A new book from Educause with 21 essays on how the new face of technology is impacting college campuses. The cloud here refers to the rapidly changing and ubiquitous nature of today’s technologies. It is hard to pin down exactly what it is, and where the boundaries are.
The Tower and the Cloud: Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing
Essays are organized in the following sections: Higher Education and Information Technology; The Globalization of Higher Education; Accountability; IT Governance; Open Information, Open Content, Open Source; and Scholarship in a Cloudy World.
In the first essay, author (and editor of the collection) Richard Katz ponders whether disintermediation has cut out the middle man — and the middle here being the IT department. He concludes it hasn’t, but role of the IT department must become more aligned with larger institutional strategic goals. He says “the strategic discussion about the evolution of virtualization, services orientation and delivery, open resources, web standards, and cloud computing is in fact a conversation about what constitutes the institution as an enterprise and about how…to manifest its…presence in cyberspace.” Good stuff. And in the spirit of openness the book is available as a download from the Educause site — or you can buy a print copy the good old fashioned way. Also check out the review at the Chronicle:
Wired Campus: New Book by Educause Explores Impact of ‘Cloud Computing’ on Colleges – Chronicle.com
Cloud computing is usually used to refer to applications that run on computer networks rather than on personal computers, but the book defines the term more broadly, wrapping in topics like open-source software and social-networking tools that seem increasingly popular at colleges.
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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