Thursday, October 25, 2012

Can Controversial Ocean Iron Fertilization Save Salmon?

What's been described as a "rogue" geoengineering experiment is really an effort, however flawed, to restore salmon abundance

By David Biello


dumping-ironADDING IRON: By adding iron to the Pacific Ocean, as pictured here, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. hoped to restore lost salmon abundance--and generate carbon credits too. Image: Courtesy of HSRC

In a bid to restore lost fish abundance, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. (HSRC) undertook to mimic the effects of a volcanic eruption by fertilizing the ocean with iron. The idea was to provide the missing nutrient for a plankton bloom that would then trickle up the food web and restore salmon?with the ancillary effects of gathering data on the ocean food web and, potentially, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

"What if this is a means by which ocean pastures can be stewarded and brought back to health?" asks Russ George, chief scientist of the expedition as well as a controversial businessman with a history of attempting to start CO2-removal schemes ranging from reforestation to ocean fertilization. "This is a tiny village of people trying to take care of their backyard."

Old Masset village on the Haida Gwaii Islands off the British Columbia coast did this by contracting George and others to initiate the largest such intentional ocean fertilization effort to date. It authorized the release of roughly 110 metric tons of iron dust, 91 metric tons of the iron sulfate fertilizer commonly used as a lawn treatment and employed in other scientific experiments, and nearly 20 metric tons of the iron oxide found in soils around the world. "It's micronutrient enrichment," Jason McNamee, operations officer and corporate director for the HSRC, told a press conference on October 19. "We took a bag of iron, and we slapped it over one square kilometer [of ocean]."

To do that, this past July the HSRC team motored more than 300 kilometers west from the Haida Gwaii Islands to an ocean eddy in the fishing vessel Ocean Pearl. The area had previously been scouted by collecting water samples since January and lies outside Canadian territorial waters. The team also used more than 20 autonomous oceangoing robots, including two bright yellow gliders and 20 Argo drifter robots on loan from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to survey the scene?work that is ongoing. Over the course of several days the researchers then released the 110 metric tons into the fishing boat's wake in an attempt to raise the levels of iron in the water from one or two parts per trillion up to five to 10, although both concentrations are estimates.

Satellite images as well as maps of chlorophyll abundance appear to show that the iron did indeed fuel a plankton bloom in August. But questions remain: Was it the right kind of bloom to bury carbon? Will it have any effect on the salmon?

Ocean restoration
The HSRC's basic idea is born out of marine biology as well as observations of the aftermath of volcanic eruptions in the region. For example, a lack of iron limits the growth of microscopic plants in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica and elsewhere, a fact that prompted marine biologist John Martin to famously muse: "Give me half a tanker of iron, and I'll give you the next ice age."

In the summer of 2008 Mount Kasatochi in Alaska's Aleutian Islands blew, sending volcanic minerals, including iron dust, far to sea and prompting plankton blooms across the Gulf of Alaska. At the same time, years and years of decline in returning salmon populations led researchers to expect few of the fry from 2008 to return in later years, only to find a record salmon run in Canada's Fraser River in 2010.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=658d00fad051340594bb186a65d57226

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Sign of the Times: Denver Post Challenged on Green Energy ...


(Photo credit: Mary MacFarlane)

A Colorado-based free-market think tank located in Denver challenged the state?s paper of record when it launched a media blitz that included a billboard (seen above) accusing the media outlet of ignoring one of the state?s largest green energy failures this year.

Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, challenged?The Denver Post?in a press release and blog post that accompanied the installation of the billboard, alleging that while the newspaper responsibly covered the story of Abound Solar when it received a?$400 million Department of Energy loan guarantee, it gave short shrift to the news surrounding the company?s demise, even after other local and national media outlets reported Abound?s bankruptcy and?pending local and congressional investigations.

?It?s sad that you have to rent a billboard every time there?s a story that should be reported in the news,? Caldara told Scribe.

