dwaldron November 5th, 2009
Wireless network access is now available throughout Bissman Residence Hall. Students can find instructions for connecting to the College’s secure, authenticated wireless network on the IT website. Assistance with wireless access is available at the IT help desk located behind the circulation desk in Andrews Library.
Work is currently underway to provide wireless access throughout Stevenson Hall. We hope to complete that work over the course of the next two weeks. IT is currently working with Physical Plant and the Dean of Students Office to develop a schedule for extending wireless network access to all remaining Residence Halls. Details will be announced as they become available.
dwaldron April 29th, 2009
Jerry McMillen |
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OIT welcomes our newest employee, Web Systems Administrator Jerry McMillen. Jerry comes to us from Cuyahoga Community College where he was employed as Programmer Analyst. In this capacity, Jerry developed web-based applications and applications for mobile devices for faculty, staff and students. He provided administrative and develoment support for CCC’s course management system and provided support for a variety of database applications. He worked to automate database functions and to integrate various applications with CCC’s Banner administrative software system. Jerry earned his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from The University of Akron and holds a masters degree in Educational Technology from Cleveland State University. At Wooster, Jerry will support the various software servers being implemented in conjunction with the web initiative and the redesign of Wooster’s primary website. Welcome, Jerry! |
dwaldron April 24th, 2009
OIT has implemented a system that permits members of the faculty and staff to create accounts that allow temporary guest access to the College’s wireless network. Guests receive a user id and password combination, instructions for connecting to the COWGuest wireless network and information on acceptable use. All the information necessary to create and manage temporary accounts is available in the online documentation. OIT is delighted to make this new service available to the College community.
dwaldron April 24th, 2009
On Friday, April 3, A trio of nationally renowned figures gathered at The College of Wooster on Friday, April 3, for a half-day forum, entitled “Great Decisions in Times of Economic Crisis.” This group included Donald Kohn, vice chair of the Federal Reserve System, William Longbrake, retired vice chairman and CFO of Washington Mutual and former CFO of the FDIC, and James Stewart, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism. The forum was moderated by Richard Seaman, President and CEO of Seaman Corporation and a member of Wooster’s Board of Trustees.
This extraordinary event can now be viewed online:
Introductions by John Rudisil and Richard Seaman
The Remarks of James Stewart
The Remarks of Donald Kohn
The Remarks of William Longbrake
Questions and Discussion
OIT extends a special thanks to Michael Naylor, Assistant Director of Digital Infrastructure for Media Services and Systems, and the Media Services group for making it possible to share this content online.
dwaldron April 22nd, 2009
Happy Earth Day, Wooster!
It seems appropriate to mark the occasion by posting about a technological development of a kind not usually covered by the OIT blog. Jon Bohmer, a Norwegian-born entrepreneur based in Kenya has developed a solar oven. Dubbed the Kyoto Box, the oven consists of two cardboard boxes and an acrylic cover that admits and then traps the sun’s rays. A bit of black paint and silver foil help to concentrate the heat. Without electricity or any power source other than the sun’s rays, Kyoto Box users can boil water and cook many foods. The ability to boil water is critical to fighting waterborne illnesses. In addition, the Kyoto Box could reduce the use for wood and other fossil fuels for cooking in the developing world. The oven is expected to cost approximately $5. More information is available from CNN.
dwaldron April 16th, 2009
The Instructional Technology Faculty Fellows Program is a new program for any member of the campus community whose continuing contract has a teaching component. The dates for the program are May 18-22, 2009. The goals of the program are to increase the number of faculty taking advantage of Web 2.0 and other technologies in their teaching and scholarship, to familiarize faculty with tools and project types with which Instructional Technology can help, and to help faculty learn how to assess technology projects. Participants will also be expected to develop a project to be implemented in one of their Fall courses and to participate in continuing dialog throughout the Fall Semester.
The Program seeks to select a diverse group from all level of teaching experience, technology use, and project implementation and across all disciplines. Successful applicants will be expected to attend all sessions, must be willing to communicate to their department and campus the projects and tools with which they are working, and must be teaching a course in the Fall of 2009. Upon completion of the week-long portion of the program participants will receive a certificate, designation as a Faculty Instructional Technology Fellow, and half of the $1500 stipend (deposited into a research account awarded to the participating faculty member). The second half of the $1500 stipend will be deposited to participants’ research accounts upon implementing a project in one of their Fall 2009 courses.
