Campus Technology Services

Volume 11, April 2009

Featured Article: Lanigan Hall Upgrade

Chuck Perkins (left) and Bob Hageny (right)

Upon returning from spring break, faculty members who teach in the Lanigan lecture halls were greeted with a new podium control surface and document camera. CTS staff utilized the week of "empty classrooms" to perform upgrades to Lanigan Hall's seven lecture halls. Part of the upgrade consisted of replacing the Extron 206 control surface with the 'Extron 226.' According to CTS staff member Chuck Perkins who installed and programmed the new unit and will now be maintaining them, "one advantage is our ability to remote monitor and control the system right from our desk, which during diagnosing and problem solving is time saving. The '206' didn't give us those capabilities." Perkin's added the new system features 'back lit' buttons which give users much greater visibility when switching sources. With the '206', the selection buttons were the same color as the panel so differentiating the button from the panel was often difficult.

The second part of the upgrade was replacing the Elmo Document Camera with a Wolfvision VZ-8 Series Visualizer. Bob Hageny, ATC Operations Manager has received favorable comments from instructors who have used the Wolfvision. "Users have been very impressed with its clarity and ease of use. In the past, we would receive calls from faculty members who were having trouble focusing or zooming in on an image. We stopped receiving those calls. It was a busy week making the conversion however the upgrade is benefiting everyone."

Oswego Daily Communication Pilot

SUNY Oswego recently announced a new way for faculty and staff to share university-related information with each other.

The Oswego Daily is a communication service for the college's faculty and staff and should be used as an alternative means to distribute information traditionally distributed on paper. It is a digested listserve distributed each day around 6 AM. Messages sent to oswegodaily-list@ls.oswego.edu will be collected daily and assembled into a single message. The top of each Oswego Daily message will display a list of the topics/messages included in that message.

This service, being pilot tested in Spring of 2009, will initially subscribe all faculty and staff. Any faculty or staff member can unsubscribe themselves if they choose not to receive the Oswego Daily. Subsequently, any faculty or staff member can re-subscribe if they wish to resume receiving the Oswego Daily.

The Oswego Daily is intended to communicate non-critical, college-related and faculty and staff related information to the faculty and staff community. The Oswego Daily is not intended for the communication of strictly personal or non-college-related information.

Critical information that needs to be communicated broadly to faculty and staff and/or is time sensitive should still be channeled through the appropriate Vice President's office or the President's office for distribution through the established email distribution lists.

For more information, visit www.oswego.edu/cts/policies/daily.html

Mark Your Calendars: CIT is right around the corner!

From May 19-22, 2009, SUNY Oswego will be hosting the SUNY Conference on Instructional Technologies (CIT).

CIT 2009, "Engaging Minds: Innovative Teaching and Learning" is supported by six tracks covering a range of pedagogical and technological topics. The conference provides an opportunity for faculty, instructional support professionals, librarians, and administrators throughout the SUNY system, as well as outside institutions, to share best practices and innovations in the use of technology to enhance teaching, learning, and research.

Registration for the conference is now open. A SUNY member is able to register at the following rates if registered before Sunday, May 3^rd. Registration is still available after that date, however fees will be slightly more.

• Entire conference registration: $150
• Single-day registration: $95

Three-hour pre-conference workshops on a variety of topics will also be offered at an additional $40 per workshop.

If you are interested in attending, there are a limited number of scholarships available for new faculty and first-time CIT attendees that will reduce the registration fee by $100.

For more information and to register, please visit www.cit.suny.edu.

Did You Know?

Did you know that Microsoft is offering students a significantly reduced price on its Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 software? That's right. The "Office Ultimate Steal" entitles eligible students to the Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 software at a price of only $59.95. Microsoft's store price for the same software is $679.95! That's a huge savings. The Ultimate edition is packaged with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Groove, Publisher, Access, InfoPath, and Accounting Express. To determine if you qualify for the special price and to buy online visit www.theultimatesteal.com.

Notes from the Help Desk

There has been a lot of talk on the "tech wire" lately about a new worm set to infect millions of Microsoft Windows systems on April 1, 2009. The Conficker/Downadup worm takes advantage of a security flaw in Microsoft Windows XP and Vista and can spread itself through network shares and USB drives. Symptoms of infection include slow network response times, disabling of security update services such as Windows Updates and anti-virus sites, and blocking of security web sites.

To prevent your machine from being infected, ensure that you have Microsoft patch MS08-067 applied and make sure your anti-virus software definitions are updated to the latest version.

For more information, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team has issued a public notice about the worm at www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA09-088A.html .

You can reach the help desk by phone at 312.3456, on location at 26 Lanigan Hall, or online at www.oswego.edu/help during normal office hours.

Professional Development

CTS spring workshops are winding down for the semester. Workshops on OU Campus, Excel 2007, Online Community Groups, and using an Advanced Technology Classroom (ATC) are still available. Online registration is available from our CTS training web site at www.oswego.edu/cts/training.

CTS Workshops are freely available to all SUNY Oswego faculty, staff and students.

Looking Ahead

The following are major projects CTS is currently working on:

• Blogging Software: The blogging software continues its pilot phase. It is being tested with some users on campus to iron out any issues before being officially introduced to the campus.

• iTunes U: iTunes U is a site provided to SUNY Oswego by Apple that allows users to post and download SUNY Oswego academic and university-related podcasts. The downloading and uploading is all done through the iTunes application. The spring semester pilot phase continues. A group of about 30 faculty, staff, and students are using it in a variety of ways from podcasting course lectures to on-demand training.

• Construction Projects: CTS continues to assist with campus construction projects, including the design of the science building and the new townhouses near Glimmerglass Lagoon.

If you have any questions related to any of these projects, please contact the Technology Support Center at x3456 or by email to help@oswego.edu.

Don't hold on to old printers, cell phones, iPods, etc, forever -- you can always recycle them. Many electronics manufacturers and store chains (such as Best Buy) now offer free recycling facilities. There are even a few online services that will pay you money for older equipment and gadgets.

Wired Magazine's http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Reduce%2C_Reuse%2C_Recycle_Your_Old_Gadgets has a great list of resources for getting rid of your e-waste.