Overview and General Session Reports

Citation

Bagwell, C. (2001), "Overview and General Session Reports", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918aac.001

Overview and General Session Reports

Christine Bagwell

Overview and General Session Reports

Overview

Over 6,000 library, administrative, and academic computing professionals from around the world met in Nashville, Tennessee at the Opryland Conference Center for EDUCAUSE 2000 from 10-13 October 2000 www.educause.edu/conference/e2000. This was the second conference held since EDUCOM and CAUSE merged into EDUCAUSE in 1998. The symposium is a reliable investment as each year provides a reliable diet of new ideas, technologies, and colleagues in an engaging presentation. This year's conference was no exception. Though EDUCAUSE and the previous EDUCOM and CAUSE conferences are traditionally logistical successes, EDUCAUSE 2000 was streamlined. The new self-service conference registration model was a prime example. Participants were guided efficiently through rows of computer stations and were able to register or check-in via the EDUCAUSE Web site. Barring any payment problems, attendees then waited only a minute while their badges were automatically printed out. The corporate sponsors generously provided several workstations for the "Information and Message System". During session breaks there were the usual waiting lines of 15 people per platform (Mac, PC, and UNIX workstations). The many "Internet port tables", tabletops equipped with 10BaseT ports and DHCP-assigned network addresses, were instrumental in making the conference attendable by busy executives. They also saved several schools the up to $3.00 per minute connect fee charged from the Opryland hotel rooms. New this year was the wireless station adjacent to the Internet port tables. Surprisingly, several attendees had traveled with their wireless-enabled laptops and checked e-mail from armchairs instead of standing.

The Corporate Exhibits included over 150 vendors. In addition to the well-established academic software companies, new players such as Prometheus, makers of a new "course in a box" software package, made their EDUCAUSE debuts. Some companies had merged or been swallowed by other firms since last year, as with Intervu, now a part of Akamai. Booths ranged from hardware and software vendors to manufacturers of lab-protection equipment and furniture. There were several enterprise administrative accounting and planning packages targeted at the administrative computing professionals. Established vendors found new ways to enhance their booths. Cisco and Apple provided wireless Internet access from their exhibition space. Apple went as far as to bring park-type benches so conferees could catch up on e-mail from the vendor floor. Many vendors were inspired by this year's locale and replaced the standard giveaways such as mouse pads and mints with country-western themed gear. Microsoft ranked with the most creative: red, blue, green and yellow bandanas emblazoned with the Microsoft logo. Another vendor passed out straw hats that were well worn during the remainder of the conference and especially at the nighttime social events. Oracle provided massage chairs, enthusiastically recommended by one native Tennessean with the comment that it wasn't a usual offering at a southern conference.

Superfluous to the mission of the conference, but notable for its addition to the overall conference experience, was the food. The lunches provided by the Opryland catering department were delicious, such as roast beef sandwiches served with brie and éclairs. Whenever possible, a local Tennessee or southern favorite was offered at the snack breaks, such as pecan pies and the delectable Jack Daniel's Mousse Pie. (Jack Daniels, perhaps the best-known brand of whiskey in the United States, is distilled in nearby Lynchburg, Tennessee.) www.jackdaniels.com. Bartenders on hand to blend non-alcoholic Pina Coladas at the first 9:45 refreshment break were just one example of the careful and detailed planning that made this year's conference a sensation. Richard Katz, Vice President of EDUCAUSE, agreed that EDUCAUSE 2000 was a great success. "With some trepidation (as you can rarely delight every one of over 6,000 people), I feel that EDUCAUSE 2000 was magical. I am shameless and fearless about asking our guests their opinions and people seemed to genuinely enjoy the sessions, the facilities, and the camaraderie of their colleagues."

