Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/124472
technology Newsbytes n CLOUD COURSE The American University of Cairo in Egypt, the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and the National University of Ireland in Galway will collaborate to offer an online course in the management of information systems to expose students to what it's like to collaborate in the cloud. The course will be taught by Amr Badr El Din, associate professor of management of information systems at AUC; Gino Sorcinelli, lecturer in UMass Amherst's department of biology; and Murray Scott, director of the business information systems module at NUI Ireland. Each professor will offer online lectures; they'll use Microsoft 365 Lync software to allow students to work on team projects. n NEW ZEALAND NETWORK The New Zealand government plans to create an e-learning network for its schools in 2013. This project is part of New Zealand's Ultra-Fast Broadband/Rural Broadband Initiative, a project which, over the next ten years, aims to make public broadband speeds more than ten times faster than they are today. n BOSTON JOINS EDX The city of Boston, Massa- 64 May/June 2013 BizEd chusetts, has partnered with edX, the ever-expanding nonprofit online learning initiative founded by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Through BostonX, Harvard and MIT will make online courses available to Internet-connected community centers, high schools, and libraries in the Boston area, and work with local organizations to offer Boston residents access to internships, job training and placement services, and places for edX students to meet in person. n REFLECT AND LEAD GMAC has launched Reflect by GMAC, an online leadership assessment tool to help users identify their strengths and weaknesses in ten areas, such as innovation and strategic vision. It provides an online library of resources and offers advice that targets users' weakest areas. Created in partnership with Hogan Assessment Systems, Reflect costs US$99.99 and is available at www.gmac.cam/reflect. n FREE IATV The London School of Business & Finance (LSBF) will provide content for the newly launched InterActive TV (IATV), an online educational channel that delivers free live and recorded content 24 hours a day. IATV will stream live lectures, panel discussions, competitions, and other programming on its website and over its Facebook page. For information about IATV, visit www.studyinteractive. org/study-experience/iatv/. Life-Size Telepresence Comes to Wharton The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylva- nia in Philadelphia has installed new telepresence technology, developed by Cisco, which allows individuals to transmit life-size, high-definition visual communication to other locations. Wharton is now using the technology to link its Philadelphia and San Francisco campuses. Wharton's two "Cisco Connected Classrooms"—one on each coast—are equipped with 80-inch LED monitors on the side walls of each room and large projection screens in the rear. From the professor's viewpoint, students in the remote location appear to be seated in the rows directly behind students in the physical classroom; from the viewpoint of the remote students, the professor is projected at full size on a floor-to-ceiling screen. The school also will use Cisco's Capture, Transform, Share video platform to record lectures for students' future use. Millennials Are 'Digital Detectives' Admissions officers who think they're aware of all the ways that high school and college students research their schools may want to think again. A recent survey of high school sophomores, juniors, seniors, and college students shows that a significant portion of their interaction with a school's marketing channels may go undetected. Marketing firm Lipman Hearne recently worked with college search site Cappex.com to survey its users—a group that Cappex estimates to be 25 percent of the college-bound population. The survey attracted 11,244 respondents. According to the survey, 23 percent of the respondents were "stealth applicants," who conducted research— sometimes even visited campuses—but did not identify themselves until they submitted their applications to their chosen schools.