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Turn Your Laptop Into an Earthquake Sensor | Comment

Writing Students and Professors Fight to Keep Theses From Being Freely Available Online | Comment [4]

Educause Issues Statement on RIAA's Methods of Catching Music Pirates | Comment

ABC News to Open 5 University News Bureaus | Comment [10]

How a Lawsuit Over Electronic Reserves Could Affect Colleges | Comment [5]

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April 18, 2008

Celebrated Carnegie Mellon U. Professor's Book Sells Out

The book, The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon computer-science professor and a Wall Street Journal reporter is proving very popular, according to a blog post today on Librarian and Information Science News. Barnes and Nobles, and Amazon bookstores have sold out of the book, and Amazon’s Web site states that the book will be in stock again May 7. It is based on Mr. Pausch’s inspirational “last lecture” he gave at the university after discovering he had terminal pancreatic cancer. The book offers advice on how to live life to the fullest. —Andrea L. Foster

February 25, 2008

Lessig Says No to Bid for Congress

Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford University law professor and cyberspace activist, said today that he has decided not to run for Congress, saying that a successful campaign in California’s 12th District against Jackie Speier, a popular former state senator who is already in the race, would be too difficult. Only last week, Mr. Lessig said he was considering a run.

Mr. Lessig said the money people raised for his candidacy would go to his effort to reform Congress.—Andrea L. Foster

February 21, 2008

Lessig Moving Closer to Making Bid for Congress

Growing rumors about Lawrence Lessig running for Congress from California’s 12th District—encompassing Silicon Valley—are more than idle speculation. On Tuesday the Stanford University law professor and cyberspace activist announced that he is forming an exploratory committee to decide whether to seek the office. He says he will probably make a decision by March 1. The political action committee ActBlue, which raises money for Democratic candidates, says 392 people have contributed $30,666 to his candidacy. And a Web site that is pushing Mr. Lessig to run says his campaign warchest already exceeds that of Democrat Jackie Speier, a former California state senator who is seeking the congressional seat and earned the endorsement of Tom Lantos. Mr. Lantos held the seat before he died this month of cancer.

Mr. Lessig even has his campaign platform ready. As depicted in the 10-minute video below, it’s about combating the corrupting affects of money in politics, a system he likens to alcoholism. He wants members of Congress to agree to the following: accept no money from lobbyists or political action committees, support a ban on congressional earmarks, and support public financing of campaigns. He is working to start a movement via the Internet to accomplish these goals.

His movement raises an obvious question, though. Is he being hypocritical by taking campaign money from ActBlue? Mr. Lessig argues that it does not operate like a political action committee since it would be hard for a corporation to use ActBlue to funnel money to a candidate. Is he right?—-Andrea L. Foster

December 19, 2007

5 Most Popular Wired Campus Entries of 2007

Here’s what readers of Wired Campus clicked on the most:

1. Walt Mossberg Shows College Leaders His New iPhone — Days before the official release of the iPhone, Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal’s personal-technology columnist, gave attendees at The Chronicle’s Presidents Forum a sneak peek. He noted that the iPhone is just one sign of a major shift of computing away from PCs and into users’ hands through new mobile devices.

2. A MySpace Photo Costs a Student a Teaching Certificate — Sharing a picture of a night out partying as a “Drunken Pirate” got a student at Millersville University of Pennsylvania into trouble. After seeing the picture on Stacy Snyder’s MySpace page, university officials refused to award her a degree. Wired Campus readers reacted with more than 140 comments. The issue of educating students about the importance of guarding their personal information online remains hot this year. And as more professors join Facebook, they, too, might need some education.

3. U. Tube — As colleges update their official Web sites, one major new feature is video. At Loyola University Chicago, a section of the Web site called LU Tube features recorded speeches from visiting alumni and testimonials from students and professors. Also in 2007, the University of California at Berkeley became the first institution to set up an official channel on YouTube.

4. A Professor Pokes Fun at Copyright — A lighthearted video, composed entirely of clips from Disney films, makes an interesting argument about fair use. The video, by Eric Faden, an assistant professor of English and film studies at Bucknell University, was part of a trend of professors’ spreading their ideas through YouTube and becoming video stars.

5. The MPAA’s Most Wanted — The Motion Picture Association of America released a list of the 25 campuses that it says are the biggest hotbeds of video piracy. Colleges continue to feel under fire by the movie and music industries to crack down on illegal file sharing on campus, although some canmpus leaders feel that they are being unfairly blamed.

Thanks for reading and participating in the discussion. We’ll keep the posts coming. —Jeffrey R. Young

September 18, 2007

Campaigning for and Against a Paper Trail

Legislation pending in the House of Representatives that would require a paper record of each vote cast in every election is being promoted by computer-security researchers, including Edward W. Felten, of Princeton University.

But at a news conference today in Washington, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation urged the public to oppose the bill (H.R. 811), called the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. It stalled in the House this month over concerns raised by groups representing the disabled and state and local governments.