Caldara laid out his claims in a press release and blog post he wrote last week:

In our own backyard is Solyndra on steroids, and not a peep from the?Denver Post. A politically-connected solar company gets a $400 million guarantee of government loans. And we learn of the Pat Stryker connection from?Complete Colorado.

When the firm went belly-up the company execs told a Congressional committee it was because of cheap Chinese competition. But when whistle blowers show that the product was so faulty it would catch fire, it was the?Daily Caller?that told the story. As one worker said ? it was a fine product, so long as you didn?t put it in the sun.

When documents were found suggesting Abound falsified its books to secure funding, there was no story in the?Post. You had to go to?Fox News.

When the District Attorney of Weld County opened a full investigation into Abound, you could find the story on?Channel 7, but not in the?Post.

When the US House Energy and Commerce Committee?announced a further investigation into Abound, the story made it to?Reuters, but not the?Post.

Caldara called the absence of any reporting on the company?s demise shocking, given what he described as the possibility of ?people going to jail,? pointing to the?ongoing investigation in Weld County, Colorado.

For Caldara, the circumstances surrounding Abound Solar?s meteoric rise, government funding, political connections, and well-documented failure?combined with what the investigations might reveal?could make the Colorado solar manufacturer?s story ?worse than Solyndra.?

Within a few days of the billboard?s appearance, the?Post?weighed in on Abound, listing the company alongside a list of other ?new energy economy? failures, with the bankruptcy at Abound and layoffs and shelved plans at other Colorado companies testing the ?resilience? of the ?vaunted ?new energy economy??:

At the least, the setbacks are a speed bump in Colorado?s effort to maintain a leadership status in renewable energy. At worst, they could significantly impair growth of the industry.

The combined layoffs, plant closure and mothballed projects in Colorado represent the loss of more than 1,000 existing and projected jobs, plus millions of dollars of tax revenue and spinoff economic activity.

Hard times for the green industries stem from a combination of technical challenges, low-cost foreign competition and an uncertain outlook for government support of alternative energy.

Abound Solar?s executives?laid the blame on Chinese subsidies on its own solar manufacturers and cutthroat pricing when they appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in July, just weeks after the company announced its bankruptcy plans.

But questions regarding the performance of the company?s solar panels that first emerged due to the digging of investigative reporter Todd Shepherd, documented extensively by the Daily Caller, did not disappear with the?Post?s?story. However, a story involving the installation of Abound panels by another Colorado solar firm instead appeared to independently confirm allegations that, instead of price competition, Abound Solar really suffered from poor product performance:

Namaste Solar of Boulder, one of Colorado?s largest solar-system installers, has used Abound panels for two projects. On one of the installations, using an early version of Abound panels, the equipment malfunctioned and needed to be replaced. The second project using a later version operated normally.

Namaste?s president, however, put the blame on the company?s failure to scale production and achieve cost-competitiveness as the reason for the rapid demise.

Mark Jaffe, the?Post?s?energy business beat reporter, dismissed the Solyndra comparison just a few days after the bankruptcy announcement from Abound, pointing to scaling, pricing, and other factors as evidence that the two bankrupt solar companies were unrelated except for both being recipients of DOE loan guarantees.

Later, Jaffe wrote about the??still shining? U.S. solar market in a post from early September. But in subsequent weeks, the business blog remained relatively quiet on the issue of Abound Solar, and a story about the new investigations at the local and federal levels, outside of local television media and other national outlets, was not forthcoming, even after the official investigations were made public.

This gap in coverage is what prompted Caldara to act.

?We put a billboard across the street from the Denver Post to remind them that they are STILL the paper of record in Colorado. And it?s time they stopped turning a blind eye to news that matters. We want the?Post?to succeed,? Caldara wrote.

?I want to see the Post survive and thrive. The state needs a trusted news source. But just like when a friend needs an intervention, the?Post?needs to hear the truth no matter how painful.?

