Profile of Ellis Booker

Technology Journalist

News & Commentary Posts: 111

Ellis Booker has held senior editorial posts at a number of A-list IT publications, including UBM's InternetWeek, Mecklermedia's Web Week, and IDG's Computerworld. At Computerworld, he led Internet and electronic commerce coverage in the early days of the web and was responsible for creating its weekly Internet Page. Most recently, he was editor-in-chief of Crain Communication Inc.’s BtoB, the only magazine devoted to covering the intersection of business strategy and business marketing. He ran BtoB, as well as its sister title Media Business, for a decade. He is based in Evanston, Ill.

Articles by Ellis Booker

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CES 2015 Gadgets: Great Or Silly?

1/7/2015
Will connected dog collars, WiFi-enabled coffee makers, and similar gadgets enhance your life, or just deplete your bank balance?
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8 Wacky Cyberattacks Worse Than Sony Hack

12/31/2014
John Denver music on a loop. Adam Sandler inserted in your favorite movies. Forget Sony: These attacks would really drive the nation insane.
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6 IT Career Resolutions

12/19/2014
Resolve to polish your skills, value, and appeal in 2015 with these tips from recruiters and senior IT executives.
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7 Excuses To Avoid Family Tech Support

12/18/2014
Are you the family's unofficial IT person? The holidays are a dangerous time: Here's what to say when you're asked to fix messes.
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3D Printers: Why Nobody Needs One For Christmas

12/10/2014
Oh, by gosh, by golly, are you really going to print some mistletoe and holly?
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Kids And Tech: How Much Is Enough?

12/9/2014
On the question of kids and screen time, educators and cognitive scientists still have more questions than answers.
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6 IT Job Hunting Dos & Don'ts

12/4/2014
Don't flub your job application in the still-competitive IT job market. Pay attention to these resume and interview nuances.
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Magpi Mobile Data Tool Aids Ebola Fight

11/18/2014
Magpi helps healthcare workers collect and process critical information efficiently and reliably as they treat Ebola patients.
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In Government, No Excuse For Missing Documents

10/27/2014
To meet regulatory obligations -- and avoid accusations of cover-up and incompetence -- federal agencies must get serious about digitizing records.
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Throwback Thursday: Kaypro II Stole My Heart

10/23/2014
You never forget your first PC -- especially when it weighs 29 pounds and boasts a jaw-dropping 64 KB of RAM.
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Can IoT Slash Healthcare Costs?

10/22/2014
The Internet of Things in healthcare -- a profusion of IP-connected sensors on hospital equipment and patients -- has the power to drastically cut waste and save lives, says panel.
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Hortonworks Updates Hadoop Data Platform

10/17/2014
HDP 2.2 adds more than 100 new enterprise-ready features, including faster SQL querying on Hadoop.
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10 Robots Changing The World

10/15/2014
Driverless cars are just the beginning. Take a look at the robots we will depend on for health, work, and entertainment.
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MapR Offers Free NoSQL Database

10/15/2014
MapR-DB is integrated with the MapR NFS-compliant file system and made available with more than 20 different open source components.
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Cloudera Intros Hadoop Monitoring, Self-Provisioning Tool

10/14/2014
Cloudera Director tool leads off lineup of announcements, including upgrades to Impala SQL query engine and stronger security.
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Techies In Advertising: Hits & Misses

10/7/2014
Advertising didn't always treat IT professionals with much respect, but that's changing. Hapless techies are out; superhero product placements are in.
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Parenting Tips From IT Pros

9/30/2014
Make sure you're raising Junior the IT way.
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Tech In Far-Flung Settings

9/29/2014
Technology is finding its way into formerly inaccessible places, often with amazing or beautiful results. But are you ready for drone selfies?
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4 Awful Company Retreat Ideas

9/23/2014
Company retreats can be done right -- but not if they involve hypnotists. Avoid these event choices.
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FCC In-Flight Cellphone Ban: Fight's On

9/17/2014
Lobbyists and legislators urge the FCC not to reverse its 23-year-old ban on using cellphones during airline flight.
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Tableau Demos Standalone Mobile App

9/12/2014
Project Elastic for tablets lets users interact with downloaded data via swiping and two-finger zooming.
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Tableau Unveils Enterprise Tools

9/12/2014
BI vendor Tableau shows off live connection to enterprise cloud apps and promises 4X speedup of database engine to cater to large numbers of users.
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City Of Austin Broadens Data Analysis Efforts

