This is a great new search tool. However, the search results show the desperate need for those educational institutions–or Google, to clean up their websites.

After first hearing about the new College Kingdom educational search tools, I headed over to the site. The site uses the Google Custom Search Engine(TM). The search results come from Google, but those search results have been customized to include search results only from the schools’ websites. What’s cool is that you can easily search the websites of over 7,000 Colleges, Universities, Career Schools and Adult Education programs. What’s not cool is the amount of spam that still plagues these websites.

As you probably know, I’m a few years past my college years, so the “online marketer” in me decided to use the College Kingdom search tool to search for links. I first tried a search for “add url”. There literally appear to be thousands of results, but what’s disturbing is the amount of spam that appears:

There are a few search results that are appropriate, but the fourth search result shows a “acne” spam that appears on the NYU.edu site. I also see spam for Wellbutrin, Flomax, and other pills–in the top 10 search results. Just try performing a search for “wellbutrin” using College Kingdom’s search and the results are riddled with spam. Tamu.edu, sdsu.edu, and even ucsd.edu are even offenders: they have plenty of spam content on their websites.

Another interesting search is the search for “sponsored links”. If you’re searching for sponsored links–or places where you can buy a text link on a university website there are plenty of them available.

Don’t Blame College Kingdom

I certainly do not blame College Kingdom for showing all of this search spam. After all, there are generally two parties to point the finger at here: the educational institutions themselves for allowing the spam on their sites and not cleaning it up, and Google. Surely Google would be able to make sure that spam pages on .edu sites shouldn’t show up in their search results.

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Colleges Use Texting To Warn Students

In response to the Virginia Tech murders, colleges are reaching out to those who specialize in text- messaging systems. One such company is Omnilert, based in Leesburg, VA, which is now supplying over 250 colleges and universities with instant messaging capability through a system called e2Campus.

S. Daniel Carter, senior vice president of Security on Campus, a nonprofit organization based in King of Prussia, Pa., told the AP, "Nearly every major college and university in the country is either in the process of implementing a text message warning system or seriously considering do it."

At the University of Wisconsin, the school sent out bulk emails and bought an ad on Facebook to alerts students of a suicidal gunman who was on campus. University officials paid Facebook $100 to post a flier on the school’s social network. The ad instructed users to click on a link so they could stay informed about the search for the gunman.

While getting the word out in an emergency is important it can also present some challenges. James F. McShane, associate vice president for public safety at Columbia University told the New York Times that it can be difficult to create a message in a chaotic moment.

"You don’t know who’s out there," he said. "If you tell people to run, you’re telling people to abandon secure cover without really knowing what the risks are."

Even with the challenges that mass communication presents schools are taking advantage of the technology that is available in order to better communicate with students in the event of a crisis.

Pitzer, though, which sounds nearly vulgar (we’ll assume it’s named after someone and try not to be impolite by pointing and giggling), doesn’t have quite the recognition as Stanford, but was named one of the best 50 colleges by US News & World Report, so they must be doing something right over there.

The Yale Daily News Staff named Pitzer one of the "most artsy schools," too. We’ll also assume that to mean a certain, well, unorthodox approach to learning, and that they might not be able to throw a football.

But it’s all good…this isn’t the Eighties and Alpha Beta‘s not running things anymore.

"That’s the beauty of college these days," says Droz.* "You can major in Game Boy if you know how to bullshit."

Well, I think we’re just talking one class here, and not a major…yet. I did take a weight-lifting class in college, and karate, and acting, and one called International Approach to Dress (they called me crazy until they found out it was 49 girls and me in there) – you know, classes to help round out my education.

"Classes: nothing before eleven," says Droz. "Beer: it’s your best friend, you drink a lot of it."

What do you do in YouTube class? Well, you study what goes on on YouTube. The students have their own area on the site where they post videos and comment, and use YouTube as a tool to study American culture and Internet culture, and of course, American Internet culture. I’m back to counting words in my essays.

What exactly the class is seeking to learn about YouTube wasn’t clear in USA Today, but that initial WTF twinge you had wasn’t helped any by wondering how posting a video of yourself juggling is a form of study.

But Alexandra Juhasz, a Pitzer of a media studies professor there (couldn’t resist), brings up a more compelling reason to study YouTube later in the article: raising issues about "corporate-sponsored democratic media expression."

And that is a big issue. We’ve got a raging conversation going in the comments section of our article on CBS and bloggers about that very thing, and I’ve raised it previously when YouTube struggled with international censorship concerns.

A commentator at TechCrunch by the handle "Wakarimasen," (Japanese for "don’t understand," but without a pronoun antecedent it’s hard to know if he or she means himself/herself or Arrington), says:

it’s absurd to think that academic study should not examine a prominent contemporary phenomenon like youtube. this class may need some fine-tuning, but is sorely needed in our increasingly technological world.

