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Poster Presentation Abstracts
Deep Collaboration with IT & Cops for Emergency Communications
Due to high profile school shootings and increasing incidents at campuses, there has been more emphasis on quick and accurate communication to the students, staff and faculty.
Our first attempt at implementing an emergency notification system at the University of Illinois resulted in many lessons learned. Using these lessons, we took a different approach in creating our current system, Illini-Alert.
With Illini-Alert, we focused on ease of use for end users. Signup is voluntary and allows users to invite 2 additional contacts in a similar invite to a Gmail invitation. The entire interface was designed with accessibility in mind and it exceeded all accessibility guidelines. We fostered deep collaboration between the Division of Public of Safety, the CITES Help Desk, our central IT division and our documentation group.
Each of the groups brought significant expertise. The end result allowed for almost eighteen thousand text messages to be delivered to cell phones within 6 ½ minutes and for one hundred and seventy thousand email messages sent in 3 ½ minutes and delivered to mailboxes in 12 minutes. All of this was accomplished for cheaper than our original system.
Low TCO and High-Speed Network Infrastructure with Virtual Technology
In our university, we have updated our network infrastructure from ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network system to 10-Giga Ethernet system in March, 2009.
- New system has 2 major features.
- One is ring topology with 10GBASE-X Ethernet.
This feature enables lower initial cost than star topology because an ordinary star topology requires very expensive core switch system which can contain many 10GBASE-X GBICs (this device is also very expensive).
Second is Virtual Chassis technology of Juniper Networks. This feature allows up to 10 switches to be interconnected and managed as a single, logical device. Thus it enables lower management cost than many individual switches’ system. In this paper, we show merits and demerits of our system against ordinary star topology.
Proudly ITS – Documenting the History Of ITS @ UNB
It’s definitely happening – the old guard is moving on, being replaced by fresh, young faces that have no idea of the journey the department has taken and contribution it has made to UNB over the past 50 years. Over the past few years a number of long time employees of Integrated Technology Services have retired. With them they take the knowledge of the past –how we got to where we are today and how we have assisted UNB move forward with its mission of education and research. With this in mind, ITS hired a student to complete a timeline of the Integrated Technology Services (ITS) department at the University of New Brunswick. The project included many interviews, research through old documentation, identifying the historical information that we had posted around the department and lots of good memories. We also explored other possible applications of the collected information with UNB’s Department of History and the Department of Communications and Marketing. The deliverables included a comprehensive and thematic timelines beginning in 1964 through to the present, presentations on the project to our internal staff, a display for our bulletin boards and documentation of the information we have posted from our 25th anniversary. A strategy of what to include on an on-going basis and how to include this in our annual workflow, was also prepared.
This poster presentation will showcase work done on 3D modeling, building and creation in the virtual world of Second Life. We have created a virtual environment for teachers, students, and staff where they can learn and interact with each other in an inviting and innovative manner. We created a virtual classroom where interactions between the students and the teacher can be seen through text chat, voice communication, YouTube videos, PowerPoint presentations and an ever-changing environment. We also implemented a Holodeck concept in Second Life, so that it is possible to completely change the environment of a virtual room with the click of a button. A Holodeck is essentially a room that can morph or change with a simple menu selection. For instance, if a Biology instructor were showing a virtual cell to a group of students and class ended, the next instructor could open the control panel and choose to change the environment to say American History with a new seating arrangement and completely new and topic relevant surroundings in the virtual room.
The Evolution of a Flexible Classroom
Many campuses have “incubator” or experimental classrooms that offer instructors and students the use of leading-edge technologies. Often these classrooms require integrated on-site personnel. Such resource-intensive support scenarios are expensive to maintain and disseminate. Developing a high-tech collaborative learning classroom that is both scalable and self-supportable presents a challenge. Stanford University’s Meyer Library Flexible Class-Lab opened in January of 1996. The multicolored beanbags, mobile furniture, rear-projection display system, and wireless laptops marked the space as a technologically advanced learning environment ideal for small-group collaborative activities. The original Flex Lab was conceived in consultation with educators who wished to teach with computers but wanted an alternative to regimented, poorly lit computer labs. The Flex Lab was easy for instructors and students to use with minimal or no direct assistance. Pedagogy and supporting technology pioneered in the Flex Lab was transferred successfully into classrooms for the Program in Writing and Rhetoric.
Thirteen years later, the Flex Lab is in the process of its first major revision. The primary goal of the new Flex Lab is to support collaborative pedagogies that integrate the use of multiple, shared displays and collaborative software while striving to retain the ease of use and scalable support model of its predecessor. The new Flex Lab is slated to host its first class in May 2009.
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