Web/Portals
- Educational Network Provides Free Environment for Course Content
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12/6/2007
ChitChat has launched a new online tool for educators. Dubbed the "Educational Network," the service provides free online hosting for class Web pages and multimedia content and allows educators to share materials with one another.
- Open-Source NetBeans Beta 2 Gets Dual-License
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12/4/2007
The NetBeans community has released the latest build of its open source, Java-based integrated development environment (IDE) with, among other new features, a dual-licensing scheme. NetBeans 6.0 Beta 2 is licensed under both the GNU General Public License (GPL) v2 with ClassPath exception and Sun Microsystems' Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL). NetBeans creator and primary corporate sponsor Sun Microsystems proposed adding the GPL license option.
- First Look: The Popfly Development Environment
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12/3/2007
For nearly a decade, Macromedia's Flash (now an Adobe product) has been the de facto standard for Web animation. It's in widespread use across the Web. Recently, Microsoft introduced its Silverlight platform, a competitor to Adobe's Flash and a few similar technologies.
- SpringSource Adds Annotation Support to Java App Framework
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11/29/2007
Enterprise open source software provider SpringSource (formerly known as Interface21) has released Spring Framework 2.5, the latest upgrade to its Java/J2EE application framework.
- IBM and Mainsoft Ink Deal To Integrate .NET Apps
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11/27/2007
It just got a little easier for developers using Microsoft's .NET Framework technology and SharePoint to integrate their .NET applications with IBM's Java-based portal technology. In a global reseller deal, IBM agreed to sell Mainsoft Corp.'s .NET Extensions solution with the IBM WebSphere Portal solution.
- Continuing Education Sites Lacking, Researchers Say
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11/20/2007
Continuing and professional education (CPE) sites are somewhat effective at helping students with their enrollment decisions, but they're lacking in some key functionality areas: content, search capabilities, and multimedia. In the second of its three-part series of research reports, "Optimizing School Web Sites as a Marketing and Recruitment Tool," education consultancy Eduventures found that prospective continuing education students in large part think these sites come up short in areas they consider crucial and made specific recommendations for the types of content that should be added to these sites to boost their effectiveness.
- Baltimore County College Takes Health Care Programs Online
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11/15/2007
The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) is expanding its e-learning activities by developing online and hybrid programs in health care. The move will help alleviate what the college described as a "backlog of potential students who previously were prevented from enrolling due to limited classroom space." The initiative includes new online nursing, paramedic, and medical lab technician programs.
- MIT Researchers Advance Lecture Capture with Search Capabilities
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11/14/2007
Researchers in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new Web-based technology that's designed to take recorded classroom lectures to the next level. The technology, developed by a team led by MIT's Regina Barzilay and James Glass, provides search functionality for classroom video recordings. At present, the prototype only works with MIT's online lectures made available to the public through the university's OpenCourseWare initiative, but it may be made available to other institutions in the future.
- Natural Language Gets AJAX Support
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11/13/2007
Software AG recently unveiled Natural for AJAX, a variant of Software AG's Natural 2006 programming language. Natural 2006 is typically used at the enterprise level for transactional systems running on mainframes.
- Gallaudet Brings Accessibility to Classroom Capture
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11/7/2007
Students at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, the only liberal arts university in the world for the deaf and hard of hearing, are benefiting from lecture capture software that includes closed captioning. That lets students view videos of lectures on demand, complete with text captions along the bottom of the screen.
- Virginia Tech To Expand Web Presence
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11/7/2007
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (also known as Virginia Tech) is enhancing its Web presence in an effort to improve communications, offer new services, and provide autonomy to schools and departments at the university to create and reuse content. For the Web upgrade, Virginia Tech is deploying Percussion Software's Rhythmyx Web Content Management system.
- Symphoniq and F5 Offer User Monitoring Solution
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11/7/2007
Palo Alto-based Symphoniq Corp. has teamed with Seattle-based F5 to address application delivery problems on the client side--something that may not be well tracked by network administrators. Under a partnership deal, Symphoniq's TrueView Express client monitoring solution has been incorporated into F5's BIG-IP application delivery controller solution.
