The biggest improvement we have planned is an overhaul of the campus wireless network. Currently, the wireless network runs at 54 mbps, which was excellent in 2005 when it first went online. However in the foreseeable future, a spate of bandwidth-intensive services like Tegrity lecture capture, Blackboard, the Virtual Computer Labs, and even YouTube are expected to overwhelm our wireless bandwidth.
After the upgrade we will be running at N-Class speed: up to 300 mbps. We will also be increasing the number of computers that can connect to the network in any given location. More computers connecting in heavily-used areas like the Student Union and the Library means more opportunities for students to study and collaborate wherever they need to.
The second project, mentioned above, is the Tegrity Lecture Capture software. Professors and lecturers can use this program to record their lectures and upload them to Blackboard. This allows the students to access the lectures if a class is missed, if a student is late, or if they want to watch it again before exam time. Students are able to review the material as soon as the professor uploads it. Sound, video, and any media displayed in class is all captured and indexed. Working with the Division of Academic Affairs, we have 23 professors and lecturers utilizing this application and hope to have more taking advantage of this opportunity in the coming semesters.
Another project being worked on is the Virtual Computer Labs. This project will allow students to access applications normally only accessible from the University computer labs. Some of these applications include: nursing programs, engineering software, computer science software and various statistical analysis. To use the virtual Labs, go to http://vlab.utpa.edu (using Internet Explorer) and follow the on-screen instructions. After a short installation, a window opens which looks exactly like a computer screen in the ASB Computer Labs. That’s because for all intents and purposes, it is. Much of the software that you previously had to visit the Computer Labs to use can now be accessed from a web browser, anywhere on the Internet.
When you log off, everything you created in a Virtual Labs session disappears, so it’s important to save your work to a thumbdrive before you disconnect. In the future, we’ll be adding the ability for you to save your work to the Virtual Lab computer, effectively giving you a dedicated virtual computer in the labs, set up just the way you want to work. Finally, it is my great pleasure to announce a new kind of learning environment in the Academic Services Building: the Learning Studio. This room is the first of its kind on campus: a comfortable, private room full of technology designed to make your meetings, study sessions, or collaboration groups a success. And the best thing is it’s only available for students to reserve. It’s located at the ASB, room 2.112.
Some of the features included in this state-of-the-art studio are: a presentation podium with audio-visual controls, a 58-inch mobile monitor (known as a Smart Board) featuring a touch screen, wireless polling system, movable white boards, document camera, a video projector, and wireless tablets that will allow each student to use the Smart Board from their seats. To use the Learning Studio, students may reserve a date and time with computer services. Our hope is that they will use this room to its fullest potential.
The Division of Information Technology Computing Labs has traditionally offered students the use of computer hardware and software they might not otherwise have access to. Students now have access to personal computers at home, in their dorm rooms, or traveling with them from class to class.
Unfortunately, the software needed to complete their course work is expensive for many of our students, especially when a particular package is only needed for a class or two. This forces a students to visit our on-campus student labs to utilize a particular piece of software.
To alleviate this situation, The Division of Information Technology has implemented a pilot project: Virtual Computer labs thru funding provided by the student IT access fees. As this is a pilot program, 100 licenses were purchased to allow for students to connect simultaneously to our virtual labs with the software found in the current labs. Note: some software that is graphic intensive may not function as desired.
With nothing more than a broadband internet connection and a web browser, students can access virtual machines loaded with the software they need to be successful…from anywhere in the world! To try the Virtual Labs go to https://vlab.utpa.edu/.
We strongly encourage our students to use our pilot virtual labs and to provide feedback. Please send emails with questions, issues, feedback, and software recommendations to vlabs@utpa.edu.
Very interesting and timely article from ECAR (Edacause Center for Applied Research) on how students view Information Technology as it relates to their academic lives. We are currently conducting a similar survey of our students and it would be good to compare the results of our survey to ECAR’s. Our hope is to take both surveys as tools to help us build a strategic plan for their technology needs and college success.
Some facts from the ECAR report:
51% of students surveyed are using internet phones while 29% of the 51% surf the internet daily.
laptops are owned by 87% of the students survey.
survey students spend 21 hours per week on the internet.
