the campus test bed phase of Early Harvest, is pushing forward the deployment of core middleware at thirteen US campuses. Based on this experience, Early Adopters will develop roadmaps for other campuses to follow in their own deployments. Both Early Harvest and Early Adopters are funded by the NSF.
the second group of the adopter categories in the diffusion process of new products, services, or ideas, i.e., those individuals who adopt a new product after the innovators; are very often opinion leaders and generally motivated by social acceptance and a desire to be trendy. See adoption process, adopter categories, adoption curve, diffusion process, innovators, early majority, late majority, and laggards.