Information technology can be a game changer in higher education, as it has been in other sectors. Information technology has brought about much of the economic growth of the past century, accelerating globalization and fostering democracy. This chapter explores many ways that information technology can be a game changer. Some are as simple as…

Significant responsibility for the transition from paper to online can be traced to the college admissions office. By instituting online applications, admissions offices fundamentally altered the way in which college admissions works. Always on the forefront of developing and implementing new technology for the benefit of faculty and students,…

In 2011, "EDUCAUSE" appointed a research panel of IT leaders from nineteen representative member institutions to both identify and prioritize the top IT issues facing their institutions. In two focus group sessions in September and October 2011, the panel members were asked the question: "What is the single-biggest IT-related issue currently…

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…

The use of handheld computers in educational contexts has increased considerably in recent years and their value as a teaching tool has been confirmed by many positive experiences, particular within collaborative learning systems (Mobile Computer Supported Collaborative Learning [MCSCL]). The cost of the devices has hindered widespread use in…

In recent years, the information technology (IT) revolution has transformed American industry--leading to new types of work processes and business organizations, and increased productivity and consumer innovations--but by and large, this game-changer has bypassed America's schools. Virtually all K-12 schools in the country are connected to the…

This report is a product of Education Sector's Next Generation of Accountability initiative. The initiative seeks to strengthen public education by examining key elements of accountability, for instance, who should be responsible for student success and how they should be held responsible. The author of this report argues that technology has the…

The leap in wireless LAN standards to 802.11n is a WiFi upgrade so new it has not yet garnered final approval from the standards committee. Although that approval will not come until next year (vendors are currently building to a "pre-n" standard), there are plenty of notebook computers out there capable of running 802.11n. That means students…

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;…

Emergency notification has become a critical component of every higher education institution's overall emergency plan, as incidents across the country have galvanized campus safety officials to find more ways to notify their campus populations. Emergency notification systems can help get and keep students, faculty members, and staff out of harm's…

Regardless of whether an institution is a reluctant passenger on the racing technology train or itching to throw another shovel of coal on the fire, continuing advancements in technology make it a formidable factor in life on college campuses today. While students are updating their most recent social networking sites, faculty, staff, and…

For most of the past decade, IT leaders in higher education felt on top of things. Challenges were usually comprehensible and addressable, doing reasonable things yielded reasonable results, and for the most part, IT was a substantial contributor to institutional progress. But these days, IT leaders rarely feel on top of things. Instead, some days…

Everyone on your campus needs information, and if your institution is like most schools, you have plenty of it to share. But which types of data warehousing and business intelligence systems you choose, and how accessible, usable, and meaningful those tools make all of that information, remain the big questions for many technologists and…

October is national Cyber Security Awareness Month, and for the world of higher education, that means it is time to take a look at defense systems and plan for the future. Clearly, more planning is needed now than ever before. According to the majority of IT market research firms, phishing and identity theft have leapfrogged spam and spyware as…