73% of students report using the college university library website.
Increased use of social networking sites (86% in 2009).
Decreased use of IM weekly (55% in 2009).
70% of students agree or strongly agree that IT makes doing their course activities more convenient.
The focus of our own survey will be help us better understand the needs of our students and their access to technology as we move forward in mobility applications and other student-focused initiatives. Through a series of meetings I’ve held with our students from several key constituencies, we already know that they want more access to services through mobile devices. One of our hope is to have a piloted or live mobility application for our students this fiscal year.
Last year for the first time, we made it so that everyone using the University’s Exchange email system could see all official holidays and special days in their Outlook calendar. That proved to be pretty popular, so we’re pleased to announce that we’ve just finished rolling out this Academic Year’s holidays and special dates for 2009-2010 to all Exchange users.
Besides letting everyone know when school holidays are, we hope this service helps everyone on campus become involved in the life of the University Community and have a better understanding of what their colleagues do.
Below is the list of events that will be appearing in your Outlook Calendar this year:
University Convocation
First day of Class: Fall
Labor Day: UTPA Closed
Twelfth Day of Class: Official Census Date Fall
HESTEC
Last Day to Change Courses Fall
Last Day to Drop Courses: Withdraw Fall
Thanksgiving Holiday: UTPA Closed
Study Days: No classes or finals permitted Fall
Fall Final Exams
Fall Commencement Ceremonies
Final Grades Entered by Faculty: Fall
Winter Holiday: UTPA Closed
Christmas Day: UTPA Closed
Winter Holiday (Skeleton Workforce Required)
New Year’s Day: UTPA Closed
Martin Luther King Jr. Day: UTPA Closed
First day of Class: Spring
Twelfth Day of Class: Official Census Date Spring
Last Day to Change Courses Spring
Spring Break: No Classes
Spring Break: No Classes (Skeleton Workforce Required)
Easter Holiday: No Classes
Last Day to Drop Courses: Withdraw Spring
Study Days: No classes or finals permitted Spring
Spring Final Exams
Spring Commencement Ceremonies
Final Grades Entered by Faculty: Spring
First Day of Class: Miniterm
Second Day of Class: Miniterm
Last Day to Drop Courses: Miniterm
Memorial Day: UTPA Closed
Last Day of Class: Miniterm
Miniterm Final Exams
Final Grades Entered by Faculty: Miniterm
First Day of Class: Summer I
First Day of Class: Summer III
Fourth Day of Class: Census Date Summer I
Seventh Day of Class: Summer III
Last Day to Change Courses Summer I
Last Day to Drop Courses: Withdraw Summer I
Midterm Break & Fourth of July: No Classes Summer III
The Division of Information Technology is conducting a trial to see how students perform when they use electronic textbooks instead of printed ones. Check out the blog for The eBooks Project to learn more.
Here are some of the projects we’re currently working on for our students:
Major upgrade to wireless network
The entire campus wireless network is being ripped and replaced with all new equipment that works at the new high-speed Wireless-N speed, giving students 108 gigabits of wireless goodness. With all the emphasis on multimedia, streaming video, and new services like Tegrity lecture capture and the Virtual ASB, you’ll find this extra capacity very useful. You’ll also find that more laptops can be online in any given area on campus, because we’re upping the access point density too.
Student Computer Portal
Imagine having one web page that takes you everywhere you need to go: Blackboard courses, class schedules, grades, finances, discussion forums, Bronc Mail, and announcements. After you log into your personal portal, one click takes you to any of these places. There’s also social networking. Share with your friends, write on their walls, and IM chat with them.In the future, the Library will be added to the services you can reach through your portal page. You’ll be able to customize the page to suit your needs and add pages that are yours alone.
One-click account activation for new students
This Spring we did away with the paper mail that you might remember getting from us when you were a beginning student. Now we send new students a link via email that they can click to activate their access to ASSIST services. With that, they can track the progress of their application to enroll, check their financial aid status, and set their password on Bronc Mail. Before this, new students received a paper letter, which wasn’t very convenient. Sometimes they forgot to bring it to Orientation with them. Now, if they forget their password, they can use the special link until the first day of the semester.
