Technology Advisory Group

Welcome back, all! In case you didn’t spend your summer break thinking about campus technology, here’s a quick recap of what’s been going on over the past few months and what we’ll be talking about in fall semester.

What Happened:

• Campus wireless upgrade. We’re seeing huge improvements in connection speed and strength – thank you, Network Infrastructure!
• Classroom upgrades. Over the summer, IT Services remediated all of Brennan’s teaching spaces. Other classrooms were upgraded as well – including CLP223, 224, 225, JOH 150, 152, MGH 017, 209, 336, 402, and 406.
• Lecture Capture. Lecture capture capability has been installed in LSC133 and LSC333. TAG members Jeremy Sepinsky and Tara Fay are doing pilot projects this fall to test out the new technology before extending it to other classrooms. Nursing and Counseling departments are next on the list.
• Mobile access to Angel. We now have a license for Blackboard Mobile Learn for Angel, so you can download the free app for use on your iPhone, iPad, Android, or Blackberry device.
• R-ID authentication. Instructor stations and computer labs now require your R number as your user name. Your password is the same.
• Virtual desktops. 203 computers in Brennan and Library computer labs are now thin client machines.  At these terminals, students access virtual desktops and save files to SkyDrive.

What’s Coming:

• Standard user accounts. As Windows 7 is rolled out for new faculty computers, our roles will change from administrative to standard user accounts. This is a security measure to try to prevent users from downloading and installing malicious software. By default, standard users can’t install or delete applications. This would be a major issue for many faculty members, but IR has been working on a solution for faculty, using Viewfinity privilege management software. The plan so far: when you need to install an application, you’re prompted to enter a brief description/justification, and then your permissions are temporarily elevated so that you can install what you need. Commonly used software is whitelisted to speed things up. I’ve been piloting it this summer from a faculty perspective, with good results. Mac and Linux users will not be affected. More details on this later.
• Code of Responsible Computing. This policy is up for review. As a representative from TAG and the Faculty Senate, Dave Dzurec has bravely agreed to co-chair the effort. We’ll post updates here.
• The academic server is scheduled for final retirement this year. Several faculty members still have web content on the server – so CTLE (probably with some help from TAG) will be reaching out to those folks this semester to help them move any content they want to keep.
• Luminis upgrade. An update to the my.scranton portal is currently scheduled for December 2012. TAG is contributing suggestions for the new faculty tab – let me know if you’re interested in giving ideas or feedback.
• Software licensing for virtualized environments.  The idea is that faculty, staff, and students could log into their virtual desktop from any computer and access the specialized software they need (SPSS, etc). Unfortunately, this is really expensive. IR is looking into it.
• Royal Card. The system will get a full upgrade this year. This won’t have much effect on faculty from what we can tell.

What’s Stalled:

• Academic Technology Plan. Sigh. That said, TAG is still looking for faculty input on future technology needs. What kind of teaching spaces do we want? What technology funding is most important? We’re hoping to get more conversations started on these topics this year.

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*Thanks to Jim Franceschelli, Lorraine Mancuso, Jerry DeSanto, and Robyn Dickinson for talking us through this year’s road map.

**IR staff, please let me know if I got anything wrong. Thank you!