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The institutes of technology and polytechnics have been in existence since at least the 18th century, but became popular after World War II with the expansion of engineering and applied science education, associated with the new needs created by industrialization. The world's first institution of technology, the Berg-Schola (today its legal successor is the University of Miskolc) was founded by the Court Chamber of Vienna in Selmecbánya, Kingdom of Hungary in 1735 in order to train specialists of precious metal and copper mining according to the requirements of the industrial revolution in Hungary. The oldest German Institute of Technology is the Braunschweig University of Technology (founded in 1745 as "Collegium Carolinum"). Another exception is the École Polytechnique, which has educated French élites since its foundation in 1794. In some cases, polytechnics or institutes of technology are engineering schools or technical colleges.
In several countries, like Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Turkey, institutes of technology and polytechnics are institutions of higher education, and have been accredited to award academic degrees and doctorates. Famous examples are the Istanbul Technical University, ETH Zurich, İYTE, Delft University of Technology and RWTH Aachen, all considered universities.[citation needed]
In countries like Iran, Finland, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore or the United Kingdom, there is often a significant and confused distinction between polytechnics and universities. In the UK a binary system of higher education emerged consisting of universities (research orientation) and Polytechnics (engineering and applied science and professional practice orientation). Polytechnics offered university equivalent degrees from bachelor's, master's and PhD that were validated and governed at the national level by the independent UK Council for National Academic Awards. In 1992 UK Polytechnics were designated as universities which meant they could award their own degrees. The CNAA was disbanded. The UK's first polytechnic, the Royal Polytechnic Institution (now the University of Westminster) was founded in 1838 in Regent Street, London. In Ireland the term institute of technology is the more favored synonym of a regional technical college though the latter is the legally correct term; however, Dublin Institute of Technology is a university in all but name as it can confer degrees in accordance with law, Cork Institute of Technology and another of other Institutes of Technology have delegated authority from HETAC to make awards to and including master's degree level—Level 9 of the National Framework for Qualifications (NFQ)—for all areas of study and Doctorate level in a number of others.
In a number of countries, although being today generally considered similar institutions of higher learning across many countries, polytechnics and institutes of technology used to have a quite different statute among each other, its teaching competences and organizational history. In many cases polytechnic were elite technological universities concentrating on applied science and engineering and may also be a former designation for a vocational institution, before it has been granted the exclusive right to award academic degrees and can be truly called an institute of technology. A number of polytechnics providing higher education is simply a result of a formal upgrading from their original and historical role as intermediate technical education schools. In some situations, former polytechnics or other non-university institutions have emerged solely through an administrative change of statutes, which often included a name change with the introduction of new designations like institute of technology, polytechnic university, university of applied sciences, or university of technology for marketing purposes. Such emergence of so many upgraded polytechnics, former vocational education and technical schools converted into more university-like institutions has caused concern where the lack of specialized intermediate technical professionals lead to industrial skill shortages in some fields, being also associated to an increase of the graduate unemployment rate. This is mostly the case in those countries, where the education system is not controlled by the state and everybody can grant degrees.[citation needed] Evidence have also shown a decline in the general quality of teaching and graduate's preparation for the workplace, due to the fast-paced conversion of that technical institutions to more advanced higher level institutions. Mentz, Kotze and Van der Merwe (2008) argues that all the tools are in place to promote the debate on the place of technology in higher education in general and in Universities of Technology specifically. The aspects of this debate can follow the following lines: • To what degree is technology defined as a concept? • What is the scope of technology discourse? • What is the place and relation of science with technology? • How useful is the Mitcham framework in thinking about technology in South Africa? • Can a measure of cooperation as opposed to competition be achieved amongst higher education institutions? • Who ultimately is responsible for vocational training and what is the role of technology in this?
During the 1970s to early 1990s, the term was used to describe state owned and funded technical schools that offered both vocational and higher education. They were part of the College of Advanced Education system. In the 1990s most of these merged with existing universities, or formed new ones of their own. These new universities often took the title University of Technology, for marketing rather than legal purposes. AVCC report The most prominent such university in each state founded the Australian Technology Network a few years later.
Since the mid-1990s, the term has been applied to some technically minded technical and further education (TAFE) institutes. A recent example is the Melbourne Polytechnic rebranding and repositioning in 2014 from Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE. These primarily offer vocational education, although some like Melbourne Polytechnic are expanding into higher education offering vocationally oriented applied bachelor degress. This usage of the term is most prevalent historically in NSW and the ACT. The new terminology is apt given that this category of institution are becoming very much like the institutes of the 1970s–1990s period.
