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Division of Information Technology
PO Box 1510
Pembroke, NC 28372

Help Desk
Phone: 910.521.6260
Fax: 910.775.4337
Email: helpdesk@uncp.edu Location: D.F. Lowry Building, Room 110

Main Office
Phone: 910.775.4355
Fax: 910.775.4333
Email: doit@uncp.edu Location: Carter Hall

Campus Map

Contact:
The Division of Information Technology
910.521.6260 | doit@uncp.edu

September 2011

Academic Support Services Subcommittee Report

DoIT Monthly Report
September 2011

 

I. Client Services

• Assistant CIO Cindy Saylor:
• Coordinated a DoIT Helpdesk wallpaper design contest in order to provide the campus with information about DoIT Helpdesk services, its hours of operation and contact information. Twenty-two wallpaper posters have been distributed across campus in the residence halls, academic buildings and lobbies of public spaces.
• Provided a brief presentation about DoIT services to new faculty members during the New Faculty Orientation.
• Continues to work with Daryl Burgwyn and Cynthia Oxendine of the University Center to coordinate the installation of new A/V technologies to provide the UC with meeting space technology standardization.
• Collaborated with Rob Hughes and Melanie Jacobs to create a webpage that provides information for campus users about available campus software and instructions on how to acquire needed software. (www.uncp.edu/doit/available_software.html)
• Computing devices were successfully installed in the Cypress Hall computer lab by Daryl and Rob.
• Jillena Locklear imaged and repaired laptops for the Honors College and Leadership Learning Community. She provided both groups training on “good computer citizenship and use.” Unfortunately, 24 of the Dell laptops for the Honors College program was stolen from a delivery truck en route and have been delayed for the incoming freshmen. Older laptops from this program have been issued to those students until the new ones arrive, hopefully by September 9th.
• Client Services is in the final stages of transitioning media services into the lab and classroom management.

 

Back-to-School Statistics: August 15-31 – Quick Tickets

Category	General	BlackBoard
Totals	582	65
Lab	18	0
Email	36	2
Walk-in	171	6
Phone	357	57

 




Work Orders for August 2011:

Top 5 Requestors:

1. School of Education (40)

2. School of Education/Health PE and Rec (30)

3. English & Theatre (23)

4. Housing and Residence (21)

5. Business Admin. and Economics (19)

Client Services Areas	Closed Work Orders
Faculty/Staff Services	301
Help Desk Services	666
Labs/Classrooms	284
BraveTechs	209
LabTechs	112
ClassTechs	8
Help Desk Blackboard Support	97
Total	1677

VCL Reservation Statistics for August 2011:

Total Reservations: 110
Total Hours Used:  158

"Now" Reservations: 107
"Later" Reservations: 14
Unavailable: 11
Load times < 2 minutes: 35
Load times >= 2 minutes: 75
Total Unique Users: 44
Unique Users of Generic Linux VMware: 4
Unique Users of VMware Windows XP: 41
Unique Users of VMware Windows 7: 1

Durations:
0 -30 minutes:  41
30 minutes – 1 hour:  15
1 hour – 2 hours:  42
2 hours – 4 hours:  13
> 4 hours:  10




II. Network Services

Cypress Hall Network Project
The wireless and wired network was totally configured in the newest residence hall – Cypress Hall.  The wireless network consists of 39 wireless access points and activation of 700 wired ports located in student rooms, student suite common areas, study areas, computer lab, and conference rooms.

Fort Bragg Video Classroom Project
A new data circuit was installed, configured, and tested to ensure a quality remote video connection to extend real-time connectivity to students in the Fort Bragg Soldier Development Center.  Instructors teach classes from a pool of video-equipped classrooms dispersed around campus and are able to see, hear, and interact with students in the remote classroom.

Wireless Network Expansion
The wireless network was expanded to cover Pinchbeck Building A and most of the Health and P.E. building including the main gymnasium.

Fiber Optic Network Expansion
A new link of fiber optic cable was installed between the Pinchbeck Main Distribution Frame and the Dial MDF.  This expands our fiber backbone pathway and creates multiple ways to connect to buildings located on the north end of campus.

MCNC BTOP2 Project
UNCP was selected as a Community Anchor Point for an expansion of the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NC-REN).   MCNC, the organization that manages NC-REN, will construct a network facility on UNCP’s campus to provide network access to the surrounding area.  Work is still in the planning stage, but UNCP is working with MCNC to leverage this opportunity to improve the campus fiber optic network and extend the campus network to new locations in downtown Pembroke.

Call Recording System
Working with the Offices of the Controller, Financial Aid and the Registrar, DoIT installed and tested a call recording system to monitor customer service.  These offices are currently developing the policies to manage and use the system.


Network Upgrade Project
Last year’s network refresh project included the replacement of aging network edge switches, the implementation of a network distribution layer, upgrade of the network core to 10Gbps (10 billion bits per second), and the implementation of a Cisco Nexus switch infrastructure.  The network edge replacement and the core upgrade were completed last year.  The distribution layer was installed and tested last year, and brought fully online in May.  The distribution layer adds the ability to provide network service to the entire campus, even if one of the two core data switches fail.  Previously, the failure of a core switch would have shut off network access to about one half of the campus.  The Nexus switch infrastructure provides efficient and economical high-speed connections for servers.  This will allow the servers in both data centers to connect to each other as if they were located within the same physical location. The switches were installed and tested last year, and services began to move to them over the summer.

