More than ever, faculty and students are working jointly on documents sharing screens in class, swapping course materials and taking their collective pulse through polls. Nevertheless, many faculty members complain that technical support for group projects is lagging on campus, leaving them searching for solutions elsewhere. While some faculty…

It's a dangerous world out there, with IT shops hard pressed to protect their institutions and users. "Campus Technology" looks at the 4 biggest security worries--and how IT can fight back. In 2012, 61 educational institutions reported data breaches, involving more than 2 million records, according to the nonprofit Identity Theft…

There is a civil war simmering in classrooms nationwide. Arrayed on one side are students who would sooner cut off an arm than sacrifice their mobile devices. On the other stand faculty members who expect to be the focal point of their classes and will not abide distractions. Caught in the crossfire are instructional technology professionals.…

Ten years ago, integrating videoconferencing into a college course required considerable effort on the part of the instructor and IT support staff. Today, video- and web-conferencing tools are more sophisticated. Distance education has morphed from audio- and videocassettes featuring talking heads to a more interactive experience with greater…

As faculty members add online and multimedia elements to their courses, colleges and universities across the country are realizing that there is a lot of work to be done to ensure that disabled students (and employees) have equal access to course material and university websites. Unfortunately, far too few schools consider the task a top priority.…

Half of servers in higher ed are virtualized. But that number's not high enough for Link Alander, interim vice chancellor and CIO at the Lone Star College System (Texas). He aspires to see 100 percent of the system's infrastructure requirements delivered as IT services from its own virtualized data centers or other cloud-based operators. Back in…

Each year in judging the Campus Technology Innovators awards, the authors have the privilege of reading through hundreds of fascinating examples of technology innovation on campus. Nominated projects cover the gamut of technology areas, from assessment and advising to wireless and web 2.0. This article presents 11 innovator award winners of this…

In April, Asia officially ran out of Internet Protocol (IP) version 4 addresses--the computer equivalent of running out of telephone numbers. Over the next couple of years, the rest of the world will also run dry. Yet, unlike the Y2K bug that had some people convinced the sky would fall, this particular problem is generating little more than tired…

This is the third installment in a four-part series that follows the exploits of Gene, a well-established CIO of a sizable IT organization at a top-100 university. Gene has been working with his team to regain the trust of the campus through Project Rescue, a 30-day turnaround plan focused on demonstrating IT's value. Project Rescue has two…

A downturn in the economic climate and an upturn in the technological climate might be higher education IT's "perfect storm." The confluence of budget cuts with the increased reliance on technology in almost all disciplines and administrative areas has put enormous pressure on campus IT leaders to pinpoint and fund tech services that achieve…

When it comes to getting the most out of IT, the majority of two-year schools face very real challenges. For starters, community college budgets are generally smaller than those of most four-year schools. Then, of course, there's the issue of refresh: Because students come and go every two years, there's the expectation that schools will…

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

At Campus Technology 2008, Arizona State University Technology Officer Adrian Sannier mesmerized audiences with his mandate to become more efficient by doing only the "core" tech stuff--and getting someone else to slog through the context. This article presents an excerpt from Sannier's hour-long keynote address at Campus Technology '08. Sannier…

Everyone seems to have a different definition for "Web 2.0," but most people agree the phrase describes a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services that aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users. Technically speaking, these new technologies include blogs, wikis, folksonomies…

With the widespread digitization of art, photography, and music, plus the introduction of streaming video, many colleges and universities are realizing that they must develop or purchase systems to preserve their school's digitized objects; that they must create searchable databases so that researchers can find and share copies of digital files;…