Documents Contributed by ECAR and Handheld and Mobile Computing

Presentation at the Sixth Annual ECAR/HP Summer Symposium for Higher Education IT Executives, June 11-13, 2007, Boulder, Colorado. This presentation was part of a panel discussion about the challenges of harnessing the power of digital content to support learning at scale in both institutional settings and in national efforts. They considered the potential roles of digital content as cognitive media and social media, and they used cases and models that highlight best practices and sticky issues.

This research bulletin documents how a small university adopted Tegrity, a relatively new technological innovation designed to enhance student learning of course material through note-taking hardware and software. The bulletin describes the challenges associated with the adoption of Tegrity, as well as the social changes that resulted from the adoption process.

This research bulletin describes the University of Cincinnati strategy for addressing a fundamental shift in communication technologies in higher education, and for meeting—or exceeding—community expectations for contemporary productivity tools on campus. It covers the decision factors and service models that UC is implementing in fall 2006 through its UC Mobile program.

May 23, 2006, presentation to the Big 12 Auditors.

This case study, which examines educational applications of mobile technology in The Netherlands, is ECAR's first case study from outside of North America. Three Dutch universities—Wageningen University and Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam—have worked diligently to incorporate 3G services into mobile applications used by students. Funded by the Dutch SURF Foundation, these institutions have explored flexible uses of technology in and out of the classroom, mainly through the GIPSY project and the Manolo project. Their experiences offer guidance and insights to institutions of higher education in the United States and elsewhere.

Through a series of case studies, this research bulletin describes the current state of wireless, mobile learning (m-learning) in higher education. It explores the impact of mobile technologies on new learning spaces and on teaching and learning behaviors, both inside and outside the classroom.

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a well-known pioneer in many uses of IT in higher education. In 1994, CMU was conducting about $20 million of research into mobile and wearable computing and crafted a vision of a wireless campus network. In 1995, well before the existence of 802.11x standards, wireless functioned either as a replacement for point-to-point links between buildings or to provide mobility for a piece of equipment. By 2000, CMU deployed wireless using 802.11 access points (AP) in 30 buildings (3 million square feet), with leakage providing limited outdoor coverage. This ECAR case study reviews CMU's AP placement, channel allocation, support and funding strategies. The study also reviews handheld/PDA wireless applications at CMU and gauges the impact of wireless networking at this university.