Editors at the?Post?respectfully declined comment for this story.

**Disclosure: The author was previously an employee of the Independence Institute.

Source: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/23/sign-of-the-times-denver-post-challenged-on-green-energy-coverage/

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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Apple sets a crowded table for holiday shoppers

After Tuesday?s iPad event, Apple now has the strongest assortment of iOS mobile products it has ever put in front of consumers, who are more excited than ever about mobile computing. It?s a complex lineup, but it could force competitors to scramble for scraps.

Tim Cook is fond of saying that the great thing about Apple is that you can fit all of its products on one table. After today?s event, they?re going to have to get a bigger table.

Apple?introduced a slew of new products on Tuesday, including three upgraded Macs. But most interesting was the expansion of the iOS lineup. Not only did we get a smaller iPad today with a 7.9-inch screen (as expected), but a brand new 9.7-inch iPad just a few months removed from its last major upgrade. To be sure, the improvements to the larger iPad are mostly internal: it has a faster A6X processor, a bump up from the A5 processor?the third-generation iPad, and improved LTE radios that will make the device compatible with more carriers around the world.

Combined with the new iPhone 5, and the new iPod touch and iPod nano introduced last month, Apple has a lineup of new iOS devices that are less than one month old heading into the crucial holiday shopping period. It?s easily Apple?s broadest, strongest iOS product line ever ? and there?s no way it?s a coincidence. Because right now Apple is heading into a season of perhaps its most intense mobile competition yet.

The view from the top

Though Apple still finds itself at the top of the tablet world, the competition is giving enthusiastic chase. Google has a released a very well-received 7-inch tablet called the Nexus 7, although it?s unclear exactly how many have been sold, and Amazon is about to release a revamped lineup of Amazon readers and tablets for this holiday. And Microsoft later this week is going to introduce its first touchscreen tablet with new, integrated Windows software. Apple still has a huge lead: it revealed that it just sold its 100 millionth tablet in less than three years earlier this month, but the competition clearly isn?t sitting still.

In smartphones, too, Apple has found a serious challenger in Samsung, which sells millions more smartphones every quarter. While Apple is never going to take the volume approach and release a new smartphone or tablet every few months like some of its competitors, it looks like the company is making good on its ?price umbrella? philosophy when it comes to its broader mobile strategy ? it?s not going to leave a lot of room?for competitors to undercut it on price without sacrificing profit.

Despite the tweaks, the price of the revamped larger iPad is the same: the fourth-generation iPad ? or the iPad with Retina display, as Apple?s marketing materials are referring to it ? still starts at $499. The 9.7-inch iPad, going into the holiday shopping period remains the highest-end iOS device, and when loaded up with the top specs, can go for as high as $829. The iPad 2 occupies the $399 price point, and just below that is the iPad mini at $329.

Forcing the competition to the margins

As far as tablets go, Apple made a statement today. For customers looking to buy a tablet this holiday, or next year, Apple will be?offering something for anyone who?s looking to spend anywhere from $329 on up to $829, as the chart above shows. That?s a pretty big space to cover.

Certainly $199 to $299 Android tablets exist and could be plenty attractive to customers uninterested in Apple?s brand or in spending a little more ? but that?s probably why Apple spent so much time emphasizing how?7.9-inch screens offer 35 percent more real estate than 7.1-inch tablets. Apple?s move Tuesday forces Android competitors to compete against each other at the bottom of the market, whereas Apple can dominate the high end and middle (read: profitable) parts of the still-nascent tablet market. Time will tell how much volume those other companies can hope to capture.

Apple?s in a good place to easily reach a broad swatch of mainstream customers this holiday and going into next year. It?s a good bet the company?s momentum will continue on the strength of the lineup. But there are still some questions that remain:

Is it TOO much? Apple prides itself on simplicity. Now, there are a ton of choices, and that could overwhelm customers similar to the way browsing the lineup of Sony TVs or HP printers is too much. Still, this will force a good amount of traffic into Apple?s still-expanding number of retail stores this holiday season.

