Clrtek Software

A slew of schools are testing out a blend of course management functionality and textbook content that could make for a simpler transition for institutions to the use of more digital curriculum.

Microsoft this week showcased some of its interoperability accomplishments reflected with the release of the open source Drupal 7 content management system.

The Document Foundation this week released LibreOffice 3.3, calling it the first “stable release” of the free, open source office suite, whose developers last year split from the OpenOffice.org effort, now managed by Oracle.

Columbia Southern University will be pulling financial aid processes in-house with the deployment of a new student administration system and portal.

Two schools in West Virginia are streamlining the payment process for students by using a new gateway feature added to a program used for registration with their non-credit classes.

Tianjin Polytechnic University, a technical university in Tianjin, China will be upgrading its smart card technology in an effort to improve security in payment processing activities campuswide.

Vidyo has launched a new plugin that enables HD video conferencing on IBM Lotus Sametime, a communications and collaboration platform that offers presence-awareness, document sharing, screen sharing, and application sharing, as well as text, voice, and video communications.

Hobsons, which sells ApplyYourself, will be offering its higher education customers Turnitin for Admissions, plagiarism detection software from iParadigms, as part of its admissions and enrollment management package.

Google has introduced a new education-focused area in its Google Apps Marketplace, which provides Web applications that integrate with and extend Google Apps.

A community college in Southern California will begin introducing custom textbooks into its courses in a partnership with media company Pearson.