Inside campus libraries and dormitory rooms, thousands of students connect to the Internet not only to study with online systems like Blackboard but also to watch movies and TV shows on Netflix. Computers, smartphones, wireless printers, tablets, iPods, Xboxes, handheld gaming systems, e-readers, smart TVs, Blu-ray players--students now bring an…

Nationwide, IT breaches rose noticeably across all industries from 2003 to 2006. According to national statistics, hackers account for half of all exposures. Physical loss, theft, and fraud represent the second biggest risk. Security is an issue for all of higher education. Of all higher-education records that were exposed between 2000 and 2008, 4…

Describes how California's Peralta Community Colleges District decided to hire an outside company to manage its computer networks, but that problems cause it to now want a technology boss on its own staff. (EV)

This article describes The Onion Router (TOR). It is a freely available, open-source program developed by the U.S. Navy about a decade ago. A browser plug-in, it thwarts online traffic analysis and related forms of Internet surveillance by sending your data packets through different routers around the world. As each packet moves from one router to…

Describes how colleges are taking advantage of bargains on fiber-optic lines to build regional computer networks; some envision a national network for academe. (EV)

Computing authorities at 34 research universities have launched an effort to create a national computer network for higher education several times as fast as the Internet. The network would be supported by several corporate partners in computer and telecommunications industries and by the federal government, would not replace Internet connections,…

Users and producers of copyrighted materials are working to determine "fair use" guidelines, like those established in 1976 for printed materials, music, radio, and television programs, to govern access to online documents. Debate is over the need for and feasibility of extending compensation regulations to electronic materials. (MSE)

The University of California at Santa Cruz has completed a successful test of a wireless computer network that would enable students and professors to get on line from anywhere on campus. The network, linked by radio waves, could save millions of dollars in campus wiring costs and would better meet student and faculty information needs. (MSE)

Instead of mailing photocopies of proposed scholarly journal articles to reviewers, some editors are using electronic mail or the Internet to disseminate articles to other scholars to be critiqued. They are then returned electronically to the editors. However, most journals have not yet begun this process due to lack of reliable software or…

Increasingly, college career counseling centers are using the World Wide Web to provide career information, job listings, and telecommunications links for long-distance job interviews. The online listings tend to be specialized, and there is concern about accountability for them, but supporters find the greater availability of career information a…

A group of young scholars, frustrated by the difficult academic job market and dissatisfied with classroom instruction, is trying to establish a nontraditional university entirely through Internet, a major computer network. Prospective anonymous backers have pledged substantial start-up funds. The project will begin with simple computerized…