Overview of an Industry/Academia Partnership for Furthering the Advancement of Pen-based Technology in Research and Education

Microsoft Research understands the vital role academia plays in the future of computing. We continually seek to collaborate with leading schools to enhance the teaching and learning experience. In support of this vision, we have identified and supported research in pen based technologies since the early 2000\´s. During this time we developed 4 primary programs: 1) academic summits, workshops and symposiums, including the "tablet PCs in higher education & research workshop" being offered at this event; 2) Request for Proposals to explore new idea; 3) Direct support for individual projects such as for development of classroom presenter at the University of Washington, and 4) center & institutes to accelerate research in a specific domain, [e.g.,] the Microsoft center for research on pen-centric computing at Brown University and the Microsoft/MIT alliance on information technology in higher education;. This paper provides a brief overview of all of the Tablet/pen enabled activities and examples of the results of the collaborations.