Campus Surveillance Camera Upgrade
DoIT worked with Visual Data, the firm that installs and supports the campus video surveillance cameras, to upgrade the server and storage capabilities.  The new storage is housed in the primary data center in Oxendine.

Email Statistics
Exchange mailboxes: 1533
Exchange Unified Messaging Accounts:  906
Total Email Spam Activity for the Quarter:
            Total Messages: 1357913
            Good Messages: 1111675
            Blocked Messages: 246238
            %Good Messages: 81.87
            %Blocked Messages: 18.13

Telephone Statistics
            Active Telephones: 1064
            Highest Call Volume August 8 = 14,437 calls




III. IT Planning and Budget

Blackboard
We completed our Summer II semester on Blackboard 9.1 SP3 and upgraded to Blackboard 9.1 SP6 for the Fall 2011 semester. SP6, or Service Pack Six, resolved some known issues and introduced some enhancements. Some of the known issues that were especially annoying to faculty, that have been resolved include ‘In the Grade Center, When Accessing an "In Progress" Test Attempt for a Specific User, the Correct Grading Page Does Not Appear’ and ‘Error Displayed When Instructor Attempts to Submit a Student Attempt’. Some of the enhancements include Interactive Rubrics, and the ability to auto-submit an assessment at time expiration. We've added the McGraw Hill Higher Education Connect and Create Building Block for Blackboard which provides instant access to the comprehensive digital content of McGraw-Hill, for those Instructors who choose to use it, giving students more resources and more engaging, relevant content through a single sign-on. We also upgraded our video, audio, whiteboard, and application sharing collaboration software from Elluminate Live! version 10 to Blackboard Collaborate version 11. And coming soon, a new look and feel to the Blackboard login page where you'll find important announcements as well as other useful information.

Interactive Video Facility (IVF)
This past summer, UNCP's Interactive Video Facility (IVF) underwent a major upgrade and refresh.  Old standard definition video systems were replaced with newer high definition (HD) devices which will allow UNCP faculty and students to produce & record very high quality rich media to be used in Blackboard, iTunes U, etc.  In addition to video capture, the facility is now one of the leading sites to be able to produce and deliver HD quality video conferencing.  Most of the schools around the state only have this capability in their smaller videoconference used by faculty and staff for meeting with UNC GA and point-to-point connections.  In addition to upgraded cameras and other devices, the video classroom was supplied with (2) new 70-inch Sharp Liquid Aquos LED televisions, which uses the new 4-color system instead of the traditional 3 colors. This causes the video content to be extremely bright, vibrant and eye catching for all the viewers.  A lot of these new upgrades were in full effect on the day of the recent BTOP Ground Breaking attended by our Provost, federal and state politicians and county officials.  Over the past few years, the IVF usage has grown tremendously and 4 other interactive classrooms were added around campus to help with the growing need to deliver & receive classes to & from other institutions.  In addition to the expansion and growth, the facility has transformed into a place where faculty & students come to create video lectures and modules in addition to the typical videoconference. With this recent upgrade, we've already seen an increase in scheduling for these type of events and look forward to create a new norm and making UNCP the place of choice for our students because of these fresh innovations and technologies that were added this summer.




Work Orders:




Alan PreVatte
Web Services: 102
Application Development and Support: 1

Charles Swayne
Web Services: 178
Client Services: 3
Administrative Services: 1
Application Development and Support: 1




IVF Statistics




IVF Usage – August 2011
141.5 Hours Total

• Class Sessions – 82 Hours
• Non-Instructional – 59.5 Hours

 

IVC Usage – August 2011
97.5 Hours Total

• D.F. Lowry 308 – 3.5 Hours
• Sampson 228 – 49 Hours
• Dial 214 – 10 Hours
• Oxendine 1258 – 35 Hours





Instructor Support (Mike Pittman)
380 Hours

Instructor Support (James Lewis)
360 Hours




Starboard Training – 240 Hours




IV. Applications and Enterprise Systems

• experience.uncp.edu – worked with Admissions and Signal to take the experience.uncp.edu web site live.
• HMS-Banner Interface – implemented the HMS-Banner interface and took it live.  The interface moved over 2,000 housing and 1,500 meal plan transactions into Banner, eliminating the redundant data entry of those records.
• Online Meal Plan Changes – implemented the Online Meal Plan Changes application for the Office of the Bursar.  Processed over 800 meal plan changes online.
• Banner-PCS Interface – implemented the Banner-PCS interface.  The interface moved about 1,800 meal plan transactions into PCS.
• Banner AP Direct Deposits – worked with the Office of the Controller to take employee expense reimbursements via direct deposit live.
• UNC HR Data Mart – installed and modified the views and Banner forms required by the Data Mart.  Worked the Human Resources, Budget and Financial Planning and the Controller’s Office to test and revise the views and load data into Banner.  Installed the production server and verified connectivity with UNC GA.
• Banner Security Review – continued the annual Banner access security review.
• Qualtrics – modified Shibboleth to support Qualtrics authentication.
• iTunesU – restored Podcast Producer infrastructure to service and worked with Interactive Video to implement lecture capture.
• Blackboard upgrade – installed latest version of Blackboard 9.
• Server updates – updated Blackboard database server from Red Hat Linux 4 to 5 and Oracle 10g to 11g.  Upgrade Banner application serves to Oracle Application Server 10.1.3.5. 

 

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