Daily Spin: NWC Goes To Campus

University IT is crucial to Network Computing. One of our first labs was associated with the University of Wisconsin. Today, a number of our tech editors are affiliated with Syracuse University. So it seemed natural for us to take a closer look at the state of networking and applications on university campuses.

As Dave Molta -- who when he isn't writing for NWC is an assistant professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse -- writes, the key premise of our Tech U issue is simple: Universities are proving grounds for advanced network technologies.

What's interesting is that not all of the important IT work being done at universities is happening in their labs. So while we certainly felt it necessary to look at high-speed experimental networking efforts such as the National LambdaRail project, we also looked closely at how universities themselves have emerged as first-class businesses -- enabled by leading-edge IT departments.

For instance, university campuses are some of the most wi-fi-enabled spots in the world -- and among the most densely user populated. So we took a close look at how universities manage this unique wireless access challenge. Network access challenges are just as severe, so we looked at the security challenges associated with a peer-to-peer computing environment at the University of Florida. And what would a look at university networking be without an investigation into the state of distance learning and online collaboration