Three documents have been released over the past couple of days that are important and interesting:
- The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009 is the latest report from EDUCAUSE’s research arm focusing on undergraduate students and their use and perceptions of technology. It’s always a well-done study and EDUCAUSE makes the full study (2.7 MB pdf) freely available to everyone so you should take a few minutes to glance over at least the Key Findings (330 KB pdf).
- The EDUCAUSE Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2008 Summary Report is another report released by EDUCAUSE this week. As the name implies, it’s a summary of results from the last round of data collection in the Core Data Service, EDUCAUSE’s database of educational technology information. This document is one of the best (and often the only) publicly-available empirical source of information on technology in higher education, particularly if you’re looking for campus-based statistics such as how much money is spent on technology, how many people are employed to support it, and what kinds of practices and technologies are being used.
- The Department of Education has released its final rules (2.12 MB pdf; search for “copyright” to find the specific areas of interest) specifying how to interpret the laws passed this summer requiring (Title IV-participating) colleges and universities to actively combat online copyright infringement. At first glance, the final rules do not appear to differ from the proposed rules.
I hope to find time to dig into all three of these documents in the next couple of days. I recommend that you do the same.
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