Novel Nashville and Omnipresent Opryland

Mid-October turned out to be a beautiful time to visit Nashville. Even attendees who traveled straight to Opryland from the Nashville airport received a glimpse of the rolling hills and abundance of lush trees. Nashville is known as the home of country music, Andrew Jackson, and more than 15 universities. Though chilly in October to those from warmer climates, it was quite sunny and comfortable during the daytime. However, many attendees did not experience the Nashville climate, especially those staying at the Opryland Hotel. As Scott Macklin, Director of the Program for Educational Transformation through Technology (PETTT) at the University of Washington, dubbed it, "the OpryLand bio-sphere" climatically controlled the environment keeping the temperature in a fixed range of 65 to 72 degrees. The Opryland Hotel Nashville http://www.oprylandhotelnashville.com covers 600,000 square feet under a 15-story glass dome. Opryland includes dozens of gift shops, restaurants, and even a revolving cocktail lounge. The almost 2,900 hotel rooms surround nearly nine acres of indoor gardens, waterfalls, and brooks. Another feature of Opryland is the constant sound of trickling water and piped-in music. It is rare to attend a conference where the hotel center itself becomes an active part of conversations and generates such strong opinions from the attendees. Unfortunately, not all were positive. "The window in my room could not be opened and the fan could not be turned off", complained Howard Strauss, Princeton's Manager of Academic Applications, when asked about his stay at Opryland. "This dried out the air in my room to the point of cracking my skin and making me feel ill. I resorted to running the hottest water I could in my shower for an hour or so before I went to bed just to humidify the place."

Without exaggeration, possibly every other conversation overheard at Opryland dealt with people who were lost, were trying to decipher a map, or were reminiscing about the last time they had drifted off course. One can only assume that Opryland was purposefully planned with meandering albeit confusing pathways. It forced conference goers to slow down and enjoy the tropical plants, fish, and rare trees. Even Dave Barry, the first keynote speaker of the conference, remarked that, "Amelia Earhart was found in one of the wings of the hotel". If nothing else, all in attendance were in agreement that Opryland was a novel locale for EDUCAUSE 2000.

General Sessions: Balance, Insight, and Humor

"Perhaps balance was the real highlight" of the conference, noted Richard Katz. "Our speakers variously touched our consciences and our funny bones, and gave us a good look at our roots and our future. I thought that there was unusual balance there." Dave Barry gave an entertaining opening address. Winner of a 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, he was the subject on which the television sitcom Dave's World was based. His popular syndicated column for the Miami Herald is read by millions of people each week. Scarcely a minute passed without Barry inspiring laughter from the crowd of participants. Describing his work, he said, "I sit around in my underwear and make stuff up... pretty much like a consultant". His advice on parenting was simple ­ threaten to embarrass your children. If your children won't behave in public, start singing. Regarding the 2000 presidential election, he reported that he "will be equally happy with either candidate elected by the American people, suppository or ointment". Turning to the subject of the conference, computing, Barry advised, "Hardware and software ­ good, but never put them together". He reported that he uses the Internet often for research related to his articles, although it habitually means spending all day to not find the exact fact that he's looking for, details he would never have sought out in pre-Internet years. "Thanks to the Internet, I'm wasting time faster than ever before."

Judy Estrin, CEO of Packet Design, Inc. and previous CTO and Senior Vice President of Cisco Systems, presented the second keynote. She openly admitted that she would not try to compete with Dave Barry's humorous example and turned to a serious, research-backed presentation complete with Microsoft PowerPoint images. She attempted to begin her presentation and was horrified to find her laptop in power save mode. Initially believing her PC-based laptop had crashed, she used it as an opportunity to note that she was "not known to be a fan of Windows". This was a few moments after mentioning that, in addition to serving on the boards of FEDEX and Walt Disney, she was also a member of the Sun Microsystems board of directors. Also noteworthy, Estrin worked on the TCP/IP protocol while at Stanford University.

