From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Microsoft Will Give MIT $25-Million (Chron of Higher Ed)
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:12:22 -0500
Microsoft Will Give MIT $25-Million for Educational-Technology Research
By VINCENT KIERNAN
In a $25-million deal it plans to announce this morning, Microsoft Corp.
will underwrite research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to
develop information technology for use in university education.
The five-year project, named "I-Campus," will include individual research
projects on topics such as on-line mentoring, multimedia resources, remote
collaboration, and administrative software, said officials from both M.I.T.
and Microsoft Research, the software company's basic-research division.
"We want to see if we can bring together one of the world's great software
companies and one of the world's greatest technologically oriented
universities and see if we can make a difference in higher education," said
Thomas L. Magnanti, M.I.T.'s dean of engineering. "My hope is that together
we will be able to create some magic."
In addition to the research funds, the deal makes it possible for scientists
from Microsoft Research to collaborate with M.I.T. faculty members on
technology projects, said Richard F. Rashid, vice-president of Microsoft
Research.
Mr. Magnanti said that three inaugural projects have been selected for
I-Campus. One is an expansion of the Shakespeare Electronic Archive, a
collection of the playwright's works, to include additional multimedia
material such as background information, critiques, and performances.
Another is development of software for a distance-education project linking
M.I.T., the National University of Singapore, and Nanyang Technological
University, also in Singapore. The third project is development of software
to permit students to collaborate remotely on design projects in aeronautics
and astronautics.
Mr. Magnanti said he expects that I-Campus eventually will encompass 10 to
15 different research projects. "Instead of letting 1,000 flowers bloom,
we're going to really target the money," he said.
Mr. Rashid said it was logical for Microsoft Research to seek out university
researchers to study the use of information technology in teaching, rather
than doing the work in-house with its own researchers, whose numbers have
ballooned in recent years. "We don't have people teaching courses. We don't
have thousands of students," he said. "It has to be driven by universities.
They're the ones who know what they're doing."
Andries van Dam, a professor of computer science and of technology and
education at Brown University, welcomed Microsoft Research's decision to
support the development of educational technology. "To see Microsoft say
that this is important is a very significant thing," said Mr. van Dam. He is
one of four university scholars who serve on the Microsoft Research
Technical Advisory Board, which reviews the division's research programs.
"They bring focus, and they bring resources," said Mr. van Dam. "If you
improve education in some tangible way, that's a big win," he said.
M.I.T. came up with the idea for the project and approached Microsoft for
financial support. M.I.T. has forged similar links with major companies in
other areas of research, such as biotechnology and finance.
Although Microsoft is paying for the research, its results will not be
considered company property, both Mr. Magnanti and Mr. Rashid said. M.I.T.
faculty members will be free to publish scholarly papers without seeking
permission from Microsoft, and M.I.T. will own the intellectual property
rights to the research, said Mr. Magnanti. Microsoft Research will be
entitled to exclusive licenses to any projects for which it provided the
sole financing, he said.
"We anticipate that much of what we produce will be put in the public
domain," Mr. Magnanti said. "We're not in this to make money."
Indeed, Microsoft's Mr. Rashid said, "The goal here is to have an open
research program where the work that is done is open and available to
researchers at other universities."
Under the arrangement, M.I.T. is not required to produce software that works
only on Microsoft's operating systems, Mr. Magnanti said. "M.I.T. is not
overnight going to become a Microsoft shop," he said.
The arrangement is not exclusive: Mr. Rashid said that Microsoft Research
planned to make grants to other universities for research in the area, and
Mr. Magnanti said that M.I.T. would pursue funds from other companies.
_________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education