Laptop Loan Program in the Works

The Information Technology department is working on putting a student laptop loan program in place for Fall 2008 to meet increased student demands. Ten MacBooks were ordered for this pilot program, which will be able to run both Windows XP and Leopard.

According to Elaine Montilla, Director of User Services for Information Technology, this will “allow students can choose which platform to run.” The program will be restricted to in-building use only, and work on a first-come, first-served basis. Montilla indicated that the loan period will not exceed one day.

“The idea for the program started with faculty and student requests for laptops so that they could give presentations in the building,” she said. “We were constantly setting up meetings for them to train them in the use of the MacBooks,” so the loan program was a natural evolution of events.

Robert Campbell, Assistant Vice President of Information Technology, said that the Audio/Visual department was constantly fielding requests for laptops for presentations throughout the building and that IT stepped in to facilitate the process. Although the laptop loan program is not a new idea, Campbell said that “there was a need but until now, nobody stepped up to fill it.”

Funds for the laptop loan program came directly from the Information Technology budget. The program will begin testing over the summer months so that it is in place when students return for the fall semester.

New Macs for the library

Responding to student requests for a larger Mac presence in the library, the IT department has ordered 10 new Macs, Montilla said. The new machines will be in place by the start of Fall 2008. In the meantime, Campbell said that one of the IT department’s summer initiatives is to upgrade all existing Macs in the building to Leopard. The new Macs that were ordered for the Mac lab will also run on Leopard.

Research computing

Campbell said that the Graduate Center was accepted as a member of the New York State Grid project. According to Dr. Florian Lengyel, Assistant Director for Research Computing for the IT department, “the New York State Grid is a “virtual organization” within the Open Science Grid (OSG), which is a network of computational clusters and storage facilities located in the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Taiwan.” The NYS Grid is a collaborative effort between member institutions so that their students may use the Grid’s computational science computing resources.

The Grid links member institutions to research institutions state-wide, including four SUNY research centers, NYU, and Columbia. Up until this point, Campbell said that “we were limited to the resources at the Graduate Center; now we are connected to the Grid so that our students can have greater access.”

Right answers

Right Answers, an online database library for student trouble-shooting, is an ongoing initiative of the IT department. Students can consult Right Answers online and troubleshoot a host of various applications, including Leopard and MS Office 2007.

Montilla said that testing of Right Answers is ongoing and by the start of the fall semester it will be fully installed as an integrated part of the call tracking system of the Help Desk.

Individual training sessions for MS Office 2007

The IT department has hired several instructors to teach students, staff, and faculty the ins and outs of the new MS Office 2007 software that is installed on all public computers throughout the building. Campbell said that detailed answers to specific questions are answered through the one-on-one training sessions. Students, faculty, and staff may register online through the IT website (http://web.gc.cuny.edu/informationtechnology/tech_svs/prodev/index.cfm) and the program will be in place as long as there is demand from the GC community.

Progress with Linux

With last month’s new hire of a Linux administrator, the IT department is increasing its vision of a Linux infrastructure, according to Director of Enterprise Networks & Systems Matt Liston.

The goal is to “provide organized infrastructure,” Liston said, “and a managed platform for those who use Linux to take advantage of.” Campbell noted that “through Matt’s efforts, we are building an environment to support these activities.

“We are now embracing Macs and Linux when 18 months ago these [systems] were not well supported.” Liston added that the GC’s support of Linux was based upon the fact that Linux infrastructre “is a well supported platform for application.”

The push for Linux-based resources came from web masters who found that their websites operated best via Linux-based resources. According to Montilla, “we are expecting to add up to four Linux stations over the summer and two in the new Mac lab.”

Blackboard upgrade to come

During the 2008-09 academic year, the Blackboard application will be upgraded from version 6.3 to version 8.0. This is part of a CUNY-central initiative and according to Campbell, will create one integrated space, unlike the previous Blackboard system which restricts users to a campus-by-campus basis. “The new version will be great for users,” said Campbell.

Continue to use the suggestion box

The IT department urges students to continue to leave comments and suggestions in the suggestion box located by the Help Desk on the C-level concourse of the library. Several students have already left suggestions and Montilla said that IT would be interested to hear more student feedback.

Sign-up for CUNY A!ert

Students are encouraged to continue registering for the CUNY A!ert system, an electronic messaging system that sends text or voice alerts to students in the case of an emergency or weather-related closings. The alerts can go directly to a cell phone, a home phone, or via email. Students can register through the CUNY portal at www.cuny.edu.