Proceedings of the 38th annual ACM SIGUCCS fall conference

Welcome to the 38th annual SIGUCCS 2010 Fall Conference in Norfolk, Virginia. It is truly exciting to be part of this gathering of so many dedicated professionals who work tirelessly to make higher education IT happen. Norfolk has a long history as a safe harbor -- a place to shelter from stormy seas, relax and re-provision, share discoveries, and plan future voyages. Crucial to any successful voyage or enterprise is discovering what one can about the challenges and opportunities ahead, and then using that knowledge to plot and successfully navigate your course. Navigation is an active process of finding your way from one place to another. As professionals in IT at higher education institutions, we serve as technology navigators; plotting a course for our institution through changes while ensuring hazards are avoided along the route. This can be a complicated task as not only does the technology in the form of hardware and software change from year to year, but so do abstract constructs like budgets, student employees, pedagogy, and faculty computing practices. To navigate from one place to another implies that you know both where you are and where you plan to go to. Before this era of geographic positioning systems, it was deemed prudent to establish your position and heading based on sightings of six stars. This seems to still be true. Consider some of the guiding stars we use as technology professionals. Before we commit to a new heading, we check our peer institutions and find out what direction they plan on heading. What technologies are they adopting and what do they support? What solutions have they developed to meet instruction, security, or customer service demands? Where are we and where shall we go? Over the next few days, let's use these stars and chart our course together so that we may find an efficient course that avoids the rocky shoals. No voyage is truly successful without a discovery or two along the way! Oh, to find a novel solution to a vexing problem is elating! To be the first to observe something new! Discovery is also the name of a ship used on a voyage that resulted inthe founding of Jamestown in the new colony of Virginia in 1607. Do you have a Virginia state quarter? That is the Discovery right there on the back. We are proud of our many colleagues who have taken the time to share their discoveries in the technical papers being presented this year. We encourage you to share and learn from these presentations, and know you will make several discoveries of your own. We hope you discover new peers and colleagues that share your challenges and opportunities at other institutions. We hope you discover new ideas to bring back to your campus. We want you to discover the rich community of SIGUCCS whose members are determined to be helpful and welcoming and freely share their ideas and camaraderie. Lastly, we hope you discover how you are empowered to shape SIGUCCS with your own ideas and voice. SIGUCCS is a volunteer organization and there are many ways to contribute.