Colleges expand use of student ID cards

Using the card isn’t yet mandatory on Iowa campuses.

With the swipe of one card, many college students can eat dinner, buy snacks, wash a load of laundry, check out library books, photocopy homework, attend a football game, access a campus computer lab, and open locked doors.

Identification cards have become that one-stop convenience on many campuses, with technology allowing one piece of plastic to perform banking, security and identification functions.

One card can include bar codes, multiple magnetic strips, and proximity chips that all carry different coded fingerprints for students, faculty, and staff.…Read More

Iowa’s universities help pave the way for tech transfer

ISU had 47 patent applications filed in fiscal 2011, up 21 over 2010.

Technology transfer is big business.

2009, for example, was admittedly a difficult year for tech transfers in the United States, and licensing income dropped, according to MedCity News in citing an Association of University Technology Managers survey.

But the 181 tech transfer programs that responded to the survey — the association’s most recent — still claimed a combined $2.3 billion in income.…Read More

Going rogue: IT officials fight student-run web networks

A University of Iowa security audit revealed rogue web connections across campus.
A University of Iowa security audit revealed rogue web connections across campus.

Campus technology officials say there’s only one surefire way to stop students from creating their own wireless internet connections in dormitories and creating a security risk for computer users: provide reliable wireless access across campus.

Unauthorized, or “rogue,” wireless networks cropped up on college campuses of every size in the mid-2000s, IT chiefs say, as students became impatient with little or no wireless connection in their dorms.

Many campuses only had wireless connections in libraries, leaving students to plug into the internet when studying in dormitories.…Read More

Oops! We could not locate your form.