In Tasmania in 2009 the old college system and TAFE Tasmania have started a 3-year restructure to become the Tasmanian Polytechnic www.polytechnic.tas.edu.au, Tasmanian Skills Institute www.skillsinstitute.tas.edu.au and Tasmanian Academy www.academy.tas.edu.au
In the higher education sector, there are seven designated Universities of Technology in Australia (though, note, not all use the phrase "university of technology", such as the Universities of Canberra and South Australia, which used to be Colleges of Advanced Education before transitioning into fully-fledged universities with the ability - most important of all - to confer doctorates):
Fachhochschule is a German type of tertiary education institution and adopted later in Austria and Switzerland. They do not focus exclusively on technology, but may also offer courses in social science, medicine, business and design. They grant bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, and focus more on teaching than research and more on specific professions than on science.
Hogeschool is used in Belgium and in the Netherlands. The hogeschool has many similarities to the Fachhochschule in the German language areas and to the ammattikorkeakoulu in Finland.
Hogeschool institutions in the Flemish Community of Belgium (such as the Erasmus Hogeschool Brussel) are currently undergoing a process of academization. They form associations with a university and integrate research into the curriculum, which will allow them to deliver academic master's degrees.
In the Netherlands, four former institutes of technology have become universities over the past decades. These are the current three Technical Universities (at Delft, Eindhoven and Enschede), plus the former agricultural institute in Wageningen. A list of all hogescholen in the Netherlands, including some which might be called polytechnics, can be found here.
In Cambodia, there are Institutes of Technology/Polytechnic Institutes, and Universities that offer instruction in a variety of programs that can lead to: certificates, diplomas, and degrees. Institutes of Technology/Polytechnic Institutes and Universities tend to be independent institutions.
In Canada, there are Affiliate Schools, Colleges, Institutes of Technology/Polytechnic Institutes, and Universities that offer instruction in a variety of programs that can lead to: engineering and applied science degrees, apprenticeship and trade programs, certificates, and diplomas. Affiliate Schools are polytechnic divisions belonging to a national university and offer select technical and engineering programs. Colleges, Institutes of Technology/Polytechnic Institutes, and Universities tend to be independent institutions.
Credentials are typically conferred at the undergraduate level, however university-affiliated schools like the École de technologie supérieure and the École Polytechnique de Montréal (both of which are located in Quebec), also offer graduate and postgraduate programs, in accordance with provincial higher education guidelines. Canadian higher education institutions, at all levels, undertake directed and applied research with financing allocated through public funding, private equity, or industry sources.
Some of Canada's most esteemed colleges and polytechnic institutions also partake in collaborative institute-industry projects, leading to technology commercialization, made possible through the scope of Polytechnics Canada; a national alliance of eleven leading research-intensive colleges and institutes of technology.
China's modern higher education began in 1895 with the Imperial Tientsin University which was a polytechnic plus a law department. Liberal arts were not offered until three years later at Capital University. To this day, about half of China's elite universities remain essentially polytechnical.
In Croatia there are many polytechnic institutes and colleges that offer a polytechnic education. The law about polytechnic education in Croatia was passed in 1997.
EPN is known for research and education in the applied science, astronomy, atmospheric physics, engineering and physical sciences. The Geophysics Institute monitors over the country`s seismic, tectonic and volcanic activity in the continental territory and in the Galápagos Islands.
One of the oldest observatories in South America is the Quito Astronomical Observatory. Founded in 1873 and located 12 minutes south of the Equator in Quito, Ecuador. The Quito Astronomical Observatory is the National Observatory of Ecuador and is located in the Historic Center of Quito and is managed by the National Polytechnic School.
The Nuclear Science Department at EPN is the only one in Ecuador and has the large infrastructure, related to irrradiation factilities like cobalt-60 source and Electron beam processing.
Its mission is to provide high quality education, training and research in the areas of science and technology to produce qualified professionals that can apply their knowledge and skills in the country's development.