9/10/2014
Austin picks MicroStrategy to help the city analyze data across municipal departments, from police and fire to maintenance and permitting.
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Ebola Fight Hampered By Poor Analytics

9/8/2014
Researchers and clinicians need better data to supplement sketchy reports from the field about Ebola's spread.
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HealthCare.gov Names Counihan Its First CEO

8/27/2014
Kevin Counihan, who ran Connecticut's successful state-based health insurance exchange, becomes HealthCare.gov's leader.
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US Military To Launch Open Source Academy

8/22/2014
Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Mississippi will offer open source training and Linux certification for military personnel and civilians in groundbreaking new program.
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Evanston Modernizes Government Services

7/28/2014
Evanston's goal is to make all city licenses, permits, and fees available in an interactive form accessible from any type of device.
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State Health Insurance Exchanges Limp Toward Relaunch

7/16/2014
Oregon's exchange has shut down, sending its workload to HealthCare.gov, and at least two others are keeping this option open for the next enrollment period that starts in November.
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Massachusetts Preps For ICD-10 Mandate

2/18/2014
To get ahead of October deadline for implementing ICD-10 coding, state launches unique statewide initiative.
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Do Doctors Need EHR 'Scribes'?

2/12/2014
Doctors should hire assistants to fill out electronic health records for them -- tagging along on exams if necessary -- to avoid job burnout, says ScribeAmerica.
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Big Data In 2014: Top Technologies, Trends

12/30/2013
What will the next year hold for big data? Here's what industry heavyweights predict.
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Hadoop Helps Pharma Firm Speed Up

12/19/2013
Cloud-based Hadoop solution helps pharmaceutical company Astellas compress pieces of its market research from weeks to hours.
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HIMSS Rates Hospitals' IT Maturity

12/5/2013
In Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's test to score hospitals' adoption and use of IT tools, only about 2% of US hospitals have achieved a top rating.
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Big Data Profile: Eliot Horowitz, MongoDB

11/26/2013
Child programming prodigy Eliot Horowitz says the answer to the demand for big data analytics is out-of-the-box tools anyone can use.
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3 Surprising Trends Among 'Pacesetter' Cloud Adopters

11/21/2013
IBM's latest global research on cloud computing kicks out a few unexpected correlations.
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What Car Will You Buy Next? Autometrics Knows

11/20/2013
Autometrics takes an hourly pulse of Web traffic at 150 car-buying sites to give auto makers predictive insights about buyers.
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Human Resources Tentatively Tries Predictive Analytics

11/20/2013
Knowing the probability of important employee events before they happen can have a big bottom-line impact.
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Tableau Helps Johns Hopkins Cut Emergency Stays

10/31/2013
Business intelligence dashboard software from Tableau helps Johns Hopkins Hospital reduce patients' emergency department stays from 11 hours to four.
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Find Data Scientists At Local Universities

10/16/2013
Looking for new IT talent? Establishing a relationship with local colleges and universities can be a win-win. Here's how to do it.
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Massively Parallel Processing Finds More Applications

10/16/2013
Parallel computing used on massive datasets is popping up everywhere to create everything from artificial brains to real-time video analysis systems.
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Big Data Profile: Tim Phillipps, Deloitte Analytics

10/3/2013
Tim Phillipps, global managing partner for Deloitte Analytics, credits his law enforcement background as sparking his interest in data analytics.
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Big Data Dashboard Design Lessons

10/2/2013
Graphical data dashboards can be a boon to decision-makers, but only if they're done right.
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Skytree Offers Second Opinion On Your Analytics Data

9/27/2013
Skytree's new service connects customers with live data scientists for more accurate and reliable data analysis.
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Why Recommendation Engines Are About To Get Much Better

9/23/2013
Expanding data sources, including social media sources, are making recommendation engines much more powerful.
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IBM's Big Data Education Outreach

9/17/2013
In the last decade, IBM has partnered with more than 1,000 universities to increase the world's pool of computer science graduates. Latest focus: Big data.
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Should You Outsource Analytics?