How far into next year is the lineup expected to carry us? Savvy customers know the iPad cycle; they?re released every March or so. Why did we just get a brand new device so soon after the third-generation device? It could be that Apple couldn?t justify selling a 9.7-inch iPad with an A5 processor right alongside an iPad mini with that same A5 processor, or it could be a desire to get the iPad onto the Lightning connector train. Either way, that helps them deal with the complexity issues: the fourth-generation iPad isn?t just bigger than the iPad Mini, it?s faster.

What?s it going to mean for unit sales in the middle of the year??It also potentially introduces some more confusion for potential buyers. Has Apple shifted the upgrade cycle of the iPad for the foreseeable future to the fall, in the way that it has for the iPhone? It seems that way ? it?s hard to see Apple being ready to introduce yet another new iPad next March.

That could mean that people would wait to upgrade to a new iPhone until the fall, and they could also wait til fall or winter to buy a new iPad. It means one, possibly two quarters, where the company?s two flagship products see noticeable sales drops, or put another way, don?t get a big sales boost from a new product ? as we saw in?the third quarter of 2011?and?the second quarter?of this year.

A holiday-oriented product cycle should be ultimately a good thing, because it means Apple won?t be going head to head with competitors every holiday with 7-month old iPads. But for now, it looks like having a great winter of sales could end up creating some havoc come earnings time in the summer.

Source: http://gigaom.com/apple/apple-sets-a-crowded-table-for-holiday-shoppers/

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Factbox: Obama, Romney positions on energy policy

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-obama-romney-positions-energy-policy-195854152--sector.html

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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Pay Inequality Makes for Better Science (preview)

Cover Image: October 2012 Scientific American MagazineSee Inside

Income inequality is rife in the world of U.S. science?and it's for the better

By Paula Stephan


TRICKLE-UP THEORY: Pay inequality has been rising broadly among faculty in science and engineering, as shown in this plot of Gini coefficients from 1973 to 2006 (from the National Science Foundation's Survey of Doctorate Recipients). In life and computer sciences, pay scales vary widely at all levels of experience; in engineering and physics, pay differentials are especially pronounced among experienced faculty.

Image: Arno Ghelfi; SOURCE: SURVEY OF DOCTORATE RECIPIENTS, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, 2011

In Brief

  • The U.S. leads the world in science by almost any measure. The resources devoted to university research have a lot to do with this success.
  • But the ability to reward high productivity with high pay is key to the success of U.S. research centers in attracting and retaining the best talent.
  • Europe, in contrast, treats its professors as civil servants, with pay awarded on the basis of years of experience rather than productivity.
  • Saudi Arabian schools are trying to jump-start their reputations by lavishing high salaries on visiting scientists, with mixed success.

The U.S. has long enjoyed a preeminent position in the world of science. The nation does more research, publishes more articles that are cited by more scientists and wins more Nobel Prizes than any other. It has also long been the chief destination for scientists and engineers from other countries?many U.S. Nobel laureates are foreign-born.


This article was originally published with the title The Other 1 Percent.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=ca1d1d7c5c7f0219420d52738fc77dca

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Introducing the Logitech G710+ Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

By Charles Bathel // on October 9, 2012
30 Comments + 25 Replies?

Filed: Gaming, Keyboards, Product

Today, we announced our highly anticipated mechanical keyboard ? the Logitech? G710+ Mechanical Gaming Keyboard. This new gaming keyboard combines high speed, quiet mechanical keys with dual-zone backlighting all in a performance-driven, no-nonsense design.

