Documents Contributed by ECAR, Internet2, and Open Source

This ECAR research bulletin addresses a unique strength of higher education: its commitment to sharing ideas and promoting open access to knowledge. These values shape IT in higher education as well, as evidenced by many high-profile collaborations such as the Internet, Internet2, and open or community source applications such as Sakai and Kuali. Institutions work with one another on a broad range of projects and services including wide area networking, shared data centers, or disaster recovery. Some institutions share staff, while others outsource their IT operation to a fellow institution. Using findings from the 2007 ECAR study on IT collaboration, this bulletin explores the challenges that suggest that collaboration may become an even more prevalent strategy in the future.

Presentation at the November 2004 ECAR Symposium. Open-source software (OSS) is not a fad—it is here to stay. While OSS provides additional choices and may lower software development and deployment costs, it is not free. OSS is changing the vendor environment, and it will be important to understand who will win and lose, as well as what the future vendor environment will look like. This session from leading industry advisor Burton Group will define OSS, identify its risks and benefits, review a market assessment and vendor software revenue models, and make recommendations for IT practitioners who are trying to make sense of OSS solutions.