Applications for the program will be accepted until midnight on April 26. Applicants will be notified about the status of their application not later than 5 PM on May 6. Further information about the program is available from Matt Gardzina, Director of Instructional Technology.
dwaldron April 13th, 2009
PRI’s World Technology Podcast #239 was posted on Friday and features an interview with Evgeny Morozov. Originally from Belarus, Morozov is currently a fellow at the Open Society Institute in New York. In the past, he has written for The Economist and, according to his blog, net.effect is currently writing a book on the impact of the internet on global politics, with particular emphasis on authoritarian states. A recent post to net.effect is entitled “Moldova’s Twitter Revolution.” That post, and the Technology Podcast interview, explore the role played by Twitter and other social networking sites in the recent unrest in Moldova.
The World Technology Podcast is hosted by Clark Boyd and is available at http://www.theworld.org/technology or via iTunes.
dwaldron April 11th, 2009
The Datatel Users Group conference (DUG) is an annual event that brings together Datatel corporate employees with representatives of the more than 750 colleges and universities that utilitze Datatel’s software products. The conference offers scores of sessions devoted to a wide range of topics related to Colleague software modules and associated tools. Most of these sessions are conducted by employees of Datatel clients.
DUG 2009 took place between April 5th and 9th at National Harbor in Maryland. Tabby Conwell (Director of Applications Development), Michael Thompson (Analyst/Programmer) and Debbie Kilbane (Analyst/Programmer) attended the event and delivered a presentation entitled “Using DataOrchestrator, ODS and Business Objects for Query and Reporting.” Together, DataOrchestrator and ODS (Operational Data Store) constitute a data warehousing-type system for use with Datatel’s Colleague. Business Objects is a sophisticated reporting tool used to access and report upon data in the warehouse.
The College of Wooster is among the first Datatel clients to implement this data warehousing solution and Tabby, Michael and Debbie played key roles in that implementation. In recognition of this, Datatel asked Tabby, Michael and Debbie to present at DUG on this topic and to share their experiences with other Datatel clients.
The development of this solution incorporating DataOrchestrator, ODS and Business Objects has been a significant initiative for Datatel and is a critical component of the company’s reporting strategy. John Speer, Datatel’s president, and John van Weeren, Reporting and Technology Project Manager were among the many who attended the presentation.
Tabby and her group implemented this reporting solution in conjunction with the implementation of Colleague module for the Development Office. The solution was also implemented in conjunction with the HR and Payroll modules. Her group will now work to make the solution available to users of other Datatel modules.
OIT congratulates Tabby, Michael and Debbie on their successful presentation—and upon their successful implementation of this reporting solution. We all look forward to the successful deployment of this reporting system to additional College offices.
dwaldron April 10th, 2009
Morgan Hall lost electric power at approximately 10:17 p.m. on Thursday, February 9. Battery units provide power to our servers under these circumstances, but they can do so only for a short period of time. (Less than two hours.) The purpose of these battery units is to provide the Digital Infrastructure (DI) group the opportunity to shutdown our servers in an orderly way. Should the servers lose power during normal operation they can be damaged and/or data can be lost. DI staff members arrived on campus shortly after the power failure and were able to shutdown the great majority of servers before the battery units were drained. Power was restored in the early morning hours. By 4:45 a.m. most IT services had been reinitiated, though some problems stemming from the power failure persisted until 10:00 a.m. OIT is grateful to John McCreight and Mike Naylor who worked throughout the early morning to restore IT services to the campus community.
dwaldron April 6th, 2009
Professor John Lindner has made his YouTube debut. In his video, he demonstrates the use of a sympodium. In the course of this, he also explains how Eratosthenes, before 194 BC, determined that the earth was spherical and estimated its circumference with remarkable accuracy. Professor Lindner’s demonstration was conducted in conjunction with the work of Wooster’s learning community studying the pedagogical effectiveness of the sympodium device. The learning community’s work is funded by a grant from the Ohio Learning network.
Follow this link to view the video.