I?ve been using pre-production models of the G710+ for a while now and I think gamers will be really pleased with the attention to detail that we put in this keyboard. Honestly, keeping quiet and not telling anyone about this keyboard was one of the hardest things I?ve ever had to do at Logitech. We used premium mechanical switches that give both a tactile key-press feel but also reduce the typical clicking noise that some other mechanical switches have. Each key also has a built-in dampening ring to reduce noise distractions even more. And with an expected key cycle life of at least 50 million keystrokes, this keyboard will keep even the most serious gamers in the game for a long, long time.

Gaming has specific demands that you don?t have in day-to-day PC use, so we designed the keyboard with a full anti-ghosting matrix and 26-key rollover. This means you can press up to 26 keys simultaneously and all the keystrokes are fully reported to your computer. While almost no game would ever require 26 keys to be pressed simultaneously, it gives gamers the flexibility to press any key combination they want, when they want.

The adjustable dual-zone backlighting is another feature that?s targeted to give gamers the maximum use with minimal distraction. Gamers can adjust the backlight level of the WASD and arrow keys separately from the rest of the keyboard. In low light situations, this will give gamers another advantage by minimizing the chance of missing their gaming home row while playing.

Like our other G-Series keyboards, the keyboard has a full set of six programmable G-keys, convenient media controls, and our game mode switch that allows users to prevent accidentally pressing the Windows key. Plus, it looks just plain cool.

Check out the video below to learn more about how the new Logitech G710+ Mechanical Gaming Keyboard can sharpen your game, and let us know what you think in the comments.

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Tags: Gaming, gaming keyboards, Keyboards, logitech, Logitech G710+, Logitech gaming, mechanical keyboards

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Source: http://blog.logitech.com/2012/10/09/logitech-introduces-g710-mechanical-gaming-keyboard/

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Turkey intercepts Syrian plane as tensions mount

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) ? Turkish jets on Wednesday forced a Syrian passenger plane to land at Ankara airport on suspicion that it might be carrying weapons or other military equipment, amid heightened tensions between Turkey and Syria that have sparked fears of a wider regional conflict.

The Syrian Air jetliner was traveling from Moscow when it was intercepted by F16 jets as it entered Turkish airspace and was escorted to the capital's Esenboga Airport, the state-run TRT television reported.

Hours later, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the Airbus A320 with 37 passengers and crew would be allowed to leave, but its cargo had been confiscated.

"There are elements ... that are not legitimate in civilian flights," the state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Davutoglu as saying. He did not provide details but said authorities continued to examine the cargo.

Davutoglu earlier told Turkey's TGRT television that the plane was intercepted on suspicion it was carrying illicit cargo to Damascus.

"If equipment is being carried under the guise of civilian flights or if they are not being declared, then of course we'll inspect it," he said.

"We are determined to stop the flow of weapons to a regime that carries out such ruthless massacres," Davutoglu added. "We cannot accept that our air space be used for such aims."

Hurriyet newspaper's website, citing unidentified intelligence officials, said communications equipment, wireless sets and jammers were found on board. NTV television reported that authorities found "missile parts."

Syrian Information Minister Omran Zuabi declined comment.

Davutoglu said Turkish authorities had also declared Syria's airspace to be unsafe and were stopping Turkish aircraft from flying over the civil war-torn country.

The move comes as tensions between Turkey and Syria are running high. The countries, which were once close allies, have been exchanging artillery fire across the volatile border for days.

Earlier Wednesday, Turkey's military chief vowed to respond with more force to any further shelling from Syria, keeping up the pressure on its southern neighbor a day after NATO said it stood ready to defend Turkey.

Gen. Necdet Ozel was inspecting troops who have been put on alert along the 565-mile (910-kilometer) border after shelling from Syria killed five Turkish civilians in a border town last week. Turkey has reinforced the border with artillery and also deployed more fighter jets to an air base close to the border region.

"We responded and if (the shelling) continues, we will respond with more force," the private Dogan news agency quoted Ozel as saying during a visit to the town of Akcakale.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday that Washington has sent troops to the Jordan-Syria border to help build a headquarters in Jordan and bolster that country's military capabilities in the event that violence escalates along its border with Syria.

