Orlando — Sure, it’s an exaggeration to say that all academic inventors think that their university technology-transfer offices don’t do enough pitching to get their inventions into commercial use, or that all tech-transfer folks think academics have an unrealistic (read: inflated) view of how attractive their inventions might be to companies and investors.

But that problem does often hang over such enterprises. And even under the best of circumstances, few would disagree that it would be better all around if researchers were better informed about how their inventions are being handled once they are disclosed to the university.

The backers of a Cornell University Web tool dubbed MyIP could go a long way toward closing that information gap.

The portal allows inventors who have reported inventions to the university...

As states and communities begin to look into ways they might engineer an economic turnaround, will regions where people are better educated have a leg up?

It’s an argument many publicly funded colleges may choose to make this year as they press their states for money. And now a new Web site from the Lumina Foundation — showing county-by-county data on the educational levels of adults — could help the institutions make that case.

The site includes state-by-state data on the educational levels of people who are between 25 and 34 years old. And for each state, it breaks the data down by county, which might prove particularly useful for community colleges eager to argue that state governments should invest more heavily in postsecondary education. —Goldie Blumenstyk