2002 Show-Stopper Awards EDUCAUSE - Show Stopper University Business 2002

University Business, Nov, 2002 by Tim Goral

Welcome to the first edition of our new University Business Showstopper Awards program. Throughout each year, we will be bringing readers what they need to know most regarding products and services: which products and services their peers are judging as exceptional or worth serious consideration.

At last month's EDUCAUSE conference in Atlanta (October 1-4), we recruited an undercover panel of judges to walk the exhibit floor, visit vendor booths, check out the products, run through the demos, and report their most noteworthy findings back to us. The judges (listed below) are all higher education technology administrators who are also key technology-purchasing decision makers. Several judges commented that the adjudication exercise made them survey the exhibit floor even more seriously than they might have ordinarily, and compelled them to give extra consideration to how products might be used in their own institutions or others like theirs. We should add this disclaimer, however: The project--though intensive--is not a scientific study; the comments on the following pages are based on the judges' opinions only. Many thanks to our panelists for a job well done.

Sherry Clouser Clark
Instructional Design and Technology Specialist
University of Georgia
Athens, GA

Elizabeth Craft
Director, Distance Learning Technology
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ

Jan Gabrielson
Director of Technology, Washington College of Law
American University
Washington, DC

Thomas Gaylord
VP of Info & Instructional Technologies
Libraries & Inst. Planning
University of Akron
Akron, OH

Molly Gordon
Director, Educational IT Services
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH

Paul R. Hagner
Senior Advisor for Technology
Planning & Assessment
University of Hartford
West Hartford, CT

Bruce Higley
Assistant Director of CES-ITI Center
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT

Chuck Lanham
Associate Director, ITS
University of Idaho
Moscow, ID

Melissa J. Mills
Associate Dean of Arts & Sciences for Computing
Duke University
Durham, NC

Robert C. Zinck
Director, Business Information Systems
University of Dayton
Dayton, OH