The revelation raises the possibility of an escalation in the U.S. military involvement in the conflict, even as Washington pushes back on any suggestion of a direct intervention in Syria.

In Syria's largest city, Aleppo, regime troops and rebel fighters exchanged fire for several hours in and around the historic 13th-century Umayyad Mosque, said local activist Mohammed Saeed.

He said rebels were trying to drive out regime troops holed up in the downtown place of worship, and that by nightfall the shooting had stopped. The mosque is one of the landmarks of Aleppo, along with its medieval covered market, or souk, which was largely gutted last month in a huge fire sparked by the fighting.

Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said local activists told him fighting was restricted to the area near the mosque, but that no fighters entered the site itself. The Observatory relies on reports from a network of activists in Syria.

Aleppo has been the scene of intense fighting, particularly since rebels launched a new offensive two weeks ago to try to dislodge regime troops. The fighting has devastated large areas of the city of 3 million, Syria's former business capital.

Earlier, Syrian activists also said the rebel units of the Free Syrian Army took control of Maaret al-Numan, a strategic city along the main highway in Idlib province that connects the central city of Homs with Aleppo to the north and the capital Damascus.

Abdul-Rahman said the rebels took control of the city late Tuesday. He said the rebels control the western entry into the city, while the military is massing troops along the eastern outskirts for a possible counter offensive.

Fadi Yassin, an activist in Maarat al-Numan, told The Associated Press on Skype that rebels were in control of the city, although fierce fighting continued around the military barracks on Wednesday, three days after the opposition launched a "liberation battle."

"The city has been liberated," Yassin said. "All liberation battles start with small cities and then move on to the major cities."??

Holding onto Maaret al-Numan would be a significant achievement for the rebels, enabling them to cut the army's main supply route to Aleppo and Homs, both of which came under bombardment from the regime's helicopters and artillery on Wednesday, according to activists.

The Anadolu news agency reported fighting between Syrian rebels and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime around the town of Azmarin, in Idlib province, across from the Turkish border. It said Syrians were fleeing homes in the Azmarin region, some crossing into Turkey by boat?over the Orontes River, which runs along the border.

Footage from Anadolu showed women, children and elderly men being transported from Syria to Turkey on makeshift rafts and boats.

Private NTV television reported that explosions and automatic weapon fire could be heard in Turkey's Hatay province, coming from Azmarin. It said rebels were clashing with some 500 Syrian government soldiers, and that at least 100 rebels had been injured, some of whom had been brought to Turkey for treatment.

Some 99,000 Syrians, mostly women and children, have sought refuge in Turkey since the start of the conflict.

Also on Wednesday, state-run news agency SANA said Assad appointed Sattam Jadaan al-Dandah as Syria's new ambassador to Iraq. The report did not say when al-Dandah would travel to Baghdad. His predecessor, Nawaf Fares, defected in July, becoming the most senior diplomat to abandon Assad's regime during a bloody 18-month uprising that has morphed into a bloody civil war.

Meanwhile, the U.N. envoy on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday on the first stop of his diplomatic tour of the Middle East. His spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said Brahimi would "hold wide-ranging talks on the prolonged crisis in Syria."

___

Barbara Surk and Zeina Karam in Beirut and Frank Jordans in Istanbul contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-intercepts-syrian-plane-tensions-mount-213239643.html

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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

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Microsoft Offering Free Boingo Wi-Fi in SF and NYC

It's no free food or schwag, but Microsoft is sponsoring free Wi-Fi access through Boingo in San Francisco and New York City to generate buzz around its Windows 8 launch.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/13M3fnPZyWU/

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Penske Media buys Variety

Penske Media is buying the industry trade magazine Variety for an undisclosed sum.

The publication has covered Hollywood for more than 100 years and is still considered a top industry news source.

The Reed Elsevier Group said in March that it would put Variety up for sale. It recently sold its other U.S. print magazines as it turns its focus to its business data services.

