Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Click on the title, Shaping the Higher Education Cloud, to access the resource described, below.

As well, this recent issue of EDUCAUSE Review is focused on higher education's computing cloud, including these two feature articles:

• Cloud Computing and the Power to Choose
• Looking at Clouds From All Sides Now

Read all of this and you will be a cloud computing expert!

Is collaborative planning regarding the shape of the higher education information technology "cloud," possible? What should we plan to put on the cloud? What should stay out of the cloud? This white paper, the product of a joint project of EDUCAUSE and NACUBO, should be required reading for anyone who might be part of campus teams considering IT planning issues:

The unsustainable economics of higher education’s traditional approaches to IT, increased expectations and scrutiny, and the growing complexity of institutional operations and governance call for a different modus operandi. So too does the mass consumerization of services, for which students and faculty are more likely to look outside the institution to address their IT needs and preferences, noted James Hilton, vice president and CIO, University of Virginia. Cloud computing represents a real opportunity to rethink and re-craft services for the academy. Among the greatest benefits of scalable and elastic IT is the option to pay only for what is used. Robust networks coupled with virtualization technologies make less relevant where work happens or where data is stored. Cloud computing allows the flexibility for some enterprise activities to move above campus to providers that are faster, cheaper, or safer and for some activities to move off the institution’s responsibility list to the “consumer” cloud (below campus), while still other activities can remain in-house, including those that differentiate and provide competitive advantage to an institution.

"All the universities we visited are cities in their own right. Beyond classrooms, faculty offices, labs, and gymnasiums, there is a complete infrastructure for the students, faculty, and children who live on campus. All students live in residence halls; there are separate residence halls for undergraduate and graduate students. The universities also have international dorms (in one case, a four-star hotel) for students from outside China. In most cases, there is a guest house for visitors. Huge dining halls feed the students, faculty, and the families of faculty. But students have other needs as well, so campuses are dotted with small shops for sewing, laundry, dry cleaning, and bicycles. On many campuses, schools for the children of faculty are also provided. Tsinghua University, for example, has elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as housing and dining for a large number of faculty and their families.

The campuses are large due to the numbers of students and faculty. But they are also extraordinarily beautiful, with green spaces and well-manicured gardens. For example, the campus of Tsinghua University occupies a former royal garden; the architecture is a blend of ancient, traditional, and modern. The agricultural campus of Zhejiang University (above), located in the middle of Hangzhou, is spectacular, with graceful bridges arching over a lake and streams. The lotus ponds were just beginning to bloom when we visited. At the new campus of Zhejiang University, historic buildings—a seven-hundred-year-old temple and house—have been relocated to the new campus in a garden of their own. The remainder of the campus is ultra-modern but landscaped with trees, flowers, fountains, streams, and sculpture. Even campuses in dense urban settings (e.g., Shanghai, Beijing) have the feel of being in a world apart."