"Do-It-Yourself" Video Room
Roberta Lembke, Director
A growing number of faculty are asking their students to submit short video clips of themselves talking as part of an assignment. I'm pleased to announce that IIT has completed the new "Do-It-Yourself" video production room within the Library to serve the needs of these students. This new facility is located on floor 3 1/2 of Rolvaag Library in room RML349A.
The room was set up so that a person can make a video of themselves without any assistance! The entire system turns on with just a single power button. The video can be easily copied onto a VHS tape or mini DV tape. By the end of the semester the equipment will be set up to allow the recordings to be copied to a DVD. There is absolutely no set up involved as the camera and all the gear are permanently mounted in place. All anyone has to do is center his/her image using the remote control and press record.
Students, faculty or staff wishing to use the facility need to check out a key from the Circulation Desk -- an ID is required. If you would like to learn more about this new facility please send an email message to media@stolaf.edu to arrange a tutorial. We can also do small group workshops with enough advanced notice.
On a related note, we have also set up a new technology lab in the former microfiche room of the library (RML330). This facility is open to all students and is equipped with both Macs and PC's, two scanning stations, 5 viewing stations accommodating both DVD's and VHS tapes, as well as two fully-equipped video editing stations (iMacs with iMovie, Final Cut Express, mini DV and VHS decks, and analog-to-digital converters.) This lab should be especially useful if you need to integrate the videos you take of yourself into a web portfolio or other digital assignment.
IIT and the Library are working closely to incorporate more technology-enabled spaces within the Library. If you have needs or ideas on facilities or technologies we should consider please let me or Bryn Geffert (geffert) know.
Keeping computers up to date with the latest patches and security fixes is the best way to maintain a safe and secure computing environment. To automate the distribution of these updates, IIT has deployed an internal Windows Update server.
All college-owned computers are configured to check-in with this Windows Update server daily. Any available updates are downloaded in the background, without user intervention. When the updates are ready to install one of two things will happen:
On faculty and staff PCs, the user will be notified that "New updates are ready to install."
When you see this message, please click on the pop-up message bubble and follow the prompts to install the updates. In some cases a reboot is required to make the patches effective.
On lab and classroom machines, the updates are downloaded and installed automatically. When a reboot is required, and there is nobody logged into the PC, the PC will be rebooted automatically; if a user is logged in, the user is prompted to save their work and that the computer will restart in five minutes.
Additionally, during Interim break, some updates to other software on college PCs will be updated, including the Novell client (the software that prompts you for your username and password when you turn on the computer). The updates should be very quick and, in many cases, you won't even notice any interruption.
Moodle, the course management system introduced to the campus this year and announced in the September IIT Newsletter, seems to be a big hit with just about everyone that has tried it. IIT and CILA are planning another workshop in January to assist faculty wishing to use the system for the first time during second semester but who are too nervous to jump in on their own. Watch your e-mail for the announcement and details.
A Moodle User's Group (STOMUG) mailing list has also been started for those people using Moodle or thinking about using Moodle to discuss issues of the system and how to integrate it into their teaching. If you would like to join the mailing list, send a note to Roberta Lembke asking to be added.
For those of you using Moodle or wishing to use Moodle with foreign language characters:
We are confident that the last technical glitches have been fixed within Moodle to allow for foreign language characters to work as expected. We've tested it (not extensively, but to our satisfaction) with French, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, and Greek, so we're pretty sure that it will work with all of the languages taught here at St. Olaf. Please give it a try and let us know if you run into problems.
Network Disconnections
This year, IIT has taken a much more aggressive stance regarding infected computers. Computers suspected of having a virus infection or causing undue stress on the network have been disconnected quickly from the campus network in order to keep the spread of the virus low and to keep the network working effeciently for everyone else.
The month of September was considered a grace period in which computers would be disconnected, but the disconnection would not count against the "3-strike" disconnection policy. Since August 31, only 245 people have been disconnected from the network. For most, it was only a one-time offense and the owner fixed their computer and hasn't had trouble since.
Full statistics can be found in the table to the right.
Shared Space Archiving
IIT recommends using the server to store important files; these files
are backed up nightly and are available from just about any computer you use. However, to ensure we are using server storage space effectively, users should periodically archive old, infrequently used files and remove them from the servers.
The servers should be used to store files that you work with daily, monthly, or even annually. Some files, like a database, are used every day. These files should reside on the servers.
Other files (for example, a newsletter, or a departmental report from 1998) are prepared once and then rarely used. These files should be archived and removed from the server. Candidates for archiving include old newsletters, databases, and correspondence; in general, anything that you don't use on a regular basis.
Most PCs and Macs purchased in the past few years have CD recorders and right now this is the best option to archive files. When you archive files, please make
multiple copies of the data and store them in different locations: one or more copies could be kept in the department for convenient access, and a copy could be kept with other paper file archives. After creating the archive, please check it (i.e. open one or more files from the CD) to ensure that it was successfully created, and then remove the files from the server. If you need assistance with archiving, please contact your department support representative.
Why are we asking users to archive data? During our October problems with the Novell servers, we had to restore all of the data to the servers. This was the most time-consuming part of the process; the only way the restore could have been completed faster would have been to reduce the number of files on the servers. By archiving files, we only keep the data that is used on a regular basis.
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