The Fifth Annual Educause Current Issues Survey ranked "security and identity management" near the top of the list of critical IT challenges on campus today. Recognition of the crucial importance of securing networked resources led Internet2 to establish its Middleware Initiative (I2MI) in 1999. While Internet2 was founded to develop and deploy…

In the last decade, Internet provision has become widespread within schools in many economically developed countries. Proponents of such technology have stressed the potential benefits to be gained from innovative teaching and learning opportunities. Yet, herein purity and danger are seen to co-exist, with unregulated "pollutants"…

This paper introduces several hands-on projects that have been used to motivate students in learning various computer networking concepts. These projects are shown to be very useful and applicable to the learners' daily tasks and activities such as emailing, Web browsing, and online shopping and banking, and lead to an unexpected byproduct,…

The Eighth Annual EDUCAUSE Current Issues Survey asked campus information technology leaders to rate the most critical IT challenges facing them, their campuses, and/or their systems. Four findings associated with all respondents to this year's survey merit special mention. First, for the 2007 survey, the CIC decided to split a key issue choice…

Over the past five years, the No Child Left Behind Act, with its mandates for collecting and documenting student achievement statistics, has fueled a surge in the volume of data collected by schools, districts, and state education departments. This information explosion has gone hand in hand with technology's growing affordability and…

Anecdotal evidence existed about the many students who use their laptops and the wireless network in university common spaces, but little was known about how, where, and why students use laptops on campus, and less was known about students' awareness of university wireless network policies and security. This article discusses the results of a…

In his paper, "European Needs and Attitudes towards Information Security," Richard I. Polis notes that the needs for security in computer systems, telecommunications, and media are rather uniform throughout Western Europe, and are seen as being significantly different from the needs in the United States. Recognition of these needs is,…

A discussion of computer theft prevention on college campuses looks at a variety of elements in electronic equipment security, including the extent of the problem, physical antitheft products, computerized access, control of key access, alarm systems, competent security personnel, lighting, use of layers of protection, and increasing…

Discusses Internet access and monitoring in light of H. G. Wells' idea of a world brain or encyclopedia, or mind of the species. Topics include the evolution and effects of Internet access, including employee productivity, network bandwidth, and legal liabilities or negative publicity; and Internet usage and security policy. (LRW)

A Duke University (North Carolina) student witnessing vandalism to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) World Wide Web site and a University of Massachusetts, Amherst student, both studying computer science, have contributed substantially to the identification of a computer hacker destroying the NCAA site. The students' rapid…

Analyzes the impact of the U.S. Patriot Act on educational institutions, particularly in the area of information technology security. Warns that the Act could impact distance learning and campus Internet service providers, and that lawsuits are being filed against universities for having lax cybersecurity. Makes suggestions for dealing with these…

Provides a framework for examining the complex infrastructure needed to successfully implement a digital library. Highlights include database development, online public-access catalogs, interactive technical services, full-text documents, hardware and wiring, licensing, access, and security issues. (Author/LRW)

Discusses the digital-image storage system at the Archivo General de Indias (Seville) that was developed to conserve original documents and to provide optimal access by researchers. Highlights include image quality, storage medium, computer equipment, remote access, security problems, problems of intellectual property and document ownership,…

Explains the background to experimental work intended to measure aspects of the World Wide Web, which inadvertently caused two perceived security breaches on remote systems. Describes the nature of these incidents and considers why, when over 700,000 addresses were sampled, only two sites considered the activity to be an attempt to breach their…

Handheld computers are just beginning to be introduced in schools. Before adopting the latest innovation, administrators must ask careful questions about issues and implications regarding leadership, teaching and learning, staff development, technology support, planning, infrastructure, safety and security, ethics, evaluation, curriculum, change,…