Self-service password resets with high-assurance ID (coming soon)
If you forget your password, you currently have to come to campus with an ID card to get the Helpdesk to reset it. Soon, students will be able to go to a web page where they can reset their password by answering security questions. This is similar to what you’re already familiar with at major online websites.
Continuing to evaluate SurveyDIG for online course evaluation this summer
Every semester the University spends $30,000 on the student course evaluation process, using the paper Scan-Tron forms you are all familiar with. That’s money that can’t be spent on delivering services to students. If we could find a way to do away the costs of processing all those paper forms, while still measuring the quality of the classes being taught here, it would be a great step forward for the University. That’s what the SurveyDIG experiment is all about. Last Spring we kicked it off and about 18% of students used it to evaluate their professors. The experiment is continuing through the Summer semesters. We’re learning from this process and we are continuing to gather data which will be used to form future decisions in this area.
Tegrity lecture capture software
All lectures in the Smart Classrooms will be digitally captured by the newly-installed Tegrity system, along with PowerPoint slides, annotations, and other multimedia audio and video. The lectures will be available online so you can review lectures you want to see again, or catch up on a class you missed. You’ll be able to use any internet-connected computer as well as mobile devices like networked cellphones and PDAs. Anywhere you can access the Internet, on or off campus, you’ll be able to review your class lectures.
Student web hosting is now live
If you want to design your own web pages we’ve got 20MB for you to let your imagination take flight. Your space is waiting for you at http://students.utpa.edu/<username>.
New free antivirus download for students—Microsoft ForeFront (coming this Fall)
Free to all Students: Microsoft ForeFront antivirus software. Starting this Fall, we will publish directions on how to get your copy as soon as it is available.
New Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
The reason we have open campus computing labs is to make sure everyone has access to the computers and software they need to complete their studies. But although the labs are open 24 hours a day, some students still find it difficult to make time to come to campus to study in the computer labs. Now,. We’re offering another option. With our new Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, we’re putting the computer labs on the Internet, so you can access special computer lab software and services from anywhere on the Internet.
No matter if you’re at home, around the world, or across the campus, you can get online and let the computer lab come to you.
Our virtual labs are a solution that can enable our students to use lab specialized software from almost any location.Using a broadband internet connection and a web browser, students can access virtual machines loaded with all of the software they need to be successful.Virtual labs will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, excluding maintenance windows.
New “Learning Studio” in the Academic Services Building
The new “Learning Studios” will provide our students and faculty an opportunity to experiment with radical flexibility in space, furnishings, and technology.
Features
Presentation Podium with A/V controls.
Laptop Checkout (Both Apple and Windows OS)
58” Mobile Smart Board
Wireless Airliner Tablets for Smartboard
Wireless Polling System (Turning Point)
Mobile White boards
Movable furniture and desks
Benefits
Gives students a space to practice presentations and to conduct group collaboration.
The room is configurable to multiple different configurations to accommodate almost any need.
Specifically designed to promote faculty and student engagement.
This room will allow students with a study area that has the latest technology available.
Go Green Initiative: Information Technology’s Current Contribution
To support the Go Green initiative, we have purchased the Faronics Power Save solution, which will provide PC power management to the computing labs for the first phase.Power Save keeps computers running when users need them and can accurately determine when computers are inactive so they can be powered down. Power Save’s non-disruptive PC power management analyzes CPU, disk, keyboard, mouse, and application activity before taking computer power management actions. It is estimated to provide an average savings of $50 per computer per year for every computer deployed.This totals to about $40,000 a year in energy savings in the computing labs alone.During our second phase, we will incorporate our campus computers in the next few months.
The eBooks Project
We believe that eBooks could be an effective way to lower the cost of education. It’s easy to see that an electronic textbook costs about 60% of what its paper counterpart costs. But do eBooks help students be successful? Do those students have better graduation and retention rates?Those are some of the questions The eBooks Project seeks to answer. This Fall, 500 students will receive free electronic textbooks as part of a research project sponsored by Information Technology. The purpose of the project is to measure how well students who use eBooks perform. One of the members of the team is quantitative statistician Dr. Jesus Tanguma, who is leading the research effort and is designing the study. Information Technology is partnering with Wiley & Sons and using the Wiley Plus online textbooks.
