September 2008  
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In This Issue
Updates
ITS Out & About
IT Professional Development
MS Office 2007 Upgrade
Jenna in China
From the CIO's Desk
Quick Links
Join Our Mailing List
Quick Notes
 
ITS Staff Milestones
 
Congratulations to the following people for their years of service at Syracuse University:
  • June Szymanski, Associate CIO - 30 years
  • Dave Fraser, Information Tech. Consultant - 25 years
  • Don Kilts, Instructional Tech. Analyst - 25 years
  • Greg Deyoe, Instructional Tech. Consultant - 20 years
  • Ken Seelman, Information Tech. Analyst - 15 years

Announcements

Please welcome Heather Ketcham to the University. Heather started this month as Administrative Specialist I in Network Systems and Management. When she's not here handling VIP parking, lunch, travel arrangements, purchase requests and other tasks, Heather is a swim instructor at the Fayetteville YMCA.  She graduated from LeMoyne College in 1995 with a BA in Psychology and a minor in Business. Prior to coming to SU, Heather worked in Customer Services and Sales for Oneida Air Systems, Inc. Her office is located in 201 Machinery Hall.
Updates
Keeping current with software, systems and devices

Chris Aliberto, Information Technology Manager at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, is looking to measure interest and enlist help in broadening SU's iTunesU implementation.  As a first step, he organized a discussion to plan the path forward on Thursday 9/18.  If you or someone in your area is interested, and missed the discussion, please contact Chris at x4064 or [email protected].
 
 
A New Service at Whitman: Echo360.
 
Echo360 creates on-demand learning experiences. It's the industry-leading platform that automatically, affordably, and reliably captures class lectures and converts them into podcasts, video, rich media, and more for anytime, anywhere playback.  To view the introduction video, visit
http://echo.whitman.syr.edu/ess/echo/presentation/c1bcecd1-a144-40ed-bba0-3f21803c170c
 
For more information, contact Scott Nadzan, Director of Technology Services at the Whitman School, x4602 or  [email protected]
 
 
From Lee Badman, Wireless Network Engineer:
 
The Com Art building (which shares a parking lot with Manley Field House) is now 100% covered by the campus wireless network, with sixteen new 802.11a/g access points. Also, fifty-one new access points provide 100% coverage in newly-renovated Slocum Hall.
 
In total, we have surpassed 1,850 access points across campus. With NMP efforts in progress and departmental requests, we will grow to over 2,000 access points within the next few months.
 
We have been seeing over 5,800 concurrent wireless users during daily peak periods.

ITS Out and About

Connecting with the campus and beyond
 
Andy Clark says "Thank You" to all who voted for him in his successful run to become a member of the University Senate for a two-year term. In addition to participating in the activities and meetings of the full Senate membership, Andy will be serving on the Committee on the Library that has as its primary responsibility, "studying the resources and long-range plans of the University Libraries and reporting about them to the Senate. It shall advise and consult with the administrators of the libraries on matters of policy and procedures."  As topics arise on the agenda of the Senate, or that relate to the libraries, please feel free to make your views known to Andy at x2632 or
[email protected].  The Senate Agenda can be found at http://universitysenate.syr.edu/  
 
Scott Nadzan will be speaking at the Greater Liverpool Chamber of Commerce Committee Training for Business Growth Series on September 25.  His seminar is titled "Internet Marketing: How to Catch a Mouse" and explores the emergence of the Internet into every aspect of life today and the revolutionary changes it brings to business marketing. The first section of this seminar is dedicated to the developments in the Internet industry as it relates to Internet use and population, digital convergence, broadband and evolving technologies. The second section of this seminar looks at business environment issues and Internet marketing strategies. Finally, the seminar will examine four prevalent internet marketing techniques and strategies: search marketing, link strategy, Internet advertising and web analytics. For more information contact Scott at x4602 or [email protected].

IT Professional Development

ITS staff on the cutting edge

 

Publications

 
Neal Coffey wrote a "User Report" on Angenieux lenses for the August 20th issue of TV Technology Magazine.  Follow the link and then go to page 42 to see the article.

Training & Education
 
Cindy Barry presented a Confluence Level 1 training class to ITS staff on September 8th. 
 
Conferences & Forums 
 
Paul Gandel and Arnold Hirshon (Executive Director, NELINET, Inc.) presented a workshop to librarians and publishers entitled "Ensuring Success During a Period of High Velocity Change" at the September 4-6 Systems Group Conference in Cuzco, Peru.
 
Dr. Gandel also participated in a panel discussion in the topic of "Copyright in the Classroom:  The Status of Electronic Reserve" at the Institute for Computer Policy and Law held at Cornell University on Thursday, August 14th.
 
Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrade
40% of the campus is using the new version
 
Most of the Organizational Units in the domain have begun either testing or deploying Office 2007. Nineteen out of 25 OUs are now engaged in talking to staff and faculty and installing the Office suite on their computers. About 40% of the campus is running Office 2007 with 2,698 instances installed (including the public labs).  There are 5,036 computers on campus still running Office 2003.
 
Although no hard date is set for having all campus users migrated, Microsoft Office 2003 mainstream support will end on April 14, 2009. After this date there will be no free incident support, no free non-security hot fix support, no new design or feature changes. This is a good target date to keep in mind as you do your planning for this academic year.
There is a Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 template available through the Group Policy Management console in Active Directory, or you can customize your own installer.
 
The Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 suite, as delivered through AD, includes the software packages listed below:
  • Excel - spreadsheet
  • Outlook - e-mail/calendar
  • PowerPoint - presentation
  • Word - word processing
  • Access - database management
  • Groove - desktop collaboration/communication
  • InfoPath - forms designer
  • OneNote - digital notebook
Click here to check out our help resources. 
 
If you have any questions please contact the ITS Help Center at 443-2677 or [email protected].
 
What I Did On My Summer Vacation at the Olympic Games 
Jenna Anthony, Senior, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and Whitman School of Managment and student employee in the CIO Office
 
On 8/8/08, while the country turned on their TVs to witness what was to be a historic Olympic Games, I was in Beijing interning for NBC.  Drawing in billions of viewers around the world, the Beijing Olympic Games was the most watched Olympic games in history.
Jenna at the Water Cube, Beijing
NBC broadcast 3,600 hours of coverage - more than all the previous Olympics combined. Using Microsoft's Silverlight technology, 2,200 hours of streaming live video were available for fans to watch events unfold from anywhere in the world. This unprecedented IT undertaking demonstrated the importance of online content and allowed anyone with internet access to become an Olympic spectator.   

Exceptional technology was not the only force at work in Beijing. The Olympic spirit was alive and vibrant in everyone from athletes and journalists to local citizens and volunteers. During my time in Beijing, I saw numerous events first-hand, some ending in triumph and others in heartbreak. I cheered on Michael Phelps - along with Carmelo Anthony and the USA basketball team - to gold medals, and felt proud to be an American. I witnessed the joy of a country when the fastest man alive, Usain Bolt, led Jamaica to gold in the men's medley relay. As a production associate for water polo, I closely followed the story of the US men's and women's water polo teams to their silver victories.
 
Although I entered Beijing rooting solely for USA athletes, somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing countries and began to see individuals. I was truly caught up in the Olympic spirit.

The entire experience was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I truly believe that I would not have been awarded the chance to go to Beijing if it wasn't for the skill sets and knowledge I have gained through my three years working for ITS. I especially want to thank Kim Kopp who has been so instrumental in my success by teaching me the skills to learn and grow professionally.  She has always believed in me and set the bar high from the first day I started working for ITS.
From the CIO's Desk
Paul Gandel, vice president of Information Technology/CIO
 
Thanks for a Great Opening Performance

Your efforts made this year's Opening of School our best ever. The stats for Wednesday to Friday are impressive: 

  • 60 ITS staff "volunteers" (15% fewer than last year)
  • 4,938 connections (33% more than last year)
  • 677 tags (15% fewer than last year)

By the end of the weekend, successful connections in the residence halls exceeded 7,000 students with more than 8,500 devices. We connected more students with fewer problems and less staff than in the past.  While some of this is due to maturing PC technology, your hard work preparing for and during Opening is what really made the difference.
Taking Care of Business 
You helped out with setting up everything from wireless and wired network connections to iPhones, printers and HD TV's.    I was impressed by the number of parents with more than one child in college who went out of their way to praise our efforts welcoming their students to campus, with particular emphasis on our attention to their technology needs.  Their comments can be simply summarized:  they think our Opening operation is the best of its kind. 
 
I also want to thank the wiring and classroom groups for getting everything in place for our incoming students.  As always we were forced to do many things at the last minute and, as usual, you all succeeded in doing the impossible. 
 
Our mission of Connecting the Creative Campus starts right here, just as students arrive at campus.  Thanks to you they're off to a great start.  I appreciate and admire what you've done for our students, their families and our reputation as the connection they can count on for their technology needs.   
 
I would also like to note that my golf cart driving record remains unblemished despite a few near misses.

IT Connections is published monthly by Information Technology and Services. Story ideas can be submitted to Chris Finkle by the third Wednesday of each month.

Phone: 443-2677