MIT raises funds from non-governmental organizations and individuals who support the mission and objectives of the Institute. Tigray Development Association, its supporters, and REST have provided the initial funds for the launching of the Institute. As a result of the unstinting efforts made by the Provisional Governing Board to obtain technical and financial assistance, the Institute has so far secured financial and material support as well as pledges of sponsorship for 50 students, covering their tuition fees, room and board up to graduation. The MIT has also been able to create linkages with some universities and colleges in the United States of America, which have provided manpower and material support to MIT. The institute is governed by a provisional governing board.
Universities of Technology are categorised as universities, are allowed to grant B.Sc. (Tech.), M.Sc. (Tech.), Lic.Sc. (Tech.), Ph.D. and D.Sc.(Tech.) degrees and roughly correspond to Instituts de technologie of French-speaking areas and Technische Universität of Germany in prestige. In addition to universities of technology, some universities, e.g. University of Oulu and Åbo Akademi University, are allowed to grant the B.Sc. (tech.), M.Sc. (tech.) and D.Sc. (Tech.) degrees.
Universities of Technology are academically similar to other (non-polytechnic) universities. Prior to Bologna process, M.Sc. (Tech.) required 180 credits, whereas M.Sc. from a normal university required 160 credits. The credits between Universities of Technology and normal universities are comparable.
Polytechnic schools are distinct from academic universities in Finland. Ammattikorkeakoulu is the common term in Finland, as is the Swedish alternative "yrkeshögskola" – their focus is on studies leading to a degree (for instance insinööri, engineer; in international use, Bachelor of Engineering) in kind different from but in level comparable to an academic bachelor's degree awarded by a university. Since 2006 the polytechnics have offered studies leading to master's degrees (Master of Engineering). After January 1, 2006, some Finnish ammattikorkeakoulus switched the English term "polytechnic" to the term "university of applied sciences" in the English translations of their legal names. The ammattikorkeakoulu has many similarities to the hogeschool in Belgium and in the Netherlands and to the Fachhochschule in the German language areas.
Collegiate universities grouping several engineering schools or multi-site clusters of French grandes écoles provide sciences and technology curricula as autonomous higher education engineering institutes. They include :
In addition, France's education system includes many institutes of technology, embedded within most French universities. They are referred-to as institut universitaire de technologie (IUT). Instituts universitaires de technologie provide undergraduate technology curricula. 'Polytech institutes', embedded as a part of eleven French universities provide both undergraduate and graduate engineering curricula.
In the French-speaking part of Switzerland exists also the term haute école specialisée for a type of institution called Fachhochschule in the German-speaking part of the country. (see below).
Higher education systems, that are influenced by the French education system set at the end of the 18th century, use a terminology derived by reference to the French École polytechnique. Such terms include Écoles Polytechniques (Algeria, Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland, Tunisia), Escola Politécnica (Brasil, Spain), Polytechnicum (Eastern Europe).
Fachhochschulen were first founded in the early 1970s. They do not focus exclusively on technology, but may also offer courses in social science, medicine, business and design. They grant bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, and focus more on teaching than research and more on specific professions than on science.
Technische Universität (abbreviation: TU) are the common terms for universities of technology or technical university. These institutions can grant habilitation and doctoral degrees and focus on research.
The nine largest and most renowned Technische Universitäten in Germany have formed TU9 German Institutes of Technology as community of interests. Technische Universitäten normally have faculties or departements of natural sciences and often of economics but can also have units of cultural and social sciences and arts. RWTH Aachen, TU Dresden and TU München also have a faculty of medicine associated with university hospitals (Klinikum Aachen, University Hospital Dresden, Rechts der Isar Hospital).
There are 17 universities of technology in Germany with about 290,000 students enrolled. The four states of Bremen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein are not operating a Technische Universität. Saxony and Lower Saxony have the highest counts of TUs, while in Saxony three out of four universities are universities of technology.
Niedersächsische Technische Hochschule is a joint-venture of TU Clausthal, TU Braunschweig and University of Hanover. Some universities in Germany can also be seen as institutes of technology due to comprising a wide spread of technical sciences and having a history as a technical university. Examples are
In Greece, there are 2 "Polytechnics" part of the public higher education in Greece and they confer a 5-year Diplom Uni (300E.C.T.S – I.S.C.E.D. 5A), the National Technical University of Athens and the Technical University of Crete. Also, there are Greek Higher Technological Educational Institutes (Ανώτατα Τεχνολογικά Εκπαιδευτικά Ιδρύματα – Α.T.E.I). After the N.1404/1983 Higher Education Reform Act (Ν.1404/1983 - 2916/2001 - Ν. 3549/2007 - N. 3685/2008 - N. 4009/2011) the Technological Educational Institute constitute, a parallel and equivalent with universities part of the public higher education in Greece. They confer 4-year bachelor's degree (Diplom FH) (240E.C.T.S – I.S.C.E.D. 5A).
