Ira Fuchs
Encyclopedia
Ira H. Fuchs is an internationally known authority on innovative technology solutions for higher education and is a co-founder of BITNET
, an important precursor of the Internet
.
Since 2010 he has been Executive Director of Next Generation Learning Challenges. He oversees the development and day-to-day operations of the program, which provides grants, builds evidence, and develops an active community committed to identifying and scaling technology-enabled approaches that dramatically improve college readiness and completion.
With Greydon Freeman, Mr. Fuchs co-founded BITNET
in 1981 by initially connecting CUNY and Yale University
. In the mid-1980s BITNET connected millions of users from more than 1,400 institutions of higher education, government laboratories, and IBM's VNET network. It was the first academic computer network to connect the United States to Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Israel, the USSR, and most of western Europe. Along with Daniel Oberst and Ricky Hernandez, Fuchs was co-inventor of LISTSERV
, an electronic mailing list application. From 1984 until 1989 Mr. Fuchs was President of BITNET
Inc. and from 1989 to 2003 he was President of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking
(CREN), a not-for-profit organization that operated the BITNET
academic computer network, as well as the CSNET
network.
From 1985 until 2000 Fuchs was Vice President for Computing and Information Technology at Princeton University
. From 1994-2000, he was the first Chief Scientist of JSTOR
, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to archiving and providing access to important scholarly journals.
From 2000 until 2010 he was Vice President and Program Officer for Research in Information Technology at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where he directed the Foundation's grant making in the area of digital technologies that can be applied to academic and administrative use in colleges and universities, libraries, museums, and arts organizations. Open source software initiatives supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation include Sakai
, uPortal
, Kuali
, Sophie, Chandler
, Zotero
, Open Knowledge Initiative
, Bamboo, CollectionSpace, ConservationSpace, DecaPod, Fedora
, SIMILE
, DSpace
, FLUID
, OpenCast, SEASR, Visual Understanding Environment
, and the Open Library Environment (OLE).
Mr. Fuchs is currently a Director/Trustee of The Philadelphia Contributionship
(the oldest property insurer in the US), Ithaka, Princeton Public Library
(Princeton, NJ) (Treasurer), and the Global Education Learning Community (GELC). He was also a Founding Trustee of JSTOR
, USENIX
, the Internet Society
and a former Trustee of Mills College
, Princeton University Press
, the Open Source Applications Foundation
, and Sarah Lawrence College
.
http://books.google.com/books?id=lgcNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=%22The+Promise+and+Challenge+of+New+Technologies+in+Higher+Education%22,+Proceedings+of+the+American+Philosophical+Society,&source=bl&ots=pyBzMpQxDV&sig=cEpDbXh_21-K-BhqnqzQJSgeQMM&hl=en&ei=7FB4SuX9IcegmAeI0KHBBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false"The Promise and Challenge of New Technologies in Higher Education", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 142, No. 2, June 1998]
"Network Information is Not Free", Scholarly Publishing: The Electronic Frontier, Robin P. Peek and Gregory B. Newby, editors, Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1996
"Research Networks and Acceptable Use", Educom Bulletin, Vol 23, No.2/3, Summer/Fall 1988, pp 43–48
"Research Computer Networks and Their Interconnection", Co-authored with L. H. Landweber and D. M. Jennings, IEEE Communication Magazine, IEEE Communication Society, June 1986
"Computer Networking for Scientists", Co-authored with D. M. Jennings, L. H. Landweber, D. J. Farber, and W. R. Adrion, Science Vol 231. February 28. 1986, pp.943-950
"BITNET" - Because It's Time", Perspectives in Computing, Vol 3, No. 1, March 1983, pp. 16–27
- Excellence in Leadership 2010 (award acknowledges leadership within higher education information technology)
Educause
- Excellence in Leadership 2000 (highest professional award given to a CIO of an academic institution)
Internet Innovator Award, Technology New Jersey Inc. 1999
BITNET
BITNET was a cooperative USA university network founded in 1981 by Ira Fuchs at the City University of New York and Greydon Freeman at Yale University...
, an important precursor of the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
Since 2010 he has been Executive Director of Next Generation Learning Challenges. He oversees the development and day-to-day operations of the program, which provides grants, builds evidence, and develops an active community committed to identifying and scaling technology-enabled approaches that dramatically improve college readiness and completion.
