The State University of New York (SUNY), with its sixty-four campuses scattered throughout the state,
brings educational opportunity within commuting distance of virtually every resident of New York. It
is the nation's largest comprehensive system of public higher education. Accomplishing and maintaining
the high level of teaching, research, and service that the state of New York has asked its public
university to provide presents a host of technology challenges. SUNY's technology professionals have
learned that key to successfully meeting these challenges are collaboration and sharing amongst themselves
and with their technology partners. The annual SUNY Technology Conference is the foremost forum at which
SUNY's technology communities join together to grow as professionals, to learn about advances in the
marketplace, and to discuss approaches for addressing common issues.
The Computing Officers Association (COA), the Telecommunications Officers Association (TOA) and the
Educational Technology Officers Association (EdTOA) of SUNY convene this annual conference. These
organizations consist of computing professionals, educators, telecommunication professionals, and media
specialists from SUNY. The institutions represented include SUNY System Administration, four major
university centers, nine other doctoral granting institutions, thirteen university colleges, eight
technology colleges and thirty community colleges. Together they serve over 413,000 students.
SUNY technology has been built on the concepts of openness, community and sharing. For the past thirty
years, SUNY campuses have worked together to build on the strength that comes from cooperation and
collaboration. This belief in solving problems and meeting challenges collectively has resulted in
historic multi-campus procurements and the development of major member cooperatives including the
Information Technology Exchange Center (ITEC), the Center for Professional Development, and the Student
Information & Campus Administrative Systems Center (SICAS). The free sharing of campus expertise has been
invaluable in the University's technological evolution; on-loan campus data and telecommunication specialists
were critical participants in the design and creation of the initial, award winning implementation of
SUNYNet, the University's first high speed network. SUNY in 1980 developed a comprehensive Administrative
Business ERP System and in the spirit of today's Open Source concept, offered its source code and the right
to its use to any interested New York State entity. This early ERP implementation went on to become the
basis for some commercial solutions on the market today.
The SUNY Technology Conference was built on this tradition with computing, media and
telecommunication professionals acting as an open source community - sharing ideas, searching for solutions
and evaluating emerging technologies that will continue the expansion of SUNY's use of technology.
