Fall 2007
 

Welcome
Shawn Beattie, ITS, editor

Welcome to Augie Techknowledge from ITS, an e-newsletter to share "what's new" in ITS and provide useful tips and articles on Information Technology and Educational Technology at Augustana.  We hope you like it and find it useful.  The newsletter will be archived on the ITS web site at http://its.augustana.edu/techknowledge.  Enjoy! 

In this issue:
New face in ITS
Internet Speed Update
Moves, Moves, and More Moves
More Students Coming with Laptops
Daylight Savings Time
PowerPoint Template Tip

 

New Face in ITS
Chris Vaughan, ITS

The ITS department welcomes our newest team member Tammy McAuliffe. Tammy has assumed the position of programmer analyst formerly held by Amy Copeland, who has moved to the Admissions office as the Director of Recruitment Technology and Operations.
Tammy comes to Augustana from St Ambrose University where she worked in several administrative offices until finally settling in their computer department. For the past several years Tammy has supported Datatel’s Colleague at St. Ambrose and brings to the Augustana campus much needed experience in Colleague functionality. Her knowledge, positive attitude, and wonderful personality has already made her an extremely valuable campus resource.
Tammy is the proud mommy of her little girl Kira (3 years old) and little boy Keagan (6). She is married to Jeremy, who is a detective in the Moline Police Department.  As of late, Tammy can be seen walking from department to department, talking herself through processes and memorizing names. Don’t be afraid to stop her to say, “Welcome to Augie!”

Internet Speed Update
Scott Dean, ITS

Over the summer, the network group completed the upgrade of the campus Internet connection.  This upgrade increased our Internet bandwidth four-fold.  Our old connection consisted of seven T1 circuits.  The new connection is a DS3 circuit.  A DS3 circuit works over fiber optic cables that provides up to 45 MB of bandwidth.  In addition to the new circuit, a new Packetshaper device that is used for controlling bandwidth usage was also put in place.  The final upgrade for our Internet connection will be to deploy a new firewall in the next few weeks.  Our hope is that this upgrade will provide ample bandwidth for the college over the next couple of years.

More Students Coming with Laptops
Wendy Ramsdale, ITS

The beginning of another year has gone smoothly with more first year students arriving than ever before -- quite an accomplishment!  We held new student seminars for all of these students, as well as transfer students, and they are a really great group.  They had many great questions and we hope we furnished the necessary information they would need as they began their school year.    In addition to spyware and virus training; we discussed e-mail, Moodle, Campusnet, and helpful information found on the ITS website.
I'm often asked by parents if students should bring a laptop or a desktop computer to campus. The nationwide average, according to EDUCAUSE, is 75% of students bringing laptops onto campuses, up from around 35% just two years ago.  At Augustana, we have 87% of our students bringing a laptop onto campus.  Another interesting number is that only about 5% of the students living in residence halls did not bring a computer on campus.  Residence Halls include Andreen, Arbaugh, Erickson, Naeseth, Parkander, Swanson, Seminary and Westerlin.
 

 Moves, Moves, and More Moves...
  Denny Hurd, ITS

The ITS hardware support group usually uses the summer months to update staff, faculty and lab computers and printers. This summer, we also got to move a lot of computer equipment.  Because of the renovation in Carlsson starting last summer, several departments moved to a new location over the last five months.  ITS worked closely with the facilities department to coordinate all of the moves.
The biggest department to move from Carlsson was the Communication Science and Disorders group.  But to give them room to move, the Residential Life department first moved from Brodahl to the Andreen residence hall. This move started in April so their vacated office space could be renovated for the CSD folks. The CSD office, classroom and lab computers were moved to Brodahl at the end of May only days before the demolition of Carlsson started. Because of lack of space, much of the equipment had to be stored until the next wave of moves got underway. The entire student services group under Ken Brill moved from the first floor of Brodahl to the newly renovated Red Shoes house in late July.  All three floors of Red Shoes were redone to accommodate his group.
Three weeks after this move was complete, ITS installed the remainder of the PCs and printers for CSD in the rest of the renovated Brodahl building.  At this time the classroom was finished and all of the labs were finalized in time for fall term and new CSD clients.
Also in August, ITS assisted in a Carver move of the secretarial staff, some coaches, and the athletic director. The Records office was also scheduled for new furniture, carpet, and counters to be completed in August, so we moved all of the PCs and printers out of the records office for their renovation and back into their newly redecorated space.
If you haven’t seen all of the new office spaces yet, we suggest you visit their buildings. We appreciate the help and support of all of these groups and especially Bill Finneran in Facilities Management who helped make these moves possible.  Next year, we anticipate doing similar moves for people who will be relocating  into Carlsson.

Daylight Saving Time - November 4
Shawn Beattie, ITS

As a result of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Daylight Saving Time (DST) will end 1 week later this year than in previous years.  This year, the change will occur on November 4th.  Under the old rules, it would have changed on October 28th.  
 Most computers on campus were updated or patched as of this spring, since the rules went into effect 3 weeks earlier than in previous years.  But a few isolated systems may not have been patched or updated.  If you notice any strangeness between October 28th and Nov. 4th with regards to appointments being one hour off, check to be sure your system has been updated.   ITS has a FAQ with more information about this issue at http://its.augustana.edu/patches/dst2007.php


PowerPoint Template Tip
Beth Whitty, ITS

 Did you know that you can get a PowerPoint template with the NEW Augustana Logo at http://campus.augustana.edu/communication/tools.htm

 

1. Click on the Download template link
2. Click on Save and find the folder that you would like to save the PowerPoint Presentation in and then click Save again.
3. Click on Open

Viola! You have the new Augustana Logo background for your presentation!

 Have a great fall term!

Visit us at http://its.augustana.edu