IT directors curb music downloads, add Wi-Fi: the 2003 Campus Computing Project highlights major IT initiatives and concerns.

Each year the Campus Computing Report sums up the worries and hopes of those who handle IT technology for higher education. In this year's report, campus IT directors reveal unauthorized music downloads and copyright protection to be major concerns. At least two-thirds of the 559 private and public two- and four-year colleges and universities surveyed report having instituted policies to stop students from downloading commercial music and videos.

Campus IT directors know that their students are easy targets of the entertainment industry, explains Kenneth Green, the founding director of the Campus Computing Project (www.campuscomputing.net), the organization that publishes the Campus Computing Report. New policies and codes of conduct are ways to address the issue.

Almost all campuses participating in the survey (92 percent) now have some policy to stop students from pirating software; and 87 percent have codes of conduct to copyright book and journal content. Green notes that these policies did not emerge overnight. It has taken a few years for colleges and universities to officially address software piracy and the related problem of students downloading copyrighted content from coursepacks.

An impressive 77 percent of the campuses participating in the survey report having wireless LANs on campus--up from 58 percent last year. Just over 14 percent report that their wireless LANS are campuswide. Green expects Wi-Fi to be a growth area for campuses, noting that 45 percent of colleges and universities participating in the survey say that Wi-Fi growth is part of their strategic plans.

While this is certainly good news, many participants also say that budget cuts are affecting academic and administrative computing programs. Slightly more than 40 percent say budget cuts are hurting their efforts, compared to slightly more than 30 percent Last year.

Most startling are the number of IHEs that have experienced midyear budget cuts. Fully one-third (32.4 percent) of the survey participants report midyear cuts, up from 24.9 percent last year. The midyear cuts were far more common at public institutions.

The data also shows the growth of campus portals. This year, 28 percent of the IHEs participating in the survey conducted by the Campus Computing Project say they have Web-based campus portals. This is up from 21 percent last year.

There's indication that colleges and universities are making slow, steady gains in providing e-commerce and e-service applications. More than half of the survey respondents report that they can process credit card payments from the campus Web sites, up from 41 percent the previous year. Slightly more than three-fourths (77 percent) of colleges and universities now offer online course registration, up from 71 percent last year.

Despite these signs of progress, colleges and universities are still playing catch-up on e-commerce and e-service issues. "It's clear that the campus community is still roughly two years behind in its e-commerce/e-service offerings," says Green.

The benchmarks for e-commerce are stilt the popular commercial Web sites, such as Amazon, that students and staff use every day.

"[The commercial sites] offer far richer, more customized information and services than are commonly found on most college and university Web sites," Green concludes.

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