The first polytechnic in Hong Kong is The Hong Kong Polytechnic, established in 1972 through upgrading the Hong Kong Technical College (Government Trade School before 1947). The second polytechnic, the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, was founded in 1984. These polytechnics awards diplomas, higher diplomas, as well as academic degrees. Like the United Kingdom, the two polytechnics were granted university status in 1994, and renamed The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the City University of Hong Kong respectively. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, a university with a focus in applied science, engineering and business, was founded in 1991.
The world's first Institute of Technology the Berg-Schola (Bergschule) established in Selmecbánya, Kingdom of Hungary by the Court Chamber of Vienna in 1735 providing Further education to train specialists of precious metal and copper mining. In 1762 the institute ranked up to be Academia providing Higher Education courses. After the Treaty of Trianon the institute had to be moved to Sopron.
There are 16 autonomous Indian Institutes of Technology in addition to 30 National Institutes of Technology which are Government Institutions. In addition to these there are many other Universities which offer higher technical courses. The Authority over technical education in India is the AICTE.
In India there are many polytechnic institutes and collages that offer a polytechnic education. In India a Diploma in Engineering is a specific academic award usually awarded in technical or vocational courses e.g. Engineering, Pharmacy, Designing, etc. These Institutions offer three year diploma in engineering post Tenth class. These institutes have affiliation from state bord of technical education of respective state governments. after which one can apply for post of junior engineer or continue higher studies by appearing for exams of AMIE to become an engineering graduate.
There are four public institutes of technology in Indonesia that owned by the government of Indonesia. Other than that, there are hundreds other institute that owned by private or other institutions.
However, in Bahasa Indonesia, Politeknik carries a rather different meaning than Institut Teknologi. Politeknik provides vocational education and typically offers three-year Diploma degrees, which is similar to associate degrees, instead of full, four-year bachelor's degree and the more advanced Master's and doctoral degrees being offered by an Institut Teknologi.
Ireland has an "Institute of Technology" system, formerly referred to as Regional Technical College (RTCs) system. The terms "IT" and "IT's" are now widely used to describe an Institute(s) of Technology. These institutions offer sub-degree, degree and post-graduate level studies. Unlike the Irish university system an Institute of Technology also offers sub-degree programmes such as 2-year Higher Certificate programme in various academic fields of study. Some institutions have "delegated authority" that allows them to make awards in their own name, after authorisation by the Higher Education & Training Awards Council.
Dublin Institute of Technology developed separately from the Regional Technical College system, and after several decades of association with the University of Dublin, Trinity College it acquired the authority to confer its own degrees.
In higher education, Politecnico refers to a technical university awarding degrees in engineering. Historically there were two Politecnici, one in each of the two largest industrial cities of the north:
In 2003, the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research and the Ministry of Economy and Finance jointly established the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology), headquartered in Genoa with 10 laboratories around Italy, which however focuses on research and does not offer undergraduate degrees.
In Japan, an institute of technology (工業大学, kōgyō daigaku?) is a type of university that specializes in the sciences. See also the Imperial College of Engineering, which was the forerunner of the University of Tokyo's engineering faculty.
Polytechnics in Malaysia has been operated for almost 44 years. The institutions provide courses for bachelor's degree & Bachelor of Science (BSc) (offer at Premier Polytechnics for September 2013 intake & 2014 intake), Advanced Diploma, Diploma and Special Skills Certificate. It was established by the Ministry of Education with the help of UNESCO in 1969. The amount of RM24.5 million is used to fund the pioneer of Politeknik Ungku Omar located in Ipoh, Perak from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
At present, Malaysia have developed 32 polytechnic at all over states in engineering, agriculture, commerce, hospitality and design courses with 60,840 students in 2009 to 87,440 students in 2012.
The only technical university in Mauritius is the University of Technology, Mauritius with its main campus situated in La Tour Koenig, Pointe aux Sables. It has a specialized mission with a technology focus. It applies traditional and beyond traditional approaches to teaching, training, research and consultancy. The university has been founded with the aim to play a key role in the economic and social development of Mauritius through the development of programmes of direct relevance to the country’s needs, for example in areas like technology, sustainable development science, and public sector policy and management.
