EDUCAUSE | Blogs

Listening - The First Step of Many

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:45:11 +0000

When I was asked by EDUCAUSE to write a blog about the experiences of a first-time CIO, I was concerned that I wouldn't have enough to write about that would be of interest to the EDUCAUSE community. It then occurred to me that I'd like to approach this the way I approach many situations like this - ask and listen!

Exploring and Designing Breakthrough Models in Higher Education

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:09:34 +0000

ECPA Reform Bill Proceeds to Full Senate

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:45:48 +0000

Today, April 25, 2013, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted out of committee a bill to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). On a voice vote, the Committee approved the ECPA Amendments Act of 2013 (S. 607) co-sponsored by Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). The bill, which has broad bi-partisan support, would require the government to obtain a warrant from a judge before gaining access to the contents of email or documents stored in the cloud.

What We're Reading, April 2013

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:05:27 +0000

"The 3-D Printing Revolution: Dreams Made Real, One Layer at a Time," Rachel Ehrenberg, Science News 183 (5) (March 9, 2013)
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/348429/description/The_3-D_Printing_Revolution
Status report and backgrounder on 3-D printing: "Many herald 3-D printing as a game changer, a 'disruptive' technology that will turn traditional manufacturing on its head. But the technology is also at the peak of hype."

"Welcome to the Digital Public Library of America," Dan Cohen, DPLA blog post, April 18, 2013
http://dp.la/info/2013/04/18/message-from-the-executive-director/
Co-founder and DPLA Executive Director Cohen explains the launch of and goals for the new library, including planned development.

Blazing the Trail in Texas: Work in Progress on the Texas Affordable Baccalaureate

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:22:26 +0000

“What we’re talking about is a different satisfactory academic progress model than most of you are used to,” said project leader Van Davis to a large group of faculty from the two Texas campuses implementing the Texas Affordable Baccalaureate. Far from being shocked by his statement, the group appeared eager to dive into the day’s work on that very model.

Major Higher Ed. Community Developments on State Authorization

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:54:07 +0000

The higher education community continues to make significant progress toward addressing the problems of distance education state authorization through the development of a state authorization reciprocity proposal. The Commission on the Regulation of Postsecondary Distance Education, a joint effort of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO), recently released its final report, Advancing Access through Regulatory Reform: Findings, Principles, and Recommendations for the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA).

2013 Security Awareness Video & Poster Contest Winners Announced

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:45:39 +0000

Nine winners of the 5th Annual Information Security Awareness Video and Poster Contest have been selected. The winning videos and posters are now available for colleges and universities to use in campus security awareness campaigns during National Cyber Security Awareness Month in October, student orientations, and throughout the year.

Google Accessibility Improvements

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:08:38 +0000

Google started informing its applications user groups today about the accessibility improvements it has made to a range of its applications and software platforms. (Please see below for the quoted text.) If you're interested in learning more about accessibility updates for one of the products listed, Google invites you to contact its accessibility group (accessible@googlegroups.com).

Android

FCC Telecom Service Provider Accessibility Certification Rules

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:28:04 +0000

Our friends at ACUTA (the higher education telecommunications administrators association) have posted an alert to colleges and universities that "charge students, tenants, or others for telephone service" (excluding institutions that allocate telephone service costs internally to academic and/or administrative departments) about new accessibility record-keeping certification requirements from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC):

Fed. Regs. on Student Identity Verification, State Authorization of Distance Ed. Back on the Radar

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:13:20 +0000

As reported in today's Inside Higher Ed, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) has announced its intent to modify the rule-making effort it originally proposed last year to address federal student aid fraud concerns.

Trending Now: Recent News in the Postsecondary World of Next Generation Learning

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:08:20 +0000

Peanut Butter Meets Chocolate: Hewlett OER and Deeper Learning Grantees Join Forces for a Day

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:58:10 +0000

The San Diego weather was cooler than usual last week, but an occasional chilly breeze off the Pacific did little to cool the enthusiasm among the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation grantees gathered at High Tech High School to exchange ideas and build on one another’s learning. Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) staff joined the gathering because the Hewlett Foundation was a key supporter of NGLC’s first two waves of investment in 2011, “Building Blocks for College Completion” and “Building Blocks for College Readiness.” The Hewlett Foundation supported NGLC’s grants in the areas of open education resources (OER) and deeper learning.

Where Campus Policy Discussions are Taking Place

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:21:00 +0000

The story in the The Chronicle of Higher Education about Harvard University’s recent controversial e-mail searches going further than previously reported sparked a lot of discussion on the EDUCAUSE Policy Discussion list. An excerpt from the Chronicle article was posted to the list:

Also at the meeting, Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard’s president, said she had determined that the university’s policies regarding electronic communications were “highly inadequate.” She announced that she was asking an outside lawyer to review the e-mail investigations and determine whether all the facts were known. She also announced the appointment of a task force to develop recommendations on e-mail privacy.

