TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIP CAUSING STIR AT CAL STATE
Heated debates are taking place throughout the 23-campus California State
University system over a university plan to join with corporate partners
Fujitsu, Hughes Electronics, GTE, and Microsoft in forming a corporation to
administer the system's technology infrastructure and to manage procurement,
user help desks, and other activities related to information technology.
David J. Ernst, the university administrator in charge of the system's
integrated-technology strategy, says the idea was a creative response to
state government's refusal to allow the institutions to charge students a
technology fee to fund necessary upgrades to the infrastructure. The
not-yet-final plan calls for the university system to transfer its
$80-90-million annual information technology budget to the California
Education Technology Initiative (CETI), which will then borrow money to pay
for improvements and be responsible for the resulting debt. Current members
of the university's technical support staff will have their salaries paid by
CETI. The current campus furor revolves around charges by some faculty
members and students that the deal, which provides the companies a ready way
to market their wares to the academic community, will give too much control
to corporations and thereby change the character" of the university system.
But a statement from Cal State officials promises: "Nothing in the proposed
final partnership agreement will shift campus authority for academic
policies and programs to the partnership." According to the plan, CETI will
begin operations in January and continue for at least ten years. (Chronicle
of Higher Education 10 Dec 97)
NIELSEN PEGS INTERNET USERS AT 58 MILLION
A new survey by Nielsen Media Research in cooperation with CommerceNet,
based on interviews with more than 9,000 people, indicates that some 58
million adults in the U.S. and Canada are now online. This is the largest
number estimate so far of adult Internet usage, and indicates a 15% increase
over the 51 million estimated by Nielsen six months ago. Several other
market research firms, using older data, have put the number at 35 million
to 45 million adult users in the U.S. alone. In addition to overall user
numbers, the Nielsen survey indicates that the number of people who've
bought something over the Internet has increased 50% in the past six months,
to nearly 10 million. More than half the respondents said they'd been
online within 24 hours of the interview, and about 20% to 25% of Web users
said they go online every day. (Wall Street Journal 11 Dec 97)
Luigi M Bianchi
Science and Technology Studies phone: +1-416-736-5213
Atkinson College, York University fax: +1-416-736-5766
4700 Keele St, North York, Ontario e-mail: lbianchi@yorku.ca
Canada M3J-1P3 http://www.yorku.ca/sts/