The students who will receive free eBooks are those enrolled in one of several Quantitative Statistics sections or in one Abnormal Psychology class. Next Spring we will have different classes in the program and we will be signing professors up for the Spring program this Autumn. The eBooks Project is funded by Incentive Funds, which are made available to programs that seek to improve student graduation and retention rates.
New campus wireless printing stations
Campus wireless printing will be available in 10 buildings on campus.Currently there are 7 wireless print stations.
COAS
1 Floor
COBA
2nd Floor Student Lounge
HSHSW
1.262 Student Lounge
Library
1st Floor vending area
MAGC
1.106 Lounge
Science
1.290 Student Lounge
SUB
Game Room 1st Floor
SBS Computing LabIn collaboration with the Division of information Technology, the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences is building a new computing lab in the SBS Building.Information Technology has already purchased all the computers necessary and are awaiting the completion of the lab construction.This lab will make computer labs more accessible for students taking classes in the SBS Building.
In order to protect the University computers from an exploit that takes advantage of the autorun feature of the Windows operating system, the autorun feature will be disabled for all Windows devices. This modification will affect all computers that are joined to the UTPA domain. The computers that are not joined to the domain but have management software will be targeted with a script to disable the setting.
Why are we doing this? DIR is highly recommending that all state agencies prepare for this outbreak on April 1st . The Conficker Trojan, (aka Downup, Downadup and Kido) will begin to make its appearance across the internet.
When will this be done? Approximately 12:00 PM today the change will be made on all computers in the UTPA domain to disable the autorun feature.
What about those machines that are not managed by the Division of Information Technology? You will need to ensure all patches have been applied and your computer restarted. For more information, see the below links:
Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AD724AE0-E72D-4F54-9AB3-75B8EB148356&displaylang=en
Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx
Should I be worried about my home computer? Yes, you will also need to ensure all patches have been applied on your home computers. These computers will also need to be restarted prior to 11:59pm today. Note: Information Technology cannot assist with your home computers or problems you may have with your home computers. It is a best practice to ensure all computer equipment is updated with the latest security updates and has an anti-virus application installed, that is updated.
How will this affect me? Anytime a USB device or CD is attached to a pc, it will no longer automatically begin to run. You will need to follow the following steps:
1. Go to My Computer
2. Click on the device letter is associated with the device
3. Proceed with the desired action
Important Note: Please restart your computer after 12:30pm today or at your earliest convenience. If you do not restart your pc before 11:59 pm today, your computer and your USB devices will potentially be at risk.
If you have any questions regarding the information listed above, please call the Computer Support Desk at ext 2020 or 956.381.2020.
Beverly Jones CIA, CISA
Interim Chief Information Security Officer
SPSS 17 is now available to be installed on UTPA-owned computers. The SPSS Statistics family of products is the world’s leading statistical software used by commercial, government, and academic organizations to solve business and research problems.
To access the software follow the steps below:
1) Go to Start Menu and then click on Control Panel
2) Click on “Run Advertised Programs”
3) Select the “SPSS 17 for Windows English – Basic UI” (desktops) or “SPSS 17 for Windows English – Basic UI with Commute” (laptops) application from the list
4) Proceed with the installation of SPSS 17
Notice (for laptop installations): In order to use SPSS off-campus a SPSS license needs to be checked out. This process needs to be performed while connected on the UTPA network before being able to run the application off-campus. Reference the following help document for detailed instructions: http://www.utpa.edu/helpdesk/tutorials/dtutorial.asp?id=12
If you have any questions please contact the Computer Support Desk at 956.381.2020 or at extension 2020.
Faculty and Staff,On Friday March 20th, 2009, at 11:00 p.m., Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Windows Vista will be sent to all managed computers on campus currently running Windows Vista. This Service Pack will restart your computer several times during the installation. It is critical that computers are not manually restarted during the installation.No computers running Windows Vista will be exempted from this restart.Therefore, it is important that you save everything you are working on before leaving the office on Friday afternoon.
In addition to previously released updates, Service Pack 1 addresses specific reliability, performance and compatibility issues, supports new types of hardware, and adds support for several emerging standards.
If you have any questions concerning this software deployment, please contact the Computer Support Desk at 381-2020.
