While Microsoft Corporation officials state unequivocally that the company does not want to get into the business of higher education, the company and its chairman have been quietly acquiring rights to intellectual property and creating software rich in academic content. College administrators, nervous about competition for students, are concerned…

A Johns Hopkins University (Maryland) engineering professor has developed eight computer programs that simulate laboratory experiments, creating a "virtual laboratory" for his introductory engineering class. Experiments are fully interactive, giving students the opportunity to try eight different problem-solving strategies. Students can…

A survey of directors of academic computing at 981 2- and 4-year colleges found that identifying appropriate software for faculty is considered a more important function than developing software for classroom use; that public research universities are anticipating more computing budget cuts; that networking is increasing; and that student and…