- Snapshot: Functionality Preferences for Admissions Portals
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11/5/2007
Professional Web designers are skillful in creating integrated sites that make use of a range of technical functions, such as virtual tours, online chats and podcast downloads, as well as informational formats, including text, graphics, pictures, and so on. Eduventures explores what preferences prospective students have around these functions and formats.
- Google Seeks Social Networking High Ground
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11/5/2007
Google's attempt to grab moral high ground in the social networking development is a step in the right direction, according to industry analysts.
- Admissions Sites Get Low Budgetary Priority
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11/2/2007
Just how much priority should admissions sites be given? For prospective students, they're crucial, trusted, and highly utilized sources of information. But according to new research from education consultancy Eduventures, higher ed admissions departments give them a much lower priority--at least in terms of budgeting.
- Web 2.0 Entails 'Sleeping Giant' Security Risk
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10/30/2007
As increasing numbers of enterprises climb aboard the Web 2.0 bandwagon, it's more important than ever for software developers to keep security in mind during the development process. So says Danny Allan, director of security research at Watchfire, the Waltham, MA-based Web-app security company acquired by IBM in July. Allan was in Santa Clara, CA to speak at this year's AjaxWorld show, and he took a few minutes to talk with me before his presentation.
- Drexel Puts Course Capture To Work on Desktops
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10/24/2007
Audio and even video capture of lectures is becoming more common on college campuses, which post the material to their Web sites so that students can revisit a lecture after the fact. But Drexel University....
- SAP Adds Eclipse Tool, Joins OSGi
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10/24/2007
SAP AG signaled its commitment to open solutions in the service-oriented architecture (SOA) space last week with a couple of announcements.
- MAC Deploys Jenzabar Academic, Administrative Suite
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10/24/2007
Mineral Area College in Missouri is deploying Jenzabar EX Total Campus Management. INTEC, signing on for licenses for Jenzabar's ERP, portal, and learning management solutions to improve administrative efficiencies and supplement learning the school's traditional learning techniques with online technologies.
- 5 States Deploy NTC Transcript Exchange
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10/24/2007
The National Transcript Center (NTC) reported late last week that five states have adopted its preK-20 electronic transcript exchange system over the last year. These include Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming. NTC handled the development and deployment of the records systems.
- Northern Iowa Automates Classroom Capture
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10/23/2007
The University of Northern Iowa, like a large number of universities in recent months, is deploying a classroom capture system to record lectures and make them available via the Internet. This one, though, is being used not only to provide access for UNI's students but also for an audience of K-12 teachers who will use the content to further their professional development.
- Online Plagiarism Tool Adds PDF Support
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10/22/2007
Online plagiarism detection service DOC Cop has expanded its offerings again, adding support for PDF files to its free document checking tools. This includes the ability to check PDF files against other PDFs or against Word documents.
- iTunes U Expands 'Beyond Campus'
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10/19/2007
iTunes U, the education portal within Apple's iTunes, has expanded its content to include educational materials from sources beyond colleges and universities, including Smithsonian Global Sound, KQED, Little Kids Rock, and the Museum of Modern Art. The most recent addition to the expanded content area, known as Beyond Campus, is American Public Media, which is making its radio programming available free for educational purposes.
- UCLA Deploys Classroom IP Audio Encoders
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10/18/2007
The University of California, Los Angeles is continuing its phased deployment of IP audio encoders for its classrooms. According to information released this week by Barix, the vendor supplying the Interstreamer encoding systems, UCLA's Office of Instructional Development has so far installed the devices in 43 classrooms, with plans for 200 classroom installations eventually.
- Berkeley Puts Full Courses on YouTube
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10/17/2007
University of California, Berkeley this began making its course lectures and special events freely available on YouTube. At present, this amounts to more than 300 hours of captured courses and events. The university said it will continue to expand the volume and range of videos it makes available to the public.
