Apple’s $1 billion patent verdict a blow to Android phones

Many analysts said the decision could spell danger for competitors who, like Samsung, use Google’s Android operating system to power their cell phones.

It was the $1 billion question that campus technology leaders were asking Aug. 25: What does Apple’s victory in an epic patent dispute over its fiercest rival mean for the U.S. smart-phone industry?

Analysts from Wall Street to Hong Kong debated whether a jury’s decision that Samsung Electronics Co. ripped off Apple technology would help Apple corner the U.S. smart-phone market over Android rivals, or amount to one more step in a protracted legal battle over smart-phone technology.

Many analysts said the decision could spell danger for competitors who, like Samsung, use Google Inc.’s Android operating system to power their cell phones.…Read More

Top higher-education technology news: August 2012

Here are some of the top higher-education technology news stories in our July/August 2012 edition.

eLearning programs have gotten a reprieve from a controversial federal rule that some people viewed as too heavy-handed; a new resource helps ed-tech leaders understand the various standards for ensuring that campus technology systems are compatible with each other; and two recent court rulings have important implications for campus technology use: These are among the top higher-education technology stories in the July/August edition of eCampus News.

Our July/August edition is now available in digital format on our website. You can browse the full publication here, or click on any of the headlines below to read these highlights:

eLearning programs get a reprieve…Read More

Survey: Ed-tech vision stunted by stagnant budgets

Eighty-eight percent of faculty see challenges moving away from the traditional lecture model.

Higher-education technology leaders have long called for a shift to more technology-based learning—so what’s stopping the revolution? Results of a recent survey identify limited budget and outdated infrastructure as the primary obstacles impeding transition to a new learning model.

Responses revealed a strong pull toward increased use of technology: Two-thirds of students expressed desire for more technology in their classrooms, and 76 percent of IT staff reported that faculty requests for help with ed-tech implementation have increased in the last two years.

The survey, administered by major technology vendor CDW-G in May and June of 2012, asked 1,015 students, faculty, and IT staff about new learning models in high schools and higher education. CDW-G released the survey results June 26 as a report entitled “Learn Now, Lecture Later.”…Read More

Colleges taking a team approach to eTextbooks

Six in 10 students said in a recent survey that they forgo buying required books because textbooks are too pricey.

Reining in exorbitant textbook costs is no longer a campus-by-campus venture: A unified approach, powered by EDUCAUSE and the Internet2 consortium’s NET+ cloud-based collaborative purchasing program, could make low-cost electronic textbooks available now, ed-tech leaders hope.

Colleges experimenting with digital textbooks can take months—sometimes years—to negotiate with publishers before their school’s modest eBook program is introduced to students now paying upwards of $1,100 a year for books.

This fall, campus technology leaders will closely track the results of an expansive eTextbook pilot program ranging across 28 campuses, creating what many in higher education believe could be a model for quickly bringing low-cost textbook options to students who, in some cases, have stopped buying required texts because they cannot afford the books.…Read More

Colleges join internet goliaths in long-awaited protocol change

Colleges are expected to use IPv4 for another decade.

June 6 was perhaps the most important day in the history of the commercial internet, and hardly anyone noticed.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, and a host of the web’s most visited sites made the switch to the Internet Protocol Version 6 that day—known as World IPv6 Day—marking a momentous shift from the old protocol, IPv4, after it ran out of web addresses last year.

Colleges and universities have followed suit as well, turning to IPv6 after years of preparation on the part of campus technology leaders and their IT staffers, and so far, everything has gone smoothly.…Read More

Survey: Analytics ‘revolution’ slow to reach recruitment

Only one in five schools used analytics to improve online advertising.

Campus technology leaders are using their massive reams of data to improve their schools’ websites, social media presences, and marketing strategies—but many campuses aren’t using analytics to optimize online and offline advertising.

“The 2012 State of Social Media and Web Analytics in #highered,” an annual report compiled and released by Karine Joly, a web marketing official and editor of Collegewebeditor.com, showed that colleges have bolstered their use of analytics since 2010, but there are still considerable gaps in how schools can use analytics beyond traditional areas.

Only 12 percent of campuses surveyed said they didn’t use analytics at all, down from 15 percent in 2010, according to the report, and seven in 10 schools used insights from analytics to improve their college’s website.…Read More

Higher education proves resistant to outsourcing technology

Just six percent of colleges store their school data on off-campus servers.

Campus technology leaders who propose outsourcing their website hosting, network storage, and data warehousing should prepare for raucous laughter.

In 2005—before eMail outsourcing was commonplace—Kyle James, then a marketing consultant at a small liberal arts college in South Carolina, suggested during a staff meeting that the school move all student eMail accounts to Google’s Gmail.

“They laughed me right out of the room,” said James, now CEO and co-founder of interactive map company NuCloud. “I just threw it out there as an option, and they made it perfectly clear that it would, in fact, not be an option.”…Read More

Campus technology best practices: May 2012

Here are some more highlights from the May 2012 edition of eCampus News.

In the May 2012 edition of eCampus News, we describe a number of best practices in higher-education technology use. Here are some of the highlights.

eCampus of the Month: Salisbury University enables learning on the go

Maryland’s Salisbury University has created a 10,000-port wired network and a wireless network with 700 access points to provide full coverage campus wide. The university has implemented software from PeopleSoft and Blackboard to streamline business processes and extend learning beyond the classroom. Mostly importantly, it has managed and promoted a culture of change in the classroom and the workplace.…Read More

Top campus technology news: May 2012

Here are some of the highlights from our May 2012 edition.

In the May 2012 edition of eCampus News, we explore what Blackboard’s purchase of Moodlerooms might mean for the future of open-source LMS software, as well as how some professors have embraced the “flipped” model of instruction—to the delight of some students.

To browse the entire publication, click here—or click on any of the headlines below to read these highlights from the May issue:

Blackboard shakes up open source…Read More

Experts push gaming as a ‘serious’ element of higher education

Excelsior College's serious gaming panel will convene May 11.

Campus technology leaders say “game” isn’t the four-letter word it once was in the Ivory Tower, thanks to a new crop of instructors willing to make games a centerpiece of their course curriculum.

“Serious gaming,” as it’s commonly called at colleges and universities, involves computer games that maintain some entertainment value—enough to grab and keep students’ attention—while presenting  scenarios that challenge theories, strategies, and research that is often discussed during lectures, but rarely applied.

Some major universities, such as the University of Wisconsin (UW) Madison and Michigan State University (MSU), offer programs on serious gaming and the design of education-friendly simulations.…Read More

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