Technology Insights

| by Keith Fowlkes, Vice President, Technology at E&I Cooperative Services The University of Louisville (UofL) recently selected Workday to replace their previous enterprise resource planning (ERP) software through the E&I Workday contract. The selection of Workday represents much more than just a university’s purchase of a new enterprise system. UofL’s purchase decision highlights a growing trend of large institutions recognizing the value of using E&I’s competitive contracts to save money, time, and staff resources...

| by Brad Hudson, Deputy CISO, Columbia Advisory Group CISSP, CCSP, CCNP, MCSA, MCITP:EA, SA The year 2020 brought us all incredible challenges as we coped with the impact of COVID-19, and cybersecurity is no exception. 2020 created the “perfect storm” for cybersecurity when you consider how each of these trends has created enormous opportunity for cybercriminals: We are all online more, even inexperienced users. As students, staff, parents, and grandparents navigate networks, devices, passwords,...

| by Oliver Dotsch, Senior Education Account Manager, Kano A new generation is rising. Kano, a CDW-G vendor, in partnership with Microsoft, has designed a new kind of computer specifically aimed at supporting K-12 students: the Kano PC. The Kano PC supports everyday learning with the power of Windows 10 Pro, is easily managed using Microsoft’s Intune for Education and Autopilot, and empowers students with next generation content and experiences. The Kano PC is modular—students...

| by Columbia Advisory Group In May of 2020 it started to become evident that the COVID–19 pandemic was not going to be defeated quickly. At that time, many education experts, parents, and students began to realize that typical classroom learning environments were not going to be sufficient for the foreseeable future. PVAMU Contacts CAG for Distance Learning Support Columbia Advisory Group (CAG) was contacted by PVAMU’s Deputy Chief Information Officer Midhat Asghar and his...

With the recent addition of IT Professional Services to the E&I CDW-G contract for computer equipment & hardware, we wanted to learn more about how these services benefit E&I members. We sat down with Melissa Deets, Manager – Business Development, SLED at CDW-G, to focus on CDW Amplified™ Services, which include infrastructure, security, workspace, and support services. In general, what are CDW-G Amplified™ Services? CDW-G Amplified™ Services are technology services designed to help solve customers’...

| by Sebastian Andreatta, Co-Founder & COO of Kiana Analytics Cases of COVID-19 are increasing and institutions are struggling to keep their programs active. Educational leaders now have a better understanding of best practices for dealing with the pandemic: wear masks, test regularly, isolate when necessary, clean infected areas immediately and perform contact tracing. The last best practice is the most complicated because it requires manual contact to locate exposed individuals. Automated contact tracing can...

by Cheryl Otstott at Xerox This blog originally appeared on the Xerox At Your Service blog on February 25, 2020. The Xerox® PrimeLink® B9100 Series is a new family of monochrome multifunction printers. The PrimeLink B9100 Series is a great investment for the production or office environment. The PrimeLink B9100 series is versatile and also has many options, from faxing to multiple finishers. Did you know that approximately 63% of the documents printed worldwide are printed in...

by Nick Schiavi, Global Head of Higher Education & Nonprofit, Unit4 This blog originally appeared on the Unit4 Blog. What do people, data, and technology have in common in higher education? Your strategic approach to each of them needs to be flexible. In the 21st century, students are demanding more than ever. And governments, the public, and the economy are putting higher education institutions under increasing pressure to prove their worth. Both in terms of social value and ROI against funding and student fees. This is leading to a...

by Keith Fowlkes, Vice President, Technology Category at E&I Cooperative Services I will be the first to admit that there are hundreds of new products out there today to address the needs of education in our new pandemic reality. When analyzing the technology market, I see so many new products being released — many much too fast — into the education market without any guarantees they will work. This is especially true in the area of contact...