9/10/2013
Cloud-based data science services aim to fill the gap for companies lacking in-house business intelligence or analytics expertise.
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How Data Visualization Experts See the Future

9/9/2013
Data visualization software tools have kept pace with the growth of data and data types. Even better, these tools are getting into the hands of regular business people.
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MOOCs No Slam Dunk For Virginia Commonwealth University

8/30/2013
Rather than jump headfirst into online education, VCU created a task force, surveyed students and faculty and wrote a long-range plan.
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Vanderbilt Teases Students, Pleases Faculty With MOOCs

8/30/2013
Vanderbilt positions its massive open online courses as "educational outreach," not course replacements.
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MOOCs Proliferate Despite Unanswered Questions

8/30/2013
Universities investing in massive open online courses face an uncertain payoff.
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Wesleyan's Secrets To Successful MOOCs

8/30/2013
Wesleyan University polls students regularly and avoids flashy Hollywood techniques to ensure its massive open online courses are effective without breaking the budget.
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Will MOOCs Massively Disrupt Higher Education?

8/30/2013
Even as they grow in popularity, massive open online courses prompt debates about their impact on students, business model and role in the future of education.
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Where Do Data Scientists Come From?

8/27/2013
Data experts aren't uniformly distributed around the globe. Prepare to be surprised at some of the best countries and cities for data expertise.
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Big Data Profile: Michael Rappa, Institute For Advanced Analytics

8/26/2013
Creator of the nation's first master of science in analytics degree, Michael Rappa foresaw today's overwhelming need for data scientists.
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Howard University Expands Online Offerings

8/19/2013
Howard, the largest historically black college and university, partners with Pearson, looks to create 25 online programs during the next few years.
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Siemens: A Customer-Driven Refresh

8/9/2013
After five years in a declining market, Siemens Enterprise Communications took the bold step of rethinking its approach to market data to focus more on customer needs.
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Lumosity's Unique Big Data Set Feeds Brain Research

6/20/2013
Best known for mind-sharpening games, Lumosity is letting scientists study its database of 40 million players to see how the brain works.
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Iowa State Chooses Cloud For Phone System

6/14/2013
By switching to a cloud voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, ISU will save $600,000 annually on its campus phone network.
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Parents Press For Mobile Tech In Education

5/31/2013
More than 50% of parents believe schools should make added use of mobile devices in education, new survey finds.
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3 Reasons Linux Doesn't Star In U.S. Schools

5/29/2013
Why haven't cash-strapped American schools embraced open-source operating systems on the desktop?
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Linux-Based Education OS Gets New Features

5/23/2013
Edubuntu update includes several new packages, including a touch-typing tutor and a mindmapping tool.
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Art And Computer Literacy Overcome Challenges At NYC School

5/22/2013
Many of its students are disadvantaged and living in temporary housing, but this New York City school’s computer lab is making strides.
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Coursera Tests New Textbook Partnerships

5/8/2013
Coursera teams with publishers to offer some free textbook content to students enrolled in online classes.
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Students Want More Mobile Devices In Classroom

5/6/2013
Nine in 10 elementary, middle and high school students believe mobile devices will change the way kids learn, Pearson survey finds.
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Travel Stress Quantified Using Big Data

5/6/2013
Travel giant CWT uses big data science to examine the productivity costs of stressful business travel.
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Coursera Online Hub Offers Teachers Development

5/1/2013
Coursera and more than a dozen education partners will offer classes for K-12 teachers starting this summer.
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NewsiT Uses Big Data Tools To Verify Tweets

4/30/2013
Journalist and entrepreneur develops analytics platform to give companies confidence when crowd-sourcing news from social media feeds.
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Education Data: Privacy Backlash Begins

4/26/2013
Privacy and education experts sound alarms about the movement to capture and analyze more and more student data, even as edu tech companies decry ulterior motives.
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HP Unveils Online 'STEMx' Courses For Teachers

4/18/2013
HP Catalyst Academy will offer teachers MOOC-driven "mini-courses" on traditional STEM disciplines, plus other high-tech subjects.
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Education Giant Pearson Adapts To Digital Learning

4/17/2013
Pearson, the world's largest educational publisher, recognized older students as online learning harbinger.
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Educational Software Gets Graded

4/16/2013
Edu Star platform aims to give teachers, schools and developers empirical rankings of education tech tools, accelerating application innovation and deployment.
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Big Data Profile: D&B's Anthony Scriffignano

4/15/2013

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Google Glass Testing Goes To High School

4/2/2013
Meet an Indiana high school teacher who will take part in the Google Glasses beta test. One subject he teaches: innovation.
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Tableau Data Visualization Tool Gets Major Revamp

3/21/2013
Tableau updates data visualization tool to add support for mobile editing and APIs for a variety of cloud-based data services.
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Big Data Profile: FICO's Andrew Jennings

