The American Council on Education will file a lawsuit today challenging a new federal requirement that could force colleges to overhaul their computer networks so that law-enforcement agencies can monitor online communications. College officials say that making the changes could cost billions of dollars. (The Chronicle, subscription required)

A grand jury on Wednesday indicted a 43-year-old student at Texas State Technical College for allegedly downloading hundreds of items of child pornography using a computer in the college’s library. The incident is reportedly the third such arrest in three years among the library’s users. (The Brownsville Herald)

Vermont Technical College is the latest institution to realize it had mistakenly posted the Social Security numbers of its students online. In this instance, a former student did a Google search on his name and found that his and all of his classmates’ private information—including names, addresses, and SAT scores—had been available for nearly two years. College officials immediately removed the data and promised to put the staff through further computer-security training. (CourtTV.com)

Microsoft has designated the University of Massachusetts at Amherst as the first "Microsoft IT Showcase School." Microsoft and the university will collaborate on developing new ways for using and teaching about information technology, and Microsoft will contribute an undisclosed sum to the university. (Portsmouth Herald)

At the Educause meeting, computing officials from the University of Indianapolis demonstrated how they use open-source software called Shelob to detect and quarantine computers on the campus network that are infected by computer viruses. (PC World)

An archive of 52,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and liberators, collected by a foundation started by Steven Spielberg, is moving to the University of Southern California. At a ceremony on Thursday, the filmmaker said the move would help fulfill his vision of the archive as a teaching tool. (The Chronicle, subscription required)

Stanford University is making hundreds of Stanford podcasts available free to anyone through Apple Computer’s popular iTunes Music Store. The podcasts include lectures by the university’s professors, music from its students, and play-by-play descriptions of its football games. (The Chronicle, subscription required)

Microsoft is establishing a $1.2-million-a-year fund to underwrite the work of academic researchers who will help bring information technology to people in developing countries, the company announced on Thursday.  (The Chronicle, subscription required)

As predicted, disaster preparation has been one of the main themes of this year’s Educause conference. Today, attendees heard blow-by-blow accounts of how two of the institutions most affected by Hurricane Katrina tried to ready themselves for—and respond to—the storm.

Brian D. Voss, the chief information officer at Louisiana State University, described his role in helping LSU set up a support center for the evacuees who ended up on campus. He also offered disaster planners some advice on how to preserve key data and set up a temporary technology center if computers and cellphones were knocked out.

"Think what you would pack into an 8’x12’ van that you need to re-establish services," Mr. Voss told the audience of technology officers. "Your administration is going into exile, and they’re looking at you to support them."

John D. Lawson, the vice president for information...

Scott McNealy, the CEO of Sun Microsystems, has long promoted the use of open-source software, in which volunteers work collaboratively online to build and improve computer code. Now he hopes to bring the same basic concept to the development of online teaching materials. In a keynote speech on Wednesday at the Educause annual meeting in Orlando, Mr. McNealy announced the creation of a nonprofit organization called the Global Education and Learning Community, which will provide a framework for educators to work together to develop and distribute educational resources online. For now the project is focusing on K-12 education, but in an interview after his speech, Mr. McNealy said that he hopes to extend the system to higher education eventually. "It’s optional. No  parent, teacher, or student has to use GELC content, but it’s there," he added. "It’s just a broader and deeper and richer...