Dear Colleagues,
The changes and growth at Old Dominion University are exciting. The announcement of the largest freshman class and the continuous news of new research awards are evidence that Old Dominion University is the place to be. The physical improvements are visible everywhere from the new Tri-Cities center and Research I Building to the renovation of BAL. OCCS has contributed to some exciting changes as well. The staff in OCCS has been working this summer to improve the instructional and research technology tools available for faculty and to create and improve learning workspaces for students.
Here are some of the highlights:
- OCCS’s Classroom Central staff spent the summer building 2 new mediated classrooms in the Education Building seventeen more in the Batten Arts and Letters Building, and 5 classrooms and 2 seminar rooms in the new Tri-Cites Center
- Two 25-station computer classrooms, which can be combined into a single 50-station classroom, were built at the Tri-Cities Center.
- Additional hardware resources were added to the Blackboard Learning System to improve performance and reliability. The Blackboard Learning System was upgraded to version 7.2 to fix several security issues and faculty will notice the change where course listings now include both the course name and number.
- The most significant change to Blackboard is the addition of the Content System. Faculty can store a single copy of course content in a library to be shared across multiple course sections. The Content System also provides for improved file management to include versioning.
- The Faculty/Student Communication System (FSCS) continues to be a popular tool for managing communication in a course. This OCCS developed tool was modified to list student MIDAS account IDs in addition to student names.
- The online testing system Questionmark Perception was upgraded to version 4.3. This tool has been heavily used by the NewPage course delivering thousands of quizzes directly from Blackboard. The upgrade provides faculty the ability to take the tests or quizzes that are available for students.
- OCCS negotiated a site license for EndNote, a software tool for publishing and managing bibliographies. The deployment of EndNote is underway in all academic areas.
- In addition, OCCS negotiated a license for MATLAB and 50 toolboxes. The license allows for use of MATLAB for academic and non-commercial research activities. We are working on a controlled deployment of MATLAB for existing users.
- OCCS deployed software to provide research faculty direct access to the research mass storage system from a Windows-based system.
- The new Tri-Cities Center and VMASC facility has been added at 10Gbps to the ODU-managed regional optical network called ELITE (Eastern Lightwave Internetworking Technology Enterprise).
- In addition, the network connection to the Peninsula Higher Education Center was upgraded from 45Mbps to 1Gbps. This upgrade will support both academic courses and research activities, in particular the Center for Advanced Engineering Environments (CAEE). The network connection at the Virginia Beach Higher Education Center will be upgraded to 1Gbps in late September or early October.
- OCCS made several changes to the student computing environment on campus. Color printers and scanners are available in all general purpose computing labs on campus and at the Virginia Beach and Tri-Cities Higher Education Centers.
- We are improving access to computer lab resources by establishing student collaborate workspaces across the campus. As an initial step, remote printers for students have been installed in 7 academic buildings plus Webb Center and the Library. Access to the printers is available through a web plug-in.
- As part of the Webb Center 24/5 initiative, the Webb Center computer lab will be available on a 24-hour basis Sunday - Thursday.
Our department also has several initiatives currently in development.
- OCCS is collaborating with the Center for Learning Technologies on a number of new technologies for academic support to include web conferencing, e-Portfolio using the new Blackboard Content System, and podcasting using iTunesU (itunes.odu.edu).
- Proposals are being evaluated for the University’s standard desktop and laptop computer contract. A decision will be made by mid-September for deployment in October.
- In addition, proposals are being evaluated for a student laptop program. The program will not be mandatory, however will offer students an attractive price, and support services starting in Fall 2008.
- Several other technologies are being evaluated to include a virtual computer lab environment to support remote and shared access to high-end scientific and engineering applications.
A major emphasis will be placed this year on meeting requirements of new Commonwealth of Virginia IT security regulations. OCCS and the Information Technology Advisory Council (ITAC) have established new University IT policies and standards as part of a security program that will help the University comply with the new state standards. The overall goal of the security program is to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of University data. The new IT policies and standards reflect the requirements of the state standards, federal regulations, and IT security best practices. The University IT policies and standards apply to all IT resources used to conduct University business or used to transmit or store sensitive data. The application of the policies and standards should not impede instruction or research activities, however, no activity should introduce unacceptable risk to University data. Please take time to review the new IT policies and standards (http://occs.odu.edu/policies/index.php).
Over the summer, we started evaluating the University email system for faculty/staff and students. In the next week, we will request your input through a survey on email functionality and satisfaction. Our goal is to make a decision on the email direction for the University before the end of the calendar year.
I hope you have a great semester and check out this blog weekly for new posts.
Thanks,
Rusty Waterfield