I think Wakarimasen gets it, and most likely Pitzer gets it too. This citizen media thing is important and revolutionary and should be studied, even if users admit, from one of the latest student videos posted, they "look at dumb things" on YouTube.

 
_{*Yes, I’m quoting fictional characters. You got a problem with it? Talk to Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds. "CRITICS!" says Ogre. Get’em Ogre.}

“Google Courting More Students With Email”

Yes, everybody knows GMail rocks. Well, not everybody, the email service’s numbers, when compared to Yahoo and Hotmail, are abysmal.

Ears are pricking up across British and Irish campuses, the BBC reports, Trinity College Dublin hands over the email reigns to Google. The Mountain View, Calf.-based search company says it is seeking a lifelong relationship with students.

Trinity College Dublin’s move follows a handful of others, including Michigan and Arizona in the States, and Egypt, Kenya, and Rwanda.

Google likes academics, no doubt, because this where they get their best recruits, and cozying up to colleges also gets the company that much closer to its ultimate goal: indexing the world’s information. Google at the door of the university library is a dog that smells your steak dinner.

Hence all the scanning that is ensues over the next decade for the Google Books project.

And lets not forget all the pizza.

At this point, when Google is already so dominant in the market, we wonder if their recruiting efforts, which have successfully drained the talent pool from which its competitors dredge, are just to spite Microsoft and Yahoo.

We also wonder, if Google loves academia so much, why hasn’t the company made a bid for Facebook? The company missed the boat on MySpace, and Orkut is as flat as flat can be. With the collegiate network just sitting there pondering an IPO, you might do well to predict Google is thinking about swallowing it up. 

Wake Forest University, the University of Washington, and Vanderbilt University have all signed on to use Red Hat in their computing environments. Red Hat announced those schools were among several that have chosen Red Hat’s Linux distribution and support services for their environments.

Wake Forest opted for Red Hat when it came to building a high-performance computing cluster, as well as supporting some mission-critical applications. One of those applications, Program Link, is coming to the end of a three-year effort to build a cornerstone of Wake’s initiative for a wholly integrated digital campus.

“The University has an extensive collection of computing facilities that serve both academic and business needs,” said Jay Dominick, Assistant Vice President for Information Systems and Chief Information Officer, Wake Forest University. “Red Hat has played a critical role in the upgrade of our information infrastructureThe advantages for us in terms of support, availability and disaster recovery are substantial.”

The University of Washington operates the Center for Computational Biomechanics. Their use of Red Hat to bolster research projects at the Center with a high-performance computing cluster delivered some highly scalable performance increases.

For example, the Center could model a car crash in twelve hours under its former system. Using Red Hat, they have pushed that time down to about one hour to compute the results.

“The implementation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux gives our students the luxury of high performance computing, which, through the full integration of multi-host access, drastically cuts down on stress levels and saves the center time, money and resources while facilitating research discoveries,” said David J. Nuckley, Ph.D., Research Assistant Professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

At Vanderbilt, Red Hat displaced HP-UX and the rapidly aging HP3000 mainframes with Linux and Intel hardware choices. Data storage needs increased 1,000 percent per year according to Red Hat, and the HP mainframes were not keeping pace.

Considering Intel/Linux versus a new HP system indicated a 60 percent savings for Vanderbilt by opting for Red Hat. “It’s a huge bargain, and when we considered the added benefits of Red Hat’s support assistance with patching, security and the RHN GUI console, we felt we had everything to gain and very little to lose. Ultimately it’s about performance and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO),” said Kevin McDonald, Program Manager for System Administration at Vanderbilt.

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T-minus four days until a Senator’s daughter gets her trust fund raided and her car taken away.

So far, there are about 31 colleges and universities represented, with about 30 more to come.

But the Girls-Gone-Wild crowd shouldn’t get too excited just yet. You have to be a student or faculty member of the college, with a valid .edu email address before you can view the content.

This could only turn out badly, says DownloadSquad’s Jordan Running:

The feature allows students to start or join groups within their YouTube college, and connect with others who have the same interests.

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According to BetaNews, 72 colleges have already signed up, and more than 200 are discussing the option. Students at participating schools get an email address at their university’s domain, while using Windows Live Mail’s interface.

The goal: establish loyalty, since many colleges require students use their college email for class announcements. Since Live Mail’s interface is easier to use than the 90s era antiques at a bunch of institutions, that could make for a lot of grateful students. While at school, ads are not shown, although they might be turned on following graduation.

Since the email addresses are valid Windows Live logins, they work on any website with a Passport/Live ID login, and Microsoft hopes students, after being forced to use the addresses, will continue to use them for Messenger, Spaces, and all the other Windows Live services.

