Students at Syracuse University will now be able to use a hand scanner to gain access to the school’s dining centers, which the school says will “facilitate a quicker, contactless entrance at mealtimes.”

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced that the state is launching the Alabama Credential Registry, which she says is “first in a series of technology solutions that will implement Alabama’s talent development system.”

Many school districts across the nation expanded efforts to provide students with laptops and tablets to help them succeed in the virtual classroom; this effort included introducing student activity monitoring software aimed in part at facilitating remote classroom management and driving student engagement. However, according to a recent report by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), these tools can become overly intrusive.

Miami Dade College (MDC) appointed Tanya Acevedo the new vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer (CIO).

A new agreement led by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will allow eight neighboring states and Washington, D.C., to offer Internet access, devices, and other technology to constituents through local agencies at a discounted rate via Verizon’s Digital Inclusion Program.

The future is arriving at an unprecedented pace. District leaders need to understand how to prioritize and securely deploy these emerging to solve future challenges and obtain operational success, district officials from California said Sept. 17 at a webinar hosted by Government Technology.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel – long an advocate for government action to make broadband services more affordable in order to lessen the digital divide in the U.S. – said this week that she welcomes current congressional action to boost funding for broadband benefits but also expressed some skepticism about the effectiveness of service rate discount cuts being contemplated by Congress.

Voters in Fremont, Neb., approved a $123 million bond issue intended to improve K-12 education, including expanding mobile device capacity, and growing IT career training opportunities.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced today that cybersecurity veteran Kiersten Todt will be the agency’s next chief of staff.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) released a new report that makes the case for insight enabling analytics. NASCIO explains that as data analytics increasingly plays a role in service delivery for states, state CIOs are often taking the lead in these efforts.