CLU Receives $1.1 Million Grant from Campus EAI

Campus EAI, a non–profit organization whose mission is to facilitate collaboration amongst member institutions of higher education for the purpose of sharing, developing and distributing community software, has granted California Lutheran University (CLU) in excess of one million dollars in software and services over the next five years to support CLU's campus portal research and development.

The $1.1 million grant provides for the Oracle 9iAS application server licenses required to power a portal that will serve as a gateway to the World Wide Web and a starting point for accessing Web delivered content and services. The grant also provides for assessment and planning services, on–site installation and configuration of the portal, on–site training for system administrators, upgrades, testing and documentation.

According to Julius Bianchi, associate provost of information services, the CLU portal will streamline access to online services with one user name and password that authenticates and authorizes an individual to access e–mail, calendar, WebAdvisor, WebCT and library accounts. A variety of other services will include campus information and events, announcements, surveys, news feeds and a campus directory. As a recipient of the grant, CLU becomes a member of the exclusive Campus EAI Community, facilitating collaborative work among member institutions such as UNC–Chapel Hill, Case Western Reserve University, University of Oklahoma and Washington State University.

The portal can be used to create virtual communities for current and past students, explained Bianchi. One of the features of the original CLUnet project was to provide online services to alumni, and the portal holds the promise of making this goal a reality, he added.

"We are proud to have CLU join our Consortium and look forward to working with CLU to develop, deploy and support its campus portal," said Anjli Jain, Executive Director of CampusEAI. "The grant coupled with community source development will enable CLU to cost effectively implement its IT Strategic Plan."

"We are delighted that CampusEAI and CLU have chosen the Oracle Application Server platform as the base infrastructure for their community source Depository and campus portal, respectively, " explained Thomas Kurian, Senior Vice President, Oracle Application Server.

CampusEAI is a Cleveland–based non–profit organization established in partnership with institutions that share a common vision and commitment to delivering advanced teaching, learning and research technologies cost–effectively through community source collaboration. For more information about Campus EAI, please visit www.campuseai.org. Oracle is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit http://www.oracle.com.