Among her insights she shared that the next part of the Internet revolution was going to be "more about re-engineering processes around technology rather than changing the technology itself". Estrin felt that there was much to be learned from the telephony world, where the technology possessed maturity, stability, good accounting, and provisioning. The goal she felt would be to get the best of the data and telephony worlds without bringing along the worst of each. Though the Internet was based on an IP-based architecture where pods of networks can grow alone and then join, she felt the Internet is deficit in its deployment tools and on the whole immature. Though new technologies sometimes provide incremental improvement, she warned against new technologies that are based on older models, such as ATM. At the core of the new technologies are optics, which she felt would bring the much-needed ubiquitous bandwidth. Aside from needing to double the capacity of the Internet each year, Estrin believes a focus needed to be made on the "last mile technologies", such as DSL, cable modems, and wireless. This is especially true as people migrate to using services in different ways, such as wanting to be connected and "on" at all times. In addition to optics, she believes that the future of the Internet will be influenced by advances in silicon, with "higher functionality at higher speeds". Wireless will also be a big player, as will software that eases deployment, security, and mobility. In closing, she stated, "the next big thing is the Internet; we're not done. I think we're at the covered wagon stage of the Internet."

The last general session was delivered by David Halberstam, author of 11 bestselling books ranging from topics on sports writing to his most recent, The Powers That Be, a series of interwoven modern American historical accounts. Visiting Nashville provided a chance for Halberstam to revisit his hometown during his reporting days for The Nashville Tennessean. For Howard Strauss, Princeton's Manager of Academic Applications, Halberstam's talk was the high spot of the conference. "He may have been a bit too optimistic about the impact of technology and he certainly seemed to not notice that along with the good that technology brings comes some not so good stuff, but he was timely, articulate, and had an excellent grasp of the issues." Indeed, few will disagree that widespread access to information via the Internet and advances in innovative technological applications to every walk of life, be it medical, transportation, financial, or educational, will begin and has already begun to impact our society and culture in profound ways. However, loss of privacy and an over ability to invade one's personal time cannot be ignored as downsides to the boon that technology brings.

EDUCAUSE Awards

A dozen awards were given to outstanding professionals for both career and project-oriented accomplishments. A short video presentation featuring interview snippets and brief career biographies of the awardees was shown in the second general session. Ira H. Fuchs, Vice President for Research in Information Technology at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, was awarded the "Excellence in Leadership" award. Professionals from Hamilton College, University of Kansas, MIT, Wake Forest University, and Lousiana State University, to name a few, were also recipients. According to Scott Macklin, Director of the Program for Educational Transformation through Technology (PETTT) at the University of Washington and co-winner of the "EDUCAUSE Quarterly Contribution of the Year" award, there were several wonderful results of receiving his honor. "Oftentimes it takes outside exposure to illuminate and offer focus to local development and happenings. Having our peers rate our work as exemplary is a great kick as we continue our work as transformation and translation agents who amplify and leverage resources throughout our campus in terms of promoting innovations in teaching and learning. Also, receiving the award provided the opportunity for me to re-connect and brainstorm with my co-author, Mark Donovan (who is now working for RealNetworks)."

Diverse and Comprehensive Session Themes

As Richard Katz eloquently described, the conference showed great balance not only during the keynotes but also in the pre-conference seminars, sessions, posters, roundtables, and constituent groups. Arriving in Nashville a day early for a pre-conference seminar was well worth the additional expense and time invested. Topics ranged from sessions on redesigning workflow processes to ownership and intellectual property issues regarding online content to technical tips for course delivery. The Domain Sessions were divided into six distinct tracks: Infrastructure and Basic Services, Teaching and Learning, Managing Information Technologies and Resources, Information Systems, New Technologies: New Capabilities and New Opportunities, Signature Sessions: Patterns of Converging and Emerging and EDUCAUSE Track Issues. Two of the dominating topics were undeniably wireless technology and providing more services with fewer resources. Delivering instructional materials online, both for distance learning and as supplemental to instruction continued to carry great interest. While EDUCAUSE 1999 focused much on the question, "Should we put course materials online?", EDUCAUSE 2000 seemed to answer with not only a resounding "Yes" but also many "how to" sessions. Sessions with anecdotes of working models at other universities reinforced the value in attending an EDUCAUSE conference. Another popular focus was "portals", discussion of which was often accompanied with whispers of the word "passé". On the surface there was great talk of what is becoming known as the outmoded portal. However, discussions on the topic were generally contemplative and progressive in thought. If nothing else, there seemed to be a general consensus that the word "portal" is being overused and misused by vendors and colleagues. Portals as customizable versions of university sites or as metasites are converging on our field and are a key topic at many institutions.