Career
Ira Fuchs graduated from the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 1969 with a B.S.(Applied Physics) and in 1976 with a M.S. (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering). From 1973 until 1980 he served as the first Executive Director of the University Computer Center at The City University of New York (CUNY) and then as CUNY's Vice Chancellor of University Systems until 1985.With Greydon Freeman, Mr. Fuchs co-founded BITNET
BITNET
BITNET was a cooperative USA university network founded in 1981 by Ira Fuchs at the City University of New York and Greydon Freeman at Yale University...
in 1981 by initially connecting CUNY and Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. In the mid-1980s BITNET connected millions of users from more than 1,400 institutions of higher education, government laboratories, and IBM's VNET network. It was the first academic computer network to connect the United States to Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Israel, the USSR, and most of western Europe. Along with Daniel Oberst and Ricky Hernandez, Fuchs was co-inventor of LISTSERV
LISTSERV
LISTSERV was the first electronic mailing list software application, consisting of a set of email addresses for a group in which the sender can send one email and it will reach a variety of people...
, an electronic mailing list application. From 1984 until 1989 Mr. Fuchs was President of BITNET
BITNET
BITNET was a cooperative USA university network founded in 1981 by Ira Fuchs at the City University of New York and Greydon Freeman at Yale University...
Inc. and from 1989 to 2003 he was President of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking
Corporation for Research and Educational Networking
The Corporation for Research and Educational Networking better known as CREN was a non-profit corporation originally composed of the higher education and research organizations participating in BITNET and CSNET. Its corporate name was adopted at the time of the merging of these two networks in 1989...
(CREN), a not-for-profit organization that operated the BITNET
BITNET
BITNET was a cooperative USA university network founded in 1981 by Ira Fuchs at the City University of New York and Greydon Freeman at Yale University...
academic computer network, as well as the CSNET
CSNET
The Computer Science Network was a computer network that began operation in 1981 in the United States. Its purpose was to extend networking benefits, for computer science departments at academic and research institutions that could not be directly connected to ARPANET, due to funding or...
network.
From 1985 until 2000 Fuchs was Vice President for Computing and Information Technology at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. From 1994-2000, he was the first Chief Scientist of JSTOR
JSTOR
JSTOR is an online system for archiving academic journals, founded in 1995. It provides its member institutions full-text searches of digitized back issues of several hundred well-known journals, dating back to 1665 in the case of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society...
, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to archiving and providing access to important scholarly journals.
From 2000 until 2010 he was Vice President and Program Officer for Research in Information Technology at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where he directed the Foundation's grant making in the area of digital technologies that can be applied to academic and administrative use in colleges and universities, libraries, museums, and arts organizations. Open source software initiatives supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation include Sakai
Sakai Project
This page is about the software project, for other meanings, see Sakai.Sakai is a community of academic institutions, commercial organizations and individuals who work together to develop a common Collaboration and Learning Environment...
, uPortal
UPortal
uPortal is a Java-based framework for creating enterprise web portals. It is sponsored by Jasig, a consortium of educational institutions and commercial affiliates sponsoring open source software projects focused on higher education. uPortal is open source under the Apache License 2.0...
, Kuali
Kuali Foundation
The Kuali Foundation is a non-profit, 501 corporation that coordinates the development of free/open source administrative software under the Educational Community License. The name "Kuali" came from the Malaysian word for wok...
, Sophie, Chandler
Chandler (PIM)
Chandler is a personal information management software suite described by its developers as a "Note-to-Self Organizer" designed for personal and small-group task management and calendaring. It is free software, previously released under the GNU General Public License, and now released under the...
, Zotero
Zotero
Zotero is free, open source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials . Notable features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citations, footnotes and bibliographies, as well as integration with the word processors...
, Open Knowledge Initiative
Open Knowledge Initiative
The Open Knowledge Initiative is an organization responsible for the specification of software interfaces comprising a Service Oriented Architecture based on high level service definitions.-Description:...
, Bamboo, CollectionSpace, ConservationSpace, DecaPod, Fedora
Fedora (software)
Fedora is a modular architecture built on the principle that interoperability and extensibility is best achieved by the integration of data, interfaces, and mechanisms as clearly defined modules...
, SIMILE
SIMILE
SIMILE is a joint research project run by the World Wide Web Consortium , Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries and CSAIL and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation...
, DSpace
DSpace
DSpace is an open source software package that provides the tools for management of digital assets, and is commonly used as the basis for an institutional repository. It supports a wide variety of data, including books, theses, 3D digital scans of objects, photographs, film, video, research data...
