Cloud Computing

At Abilene Christian University in West Texas, technology managers were struggling with an outdated email system. While providing basic service, it lacked advanced functionality and was time-consuming and expensive to maintain. in addition, the full-time email administrator’s position had recently become vacant.

Kevin Roberts, chief information officer at ACU, knew it was time for a change. “We were disenchanted with our current email system,” he says, adding that the system servers were outdated, expensive to maintain, and were running out of space.

Thanks to an aggressive technology modernizationproject initiated by a tech-savvy administration and an energetic technology director brought in to execute the plan, PresentationCollege is quickly discovering how the right tools can attract students and help everyone work more efficiently.

The 200 or so freshmen arriving at the Aberdeen, S.D., campus this fall were required to purchase their own Acer TravelMate 2304 notebook PC. In addition to providing on-ramps to the school’s new wireless network,

At SMU's Cox School of Business, tomorrow’s business leaders are re-envisioning how the world does business.

“It’s all about making education accessible to everyone, anytime, anywhere,” explained Ann Watts, instructional design coordinator and portal project manager at DMACC. Des Moines Area Community College is a public institution with six campuses.

The portal ? known as “my.dmacc” to users ? is an outgrowth of the college’s educational mobility initiative that runs on HP ProLiant servers. DMACC has implemented a systemwide wireless system to support academic programs and administrative needs.

Stephen D. Golding Executive Director, HopkinsOne Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins Researches the Ideal ERP System

DIVERSE ORGANIZATION TAPS SAP SOFTWARE TO INTERGRATE HIGHER ED AND HEALTH CARE IT NETWORK

EDUCOMM 2009 BROUGHT SOME OF THE brightest stars in higher education to the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes resort, for three days of education sessions, new product introductions, and fun. The conference featured a number of firsts. For example, it was the first time in six years that EduComm took place independent of InfoComm. Also for the first time, the conference featured five keynote sessions that mixed thought-provoking topics with light-hearted “edutainment” sessions.

The “cloud computing” trend of replacing software traditionally installed on campus computers (and the computers themselves) with applications delivered via the internet is driven by aims of reducing universities’ IT complexity and cost. While today’s “cloud powered” higher education institutions can gain significant flexibility and agility, the corresponding migration of their sensitive data into remote, worldwide data centers--the “cloud” itself--introduce profound legal, compliance, and political issues.

CLOUD COMPUTING IS THE CLOSEST WE'VE COME yet to what futurists promised the internet could be.

BETWEEN 2010 AND 2025, nearly 80 million “baby boomers” will leave the workforce, just as they entered it between 1960 and 1980. When this exodus occurs, only 20 percent of workers remaining will possess the skills required for most of the jobs being created today.