3/18/2013
FICO's chief analytics officer discusses mobility, machine learning, consumer empowerment and why big data is no savior.
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Educators Share Tech Struggles: From Tablets To Twitter

3/18/2013
Educators from around the world shared lessons on how to best utilize mobile, social and other technologies at annual ASCD education conference.
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Tableau Makes Visual Analytics Tool Free For Students

3/8/2013
Students enrolled at accredited schools worldwide can use the data-visualization desktop client that usually sells for $2,000.
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Carfax Selects MongoDB To Drive 11 Billion Records

3/8/2013
Vehicle-history service switches to open source, NoSQL database with an eye to exploring its massive data set in new ways.
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E-Textbook Pilot Puts College Books In Cloud

3/5/2013
Nationwide e-textbook pilot returns for second year to continue testing how post-secondary institutions might switch from printed learning materials to digital.
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Indiana University Models E-Textbook Success

3/1/2013
IU's e-text program, with nearly 10,000 students using digital textbooks, offers lessons learned for other universities.
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Who Owns Student Data?

2/26/2013
As data collection and data analysis in education grow, so do worries about student and teacher privacy. Is there enough protection?
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Tablets Rock On: Education Tech Through The Ages

2/22/2013
From tablets to Google Glasses, education technology has a colorful history. Take a look back and a peek forward.
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Big Data Myths Persist

2/21/2013
Big data hype has reached a level where some customers are actually avoiding labeling projects as big data, Tibco executives say.
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What A Data-Driven Culture Buys You

2/20/2013
Executives who believe their companies handle and share data well are more likely to say their companies outperform industry peers, says Economist study.
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Smartphones Hit Schools, MDM Vendors Don Thinking Caps

2/13/2013
Want to block Angry Birds while a student is inside your school's Wi-Fi geo-fence? There's an MDM app for that.
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University Data Sharing Project Takes Big Step Forward

2/8/2013
Predictive Analytics Reporting (PAR) Framework initiative publishes its data definitions, clearing way for researchers to glean information from anonymized student data that might result in ways to improve graduation rates.
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Monocle Harnesses BYOD In Classrooms

2/7/2013
Top Hat Monocle tool turns flood of student-introduced smartphones and tablets into teaching devices.
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CIO Profiles: Ken Harris of Shaklee

2/4/2013
Hands-on attention from higher-ups key to IT project success, says CIO for natural nutrition company Shaklee.
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Can Big Data Analytics Boost Graduation Rates?

2/4/2013
Almost half of the students who begin college at a two- or four-year institution fail to earn a degree within six years. Can analytics help?
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Early MOOC Takes A Different Path

1/30/2013
Focused on "workplace skills," Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online pursues a different agenda than other companies that offer massive online open courses.
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Big Data Profile: Ford Motor Company's Michael Cavaretta

1/28/2013
Ford predictive analytics group lead Michael Cavaretta talks big data, machine learning and what he looks for in new hires.
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Education Tech Investments Surpassed $1 Billion In 2012

1/25/2013
As venture capitalists pour money into educational technology companies, some wonder whether they are just building a new bubble.
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Big Data Profile: Booz Allen Hamilton's Josh Sullivan

1/17/2013
Dr. Josh Sullivan, VP at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, talks hiring challenges, big data consortiums, and more.
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Is 2013 Year Of The MOOC?

1/16/2013
Massive open online courses are forcing institutions to consider how to offer course credit and verify student identities.
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Swartz Suicide Puts JSTOR Academic Database In Spotlight

1/15/2013
Death of Internet activist Aaron Swartz renews debate over online content and copyright.
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Online Education Policy Draws Fire In California

1/10/2013
Higher education representatives and online education providers tussle over the impact of online, computer-mediated instruction on college students, faculty and budgets.
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AgilOne's Cloud Service: Predictive Analytics On A Budget

1/7/2013
AgilOne targets retailers lacking the technical infrastructure or personnel to develop a predictive customer model in-house.
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Why Moodle Matters To Teachers

1/3/2013
Free Web app for course creation and management has become increasingly popular since its arrival a decade ago.
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Big Data Profile: Mike Capone, ADP

1/2/2013
We sat down with Mike Capone, senior VP and CIO at HR software provider ADP, to discuss career decisions, analytics trends and more.
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Apple's Education Phenomenon: iPad

12/28/2012
iPad's popularity with students and instructors helped Apple break its own education market sales records in 2012.
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