New Zealand polytechnics are established under the Education Act 1989 as amended, and are considered state-owned tertiary institutions along with universities, colleges of education, and wānanga; there is today often much crossover in courses and qualifications offered between all these types of Tertiary Education Institutions. Some have officially taken the title 'institute of technology' which is a term recognized in government strategies equal to that of the term 'polytechnic'. One has opted for the name 'Universal College of Learning' (UCOL), and another 'Unitec New Zealand'. These are legal names but not recognized terms like 'polytechnic' or 'institute of technology'. Many if not all now grant at least bachelor-level degrees.
Since the 1990s, there has been consolidation in New Zealand's state-owned tertiary education system. In the polytechnic sector: Wellington Polytechnic amalgamated with Massey University. The Central Institute of Technology explored a merger with the Waikato Institute of Technology, which was abandoned, but later, after financial concerns, controversially amalgamated with Hutt Valley Polytechnic, which in turn became Wellington Institute of Technology. Some smaller polytechnics in the North Island, such as Waiarapa Polytechnic, amalgamated with UCOL. (The only other amalgamations have been in the colleges of education.)
The Auckland University of Technology is the only polytechnic to have been elevated to university status; while Unitec has had repeated attempts blocked by government policy and consequent decisions; Unitec has not been able to convince the courts to overturn these decisions.
The Polytechnic institutes in Pakistan, offer a diploma spanning three years in different branches. Students are admitted to the diploma program based on their results in the 10th grade standardized exams. The main purpose of Polytechnic Institutes is to train people in various trades.
After successfully completing a diploma at a polytechnic, students can gain lateral entry to engineering degree (under graduate) courses called BE, which are conducted by engineering colleges affiliated to universities or University of Engineering & Technology or University of Engineering Sciences.
University of Engineering & Technology or University of Engineering Sciences are the recognized universities that grant Bachelor's and master's degrees in undergraduate and graduate studies respectively. The Bachelor of Science degree awarded by Universities of Engineering & Technology or University of Engineering Sciences are 4 years full-time program after finishing 13 years of education (international high school certificate) in Pakistan known as F.Sc equivalent to British system A-Level.
Politechnika (translated as a "technical university" or "university of technology") is a main kind of technical university name in Poland. There are some biggest Polytechnic in Poland:
The designation "Institute of Technology" is not applied at all, being meaningless in Portugal. However, there are higher education educational institutions in Portugal since the 1980s, which are called polytechnics. After 1998 they were upgraded to institutions which are allowed to confer bachelor's degrees (the Portuguese licenciatura). Before then, they only awarded short-cycle degrees which were known as bacharelatos and did not provide further education. After the Bologna Process in 2007, they have been allowed to offer 2nd cycle (master's) degrees to its students. The polytechnical higher education system provides a more practical training and is profession-oriented, while the university higher education system has a strong theoretical basis and is highly research-oriented.
Polytechnics in Singapore provides industry oriented education equivalent to a junior college or sixth form college in the UK. Singapore retains a system similar but not the same as in the United Kingdom from 1970–1992, distinguishing between polytechnics and universities. Unlike the British Polytechnic (United Kingdom) system Singapore Polytechnics do not offer bachelors, masters or PhD degrees. Under this system, most Singaporean students sit for their O-Level examinations after a four or five years of education in secondary school, and apply for a place at either a technical school termed ITE, a polytechnic or a university-preparatory school (a junior college or the Millennia Institute, a centralized institute). Polytechnic graduates may be granted transfer credits when they apply to local and overseas universities, depending on the overall performance in their grades, as well as the university's policies on transfer credits. A few secondary schools are now offering six-year program which leads directly to university entrance.
Polytechnics offer three-year diploma courses in fields such as information technology, engineering subjects and other vocational fields, like psychology and nursing. There are 5 polytechnics in Singapore. They are namely:
The world's first institution of technology or technical university with tertiary technical education is the Banská Akadémia in Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia, founded in 1735, Academy since December 13, 1762 established by queen Maria Theresa in order to train specialists of silver and gold mining and metallurgy in neighbourhood. Teaching started in 1764. Later the department of Mathematics, Mechanics and Hydraulics and department of Forestry were settled. University buildings are still at their place today and are used for teaching. University has launched the first book of electrotechnics in the world.
