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How will Computing be
Different at BSU
in the Fall of 2000 and Beyond?
April 20, 2000 - 3:30-5:00 p.m.
Student Center Forum Room
| Dennis
Kramer |
Jr. King |
Fred Nay |
Bizhan Nasseh |
 |
 |
 |
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| UCS |
UCS |
UCS |
UCS |
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(this session was videotaped - contact VIS)
Summary of Comments, Questions, and Answers
There are a number of "technology"
changes:
 | About 1/3 of the hubs on campus have been updated to permit
streaming and efforts are being made to convert the other
2/3s. This will enable campus videoconferencing, Quicktime
streams, Real Video, MS Video, and other high bandwith
applications. Even those at home will be able to participate
in videoconferences if they have cablem modems (available now) or
DSL modems (available by fall). UCS
is working on a LARGE mac server that will stream quicktime to the
Internet. It will be available this summer. |
| June 2000 is the expected date to permit all the university
community (departments, faculty, staff, and students) to use the Microsoft NT system, including Outlook
(instead of Groupwise) and Frontpage
(instead of Web File Manager). Efforts have been made to accommodate MacIntosh
users. |
| There is preliminary discussion about the VAX system being
eliminated in three years or so and whether the campus will provide
UNIX or some other system. |
Application development continues:
| Client web development is evolving. Alternatives to Web File
Manager are being implemented: MS Frontpage is being made available
(June 2000) to all faculty and staff, Blackboard's CourseInfo system
is being scaled up to accommodate more faculty and students, and
there are plans to use Vignette's
story server to help develop a flexible, common look and feel,
template for BSU webpages |
| Vax email is being moved to Outlook email (june 2000). There
are still some problems getting Groupwise and Outlook to share
calendar information. |
| There have been a number of recent enhancements made to Web Grade
Book, Inqsit (including its use in the Computer-based testing
facility -see Yasemin
Tunc's ABIT presentation), and the recently deployed BSU@work
and these developments will continue. |
| There are a number of special department applications being
developed using MS Access. |
Technology concerns and issues from
UCS's perspective:
| Technology is producing new kinds of competition for faculty at
BSU - corporate based universities, internet courses from
universities with excellent name recognition, and others.
Faculty are the key to helping students learn, but in addition to
subject matter and knowledge of pedagogy, there is increasing demand
for faculty to learn and develop competence with technologies that
can support the teaching-learning process. To be best, we need
to find ways to help large numbers of faculty develop appropriate
technological knowledge. |
| Will Blackboard's CourseInfo be a magic bullet? Unclear, but
it may help many. |
| In the last year, the campus has gone from two T1 lines to the
internet to ten T1 lines. Six of these are serving the
residence halls. How soon will we need 15 or 20? |
| In addition to growing internet access, there are concerns with
protecting resources. Napster has been a growing problem and
steps have been taken to make it difficult to use. The campus
firewall creates a number of problems, but it also solves many
problems. The goal is to continue to seek the middle road -
protection with minimal problems. |
Questions from audience:
| Will BSU be improving the modem pool? ... probably |
| Will Blackboard's Enterprise be adopted? ... there are
scalability problems, but it is being considered |
| Can the campus offset faculty costs for home ISPs? ...
probably not although UCS can look into the possibility of a
contract with Adelphia to get a BSU price |
| What about Virtual Private Networks instead of
firewalls? ... UCS is examining the use of proxy
servers, firewalls, and VPNs. The goal is to find a way to
provide an optimal balance between access and security. RIght
now, the approach emphasizes firewall and proxy servers. |
|
author and copyright : Darrell L. Butler, last update 10/18/00
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