Articles: Technology

1/2/2013

Build Your Own Display

Christie MicroTiles

Christie MicroTiles are rear projection cube units that can be built together into a large video wall-style display. Because of the building-block design, institutions can create and display images and information in any size and shape.

1/2/2013

As distance learning programs are developed and then refined, there are many options for national, regional, and statewide distance education consortia that the institutions can, and often do, join. The consortia help in sharing resources and tips to help each other with distance learning efforts.

1/2/2013

Members of distance education consortia can turn to their fellow members in times of need. But that’s just one benefit of membership. Another is the opportunity to easily consult like-minded individuals, which can spark new ideas in distance learning education programs.

12/17/2012

Meeting expectations is passé. Today, it's all about exceeding expectations. Most colleges and universities understand that IT is integral to their function; however, few administrators truly understand the value of IT. This lack of understanding holds many universities back from capitalizing on information technology and the expertise of IT professionals. Technology pervades and facilitates nearly every university activity, from the library to the classroom to the administration buildings.

12/10/2012

As a consultant to schools on programming for students with autism, I’m used to proposing ideas and hearing, “Sounds great, but sorry, we can’t do that.” Good intentions sometimes can’t overcome limitations in resources. But when I proposed the development of a bachelor’s degree designed to meet the specific needs of students with autism to The Sage Colleges (N.Y.), the response was very different. From the president on down, the prevailing attitude was, “How can we make this happen?”

11/29/2012

The readers have spoken and for the first time ever, University Business magazine is honoring higher education products and services, in this first annual Readers’ Choice Top Products for 2012. Earlier this year, campus leaders and administrators from across the country had the unique opportunity to nominate what products they and their peers around the country are using, and voice how these products contribute to the success of their schools.

11/21/2012

With today’s increased focus on college costs, the call for disclosure of information about affordability and outcomes has also been on the rise. Besides the traditional rankings, a growing number of websites purport to shed light on affordability, or net cost, or return on investment based on IPEDS data combined with other information sources.

11/21/2012
  • 71% of people expect mobile sites to load as fast or faster than desktop sites.
  • 74% will abandon if a site takes more than 4 seconds to load.
  • You have 5 seconds of someone’s time. Yet the average web page size is over 1MB and growing.
  • 86% of responsive web designs send the same content to mobile devices.

Source: Luke Wroblewski,  author, Mobile First

11/21/2012

A college reunion this spring at the  State University of New York at Oswego presented the web-development team an opportunity to build an iPhone app using an open-source software called Kurogo, developed by Modo Labs. The app was a hit, with 30 percent of the 2,000 or so reunion attendees downloading it to share photos and stay on top of events over the course of three days.

11/15/2012

The American Council on Education (ACE) has announced a research effort examining the academic potential of massive open online courses (MOOCs), in which it will evaluate select Coursera courses for college credit. If the ACE College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE CREDIT) decides to recommend these courses for credit, it could mean an improvement in college affordability for hundreds of thousands of students.

11/9/2012
Baldwin Wallace University's IT department was maintaining more than 65 types of hardware with multiple operating systems, which tied them down and made it difficult to be forward-thinking. Through virtualization, BW consolidated its computing and storage infrastructure. Now it has 87 percent fewer servers, and projects a three-year ROI of 194 percent.
11/7/2012
SCU's Clinical Internship program was manually maintained and took hours each day for staff to review credit request forms and patient procedure logs. A new Clinical Internship Portal automated students' schedule. Students and clinical faculty now submit and approve credit and patient tracking forms online, substantially reducing time involved and eliminating paper.
11/1/2012

For almost three years, Globe University (Minn.) has used video conferencing to connect classrooms, provide training to our admissions professionals, and even facilitate business meetings. Our success in implementing video conferencing has led to 18 video conferencing systems set up across 11 campuses. As a result, our operations are streamlined, our costs are better managed and our student body is better served with classes they may not otherwise have been able to take.

10/31/2012

Mobile Dining

Chartwells Higher Education Dining Services has released a customizable smartphone app with tailored options to match a college or university brand identity. App on Campus provides dining menus with nutritional information, specials, events, and eatery information.

10/25/2012

Richard Baraniuk, a professor of electrical and computer science at Rice University in Houston, is founder of the nonprofit education project Connexions. Connexions is a pioneer in open education resources, acting as a repository for more than 17,000 learning objects and over 1,000 collections (textbooks and journal articles) that are used by over 2 million people each month. The materials are freely accessible and can be remixed and repurposed for individual needs.

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