Home > Research

Research

CIOs Play 'Increasingly Strategic Role' in Organizations

11/18/2008

Around the globe, CIOs are playing an increasingly driving role in strategy and innovation in their organizations, according to a new study released this week by the Center for CIO Leadership. But CIOs still have a considerable way to go before they become "full and active participants" in creating strategies, the study found.

Organizations Cutting Back on IT Security Staff

10/30/2008

The IT security function, as a percentage of total IT staff at enterprise organizations, appears to be in decline, according to an addendum on security in a research report released this week by Computer Economics.

Malware Disguised as Social Networking Tops Emerging Security Threats

10/17/2008

What's the top threat to data security going to be in 2009? According to the GTISC Emerging Cyber Threats Report for 2009 out of Georgia Tech's Information Security Center, the answer is malware specifically disguised as "benign social networking links."

Is Higher Ed Technology Keeping Up with Student Demand?

10/14/2008

Students see campus technology is a key factor in selecting a college or university and consider it critical for their professional development. Yet higher education institutions on the whole aren't keeping up with student needs in this area, according to a new report released Monday by CDW Government (CDW-G).

It's Time to Realize Procurement's Potential

10/8/2008

Electronic procurement can impact much more than simple transactions and individual business functions. John Mayes examines how institutions can gain competitive edge with an effective procurement strategy.

New Alliance To Research Gaming in Math and Science Education

10/7/2008

Video games have always had and probably will always have their detractors. But there's a growing movement in academia and industry recognizing the value of this medium as an educational tool both inside and outside the classroom. This week, eight colleges and universities added their inertia to this movement, joining with Microsoft to launch a new alliance to study the benefits of gaming for math and science instruction and STEM equity.

College Students Find WiFi Essential to Education, Survey Reports

10/7/2008

Ninety percent of college students in the United States say WiFi access is as essential to education as classrooms and computers, and nearly three in five say they wouldn't go to a college that doesn't have free WiFi, according to a survey by the WiFi Alliance and Wakefield Research. What's more, 79 percent said that without WiFi access, college would be a lot harder.

United States Tops List of Sources for Botnet Attacks

9/26/2008

The United States was the top source of distributed attack traffic, originating nearly three times as many attacks as second-place China, according to a recent study by security service provider SecureWorks Inc.

Malicious Code Hidden in Rich Content Files Tough To Detect, According to Finjan Report

9/26/2008

Finjan, a company that sells security products, said it has uncovered examples of obfuscated code embedded in rich-content files, and not just in HTML-based Web pages on legitimate Web sites. According to the vendor, code obfuscation remains the preferred technique for cybercriminals for their attacks.

Lecture Capture: No Longer Optional?

9/25/2008

Lecture capture has been gaining momentum in recent years, but that momentum is being outpaced by student demand. According to new research released this week by the University of Wisconsin-Madison involving about 7,500 undergraduate and graduate students, an overwhelming 82 percent of students said they would prefer courses that offer online lectures over traditional classes that do not include an online lecture component. The researchers also pointed out the implications for these findings extend well beyond the classroom.

Lecture Capture Drives Academic Gains at Saint Mary's U

9/19/2008

A new study by Saint Mary's University of Minnesota concluded that students who used the on-campus lecture capture archives, recorded by Tegrity, tended to have a higher cumulative GPA than those who didn't.

Education IT Spending, Fueled by Telecom, To Top $56 Billion by 2012

9/19/2008

In the United States, IT spending in education will reach $47.7 billion by the end of this year and is expected to top $56 billion by 2012, according to a new report from Compass Intelligence, an IT consultancy and market research firm. This growth in education--both K-12 and higher ed--is being fueled in particular by expenditures in telecommunications, collaborative technologies, and outsourced IT services.

Lumbering Global Economy Affects IT Industry

9/18/2008

The sluggish global economy has migrated to the IT industry, according to a survey released recently by Forrester Research. The analyst firm's somewhat gloomy outlook says 43 percent of companies contacted have reduced their overall IT budgets this year, while 24 percent are curtailing discretionary spending.

Is Blended Learning Effective?

9/17/2008

Blended learning sounds like a nice idea--mixing a traditional classroom environment with online components--but is it actually effective? It seems almost intuitively obvious that it is. And with the explosion of blended course delivery in recent years, despite the dearth of research, clearly education institutions take that point for granted.

Universities To Research the Education of Engineering Students

9/16/2008

A team of researchers from four universities has just received three grants totaling $1.1 million from the National Science Foundation to study how engineers are educated. Faculty from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, California Polytechnic State University, and the University of San Diego in California will be collaborating on issues related to recruiting, retaining, and educating engineers.

Security Researchers Uncover Spring Framework Vulnerability

9/4/2008

Software frameworks are enjoying enormous popularity these days among a range of developers. It's popularity well earned; frameworks provide powerful tools for building more flexible and less error-prone applications. They generally enhance developer productivity with out-of-the-box functionality. And they can free developers to focus on features instead of common coding tasks.

CUNY, Red Hat, Intel To Launch Open Source Test Center

9/4/2008

City University of New York (CUNY) is partnering up with Intel and Red Hat to launch a new software institute dedicated to open source software. The center, New York City Open Source Solutions Lab, based out of the CUNY Graduate Center, will serve as a test bed for government IT professionals in New York who are working with open source solutions.

IE Share Continues Decline, but How Far Will It Go?

9/3/2008

It's no secret that enterprise use of Microsoft's Internet Explorer is on the decline. The question is, How far is it falling?

Malware Dramatically Increasing; Almost All Users Have Clicked on Malicious Links

9/2/2008

Web security services firm ScanSafe reported that the total number of Web-based malware blocks has increased by 87 percent in July 2008 compared to the previous month. Specifically, the first two weeks in July have shown an extraordinarily high volume of malware blocks. ScanSafe sells online security services, which scan Web requests from its customers and blocks malicious content.

Vista Ramp Up Is Happening Now, Study Says

8/28/2008

Organizations may have been slow to adopt Microsoft Windows Vista, but expect that to change by late 2008 to 2009, according to a Forrester Research report by Benjamin Gray et al., published last week.

Report: Green Efforts Improving on Campuses

8/26/2008

More campuses in the United States have shifted their focus to environmental and sustainability programs, but funding and staffing issues have prevented them from implementing green initiatives on the scale campus administrators would like, according to a new report released recently by the National Wildlife Federation.

Vulnerability Management Needed for Security, Study Says

8/22/2008

Organizations can avoid attacks and minimize security cost overruns by practicing IT vulnerability management, according to a July study published by the Aberdeen Group. The study presents solutions for IT pros, helping them prioritize their patch management strategies for operating systems, applications, and network security frameworks.

'That Which Weaves Together': The NSF Cyberlearning Report

8/20/2008

Trent Batson takes a look at the National Science Foundation's Report of the NSF Task Force on Cyberlearning, "Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge."

Higher Education Fertile Ground for 802.11n WiFi, ABI Reports

8/14/2008

ABI Research has forecast that WiFi will be available in 99 percent of North American universities in 2013. Much of that penetration will be in the form of 802.11n equipment: Higher education is clearly the No. 1 market for early adopters of 802.11n.

Higher Ed Least Likely Sector To Adopt Energy Management Policies

8/5/2008

Information technology leaders in colleges and universities are more concerned about environmental issues than their counterparts in every other sector--corporate, state/local, federal, and higher education. But they are also least likely to have formal policies in place for addressing energy efficiency, according to a new survey released Monday by CDW Government (CDW-G).