Attendees also gathered informally in Constituent Groups and moderated Roundtables to reflect upon the wide-ranging interests at EDUCAUSE, from talks on managing IT at small colleges to installing advanced networking and implementing e-Reserves. The quality of many of the poster sessions was impressive. Other conferences of equal attendance often only attract 5% of the posters that are presented at EDUCAUSE. These sessions provided an excellent opportunity to chat briefly with others in niche interests divided into the same topics as the Domain Sessions. Educators, information technologists, and librarians related tips on models of network support that worked, and effective uses of online technology; and award recipients were given a chance to showcase their work.

Hospitality Night and Round-Up at the Wild Horse Saloon

The night-time social occasions at EDUCAUSE 2000, could scarcely have been improved upon. The Tuesday Hospitality night reflected great creativity from the corporate sponsors. Choosing a country/western theme for their "Hot Country Night", Toshiba provided live country music complete with line dancing instructors and look-alike country musicians. Partygoers were treated to digital pictures with their choice of look-alikes: Garth Brooks, Reba McIntyre, or Dolly Parton. The images in turn were displayed using Toshiba laptops connected to Toshiba projectors at screens on each side of the dance floor. For those who didn't feel comfortable on the dance floor, roulette, craps, and blackjack tables filled the back of the room. Dell Computer Corporation offered elaborate ice sculptures with Sinatra-style crooner music. SCT, Campus Pipeline, and WebCT joined to host a popular "Rock 'n Roll" party complete with live music, hamburgers, and mashed potatoes. George Washington University and Prometheus hosted a much calmer, albeit serious and work-oriented, "Champagne, Strawberries and CIOs" party that centered on their new product, a competitor to WebCT and BlackBoard.

As enjoyable as hospitality night proved to be, it did not compare with the "Round-Up at the Wild Horse Saloon". Attendees were shuttled from the Opryland to downtown Nashville's Wild Horse Saloon. A full block of Nashville's First Avenue was closed off and lined largely with buffet tables ranging from pork tenderloin, pastas, and salads to pies and chocolate-berry cobbler. Though the event lasted from 7 to 11pm, there seemed barely enough time to enjoy all of the evening's events. The offerings often showcased the south, such as the horse-drawn carriage rides, artists drawing cowboy caricatures, shoe shiners, and the trick ropester. The Music City Queen, a riverboat, offered rides down the Cumberland River to the music of a live Bluegrass band. Line dancing lessons and dancing were offered inside the Wild Horse Saloon. The DJs also taught line dancing between the "Thundering Hearts'" performance and the feature band at the river's edge. One infamous attendee was picked from the crowd and attempted to line dance under a spotlight with one of the DJs. This conferee, who was only identified as "Russ" possessed what Jerry Niebaum noted as an essential quality of a higher-ed computing person: a sense of humor. (Jerry Niebaum was one of the two winners of the EDUCAUSE "Leadership in Profession" award and is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Information Services at the University of Kansas.) Another treat was hearing the Neville Brothers perform "Tell It Like It Is" and other favorites live on the riverfront barge. Despite the thousands of conference attendees, the Round-Up provided what felt like a small, closely knit group of colleagues. Without crowds of people blocking every attraction, attendees could gain close access to the stage and enjoy a good view of the show. The Neville Brothers' lively performance was capped with a magnificent display of fireworks over the Cumberland River.

Conclusion and EDUCAUSE 2001: Indianapolis

EDUCAUSE 2000 was a logistical and educational success. The following session reviews exemplify the quality and diversity of the content and ideas presented. "The success of the EDUCAUSE conference depends on the talent, energy, and chemistry that bind our staff and our volunteers," Katz noted. "The 2000 program committee under Diane Balestri's leadership was a gem."

EDUCAUSE 2001, "An EDU Odyssey", will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana from October 28-31, 2001 http://www.educause.edu/conference/e2001/. Keynote speakers will include Sally Ride and John Seely Brown.