Spring 2008 Newsletter · Issue 31
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ITS @ Wesleyan
Article authored by Ganesan Ravishanker (Ravi), PhD. Ravi is the Associate Vice President for Information Technology at Wesleyan.
Information Technology Services at Wesleyan is responsible for supporting all aspects of computing at Wesleyan. We serve the needs of students, faculty and staff in various ways and also support initiatives from administrative offices that use technology to communicate with alumni and parents.
There used to be a time when IT staff were preoccupied with the “plumbing” — making sure that the servers were up and running, tracking down those who were hogging the network and making sure that payroll ran on time. During the past six years, with a lot of support from senior administration, we have shifted the focus from such routine (yet important) tasks to being a serious partner in the academic mission of the University. In this article I have tried to provide examples of both core technology support and academic technology initiatives.
Technology Factoids (http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/student/index.html) is a great place to start where we list various statistics on computing support at Wesleyan. We blanket the campus with over 260 wireless access points. However, there are still areas where wireless could be better. We are doing the best we can, but certain types of walls, shelving and other technology limitations get in the way and we are constantly looking for ways to improve. We ask students via email for input on where wireless coverage is weak. And believe it or not, they read this email and respond!!!
Supporting the network connectivity for the woodframe houses where most of the seniors live poses difficult challenges because they are not on our network. Woodframe house residents have broadband access to the network through Comcast and we have worked with them to stabilize the network during the last couple of years. We also manage the Cable TV and land line telephony for students.
You will also notice that we have 52 media enhanced classrooms and six public computer labs with 175 computers. These computers allow the students to access discipline specific software (such as Mathematica, SPSS or Adobe Photoshop) that are used in classes. We support both the Macs and PCs equally well.
Students are asked to contact our student Helpdesk for all computer related problems. The student Helpdesk is staffed and managed by very hard working and dedicated students. If your daughter’s or son’s computer needs professional help to resolve the problem, they can contact our Cardinal Technology Services in Exley Science Center.
Our computer store in the Usdan University Center, called the Cardinal Technology Center, sells computer hardware, software and accessories. Students can purchase CDs of Microsoft software for a small fee (to cover the production cost of the CD) because the software itself is free as ITS purchases campus wide license for these software.
Academic Technology
As I mentioned earlier, we work very closely with our faculty in the appropriate use of technology in support of teaching, learning and research. About 40% of classes use the learning management system called Blackboard, which is used by faculty to post the class syllabus, assignments, readings and even grades. The new version of Blackboard supports Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis. A few faculty members use these in very innovative ways to enhance collaboration among students in the class. Since Blackboard requires a Wesleyan login, I cannot link to that site. However, the next time your daughter or son is home, you might want to get a tour of Blackboard if she or he is enrolled in a class that uses it.
We also support the use of Clickers in the classroom. Clickers are a personal response system that can be used by a faculty member during a class to get feedback on the topic being currently discussed. This in turn can provide the basis for further discussion or clarification. You can read more about the clickers at http://www.wesleyan.edu/classrooms/clickers.
Last year, in collaboration with the Library, we did a prototype to digitally archive 40 undergraduate theses. This is a really exciting project because theses are now available on the web, indexed by search engines such as Google, and are easily searchable. You can view these at: http://dspace.nitle.org/handle/10090/179. This year, we plan to archive ALL undergraduate theses electronically. If your daughter or son is writing a thesis this year, make sure to check it out online and share it with family and friends.
We also have been building small learning modules and websites for faculty members. Some of these are small learning modules and others are elaborate websites that are also used to highlight the scholarly work of our faculty members. This work is carried out by our Academic Media Studio (http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/ams). You can view many of the work done by this group at the URL: http://learningobjects.wesleyan.edu.
Some of the most recent developments by this group can be seen at: the Henry Merritt Wriston Website (http://henrymerrittwriston.org). Another exciting module is the animation to illustrate the discovery of the first step in the formation of a planet like Earth, by Professor Bill Herbst in the Astronomy department and his collaborators (http://www.wesleyan.edu/newsrel/kh15d_animation.html).
There is a lot more that we do that I would love to share with you. For example, we just rolled out a new way to store all the files on the network and access them easily over the web (WesFiles), and we are working with WSA (Wesleyan Student Assembly) closely on many initiatives aimed at understanding the student needs and developing systems accordingly. The Rideboard (an online ride sharing program) is a good example of a system that was developed for students which went into production just before the Spring Break. Further, we are constantly making enhancements to our electronic portfolio, which has become the institutional portal.
I look forward to sharing more of our work with you in the future. In the meantime, if you are interested in specifics, please email me at ravishan@wesleyan.edu. I may not have all the answers, but I will find the right person to answer them. Also, feel free to stop by my office (519 Exley Science Center) and say hello the next time you are on campus.