Improving the digital campus - Product news: higher-education and technology products, projects and services - Brief Article

Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Education, Oct, 2001

Campus Pipeline--whose popular Web platform product unifies academics, administration and community life into a central network of people and services--has introduced six new ways to improve the digital campus. The new products will be bundled and sold in two separate packages.

The first package consists of Personalized Content Delivery 1.0, a product designed to enable institutions to make every constituent's campus experience as unique and tailored as possible. It presents page views based on an individual's specific role (i.e., student, faculty, alumni) or major. Personalization extends beyond content to the design of colors and logos, allowing campus departments to save resources by leveraging the platform rather than purchasing a separate portal application. System administrators will save time by delegating content updating privileges to non-technical managers.

Handheld Sync 1.0 allows information within the Campus Pipeline system to be synchronized with the increasingly pervasive handheld devices running on Palm or Windows CE operating systems. The first application to be synchronized will be the Campus Pipeline calendar.

Secure Transport 1.0 provides an automatically configuring, point-to-point, secure data transport channel between the Campus Pipeline Web platform and any software that the institution integrates with it, preventing eavesdropping and data tampering.

The second bundle offers Group Portal 1.0, which improves the way campus groups form and stay connected by providing a private Web community they can manage themselves, rather than through the IT department. It contains a streamlined workflow process that provides the institution with better control over both the groups and content created. The Group Portal will include a variety of community tools such as message boards, chat, photo gallery and news postings.

Group Maker 1.0 is geared toward the IT administrator and increases the targeted messaging capabilities already provided in the platform by making it possible to target specific audiences and send announcements based on any attribute in the enterprise information system. Creating and administering group lists becomes easier and postage fees can increasingly be diverted to other areas.

Finally, Course Consolidator 1.0 eliminates the need for instructors to manage course home pages for every course and course section they teach. This product allows instructors to save time by consolidating the sections and managing a single course homepage. It also helps coordinate access to the tools and information sources needed for online learning environments regardless which vendor the institution chooses.

For more information, visit www.campuspipeline.com.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]