ECAR roadmaps, distilled from the research of the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, synthesize the facts and clarify the issues of higher education information technology that keep many of us awake at night, such as funding, security, alignment, networking, and e-learning.

In this section, you will find major focal points of EDUCAUSE activity to advance information technology (IT) in higher education. The first three links in the left-hand navigation area—ECAR, Net@EDU, and ELI—are subscription programs with institutional membership fees, but many of their products are free and publicly accessible from their Web sites.

Major Initiatives

ECAR, the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, provides subscribers with timely research and analysis to help higher education leaders make better decisions about IT.

Net@EDU promotes the development of advanced networking in higher education through member activities that span the spectrum of academic networking, from administration of campus networks to local, state, regional, national, and international networking projects.

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), is a community of institutions, organizations, and corporations committed to advancing learning through IT innovation. ELI achieves this mission through a strategic focus on learners, learning principles and practices, and learning technologies.

The Core Data Service is a Web-based interactive database, based on an annual survey, that compares institutional IT environments and practices to help benchmark, plan for, and make decisions about IT on campus.

Networking Initiatives are focused efforts to define and develop emerging network technologies.

Policy Initiatives are the association’s legislative and regulatory tracking and advocacy activities involving federal policies that impact IT in higher education.

Security Initiatives are resources on computer and network security for the higher education community.

.edu Administration covers policies and processes for managing the .edu Internet domain, which EDUCAUSE administers under contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce.