As UD moves into the 21st century, Hollowell says he believes the future probably holds a steady pace for advances in the use of technology rather than the great leaps seen during the past decade.

"The most interesting developments will be in how faculty and students take advantage of the technology in the teaching and learning process," he says. "Administratively, new core systems and further use of the web will continue to improve operating efficiency and reduce paperwork, permitting resources to be reallocated to academic program support."

The University is seeking novel ways to employ WebCT, which it is already using in the training of athletic coaches concerning NCAA rules and regulations and in the instruction of facilities and maintenance personnel in the proper handling of hazardous waste materials.

A new use is a program developed by the College of Health and Nursing Sciences, in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Association, to train figure skating judges. The program was developed in the wake of the judging controversies during the Salt Lake City Olympics, and the first training module, on pair skating, was rolled out earlier this year.

In addition, the University is committed to continuing to work in collaboration with partner institutions in the ongoing development of open source software, which provides colleges and universities access to programs that they can modify and build upon.

Such work had led to the creation of uPortal, through which students can create a personalized screen view of the University, its services and their records. At the University of Delaware, students use UD&Me, a pocket-sized version of the campus web that provides quick and easy access to customized information about schedules, course materials, grades, finances, news and events in one place.

"uPortal is among the first open source programs developed by higher education for higher education," Jacobson says.

University Information Technologies personnel are working to extend the portal to faculty, staff and alumni.

In the meantime, work continues on an electronic portfolio, a digital learning record that students will use to store and share transcripts, resumés, images, video and audio files and other electronic information and artifacts.

The ePortfolio, which UD is adopting through the Open Source Portfolio Initiative in conjunction with the University of Minnesota and The R Smart Group, is portable and interactive.

"Where course management systems such as WebCT provide faculty a way to publish teaching materials for students, ePortfolio is the flip side, providing students a way to publish their materials," Jacobson says.

Jacobson says such programs as uPortal and ePortfolio serve the needs of a generation of students who are accomplished multi-taskers. He says today's students can be found reading a book, surfing the Internet, listening to a CD, sending instant messages to friends, checking e-mail and talking to someone on the cell phone all at the same time.

To serve students away from the Ethernet connections in their residence halls, the University is establishing O Zones, where network access is provided to those with wireless laptop computers.

In a major project to upgrade its capabilities, UD has entered into a 20-year agreement to use a dark-fiber path to a high-technology communications hub in Philadelphia that greatly enhances the speed of the campus network, according to Dan Grim, executive director of University IT-Network and Systems Services.

Grim says UD and the Delaware Department of Technology and Information have formed a partnership to provide the electronics and to share the maintenance, management and use of the network. City Signal Communications is the vendor partner for the project.

Grim estimates that the speed of the network has jumped from 45 million bits per second to 10 billion bits per second.

With a solid base infrastructure and a sound strategy for continuing success, Foster says she believes the future uses of information technology at the University of Delaware are virtually unlimited.

"The future is bounded only by what people can imagine," she says.