Penske Media Corp. said Tuesday that it plans to expand Variety's presence around the globe. The digital media and publishing company owns a number variety of lifestyle news brands, including the Hollywood news website Deadline.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-10-09-Penske%20Media/id-30a003a4c8f34d2aade94065445a9ba9

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Cost of Higher Ed & Technology | Ravi's Blog

We have been traveling a fair amount during the past couple of weeks ? once to Chicago to visit my son and then to Charlotte and Greensboro, NC where my wife is participating in a conference. I have been meeting up with a good friend in Charlotte and playing golf. I drove two hours each way twice to play. Yup, it is crazy. Yesterday, after getting up at 5 AM and driving down for a 7:30 AM tee time, I almost began doubting weather.com. As you can see in the picture on the left, at 7:30 AM, this is how the golf course looked and we could hear a distant thunder or two and see lightening. However, as predicted, the storm passed quickly and we ended up playing in 50 deg weather on a soggy course.

After my friend introduced me to his other friends and they ask me what I do, the discussion predictably turned to why Higher Ed costs so much. A few of them, like us, have one or more children in College and it is hard on everyone who has to pay what we all have to pay. Since I know a thing or two about the financials of the institutions I have worked in, I tried to explain how, as a non-profit organization, the Higher Ed institutions have worked extremely hard to reduce the budgets and it is very hard to look for where to cut more. Of course, they don?t buy it. I also pointed to the fact that we all have choices when it comes to where we want to send our children to school based on costs, but we all value education so much that this is one area where we are probably not going to make hard choices or take chances.

This topic of increasing cost of higher education is a hot topic and technology is predicted to be a savior! There are all sorts of futuristic arguments on how technology can help reduce the costs and increase productivity, but specifics are lacking. Frankly, if technology could actually help curb the cost of Higher Ed, with the advances we have seen in the recent past, why has this not happened?

Technology in Higher Ed has a long history. Very first computers were installed in large research universities -?MARK 1 in 1944 at Harvard and ENIAC in 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania ? and were used for scientific research. Then in the ?60s the concept of time sharing revolutionized the way computing was done. By the ?70s, many institutions had access to computers for use with their business processing in addition to scientific research. The real explosion took place in the 80s with the arrival of mini and personal computers and the exponential growth since then has radically transformed the technology landscape in Higher Ed. For a good review of the early history of computers in Higher Ed, please read this 1997 article by Andrew Moinar.

While these advances were happening, College administrations realized that the ?old? way of dealing with computer software where the programmers on staff wrote critical business and utility?applications?either by themselves or through collaborations were not reliable enough. They helped support the adoption of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software from industries to Higher Ed. Banner is our ERP software. All of this began happening in the late ?80s. Higher Ed Administrations also realized around this time that taking advantage of emerging technologies was no longer a choice because the students and many faculty were demanding them and that unless they commit to adopting new technologies, they may be left behind. This required enormous financial commitments ? both in capital and human resources. Early to mid ?90s saw the creation of larger IT departments with significant budget allocations.

In many institutions, the ?90s and early 2000s were financially favorable times for a variety of reasons ? overall financial environment was positive, considerable increase in College bound youngsters resulting in increased demand etc. This resulted in investments in technologies that now we realize may not have been wise. For eg., during those times, individual departments in institutions were empowered to make their own technology decisions without a coherent strategy. This resulted in a mish-mash of products (calendar software for events management, niche financial analysis software, alumni relations system, customer relationship management, one card access, student judicial system, credit card processing etc. etc.) Over a period of time, one realizes that no product can ever satisfy the complete needs of an organization. Changes needed central IT resources which were already spoken for, therefore consultants were hired to do the work, resulting in significant additional cost. Frankly it was and continues to be a huge mess in many institutions.