South Africa has completed a process of transforming its "higher education landscape". Historically a division has existed in South Africa between Universities and Technikons (polytechnics) as well between institutions servicing particular racial and language groupings. In 1993 Technikons were afforded the power to award certain technology degrees.
Beginning in 2004 former Technikons have either been merged with traditional Universities to form Comprehensive Universities or have become Universities of Technology, however the Universities of Technology have not to date acquired all of the traditional rights and privileges of a University (such as the ability to confer a wide range of degrees).
Most of Thailand's institutes of technology were developed from technical colleges, in the past could not grant bachelor's degrees; today, however, they are university level institutions, some of which can grant degrees to the doctoral level. Examples are Pathumwan Institute of Technology (developed from Pathumwan Technical School), King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (Nondhaburi Telecommunications Training Centre), and King Mongkut's Institute of Technology North Bangkok (Thai-German Technical School).
There are two former institutes of technology, which already changed their name to "University of Technology": Rajamangala University of Technology (formerly Institute of Technology and Vocational Education) and King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (Thonburi Technology Institute).
Institutes of technology with different origins are Asian Institute of Technology, which developed from SEATO Graduate School of Engineering, and Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology, an engineering school of Thammasat University. Suranaree University of Technology is the only government-owned technological university in Thailand that was established (1989) as such; while Mahanakorn University of Technology is the most well known private technological institute. Technology/Technical colleges in Thailand is associated with bitter rivalries which erupts into frequent off-campus brawls and assassinations of students in public locations that has been going on for nearly a decade, with innocent bystanders also commonly among the injured and the military under martial law still unable to stop them from occurring.
In Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, the oldest technical university is Istanbul Technical University. Its graduates contributed to a wide variety of activities in scientific research and development. In 1950s, 2 technical universities were opened in Ankara and Trabzon. In recent years, Yildiz University is reorganized as Yildiz Technical University and 2 institutes of technology were founded in Kocaeli and Izmir. In 2010, another technical university named Bursa Technical University was founded in Bursa. Moreover, a sixth technical university is about to be opened in Konya named Konya Technical University.
Polytechnics were tertiary education teaching institutions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Since 1970 UK Polytechnics operated under the binary system of education along with universities. Polytechnics offered diplomas and degrees (bachelor's, master's, PhD) validated at the national level by the UK Council for National Academic Awards CNAA. They particularly excelled in engineering and applied science degree courses similar to technological universities in the USA and continental Europe. The comparable institutions in Scotland were collectively referred to as Central Institutions. Britain's first Polytechnic, the Royal Polytechnic Institution later known as the Polytechnic of Central London (now the University of Westminster) was established in 1838 at Regent Street in London and its goal was to educate and popularize engineering and scientific knowledge and inventions in Victorian Britain "at little expense." The London Polytechnic led a mass movement to create numerous Polytechnic institutes across the UK in the late 19th Century. Most Polytechnic institutes were established at the centre of major metropolitan cities and their focus was on engineering, applied science and technology education.
In 1956, some colleges of technology received the designation College of Advanced Technology. They became universities in the 1960s meaning they could award their own degrees. The designation "Institute of Technology" was occasionally used by polytechnics (Bolton), Central Institutions (Dundee, Robert Gordon's), and postgraduate universities, (Cranfield and Wessex), most of which later adopted the designation University, and there were two "Institutes of Science and Technology": UMIST and UWIST, part of the University of Wales. Loughborough University was called Loughborough University of Technology from 1966 to 1996, the only institution in the UK to have had such a designation.
Polytechnics were granted university status under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. This meant that Polytechnics could confer degrees without the oversight of the national CNAA organization. These institutions are sometimes referred to as post-1992 universities.
Schools called "technical institute" or "technical school" that were formed in the early 20th century provided further education between high school and University or Polytechnic. Most technical institutes have been merged into regional colleges and some have been designated university colleges if they are associated with a local university.
Polytechnic Institutes are technological universities, many dating back to the mid-19th century. A handful of world-renowned Elite American universities include the phrases "Institute of Technology", "Polytechnic Institute", "Polytechnic University", or similar phrasing in their names; these are generally research-intensive universities with a focus on engineering, science and technology. The earliest and most famous of these institutions are, respectively, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI, 1824), New York University Tandon School of Engineering (1854) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, 1861). Conversely, schools dubbed "technical colleges" or "technical institutes" generally provide post-secondary training in technical and mechanical fields, focusing on training vocational skills primarily at a community college level—parallel and sometimes equivalent to the first two years at a bachelor's degree-granting institution.
