computers never totally safe from hacker attacks, it’s definitely time for some changes in higher ed alum databases. At least, fo the sake of your good relations with your alums… […]