SustainX, a technology company that develops energy grid systems, announced on Wednesday that it was named a Global Cleantech 100 company, an honor reserved for those private clean-technology companies that experts predict will have the largest market impact in the near future, according to a company press release. SustainX grew out of the Thayer School of Engineering in 2007 and is now based in West Lebanon. The 100 companies that made the list are from 14 different countries and were drawn from a list of 3,138 nominees, the release stated. SustainX is developing utility-scale energy grid systems that use electric air compression rather than fuel. The company's technology uses electrical energy to compress air at near-constant temperature, stores the air above ground and then generates electricity by expanding the compressed air.
Many colleges are moving forward with plans to expand on-campus information technology despite the fact that 42.6 percent of college information-technology departments are reporting budget cutbacks, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. According to the annual Campus Computing Survey, colleges are increasing bandwidth on campuses and using more wikis and lecture-capture techniques to make course content available online, The Chronicle reported. Of the 532 institutions surveyed in September and early October, 86.5 percent predict e-book use will play an important role in classrooms over the next five years, and 70.3 percent said they believe mobile applications are essential to the improvement of instruction and campus services. The survey also reported that social networks are a growing concern on campuses, as over 15 percent of institutions reported an incidence of cyber stalking or bullying within the last year.
Representatives from online colleges met on Tuesday to discuss the creation of a self-imposed universal quality-assurance framework, after the federal government raised concerns about the quality of online institutions, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. Differences in quality-assurance policies from state to state force online colleges to fit a number of different criteria before being permitted to expand nationally. The group that convened Tuesday called for a more uniform accreditation standard to make such expansion more feasible. But Judith Eaton, president for the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, told The Chronicle that imposition of uniform quality standards will be difficult because of the variety of online institutions.