The most recent financial crisis resulted in trimming of IT resources and budgets and we are trying to sort out how to continue to provide the best possible services with reduced resources. What I have just described point to the fact that all through the greatest ever revolution in technologies, technology has been a contributor to the increase in cost of Higher Education and not help reduce the cost! So, when one proposes that technologies will help reduce the cost of Higher Ed, they are mostly referring to the emergence of online courses and the scale that it offers. They are really not talking about drastically reducing the technology budgets (and somehow that translating to reduced tuition) in the brick and mortar part of the institutions.

There are many ways in which we can think about reducing the technology budgets ? going to open source where possible, reducing the number of paid software that are currently in use and using the free software to accomplish tasks in more efficient and better ways, managing the hardware budgets more wisely by moving to the cloud where appropriate, etc. etc. In many cases, the funds that are saved from these steps simply are used to fill other gaps. In our case, we are using the savings to manage several unfunded or underfunded initiatives. One could argue that this results in net savings to the institution because we are not asking for additional funding for certain critical operational tasks, but, you see, we are still unable to return significant money back. Why is that?

In many cases, it requires significant changes and no one likes the C word (Change). Change is precisely what will help us drastically change the way we do business. For eg. we continue to purchase hardware at levels that are higher than needed in this day and age where most of the work happens on the web and the need for the beefed up hardware configuration is not necessary. Trying to affect this change through the selective deployment of thin clients can potentially halve the hardware cost over a period of ?time. In a few cases this will be a change that will be highly disruptive and painful. There will be a brief period when the user may experience slow performance (which we will of course address and correct). Similarly, as I wrote before, we can go all wireless and save money in not replacing the switches required for hardwired connections. Even if we could convince the whole community to adopt to these changes, the savings, in comparison to the tuition, will be?minuscule! Besides, the future students are going to be arriving expecting whatever the latest and greatest technologies that they are used to.

What has happened over the last several years is that the technologies have helped the administrative departments do their work in much more efficient ways that ever before. They have also helped tremendously with the way we communicate, the faculty teach (with learning management systems, classroom technologies etc.) & student learn. Technology is core to the operation of a higher ed institution and there is an implicit assumption that the central technology organizations will continue to help the institutions adopt new technologies with existing resources.

A polite way to capture the current situation is that we are in an ?Expanding Universe?. ?We seem to be in a constant state of expanded service delivery with existing resources, which, in the best case, can keep the costs down and in the worst case continue to increase the cost (because new services mean new investments). By the way, this applies not just to technologies, but to many other services we provide as an institution. Reduction in Higher Ed cost can only come from drastic reduction in services to everyone involved and that is a hard thing to do. Note: Expanding Universe analogy is more appropriate for the best case because in an expanding universe, energy is not conserved, instead there is a net loss of energy.

I strongly believe that technology?s role in an academic institution will continue to remain highly relevant and extremely important. Whether it will help reduce the cost depends on a lot of external factors ? local culture being the most important one. Where many institutions are shifting their focus is therefore how best to leverage technologies to increase revenues. This is where the MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) and other forms of online education is being looked at seriously by many institutions as a new revenue opportunity.

The institutions that adopt this new form of teaching and learning and do it well will succeed in attracting large number of students. After a few years, these will mature to a point where accreditation agencies are likely to evaluate and put their seal of approval on a subset of them. Students needing official credentials from these classes will be asked to pay a much smaller fee than a residential student who is admitted to an institution through normal admissions process. Hopefully, this will inspire the employers to begin accepting these credentials for the evaluation of ?job candidates. Over a period of time, revenues from online registrants will help offset the costs to the institution and may result in reduced tuition to other students. At least, this is the line of thought that has been proposed.

It is obvious that technology is important for all of this to work well and making sure that it works perfectly will require creative thinking on the part of the technologists.

Exciting times ahead for all of us working in higher ed!

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Source: https://blogs.wellesley.edu/ravisblog/2012/10/09/cost-of-higher-ed-technology/

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Monday, October 8, 2012

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