Who has signed up already? The Microsoft press release mentions Glasgow Caledonian University, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and the University of Texas Pan America. If you know of a school participating, feel free to drop a line below.

(via Ars > Digg)

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

Visit the InsideGoogle blog.

Professor John Gallaugher taught me how to think about the Internet and web strategically. His eCommerce class in some ways put me on the career path I’m now walking. After the conclusion of my senior year, I pursued my grad studies at Penn and did my best to take as many Internet and web strategy courses I could. And that was largely motivated by Professor Gallaugher.

Since graduating in 2002, I’ve been able to keep up with Professor Gallaugher’s research through his Week in Geek website. It’s the place he puts the syllabi for students and posts interesting Information System readings. I think many of you will really enjoy the Week in Geek.

Recently, he added a new feature, a podcast of his eCommerce lectures. I listened to a lecture yesterday and the only thing that disappointed me (besides less than perfect audio quality) was that I couldn’t respond to his questions.

I actually spoke to Professor Gallaugher over the summer, in seeking his advice about my start-up. He was just catching up on Web 2.0 but had some valuable pointers. WiG would indicate that he is now very much up to speed.

What is turning out to be an incredibly long project due to tremendous time and resource constraints, is working with him and some of his students to transform WiG to a blog. Professor Gallaugher is both blessed and cursed with technical abilities. He currently codes WiG in HTML by hand. It is a blessing because many professors lack the ability to get stuff up on the web. It is a curse because he does it so much that it becomes a bottleneck and inefficient time waster. Writing this entry, however, gives me new inspiration to try to put life back into this effort.

University 2.0 or perhaps Education 2.0 is the ultimate way that we can ensure learning really never stops. I’d love to read the blogs or listen to the podcasts of some of the professors and teachers I had throughout high school and college (ok, I don’t want to read anything about Advanced Calculus or Abstract Mathematics). Professor Gallaugher is a pioneer for University 2.0, like my fellow Corante Network colleagues Mark Hamilton and Bud Gibson are. Stanford definitely is too, offering a large number of lectures via iTunes. These are just a couple of examples but good ones at that.

And if you think that this sort of education has to occur while you are sitting at home in front of your computer, you’ll definitely want to read about what Robin Good calls MLearning. In the famous words of John Gallaugher, that gives me Geek Goosebumps (on a lighter and unrelated note, you’ll definitely want to check out this page Professor Gallaugher created for his second child, Maggie – very funny).

This entry is part of my week long series attempting to empower and educate people about Web 2.0 and its uses outside tech circles.

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Ken Yarmosh is a consultant who helps organizations get the most out of their technology investments. He works with technology users and creators across various industries, focusing on technology education and strategy. With over 7 years IT experience, Ken has worked with small businesses, non-profits, federal agencies, and multi-million dollar companies.

His online efforts include acting as the Editor for the Corante Technology Hub and authoring the TECHNOSIGHT blog.

The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) of 1994 mandated telecom companies to update switches to allow easy federal wiretaps. The rise of VoIP services has caused the FCC to extend that requirement beyond the telcos, the New York Times reported.

Anyone providing Internet access to customers, like ISPs, airports, libraries, or cities have to comply with CALEA as well. Universities fall into that mix, and have been voicing their displeasure with the expense. CALEA compels the service provider to make the updates at their expense, not the government’s.

The feds want to be able to monitor email, instant messaging, and VoIP upon obtaining a court order. Colleges do not dispute the need for law enforcement to investigate terrorists or other criminals, though they do disagree that monitoring will help. The spring 2007 deadline for compliance, as set down by the FCC, is the problem.

“It seems like overkill to make all these institutions spend this huge amount of money for a just-in-case kind of scenario,” Florida State University’s chief information officer Larry Conrad said in the report.

Already, lawyers for the biggest association of colleges and universities have begun planning appeals. The report did not state how much legal actions like these would cost the universities on top of the forthcoming compliance costs.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

As part of an 11 week module that will start in January next year, third-year undergraduates at the University of Leeds will be asked to hack into software and fix any security bugs they find, Nick Efford, senior teaching fellow at the School of Computing, University of Leeds, said.

Click below to read this article at the PCWorld.com website:

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PCWorld.com is the Web’s trusted resource for management-level buyers and users of computer products, reaching an average of 1.5 million unique visitors per month (netScore, January 2002 – June 2002). The site offers quick access to authoritative reviews of computer products, the most current product pricing information, continuously updated news, an extensive library of carefully evaluated freeware and shareware, interactive tools, and free newsletters. The winner of three Maggie Awards for Best Online Publication, PCWorld.com helps business managers plan, buy, integrate, and use computer products for work and home alike.