Institutes of technology in Venezuela were developed in the 1950s as an option for post-secondary education in technical and scientific courses, after the polytechnic French concepts. At that time, technical education was considered essential for the development of a sound middle class economy.
Most of these institutes award diplomas after three or three and a half years of education. The Institute of technology implementation (IUT from Instituto universitario de tecnologia on Spanish) began with the creation of the first IUT at Caracas, capital city of Venezuela, called IUT. Dr. Federico Rivero Palacio adopted the French "Institut Universitaire de Technologie"s system, using French personnel and study system based on three-year periods, with research and engineering facilities at the same level as the main national universities to obtain French equivalent degrees. This IUT is the first and only one in Venezuela having French equivalent degrees accepted, implementing this system and observing the high-level degrees some other IUT's were created in Venezuela, regardless of this the term IUT was not used appropriately resulting in some institutions with mediocre quality and no equivalent degree in France. Later, some private institutions sprang up using IUT in their names, but they are not regulated by the original French system and award lower quality degrees.
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web and other information on the Internet created by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization, based in San Francisco, California, United States. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet. The service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a "three dimensional index."
Since 1996, they have been archiving cached pages of web sites onto their large cluster of Linux nodes. They revisit sites every few weeks or months and archive a new version if the content has changed. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who are offered a link to do so. The intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. Their grand vision is to archive the entire Internet.
The name Wayback Machine was chosen as a droll reference to a plot device in an animated cartoon series, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. In one of the animated cartoon's component segments, Peabody's Improbable History, lead characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman routinely used a time machine called the "WABAC machine" (pronounced way-back) to witness, participate in, and, more often than not, alter famous events in history.
In 1996 Brewster Kahle, with Bruce Gilliat, developed software to crawl and download all publicly accessible World Wide Web pages, the Gopher hierarchy, the Netnews (Usenet) bulletin board system, and downloadable software. The information collected by these "crawlers" does not include all the information available on the Internet, since much of the data is restricted by the publisher or stored in databases that are not accessible. These "crawlers" also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached. To overcome inconsistencies in partially cached web sites, Archive-It.org was developed in 2005 by the Internet Archive as a means of allowing institutions and content creators to voluntarily harvest and preserve collections of digital content, and create digital archives.
Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers and scientists to tap into the clunky database. When the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley.
Snapshots usually become available more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later; it can take twenty-four months or longer. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked web site updates are recorded. Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots.
After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. According to Jeff Kaplan of the Internet Archive in November 2010, other sites were still being archived, but more recent captures would become visible only after the next major indexing, an infrequent operation.
As of 2009[update], the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month; the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month. The data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies.
In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, and hosts a new data center in a Sun Modular Datacenter on Sun Microsystems' California campus.
In 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing.
In March 2011, it was said on the Wayback Machine forum that "The Beta of the new Wayback Machine has a more complete and up-to-date index of all crawled materials into 2010, and will continue to be updated regularly. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a little bit of material past 2008, and no further index updates are planned, as it will be phased out this year".
In October 2013, the company announced the "Save a Page" feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries.
In a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc., defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots.txt file on its web site that was causing the Wayback Machine to retroactively remove access to previous versions of pages it had archived from Nebula's site, pages that Chordiant believed would support its case.
Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbula's web site and that they should have subpoenaed Internet Archive for the pages directly. An employee of Internet Archive filed a sworn statement supporting Chordiant's motion, however, stating that it could not produce the web pages by any other means "without considerable burden, expense and disruption to its operations."
Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd in the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, rejected Netbula's arguments and ordered them to disable the robots.txt blockage temporarily in order to allow Chordiant to retrieve the archived pages that they sought.