EDUCAUSE Submits Comments to NIST on Cybersecurity Framework

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:59:46 +0000

EDUCAUSE submitted comments on behalf of the Higher Education Information Security Council (HEISC) to address several questions raised by a NIST Request for Information concerning standards, guidelines, or best practices that promote the protection of information and information systems. You can also review all of the comments received. The Request For Information (RFI) issued by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (N

MOOCs and Intellectual Property: Ownership and Use Rights

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:38:14 +0000

Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become the buzzword these days. Besides the interest and the hype associated with MOOCs, campuses are having serious discussions about the opportunities and challenges that these online courses pose. The EDUCAUSE Executive Briefing, What Campus Leaders Need to Know About MOOCs, highlights a number of key issues for colleges and universities to understand about MOOCs, including intellectual property (IP) concerns. MOOCs may not be as open as is suggested in the name when it comes to the topic of IP/copyright. As noted in the Briefing, “Some commercial MOOC platforms have highly proprietary terms and conditions that claim ownership of course content and prohibit sharing or remixing of material.”

Copyright Alert System Utilized in Infringement Lawsuit

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:24:18 +0000

The Copyright Alert System (CAS), which is a partnership between copyright owners and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), went into effect on February 25, 2013. The goal of the CAS is to cut down on illegal peer-to-peer file sharing of copyrighted material and is devised to be an educational program. (See EDUCAUSE blogs on February 26, 2013, October 23, 2012, April 5, 2012, and July 5, 2011 for background information.

Pathway to Possibility: A Framework is Renovated and Refined

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 18:45:54 +0000

Last September, Next Generation Learning Challenges published a white paper laying out our perspective on what next generation learning is and what it requires. The six dimensions of the framework were built out of observations of the work of NGLC grantees and a scan of the field. Since then, we have been collecting comments, feedback, and suggestions for making the framework “work” for a broad audience, so that it may serve as a guidepost for those who are planning and designing technology-enabled next generation learning—including those applying to NGLC’s currently open Wave IV grant competition. We asked the EDUCAUSE community and others involved in this work, “What will it take for next generation learning to help more students attain better outcomes more affordably?”

CIOs on Consumerization

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:00:45 +0000

CIO’s Brad Wheeler and James Hilton reflect on what Consumerization means to the IT organization.

Three Vexing Problems and their Common Origin

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 23:18:01 +0000

Walk around any institution of higher education, even those well known for effective delivery and use of information technology, and you will find the following to some degree or another.

Collaboration Enables Next-Generation Digital Learning

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 19:14:45 +0000

By Rob Abel, Marwin Britto, Patrick Masson, and John Johnston

The growing emergence of digital devices, learning platforms, and applications promises easier access to a variety of content, increased productivity, and the realization of personalized learning environments. Unfortunately, it is a major challenge to use these rapidly emerging resources productively to meet students' diverse and increasingly demanding learning needs.

Winds of Change: Higher Productivity in Higher Education

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:57:09 +0000

Editor’s Note: In this post, Brandt Redd suggests that personalized learning approaches can address dual pressures on higher education: increasing societal needs and expectations and flat or declining funding. Brandt is Senior Technology Officer for Education Programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He writes regularly at ofthat.com. This post originally appeared on the NGLC blog at nextgenlearning.org on February 11, 2013.

The Next Great Copyright Act

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:40:32 +0000

On March 20, 2013, Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallante, testified before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet where she advocated for an update to the copyright law. Her testimony was based on her recent lecture at the Columbia Law School entitled the “Next Great Copyright Act.”

Highlights from her testimony included:

First Sale is Affirmed by the Supreme Court

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 23:14:09 +0000

The Supreme Court issued its opinion, on March 19, 2013, in a case heard last fall that has implications for higher education. The question before the Court was - How do Section 602(a)(1) of the Copyright Act, which prohibits the importation of a work without the authority of the copyright’s owner, and Section 109(a) of the Copyright Act, which allows the owner of a copy “lawfully made under this title” to sell or otherwise dispose of the copy without the copyright owner’s permission, apply to a copy that was made and legally acquired abroad and then imported into the United States?

ECPA Reform Update: House Hearing and Senate and House Bills Introduced

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:33:08 +0000

ECPA reform is an important topic for Congress this session. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has championed this reform and says that it is an important agenda item for the Committee. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) said that modernizing the privacy act to "reflect our current digital economy" will be a priority for his committee.

Call for Participation: The Multi-Factor Authentication Cohortium

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:49:09 +0000

The Internet2 Scalable Privacy Project (ScalePriv), funded with the recent National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) grant to Internet2, is seeking campuses to participate in the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Cohortium*. Applications are open until April 26, 2013 (note the deadline extension).