Your daily dose of news, notes and links from around Kansas University.

• Doug Ward, associate professor of journalism at KU, has been writing a bit for the Chronicle of Higher Education’s ProfHacker blog about how he’s incorporated iPads into the classroom and on other topics.

Here’s his look at how he used the iPad to add audio comments to grading for online classes.

“One of the frustrating things I found in teaching online last semester was the lack of direct contact with students,” Ward wrote. “The class felt impersonal, despite my efforts to give it life.”

He overcame that with an app called iAnnotate, which allowed him to write comments on PDFs and add voice comments.

Students generally responded positively, he said. All that was necessary to see and hear the comments was a PDF reader. More after the jump, too.

There’s actually quite a bit going on with iPads across campus, and I’ll likely pull that together for a story in the near future.

• A KU spokeswoman told me a little bit about some changes in security at the Spencer Museum of Art.

Five people employed as security guards would become employees of KU Public Safety as part of an efficiency measure, said Jill Jess, the KU spokeswoman.

Whether their jobs would significantly change was left a little unclear to me. Jess said she couldn’t comment on specific security procedures at the museum.

But, as of earlier this week, Jess confirmed to me that all the security employees were still employed by the university. If I hear more, I’ll let you know.

• KU was touting more than $875,000 saved per year on Thursday, when it released a statement showing how it had created some new cost savings by combining its purchasing power with KU Medical Center.

What was interesting to me was the total amount that some of this stuff costs a university each year. Office-related products, for example, cost $2.67 million per year (KU will save $240,000 each year under the new contract).

Scientific supplies? That’s another $5.255 million (KU will save $280,000). Desktop and laptop computers? Tack on another $2.26 million. KU anticipates it will save about $210,000 to $330,000 each year under the newly negotiated contract with Dell.

• I still think the best use of an iPad ever is to send me a tip for Heard on the Hill to ahyland@ljworld.com.