WEBSITES TO WATCH
Break Drink
www.breakdrink.com
Break Drink provides news and trends
in student affairs. Its Daily Dose section
includes updates from around the world,
and the site offers the opportunity to
listen to and participate in a variety of
podcasts. To post your own stories,
contact breakdrink@gmail.com.
College Web Editor
www.collegewebeditor.com
Read news, tips, and ideas about manag-
ing websites and online marketing for
colleges and universities. Launched
in 2005, the blog now attracts more than
8,000 visitors each month.
Campus Technology
www.campustechnology.com
Learn how colleges and universities are
using technology to reshape their cam-
puses. Discover how the latest technology
can be used to identify student prospects,
reach current students, and help students
develop electronic portfolios.
Blanchard Leader Chat
www.leaderchat.org
Leader Chat is a weekly blog about man-
aging in today’s work environment and
what leaders can do to create an engaged,
motivated, and productive workforce that
gets results. The blog provides a forum for
readers to explore, consider, and comment
on some of the pressing issues that leaders
face and to look at possible solutions from
a workplace culture, performance manage-
ment, and organizational development
point of view.
Management IQ
www.businessweek.com/careers/
managementiq
How can you manage smarter? Gain
insights from the brightest business lead-
ers, critique the latest management trends,
and add your own comments about lead-
ers in the news on this business blog.
PUBLIC POLICy continued from page 34
illegal, a summary of federal penalties for violating copyright law, and a description of institutional policies and penalties regarding unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing and
other copyright violations.
A number of “role model” campuses ( www.educause.edu/
HEOARoleModels) have been identified that have completed
a standard template documenting their own approaches to
compliance, which other colleges and universities may find
helpful. A comprehensive list of legal sources for online content
is also maintained at www.educause.edu/legalcontent, and the
Department of Education has noted that compliance with
establishing alternatives may be achieved by bringing such a
list to the attention of the campus community. Institutions
are free, of course, to establish site-license contracts or other
arrangements with commercial content providers, but these are
certainly not necessary for HEOA compliance.
The campus chief information officer will likely take the
lead in analyzing the institution’s technical options. One
particular decision worth exploring explicitly, and surprisingly,
links technology and student affairs.
There is widespread misunderstanding about “
technology-based deterrents.” The phrase is often interpreted as requiring
the purchase of a commercial product that monitors network
traffic and filters or blocks certain content. In fact, such commercial systems represent only one of four categories of technology-based deterrents specifically recognized by Congress
and the Department of Education. Among the systems are
network-management technologies, called bandwidth shaping
or traffic monitoring, that have been in place on most campuses for many years and contribute to a significant decrease
in file-sharing activity.
The surprise comes with the requirement for “a vigorous
program of accepting and responding to Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA) notices.” In complying with the
HEOA mandate to utilize one or more technology-based
deterrents, such a vigorous program has equal standing with
bandwidth shaping, traffic monitoring, and commercial net-
work filters. In the context of academic institutions, perhaps
this isn’t so surprising after all. Campus officials understand
the value of the teachable moment, and an infringement claim
from an aggrieved off-campus law firm provides the perfect
opportunity. It is universally reported that repeat infringers are
rare in these cases, and the Department of Education suggests
recidivism as a reasonable basis for evaluating the effectiveness
of an institution’s anti-infringement activity.
Steve Worona is director of policy and networking programs at
EDUCAUSE.