, FLUID
FLUID
FLUID is a graphical editor that is used to produce FLTK source code. FLUID edits and saves its state in text .fl files, which can be edited in a text editor for finer control over display and behavior.After designing the application, FLUID compiles the .fl file into a .cxx file, which defines all...
, OpenCast, SEASR, Visual Understanding Environment
VUE (Visual Understanding Environment)
VUE is a free, open source concept mapping application written in Java. The application is developed by the Academic Technology group at Tufts University. VUE is licensed under the Educational Community License. VUE 3.0, the latest release, was funded under a grant from the Andrew W...
, and the Open Library Environment (OLE).
Mr. Fuchs is currently a Director/Trustee of The Philadelphia Contributionship
Philadelphia Contributionship
The Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire is the oldest property insurance company in the United States. It was organized by Benjamin Franklin in 1752, and incorporated in 1768....
(the oldest property insurer in the US), Ithaka, Princeton Public Library
Princeton Public Library
The Princeton Public Library, a joint library chartered to serve Princeton Borough and Princeton Township, New Jersey-History:It first opened to the public in 1909...
(Princeton, NJ) (Treasurer), and the Global Education Learning Community (GELC). He was also a Founding Trustee of JSTOR
JSTOR
JSTOR is an online system for archiving academic journals, founded in 1995. It provides its member institutions full-text searches of digitized back issues of several hundred well-known journals, dating back to 1665 in the case of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society...
, USENIX
USENIX
-External links:* *...
, the Internet Society
Internet Society
The Internet Society or ISOC is an international, nonprofit organization founded during 1992 to provide direction in Internet related standards, education, and policy...
and a former Trustee of Mills College
Mills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...
, Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press
-Further reading:* "". Artforum International, 2005.-External links:* * * * *...
, the Open Source Applications Foundation
Open Source Applications Foundation
The Open Source Applications Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in 2002 by Mitch Kapor whose purpose is to effect widespread adoption of free software/open-source software.-OSAF Mission:The mission of the OSAF is stated this way:...
, and Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...
.
Selected Publications
"Prospects and Possibilities of the Digital Age", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 145, No.1, March 2001http://books.google.com/books?id=lgcNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=%22The+Promise+and+Challenge+of+New+Technologies+in+Higher+Education%22,+Proceedings+of+the+American+Philosophical+Society,&source=bl&ots=pyBzMpQxDV&sig=cEpDbXh_21-K-BhqnqzQJSgeQMM&hl=en&ei=7FB4SuX9IcegmAeI0KHBBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false"The Promise and Challenge of New Technologies in Higher Education", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 142, No. 2, June 1998]
"Network Information is Not Free", Scholarly Publishing: The Electronic Frontier, Robin P. Peek and Gregory B. Newby, editors, Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1996
"Research Networks and Acceptable Use", Educom Bulletin, Vol 23, No.2/3, Summer/Fall 1988, pp 43–48
"Research Computer Networks and Their Interconnection", Co-authored with L. H. Landweber and D. M. Jennings, IEEE Communication Magazine, IEEE Communication Society, June 1986
"Computer Networking for Scientists", Co-authored with D. M. Jennings, L. H. Landweber, D. J. Farber, and W. R. Adrion, Science Vol 231. February 28. 1986, pp.943-950
"BITNET" - Because It's Time", Perspectives in Computing, Vol 3, No. 1, March 1983, pp. 16–27
Awards
EducauseEducause
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is "to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology." Membership is open to institutions of higher education, corporations serving the higher education information technology market, and other related...
- Excellence in Leadership 2010 (award acknowledges leadership within higher education information technology)
Educause
Educause
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is "to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology." Membership is open to institutions of higher education, corporations serving the higher education information technology market, and other related...
- Excellence in Leadership 2000 (highest professional award given to a CIO of an academic institution)
Internet Innovator Award, Technology New Jersey Inc. 1999
External links
- http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume36/ArchimedesLeverandCollaboratio/157676Archimedes' Lever and Collaboration: An Interview with Ira Fuchs" by Richard N. Katz, EducauseEducauseEDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is "to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology." Membership is open to institutions of higher education, corporations serving the higher education information technology market, and other related...
, March/April 2001] - CUNY Matters, September 2006, p.8
- "Needed: an 'Educore' to Aid Collaboration", Chronicle of Higher Education, September 2004, Volume 51, Issue 5, Page B19
- "Collaboration for a Positive-Sum Outcome: An Interview with Ira H. Fuchs" by Christopher J. Mackie, Educause Review, Volume 46, Number 3, May/June 2011