HIGHER EDUCATION AND ONLINE LEARNING - Setbacks and difficulties have kept
online higher education for-profit spin-offs from realizing success. Ventures at a number of
schools, including Columbia University and New York University, have been scaled back or,
in some cases, dropped. For example, the University of Maryland University College project,
was scrapped last fall. Many, however, believe that online learning can actually be better than
traditional education. According to Matthew Pittinsky, chairman of Blackboard, for every
failed venture there are five that succeed. Adam Newman of Eduventures believes that the
industry is seeing a refocusing of online initiatives so that they will succeed. See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1393-2002Aug27.html (Washington
Post, 27 Aug 02).

DISTANCE ED GROUP NOW OPEN TO PUBLIC - The Alliance for Lifelong Learning,
a non-profit distance education company run by Stanford University, the University of
Oxford, and Yale University, has a new name and is open to the public. Now called
AllLearn, the company's courses were formerly only open to alumni of the three supporting
universities. The venture, similar to Columbia University's Fathom project, will make about
50 distance courses available. Tuition for each course is $250, and each course will last
between five and ten weeks. A spokeswoman from AllLearn said the group always intended
to make the programs available to the public. Others question whether the decision was made
because the venture was not as successful as its founders had hoped. For the complete article
see: http://chronicle.com/free/2002/08/2002082201t.htm (Chronicle of Higher Education,
22 Aug 02 - Edupage 23 Aug 02)

INTERNET2, RELEASES OpenSAML - Internet2, the consortium of universities building
advanced networking systems for research, released OpenSAML, a building block for
standards-based network identity solutions, such as single Internet sign-on and secure Web
service transactions. OpenSAML is a free, open source reference implementation of the
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), developed by the global non-profit
consortium OASIS to allow authentication information to be exchanged among different
Web access management and security products. "Open-source implementations of key
protocols and technologies have been essential to making the Internet what it is today," said
Bob Morgan, senior technology architect at the University of Washington. "We think SAML
is an important technology and are promoting its adoption and evolution, in both open-source
and proprietary contexts ..." For more information, visit: http://www.opensaml.org
(Syllabus News, Resources, Trends, 6 Aug, 02)