Technology@Wooster

In his memo of February 5 to academic department chairs and Academic Affairs staff, VPAA Iain Crawford invited the submission of software acquisition requests. These requests are due in the VPAA’s office by Friday, March 2.

Over the weekend there was a tremendous spike in the amount of spam email arriving on campus. This spike taxed our servers and essentially halted the delivery of outgoing email. Messages were enqueued - they were not lost - and normal delivery has now resumed. We expect that the backlog of messages will be cleared sometime early this afternoon.

Last week 1.9 million email messages arrived on campus.

IT is pleased to offer short introductory and intermediate courses on Microsoft Excel 2003. Each course is conducted in an on-campus computer lab and meets for two three hour sessions.

The introductory course will meet from 9:00 until noon on Tuesday, March 6 and Thursday, March 8. Topics to be covered include:

Creating Workbooks
Modifying Worksheets
Formatting Worksheets
Printing Worksheets
Working with Formulas
Working with Basic Functions
Enhancing Worksheets
Using Templates, Styles, Worksheet Backgrounds and AutoFormats
Finding and Replacing Data

The intermediate course will meet from 9:00 until noon on Tuesday, April 10 and Thursday, April 12. Topics to be covered include:

Working with Multiple Worksheets
Adjusting the Screen Display
Working with Advanced Functions
Using Advanced Formatting Features
Using Advanced Print Options
Filtering Data and Using Comments
Naming Worksheet Ranges and Formulas
Working with Charts
Protecting Data
Using Basic Integration and Web Features

All College employees are eligible to participate. Enrollment is limited. To register, contact Mary Schantz at x2039 or at mschantz@wooster.edu. Consult the IT blog for information on future training opportunities.

Back in October, IT launched an initiative to improve the quality of help desk service. Our initial focus has been on improving phone coverage throughout the business day. We are pleased to report that we have significantly reduced call abandonment rates. Over the last four months over 90% of incoming calls have been answered by a technician. During the week of January 29th technicians answered 98.9% of incoming calls. In the past, it was not uncommon for 40% or more of incoming calls to go to voicemail. This improvement is the result of a significant reorganization of our help desk operation.

In an effort to provide easier, more convenient, access to our services, we have also developed a new help desk phone tree. The next time you have a technical question or problem, please call us at 330 287-3000, extension HELP (4357).

We are proud of these improvements, but we believe that additional improvements are required if we are to provide the campus community with the kind of service that it needs and deserves. To this end, IT will pursue this initiative throughout the balance of the academic year. Additional service-enhancing steps are already in the planning stages. Updates will be posted regularly to the blog.

Our goal is to serve you better!

In conjunction with our initiative to enhance our help desk operation, User Services has adopted a proactive lab maintenance program. Student technicians now visit each of the 28 campus lab spaces on a weekly basis. During these visits the technicians clean all keyboards and displays, run routine maintenance programs on the lab computers, and check for a variety of technical problems. Any problems uncovered are reported back to the help desk for resolution. We hope that these efforts will uncover problems before they impact instruction and other activities in the labs. If you experience problems in one of our lab spaces, please report it to the help desk at 330 287-3000, extension HELP (4357).

Budget managers will soon be able to access real-time information about their budgets via ScotWeb. ScotWeb provides a substantially better interface to budget information than does the Colleague application itself. Perhaps most significantly, ScotWeb allows budget managers to view summary data on all the object codes within a particular account on a single web page. This summary information includes the total amount budgeted, the total of outstanding requistions, the total of encumbered funds, and the remaining budget. From the summary page, budget managers can drill in to see information from specific requisitions, purchase orders, vouchers and other primary source documents.

Earlier, IT and the Treasurer’s Office provided access to budget information via ScotWeb to the members of a small pilot group for evaluation purposes. The response of the pilot group members has been quite positive.

Individual setup is required for each budget manager to ensure that he or she receives access to the appropriate budget information. This setup is now underway and individual budget managers will be contacted as the appropriate setup is complete. Each budget manager will also be provided with appropriate directions and documentation at that time. Questions should be directed to Connie McCarty at x2199 or at cmccarty@wooster.edu.

The previously announced upgrade to Colleague Release 18 was completed over the weekend. This weekend’s cutover is the culmination of many months of effort, and of very intense effort over the last few weeks. IT extends special thanks to Director of Applications Development Tabby Conwell and the entire staff of that department for their very dedicated efforts.

If, following the upgrade, you experience any difficulties with the Colleague application or have questions related to it, please contact Marlene Brown at x2304 or at mbrown@wooster.edu.

Microsoft has recently released Vista, their much-anticipated new operating system. They have also released a new version of the Office suite–Office 2007. Each of these products differ from their predecessors in very significant ways. For this reason, the Office of Information Technology has assembled a team to evaluate each of these new products, and to make recommendations regarding their deployment on campus. While we will look to this team for guidance as to when we should begin to deploy these products, at this time we do not anticipate significant deployment prior to the summer of 2008.

A significant number of software vendors have not yet released Vista-compatible versions of their applications. Vista-compatible versions of ArcGIS, Autocad, Adobe Creative Suite, Filemaker Pro, Maple, Mathematica, Novell Client, Palm Desktop, Quark Express, RealPlayer, SnagIT, and SPSS will not be available prior to the third quarter of this year. (This is by no means an exhaustive list.) As we evaluate these new Microsoft products, we will also be testing their compatibility with various types of hardware in use on campus including printers, USB drives, scanners and PDA’s. As our testing and validation efforts proceed, we will update the campus as to our timeline for deploying and supporting Vista and Office 2007.

If you have questions about new PC purchases with Windows Vista and Office 2007, please contact the helpdesk at 330-287-3000 extension 4357 (HELP).

Janet Russell has announced that she will leave her position as Director of Instructional Technology on May 31, 2007. Janet has accepted a position as Assistant Director of the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship at Georgetown University. Her new duties will include teaching science pedagogy to graduate and undergraduate students; developing and leading workshops for faculty and graduate students; assisting in organizing and facilitating the Teaching, Learning, and Innovation Summer Institute and other major events; and participating in University strategic planning in areas related to the sciences.

Janet assumed her current position in the summer of 2005. Instructional Technology made significant advances under Janet’s leadership, including the implementation of Moodle and MDID. Janet also brought podcasting to campus, and began the exploration of channel 2 as a pedagogical tool. She played a pivotal role in the implementation of the classroom technology in the renovated Kauke Hall.

We will miss Janet’s energy and excitement, but wish her the very best as she prepares to assume her exciting new responsibilities.