In an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No. 02 C 3293, 65 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 673 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 15, 2004), a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, perhaps for the first time. Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network. Prior to the trial proceedings, EchoStar indicated that it intended to offer Wayback Machine snapshots as proof of the past content of Telewizja Polska's web site. Telewizja Polska brought a motion in limine to suppress the snapshots on the grounds of hearsay and unauthenticated source, but Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys rejected Telewizja Polska's assertion of hearsay and denied TVP's motion in limine to exclude the evidence at trial. At the trial, however, district Court Judge Ronald Guzman, the trial judge, overruled Magistrate Keys' findings,[citation needed] and held that neither the affidavit of the Internet Archive employee nor the underlying pages (i.e., the Telewizja Polska website) were admissible as evidence. Judge Guzman reasoned that the employee's affidavit contained both hearsay and inconclusive supporting statements, and the purported web page printouts were not self-authenticating.[citation needed]
Provided some additional requirements are met (e.g. providing an authoritative statement of the archivist), the United States patent office and the European Patent Office will accept date stamps from the Internet Archive as evidence of when a given Web page was accessible to the public. These dates are used to determine if a Web page is available as prior art for instance in examining a patent application.
There are technical limitations to archiving a web site, and as a consequence, it is possible for opposing parties in litigation to misuse the results provided by web site archives. This problem can be exacerbated by the practice of submitting screen shots of web pages in complaints, answers, or expert witness reports, when the underlying links are not exposed and therefore, can contain errors. For example, archives such as the Wayback Machine do not fill out forms and therefore, do not include the contents of non-RESTful e-commerce databases in their archives.
In Europe the Wayback Machine could be interpreted as violating copyright laws. Only the content creator can decide where their content is published or duplicated, so the Archive would have to delete pages from its system upon request of the creator. The exclusion policies for the Wayback Machine may be found in the FAQ section of the site. The Wayback Machine also retroactively respects robots.txt files, i.e., pages that currently are blocked to robots on the live web temporarily will be made unavailable from the archives as well.
In late 2002, the Internet Archive removed various sites that were critical of Scientology from the Wayback Machine. An error message stated that this was in response to a "request by the site owner." Later, it was clarified that lawyers from the Church of Scientology had demanded the removal and that the site owners did not want their material removed.
In 2003, Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey defended a client from a trademark dispute using the Archive's Wayback Machine. The attorneys were able to demonstrate that the claims made by the plaintiff were invalid, based on the content of their web site from several years prior. The plaintiff, Healthcare Advocates, then amended their complaint to include the Internet Archive, accusing the organization of copyright infringement as well as violations of the DMCA and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Healthcare Advocates claimed that, since they had installed a robots.txt file on their web site, even if after the initial lawsuit was filed, the Archive should have removed all previous copies of the plaintiff web site from the Wayback Machine. The lawsuit was settled out of court.
Robots.txt is used as part of the Robots Exclusion Standard, a voluntary protocol the Internet Archive respects that disallows bots from indexing certain pages delineated by its creator as off-limits. As a result, the Internet Archive has rendered unavailable a number of web sites that now are inaccessible through the Wayback Machine. Currently, the Internet Archive applies robots.txt rules retroactively; if a site blocks the Internet Archive, such as Healthcare Advocates, any previously archived pages from the domain are rendered unavailable as well. In cases of blocked sites, only the robots.txt file is archived.
The Internet Archive states, however, "Sometimes a website owner will contact us directly and ask us to stop crawling or archiving a site. We comply with these requests." In addition, the web site says: "The Internet Archive is not interested in preserving or offering access to Web sites or other Internet documents of persons who do not want their materials in the collection."
In December 2005, activist Suzanne Shell filed suit demanding Internet Archive pay her US $100,000 for archiving her web site profane-justice.org between 1999 and 2004. Internet Archive filed a declaratory judgment action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on January 20, 2006, seeking a judicial determination that Internet Archive did not violate Shell's copyright. Shell responded and brought a countersuit against Internet Archive for archiving her site, which she alleges is in violation of her terms of service. On February 13, 2007, a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Colorado dismissed all counterclaims except breach of contract. The Internet Archive did not move to dismiss copyright infringement claims Shell asserted arising out of its copying activities, which would also go forward.
On April 25, 2007, Internet Archive and Suzanne Shell jointly announced the settlement of their lawsuit. The Internet Archive said it "...has no interest in including materials in the Wayback Machine of persons who do not wish to have their Web content archived. We recognize that Ms. Shell has a valid and enforceable copyright in her Web site and we regret that the inclusion of her Web site in the Wayback Machine resulted in this litigation." Shell said, "I respect the historical value of Internet Archive's goal. I never intended to interfere with that goal nor cause it any harm."
In 2013–14 a pornographic actor was trying to remove archived images of himself, first by sending multiple DMCA requests to the Archive and then in the Federal Court of Canada.