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It’s election season and California is, of course, a state with a lot of ballot initiatives. Instructional & Information Technology (I&IT) has several leading important initiatives of its own during the 2004-2005 academic year. Here’s an update:
A collaborative effort between I&IT and the faculty, this will provide instructors with up-to-date technology to help them in their teaching and scholarly work. Starting this year, the three-year initiative gives each tenured and tenure-track faculty member a laptop computer, docking station and enhanced services, including virus protection and central file storage. Logistics on the rollout are being developed, with the first group of faculty receiving their new computers in the Spring, 2005, Quarter. The goal is for instructors to have one computing environment in the office, the classroom, the lab, at home or on the road, saving time and money and reducing frustration. Funding comes from the state lottery. For more, see http://www.csupomona.edu/iit/facultylaptops/.
This will re-make the university’s classroom environment using a variety of digital technologies. Starting this year, the three-year initiative will transform every classroom with data projectors, audio and visual equipment and other technologies, designed to provide faculty and students with the best presentation and learning tools. This will expand the number of high-technology classrooms from 70 to 180. Look for focus group sessions this fall and take the opportunity to tell I&IT what you need. For more, see http://www.csupomona.edu/iit/
facultylaptops/lcci.shtml.
Known officially as the Infrastructure Terminal Resources Project, this is “Stage 2” of the Telecommunications Infrastructure Initiative (TII). TII put in state-of-the art voice and data wiring in more than two-thirds of the campus, including all state-owned buildings. ITRP is the installation of the latest electronics equipment that will give users high-speed connectivity to the campus network and the Internet. So far, Buildings 5, 6, 30, 79, 91 and 111 have been shifted to the faster network. Buildings 8, 1 and 15 are in progress. A complete schedule will be available soon. Appropriate representatives in all campus groups affected will be notified on timing. Questions on ITRP should be addressed to Susan Reese at 909 979-6344 or sreese@csupomona.edu.
I&IT is launching an important initiative that when completed will simplify the user experience with passwords, applications and connectivity while strengthening privacy. The Identity Management Initiative’s goals are to enable secure, appropriate and responsible use of electronic resources, comply with new laws for improved security and privacy, lower the cost and complexity of services and provide an improved user experience through single sign-ons. There are several projects within this initiative already in progress, including upgrading the university’s on-line directory services and revising the campus’ identification card application. On the way are a new set of password management tools and an enhanced on-line white pages directory service.
Fall, 2004 quarter marks the first full quarter in which students and instructors are enjoying many of the benefits of automation achieved by the campus’ PeopleSoft team. Students have been registering for classes through BroncoDirect, adds/drops are now handled automatically and professors are recording grades. Although there were a few bumps early in the quarter, performance was streamlined with the addition of additional computers to handle the high-volume of transactions during the Add-Drop period. Of 25,000 enrollment transactions in the first two weeks of the Fall Quarter, more than 90% were on-line. More than 9,600 students took advantage of the new service during Add-Drop. To see what is available, see https://broncodirect.csupomona.edu/.
The university community has a new data reporting environment called “BroncoData.” The goal is to provide a “one-stop shop” for accessing campus information. For example, depending on a user’s access, aggregate counts and detailed lists of students or classes may be obtained. Through this website users can review available reports, access the reporting library, request a new report, learn more about the reporting tool and ask the BroncoData team questions. Already, there are several “canned” reports developed by this team, a collaboration of Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, I&IT and Administrative Affairs. BroncoData replaces many of the reports, queries and data extracts in Banner. BroncoData is the university’s “data warehouse.” Data access is via the Brio software. There are multiple access levels, including view, view and process, analyze, analyze and process, query and analyze and data model and analyze. For more, see http://www.csupomona.edu/broncodata.
With the registration of students, grade recording and other student information services moved to the PeopleSoft application, Banner is no longer needed for campus administrative operations. I&IT plans a complete phase-out of Banner by Dec. 31, 2004. During this quarter, I&T is sending notices to long-time users with information about the exact timetable for disabling the Banner software. After year-end, the interactive Banner forms, reports and batch jobs will no longer be available. All current and historical Banner data, such as the PROD and WARE8 databases, will be accessible through software query access. The PROD database will be moved to a new server. For any special Banner needs, contact Carol Heins-Gonzales, Administrator in Charge, I&IT Applications cheins@csupomona.edu.
With the start of a new academic year, I&IT reminds faculty that the campus offers automatic learning management applications. By using Blackboard, instructors can post announcements, notes and course syllabi and set up discussion boards as part of hosting a virtual classroom. Faculty may still use WebCT, another learning management application. For more information on Blackboard, link to http://www.csupomona.edu/iit/learning/blackboard. The WebCT link is at http://www.csupomona.edu/iit/learning/webct.
The I&IT Help Desk is open for phone or walk-in requests Mondays through Thursdays 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Fridays 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., except state holidays. Call 909 869-6776 or visit Building 1, suite 100. Users may obtain copies of campus-licensed software, receive help configuring laptops for wireless connectivity, ask questions about email accounts, set passwords and receive assistance using BroncoDirect.
Need the latest version of Excel to track student work or Dreamweaver to build a website? Check first with I&IT’s list of software with a campus site license. New this year is Mathematica, a program for analyzing data, and solving complex differential equations. Mathematica combines fast, high-precision numeric and symbolic computation with easy-to-use 2D and 3D data visualization and programming. For a complete list of what is available this year as licensed software, see: http://www.csupomona.edu/iit/division/
softwarelicenses.shtml.
Keeping up to date on virus protection is vital to securing work stations and laptop computers. I&IT has a site-wide license for McAfee. If users don’t have virus protection software, they may contact the Help Desk (see “Help Available,” above). Another recommendation from I&IT’s security team is to set a web bookmark to the Microsoft security update site, and turn on the automatic updating process. See http://www.microsoft.com/security/default.mspx.
Dolly Cochran, long-time data services lead in the data center, is retiring after more than 20 years of service. Dolly is helping wind down Banner (see above), and then will spend most of the rest of 2004 vacationing. She’ll officially leave us in January, 2005. Those in the administrative areas who have been here for a while will remember Dolly’s faithful service in running batch processing jobs, handing special requests and keeping things orderly amongst the whirring and humming machines. We wish the best to Dolly in her retirement. Also, one of the computer operators, Lu Cooper, recently celebrated 30 years of service to the university. Lu has spent his career here working behind the scenes as our off-hours operator, working nights. Although many don’t see Lu, it’s the night operator that makes sure all the important data gets backed up properly and all the large production jobs run as scheduled.
I&IT Management
A. Michael Berman |
amberman@csupomona.edu |
Stephanie Doda |
sndoda@csupomona.edu |
Pamela McQuesten |
pmcq@csupomona.edu |
Peter Deutsch |
pdeutsch@csupomona.edu |
Carol Heins-Gonzales Administrator in Charge, I&IT Applications |
cheins@csupomona.edu |
H’Sundiata Keita |
hkeita@csupomona.edu |
David Levin |
dslevin@csupomona.edu |
Denny Mosier |
dbmosier@csupomona.edu |
“I&IT Newsletter” is a publication of the Instructional & Information Technology (I&IT) division of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA. Send comments to Denny Mosier at (909) 979-6334 or dbmosier@csupomona.edu. All rights reserved.
Previous newsletters: Summer 2004, Spring 2004, Fall 2003
