Archive for November, 2009
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Saturday, November 14th, 2009Android Cellphones Dial Up African Health in University Project
Carl Hartung was surprised by the cellphone reception in East Africa this summer. “We were working in villages miles from electricity or running water, but we still had cell coverage,” wrote Mr. Hartung, a graduate student at the University of Washington, in an e-mail to The Chronicle.
That [...]
Finding the Kindle a Poor Device for the Blind, 2 Universities Say They Won’t Buy More
Thursday, November 12th, 2009Finding the Kindle a Poor Device for the Blind, 2 Universities Say They Won’t Buy More
Two universities say they won’t order large numbers of Amazon Kindles until the company releases devices that are easier for blind students to use.
The University of Wisconsin at Madison and Syracuse University, which have both made Kindles available to their [...]
Archive Watch: Armistice Day Edition
Thursday, November 12th, 2009Archive Watch: Armistice Day Edition
November 11 is Armistice Day, which marks the cessation of Great War hostilities in 1918. (Here in the United States, of course, this is now Veterans Day.) In honor of the day and the dead, the First World War Poetry Digital Archive, housed at the University of Oxford, chose today to [...]
Working on the Chain Gang
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009Working on the Chain Gang
Meet the latest acronym in the world of digital humanities: Chain, the Coalition of Humanities and Arts Infrastructures and Networks. Born at a meeting at King’s College, London, in late October, Chain brings together eight digital-technology undertakings, several based in Europe (e.g., Dariah, or Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and [...]
Improving Mobile-Device Security
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009Improving Mobile-Device Security
As mobile phones begin functioning more like minicomputers, they also take on more security risks.
That’s why the School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology recently received a $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to work toward developing safer mobile devices and telecommunication networks that serve such devices. The project’s [...]
Second Life Duty Is Now Required for Penn State’s Online Advisers
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009Second Life Duty Is Now Required for Penn State’s Online Advisers
Denver — Plenty of colleges have a presence in Second Life. Pennsylvania State University is taking that a step further. Academic advisers at the university’s online campus are now required to be available for meetings with students in the virtual world every week, a Penn [...]
‘You Geeks Have to Become Radical Militant Activists’
Friday, November 6th, 2009‘You Geeks Have to Become Radical Militant Activists’
Denver — The face of evil, projected 20 feet tall on a screen behind Lawrence Lessig, belonged to Britney Spears.
The face of good belonged to composer John Philip Sousa.
Mr. Lessig, the Harvard Law School professor, was giving a keynote address at Educause 2009. He argued that intellectual property [...]
Big East Is a Big Loser in Web Accessibility for Disabled People, Study Says
Friday, November 6th, 2009Big East Is a Big Loser in Web Accessibility for Disabled People, Study Says
Denver – Big East colleges may shine on the basketball court, but they’re getting stuffed by the competition when it comes to the Web-accessibility battle.
The Big East posted the most consistent problems in a new survey of how good a job universities [...]
Google Uses Educause Meeting as Focus Group for Wave
Friday, November 6th, 2009Google Uses Educause Meeting as Focus Group for Wave
Denver — A panel of Google programmers wearing green T-shirts talked last night about the company’s newest product — called Wave — but it was clear that they had come here to learn a few things about education.
Wave is a new kind of communication and collaboration service [...]
Faculty and Technology Officials Fight Over College Values
Friday, November 6th, 2009Faculty and Technology Officials Fight Over College Values
Denver– “This is another sign of the culture war between faculty and IT,” said a vice president for technology and administration at a medium-sized state university. The official, musing after a session on budget crises here at the Educause 2009 technology meeting, said professors fought hard to keep [...]