A thick loop of optical fiber forms the backbone of a new computing network connecting the University of Wisconsin at Madison to Iowa State University, the University of Iowa, and the University of Minnesota.

The network doubles university researchers' Internet access capacity. (For jealous home-computer users, that pumps it up to one million times the capacity of a typical broadband connection.)  It also has the capacity for drawing new research money, Wisconsin's acting chief information officer told Supercomputing Online, and attracting partnerships with other colleges that want to share the wealth. --Josh Fischman

It's early for a summer break, but a trip to Angel Learning Isle is a working vacation. Anyway, it's not real. On May 16, the new island will make its debut in Second Life, the interactive virtual world. Built to foster collaboration in the higher-education community, the site -- a joint effort of the software developer Angel Learning and the Second Life Educators community (SLED) -- is a place for educators new to virtuality to figure out how things are done. Teaming up to tear down a campus and redesign it is one possible use.

Newbies can stop by the "SLED Orientation Garden" and learn basic navigation and camera controls. Then stroll down the "boardwalk" and reach out to press a button that creates a classroom. Grab a tool from the "Educators Gallery" and design seating areas, lectures, and group projects. --Josh Fischman

Last week the University of California at San Francisco had to tell 46,000 users of its  campus computer system that their personal information -- Social Security numbers, bank-account identifiers -- may have been stolen by an intruder. Just who that intruder might have been still isn't known, but security experts are already weighing in on what UCSF did that allowed this to happen.

An analysis published today in Campus Technology surveyed several of those experts, who conclude that the university, among other things, used too little encryption on this data. "Encryption is one of the only security technologies that have been proven consistently to significantly lessen risk," says one data-guarding guru. Higher-education institutions, because of their open nature, tend to be a little lax on security, according to the story, and they only close the barn door after the data horse has bolted...

Microsoft devotes a lot of resources to shoring up networks (and home computers) against viruses and worms and other nasty cybercreatures. (Just ask any user bombarded with the software giant's frequent "security updates" and program patches.)

Now the company is throwing those resources behind a consortium that builds more-secure networks at colleges and universities, they announced at an Internet security conference yesterday.  The Microsoft Security Response Alliance--the company's Internet-safety SWAT team--is putting its weight behind the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC). Hosted at Indiana University, the awkwardly named center alerts academic institutions to network threats.

Allied with Microsoft, the center hopes to benefit from the company's technical knowledge to better solve cases of network insecurity. --Josh Fischman 

In the community-college world, there are the digitally aware and the digitally not-so-aware. To celebrate the high end, the Center for Digital Education has just released its annual list of 30 elite community-college digiratti, divided into three college categories: large, medium, and small.

The rankings are based on responses from administrators from nearly 200 colleges. That's a small portion of the 1,200 community colleges in the country, which makes it something less than an exhaustive survey. Nonetheless, rankings have a certain allure, and the American Association of Community Colleges was a full collaborator in the project. College officials were asked about the technology services offered to students, faculty members, and administration officials. Based on their answers, here are the top three in each category: Large colleges - 7,500 students or more: 1st: Florida Community...

Microsoft, championing the cause of worldwide student access to its Windows software, says such students are being deprived of Windows and Microsoft Office software by smugglers. So the company filed nine lawsuits last week against companies that, it says, are buying discounted software packages intended for students and reselling them on the Internet at marked-up prices.

The scheme involves companies, some based in Jordan, that buy software marked "student media" and "not for resale" and pass it along to Internet resellers, who then sell it to consumers at much higher prices. Because of this diversion, the inexpensive software never makes it into students' hands. 

Though the resellers are based in the United States, Jordan's minister of information, quoted in a Microsoft press release, says that smugglers in his country "will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." --Josh Fischman