Fear of embarrassment is keeping teachers from using technology in the classroom, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Bristol, in England.

The study was conducted with schoolteachers instead of college professors, but the results may still be relevant on campus. Many of the teachers said they were comfortable using computers at home, but were reluctant to integrate the machines into their classes—because, they feared, savvy students would lose respect for teachers who couldn’t handle high-tech tools. (The Guardian)

In recent months a number of colleges have opted to prohibit campus e-mail users from automatically forwarding their e-mail messages to different accounts. Inevitably, students who have gotten hooked on Hotmail grumble about the policy.

But a student at the University of Texas at Arlington deserves special credit for the vehemence of his objection. After campus officials announced that they would put an end to automatic forwarding, Andre Santos, a computer-science major, fired off a profanity-laced e-mail message to the university’s assistant provost. Compounding that bit of questionable judgment, Mr. Santos also sent the missive to a campus listserv by mistake. (The Shorthorn)

Asking college students to cut back on using instant-messaging programs would be like asking them to stop breathing. But persuading them to use the software a bit more safely might not be so hard to do, officials at Duke University hope.

The university has unveiled a new server devoted entirely to making Instant Messenger and its ilk more secure. The server uses a security protocol called Jabber to encrypt students’ chat sessions—making it much more difficult for outsiders to intercept personal information relayed in the conversations. (The [Duke  U.] Chronicle )

It doesn’t take long for a computer lab to deteriorate from state of the art to out of date—especially if students are lining up to use the lab’s machines. Howard University opened a brand new computing center just five years ago, but students have already started complaining that the lab is plagued by malfunctioning hardware and insufficient repair schedules.

Campus officials say students aren’t making it any easier to keep the lab running: Years worth of spilled beverages and overtaxed printers have taken their toll, the administrators say. (The Hilltop)

In the increasingly intense battle to digitize books, score one for Microsoft: The company’s new MSN Book Search project has secured the rights to create an online archive of works from the British Library. Microsoft plans to scan 100,000 public-domain books—a total of about 25 million pages of material—from the library next year. (InternetNews.com)

The deal may help Microsoft as it mounts a challenge to Google’s controversial print archive, which kicked off the book-digitizing spree.

For more on Microsoft’s scanning project, see a recent article from The Chronicle, by Jeffrey R. Young.

Recent news reports have said Google has temporarily stopped scanning library books, amid controversy over whether the project violates copyright laws. But John P. Wilkin, an associate university librarian at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, says the company has continued scanning books there for more than a year. Google, he said, had held off scanning only copyrighted works, focusing instead on public-domain volumes.

The Library Project, part of the Google Print project, is digitizing and indexing books in an arrangement with the Michigan library, the New York Public Library, and the libraries of Harvard and Stanford Universities and the University of Oxford, in England. The project has come under fire, however—including two lawsuits from publishers and authors groups—because Google plans to scan not only books in the public domain but also those under copyright. The company...

Member colleges are girding for battle against a company that claims to own patents on audio- and video-streaming technology used by many colleges, the general counsel of the American Council on Education said on Monday. (The Chronicle, subscription required)

Grokster, the company that became a flashpoint in a protracted legal battle over online music and movie piracy, stopped distributing its peer-to-peer software on Monday as part of a settlement with record companies and movie studios. (The Chronicle, subscription required)

Walk onto any college campus, and students chatting on cellphones are almost as ubiquitous as jeans and backpacks. For the most part, college officials have grudgingly tolerated the behavior. Many don’t like it that students no longer make long-distance calls from land-line phones in dormitories, which used to generate a steady stream of revenue for colleges. And they are bothered that ringing phones and incoming text messages can distract students from class discussions. But several colleges are now finding a way to benefit from students’ obsession with mobile phones. The institutions are collaborating with start-up companies to offer students access to campus-related information on cellphones, such as a notice about a canceled class, an alert about a change of venue for football practice, or an announcement posted on Blackboard, a course-management system. (The Chronicle, subscription...

Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology can look online to see where their compadres are logging onto the campus’s wireless network at any given time, day or night.

MIT provides an online map depicting how many students are logged onto the network and their precise locations on the Cambridge, Mass., campus. It can even identify who a particular student is, if that person wishes to make that information public. Students can use the information to avoid the overcrowded cafe or, if interested, track the migratory habits of other students. (San Jose Mercury News)