The Future of Higher Education Business and Learning Applications

The global software industry is in the midst of a major evolutionary shift—one based on open computing—and this trend, like many transformative trends in technology, is being led by the IT staffs and academic computing faculty of the higher education industry. The elements of this open computing approach are open source, open standards, open architecture, and open communities. In this article, Patrick Carey and Bernard Gleason discuss future trends and resources likely to grow out of the open computing movement, including the development of modular components to address software needs and a communal approach to the development of new resources. Interoperability and integration will become easier as institutions establish an open, standards-based, service-oriented architecture that provides a flexible framework for the incorporation of various software tools. An open computing approach will generate practical innovation in the business and learning areas of higher education institutions as well as the cost savings that colleges and universities are desperately seeking