“We support verifiable audit trails, but we disagree that paper is the best solution or should be mandated to the exclusion of other technology,” the foundation says in a report released at the event. Rep. Vernon Ehlers, a Michigan Republican, supports the foundation’s efforts and was scheduled to appear at the event to promote his own legislation (H.R. 2360), the Voting Enhancement and Security Act of 2007. But he failed to show up.

The foundation argues that the integrity of elections can be maintained using only electronic ballots. Paper ballots can be modified, spoiled, stolen, and stuffed into ballot boxes, it notes. Those views are shared by at least one academic, Merle S. King, chairman of the computer-science department at Kennesaw State University. —-Andrea L. Foster

July 23, 2007

The Web as a Cure for Scholarly Isolation

Life for scholars was lonely before the Web, says the philosopher David Weinberger, a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and author of Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder (Times Books, 2007). In a debate with Andrew Keen, a Web 2.0 critic and author of The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing our Culture (Doubleday/Currency, 2007), Mr. Weinberger says that before the Web grew ubiquitous, “ideas were scarce…because space, time, and the limitations of paper made it hard to hear what others were saying and well nigh impossible to talk with them about it.” Now, he writes, “I am in contact with people who come up with ideas I’d never have encountered, who are sources of wide expertise.” —Andrea L. Foster

June 12, 2007

Attack of the CIO's

After Walt Mossberg called IT departments at large organizations “the most regressive and poisonous force in technology today,” he became subject to some venomous comments himself.

Mr. Mossberg, personal-technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, made the remarks in a speech to 250 college presidents and administrators at The Chronicle’s Presidents Forum on Monday. His belief is that large IT departments centralize the technology of their organizations too much, preventing people from pursuing their own choices of computers and software.

That comment seems to have peeved many college technology chiefs. On the Educause CIO listserv today, one person wrote, “It occurred to me that Mr. Mossberg may never have enjoyed the financial challenge of providing services to several thousands or tens of thousands of users, each of whom is free to select his or her favorite brand of equipment or software. Hope he gets the chance someday.” —Dan Carnevale

June 11, 2007

Walt Mossberg Shows College Leaders His New iPhone

Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal’s personal-technology columnist, picked up his review copy of the Apple iPhone this morning, and he gave his initial impressions of the much-anticipated gadget to college leaders during a speech at The Chronicle’s Presidents Forum.

As he pulled the phone from his pocket and explained what it was, oohs were heard from several audience members.

“I don’t know whether I’ll give it a good review or not,” he said, noting that he will use the phone for the next couple of weeks before writing his review. “I can already see some things I don’t like about it. I see some other things that I do like a lot about it.”

He said a crucial question was whether the iPhone’s touch-screen keypad is an adequate replacement for the keyboards on BlackBerries and other advanced cellphones.

“They are claiming that through clever software they have figured out a way for this to be actually far more accurate and efficient than you think it will be, and I’m testing that proposition,” he said. “And I can tell you that in the first hour it works a little better than I thought, but I’m still not sure it works as well as a regular keyboard — and the first hour is not a very fair test, so I’m going to keep going at it.”

Mr. Mossberg named cellphones as one of the top three technologies to watch at the moment, arguing that the era of the PC is ending. “The PC’s been a big deal. It has peaked.”

“This is the next level or elevation of the cellphone,” he said of the iPhone. “Not because it’s better or necessarily better than your Blackberry … but this runs a real computer operating system” and therefore can offer full-featured e-mail software on the go.—Jeffrey R. Young

October 16, 2006

At Princeton, Macs Inch Toward the Halfway Mark

Could Macs overtake PC’s as the computers of choice among Ivy League students? If the current trend holds, they may reach that goal surprisingly soon.

Officials at Princeton University have told the Daily Princetonian that 45 percent of the computers bought through the campus bookstore this year were Macs. That’s a university record, and it’s a sign that Apple’s academic growth spurt has not ended: In 2003 Macs accounted for just 15 percent of the computers bought at Princeton, and last year they made up 38 percent of the university’s sales.

Does your institution keep tabs on how many Macs and PC’s it sells? If so, what trends do your figures show? —Brock Read

September 22, 2006

Taking a Hard Line on Turnitin

When students’ papers are submitted to Turnitin, the widely used online plagiarism-detection service, they become part of a database against which all future submissions are checked. That database makes Turnitin an effective tool—but it has also raised concerns among students whose papers are going in the company’s permanent file.

At McLean High School, in Virginia, students collected more than 1,100 signatures on a petition opposing mandatory use of the service, according The Washington Post. The anti-Turnitin faction argues that the database violates students’ intellectual-property rights. And the high school’s use of Turnitin creates the sense that students are guilty until proved innocent, says Ben Donovan, a senior at McLean. "It’s like if you searched every car in the parking lot or drug-tested every student," he says.

Officials with the high school and with Turnitin say the company is careful to respect students’ intellectual-property rights. —Brock Read

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