Remote Access

"Do you have a Yahoo e-mail account? Maybe a Gmail account? Do you put up pictures on Flickr? Perhaps you've started keeping your schedule online. If so, then you are using cloud computing — that's what tech companies call it when people work and store information on the Internet. "

Bryant University implemented the Citrix Presentation Server to provide students with access to lab applications on their laptops. Faculty and staff looking to "share" application licenses can do so using our Microsoft SoftGrid environment. This presentation will describe our technology and rationale for implementing these solutions.

Google Apps is a collection of web-based programs and file storage that run in a web browser. The applications include communication tools (Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Calendar), productivity tools (Google Docs: text files, spreadsheets, and presentations), a customizable start page (iGoogle), and Google Sites (to develop web pages). Google stores all of the files and content centrally and keeps a record of the different versions of a file. With Google Apps, sharing content is as simple as granting someone access, which facilitates collaboration, peer review of academic materials, and the collective generation of knowledge.

The "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.

More and more institutions are using Shibboleth to address both their on-campus and third-party access requirements. This case study will provide information about federated identity management (specifically, Shibboleth and the InCommon Federation) and how you can get started.

Researchers conducted this in-depth case study to complement the 2007 ECAR study, Shelter from the Storm: IT and Business Continuity in Higher Education, which provides higher education with empirical information about where its business continuity vulnerabilities, plans, and practices stand in relation to surveyed institutions, and what factors are associated with success in planning for the delivery of information technology-dependent business services following a spectrum of potential service disruptions. Senior IT administrators at 340 colleges and universities completed the quantitative survey that informed the study. This case study examines how one institution, Florida State University, uses high-speed networking to deliver disaster recovery and business continuity services from a remote site.