Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Study: Campuses lack mobile and BYOD policies, despite concerns

76 percent of CIOs who responded to a survey said their university has no BYOD policy in place.

Three quarters of university chief information officers say that the importance of mobility and bring your own device (BYOD) has increased in the last year, but just as many say their institutions have no BYOD policies in place, according to a report by Education Dive.

The report, which was underwritten by Sprint Higher Education Solutions, was based on a survey of 50 CIOs from around the United States and examined the policies, obstacles and successes of universities adopting mobile devices on their campuses.

When the respondents were asked if their institutions had BYOD policies, only 24 percent said they did. 76 percent admitted to having no BYOD policy in place. But the surge of students bringing their own devices to campuses in recent years is a major concern for the 74 percent of CIOs who noted that BYOD was weighing heavier on administrators’ minds.…Read More

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The key to campus network security: Better risk management

“Identify the threats most likely to impact your company, and spend your limited funds defending against those,” one expert says.

Campus networks host tens of thousands of devices each day, and while those devices have access to network resources, campus IT administrators must be vigilant as they strike a balance between openness and vigilance.

Finding that balance can prove difficult if IT administrators attempt to address every single threat, no matter how relevant that threat might be to the campus. Many experts suggest focusing on a university’s mission, and adjusting security measures so they support this mission.

Campus IT security staff should determine exactly that, said Dave Cullinane, retired chief information security officer at eBay and co-founder of the Cloud Security Alliance, during an EDUCAUSE webinar to celebrate October’s Cyber Security Awareness Month.…Read More

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‘Socialbots’ pose IT security threat on campuses

Socialbots had an 80 percent success rate during the two-month experiment.

University of British Columbia (UBC) Vancouver researchers unleashed an army of more than 100 socialbots—technology that poses as people on social networks—and harvested personal information from 3,000 Facebook users, demonstrating how vulnerable campus networks are to attacks through social media sites.

In “The Socialbot Network,” released Nov. 1, a group of UBC researchers claim they used a cluster of fake Facebook accounts to obtain more than 250 gigabytes of personal information from Facebook users who accepted friend requests from socialbots during the two-month experiment.

The socialbots have profile pictures, personal information, and posts like any other regular Facebook regular.…Read More

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International college news network in the works

More than 4,000 colleges will join GCN, officials say.

Students on thousands of campuses worldwide will use a Canadian university’s ultra-high-speed internet connection to share student-made video news segments in real time, avoiding the barriers and technical glitches of traditional satellite connections.

Technology officials at Ryerson University in Toronto are building the campus-to-campus online news sharing using the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION), an ultra-high-speed fiber optic network, and a video streaming program designed to deliver uninterrupted video communication.

In other words, Ryerson’s Global Campus Network (GCN) won’t have the video and audio delays that plague even cable news giants while in-studio anchors connect with reporters abroad. The high-speed web delay is less than half a second; satellite delays are often 1.5 seconds or longer, Grunberg said.…Read More

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Campus Network Security Made Easy

In October, higher education saw one of its largest data security breaches ever, as the Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and other personal information for about 760,000 current and former Ohio State University students were accessed by unauthorized network users. But it was a breach at the University of Hawaii (UH) that might be the most damaging of all.

That’s because a former UH student filed a class-action lawsuit against the school Nov. 18 in what is believed to be the first such case of its kind. If the lawsuit succeeds, or if UH settles, it could change how colleges and universities handle sensitive information going forward.…Read More

How to avoid accidental data breaches

Universities house a large amount of personal student and employee data.
Universities present particular challenges in securing sensitive information.

College campuses are centers for learning and exploration, where students and faculty develop, exchange, and trade information. More than most other organizations, colleges and universities are in a continuous state of information sharing and data creation, and they rely heavily on the ability to seamlessly share, store, and protect that information within their communities and among their partners.

What’s more, life on a campus is always in flux. Students and faculty come and go, and their need to access certain information, not to mention physical campus locations such as dormitories and labs, is fluid.

As a result, the university setting causes big headaches for chief information officers and other technology professionals who are charged with securing the data that reside on a university’s computer systems—everything from proprietary research to students’ financial and personal data.…Read More

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