Attended

Sunday, October 7, 2007
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\nCompleted the registration process for the conference. Met up with the other AU staff members that were attending and discussed which sessions would be best suited for each person. This helped reduce the amount of overlap that we had in the sessions and choose sessions that we felt would most benefit us and the university.
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\nMonday, October 8, 2007
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\nOpening Plenary
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\nThe opening speech from Bob Clougherty was on ever changing technologies and how they affect higher education today. Technology today is improving at a quick rate but not all of it is beneficial. We need to be able to discern what is relevant to higher education and what is just the new gadget of the week.
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\n“The One” Project
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\nThis was a presentation on how the University of Toronto Mississauga went about consolidating their services to students and staff. I found the benefits from this session was limited as most of the discussions were dealing with reducing the hassle (food card, printing card, photocopy card, etc) for students on the campus. 
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\nGet “Hook”ed on a Wiki
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\nValparaiso University presentation on how it went about deciding to use and implementing wikis. They discussed the need for information and communication to work cooperatively to improve workflow and communicate essential information to the staff. Wikis would allow us to move our step sheets for Banner processes to the web (internal) instead of word documents for easier access, easier edits by multiple people (assuming they have editing access), and quicker searches for specific information.
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\nWhat Happens at the End of the Outsourcing Contract?
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\nThis session was on the reasons for outsourcing, why it may not live up to the expectations, and how to prepare an exit strategy for outsourcing. Having had outsourced contracts in the past it was interesting to see and hear how other institutions handled the end of the contracts. By writing up a concise exit strategy they were able to avoid most (but not all) of the pitfalls usually associated with the end of a contract.
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\nStrategies for Managing the Generation Mix
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\nPresenters from Grinnell College, Valparaiso University, and Hamilton College discussed their research on how each generation handles things in the work environment. The session was open and allowed for participants to express their own experiences in managing, training, and the general handling of staff from each generation. With each generation preferring to be managed and trained in different ways this may help us in easing the pains that will come with upgrades to the systems that they use.
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\nTuesday, October 9, 2007
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\nWho’s Really in Your Top 8: Network Security in the Age of Social Networking
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\nRobert Gibson from the University of Delaware presented a session on the dangers of social engineering in these days where social networking sites are becoming bigger and bigger. This session was the most interesting session for me as I find social engineering and the amount of information that can be gathered from individuals amazing. Instant messaging programs and social networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook, and SecondLife encourages its users to share information and to meet new people. While this may seem harmless, most don’t realize the amount of personal and work information that one may willingly release, allowing them to be targets of identity theft and could pose security threats to any business. The steps that an institution may take to help reduce the dangers posed by social engineering.
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\nPoster Sessions
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\nThere were about 15 poster sessions this year. These sessions were not quite big enough to hold an actual sit down session but did have desirable content to those in attendance. The session that I found most interesting was from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico comparing traditional classroom and distance learning. They recently began offering courses by distance learning and did a comparative analysis of the courses that were offered in both traditional classroom and distance learning.
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\nWednesday, October 10, 2007
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\nLike Technology from an Advanced Alien Culture: Google Apps for Education at ASU
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\nA session offered by Kari Barlow and Jenny Lane of Arizona State University. They discussed how the university switched from its homegrown email client for its students and staff to Gmail within 2 weeks. The switch gives its students lots of storage space, spam filtering, calendaring, instant messaging, and the ability to sort, search, and tag email. Unfortunately due to the Patriot Act this might not be something that Athabasca University could use but might want to consider a Canadian based alternative if they are looking for a student email service.
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\nClosing Plenary
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\nThe closing plenary was done by James Hilton and titled Sunrise or Perfect Storm: Technology, Education, and the Knowledge Economy. Technologies are still changing at a quick pace but are all of the changes good. The current generation is growing up in the “Rip, Mix, Burn” society where most learn by doing the action. Academic institutions, on the other hand, still have the professor/student approach. This static learning model does not tend to attract the current batch of students. He discussed that although there is a threat, there is also an opportunity to change. 
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\nThis was a fun and interesting conference and I hope that I can use some of the information I gathered to help in the projects that I am involved with. 
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\n This was my first time attending this conference and, although it had less technical session than last year (from the information I have about last years conference); I would find it beneficial to attend again in the future.

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