Leslie Dare

The web site for the search for the Vice Chancellor for Information Technology (Chief Information Officer) has been established.

http://www.ncsu.edu/admin-searches/cio/

If you have a document created with Office 2007 that you can't open with an earlie version, install the Microsoft Compatibility Pack,

which includes a File Converter. Once it is installed, you should be

able to double-click on Office 2007 documents and they will open up.

From there, you can “save as” a Word 97–2003 Document.

Minutes can be found online at:
http://www.ncsu.edu/student_affairs/dets/tech/meetings/092007.html
 
There were a number of good questions asked both during and after the meeting. I tried to capture those and place them where relevant. Anything not having a home was placed in the last "Miscellaneous" section.
 
Also included are a couple of instances where I've provided technical instructions - like converting Word 2007 documents and fixing GroupWise name search options. Be sure to read carefully to get all these tidbits!

Thanks to everyone who was able to attend today's Division of Student Affairs Tech Staff meeting. A special thanks to Susan Klein from the Information Technology Division who provided some important updates.

Tuesday, September 25 is yet another Student Affairs "Clean Your Computer Day" for our Division. It's that time of year when you should clean both the inside and outside of your computer.

Cleaning the inside is all about deleting old files and emails that you don't need, and reorganizing the ones you keep. This will help your computer run more efficiently, make you more efficient as you work with files that are more organized, and also possibly reduce your ETSS bill. Important tip: Don't wait until the 26th do start cleaning up old files and emails. Get a jump on things and start that process today! ETSS is likely to take a billing snapshot the first week of October, so you want to get this part done by then.

Cleaning the outside is all about getting the dust and grime off your computer, mouse, keyboard, screen and cables. While your at it, why not give your whole desk a good cleaning too!

More information about how to do this can be found at:
http://www.ncsu.edu/student_affairs/dets/tech/cleaning/

Check with your LANTech for more information.

DETAG has produced five podcasts, with several more on tap for the coming year. I finally figured out how hto get them loaded into Wolfcast so that a user can now subscribe to the enter "Students First Podcast" series.

Here is the link to subscribe: http://wolfcast.ncsu.edu/Student_Affairs/

For those who care about the technical details: When using the Wolfcast upload feature, I would get an error stating that I needed to upload an mp3 file...which is exactly what I was uploading! Me thinks it might have have instead seen it as a RealMedia file since that was the icon, but the file extension was .mp3, not .rm. But it worked fine when I uploaded from a Mac!

And yes, subscribable is a word.

The Summer 2007 e-journal for StudentAffairs.com is now online. (This publication focuses specifically on technology in student affairs.) There are several good articles. One highlights an issue we've been discussing in Student Affairs here at NC State: whether to rely on a central IT organization for our infrastructure and support or to manage this on our own.

Co-working is a really intriguing concept and I know all sorts of folks, including myself, who are already doing this. I just didn't know it had a name! One blog defines co-working as "... a movement to create cafe-like community/collaboration spaces for developers, writers and independents."

All sorts of NC State folks engage in a version of co-working. I see colleagues all the time at local coffee shops, restuarants and even our dining halls who are working and meeting with others. Lots of laptops, cell and smart phones and other mobile devices. And tying it all together is wireless access.  I guess part of it is just getting out of the office, so maybe that in itself isn't co-working. But it often turns into a collaboration when you run into someone you know and the conversation turns to work. Suddenly you are networking and scheduling meetings and making notes. That informal interaction suddenly has real value. And sometimes it is quite intentional. A conversation with a colleague about a recent working lunch centered on where we could go on and off campus that would have decent wireless coverage.

Students are doing this all over campus, in deliberate and accidental learning spaces: in the residence halls, at the Student Center, the dining halls, Tucker Beach, all over.

The reason I'm posting on this topic is the technology connection. Clearly it is mobile technology that has allowed this to occur more and more. This seems to be a movement that will continue to grow.

A new way to combine all your Twitter updates: Twitter Digest. Pretty cool.

This recent report from Pew Internet & American Life Project reviews How teens manage their online identities and personal information in the age of MySpace. 

Some interesting findings:

1. Boys and girls have different views/behaviors on privacy
2. Half of all American online teens use a social network
3. Teens treat various types of personal information differently

This report is important because it is describing tomorrow's college students. We need to understand students' use and perceptions about technology. Our IT folks need understand this so that our technology infrastructure can continue to evolve at an appropriate pace. Our administrators need to understand this so that we can anticipate how to respond to issues related to privacy, and ethics, and the many other areas. Our faculty need to understand how students will expect these technologies and behaviors to translate into the classroom. Our Student Affairs folks need to understand how these behaviors will translate into behaviors outside the classroom. The list goes on, but the additional point is that we should be doing this collectively: having conversations across campus about the next generation of students that will be here soon.

(Side note: seems as if these "generations" come more and more quickly. The baby boomer generation is generally accepted as being post-WWII through the very early 1960s, where as "Generation X" and "Generation Y" and now the "Net Generation" have all followed in quick succession.)

The first release of the new Student Information System (SIS) launched today at 8:00 a.m.
 
All features of this release are accessed through university portal, and there are aspects that impact faculty and staff as well as students. If you don't have Faculty/Admin or Student access, you may not be able to see these features. I encourage you to find a student and ask them to let you watch over their shoulder while they click through. (But be sure to cover your eyes when they enter their password!
 
http://mypack.ncsu.edu/
 
Highlights include:
 
1.  The launch of the new Student Portal. Any person who is enrolled as a student will see a For Students" tab once they log into the portal. Within this tab is a default view of a number of sections called pagelets. You will see Student Affairs departments, programs, activities and services throughout.
 
We spent a great deal of time talking to students and Division staff to develop the content and organization that you currently see. Obviously this will be an ever-changing website and we'll continue to adjust as needed. If you have feedback, please send that to me.
 
2. Faculty and Staff/Administrative Access. You can now find these services through the portal.
 
3. Admissions information. While some information will still be available through RUMBA, most all Admissions information can now be found through the portal for those who have that access.
 
4. Student Information. The usual PackTracks info (class schedules, grades, personal information) and Student Financial info (Cashier's Office info) are now accessed ONLY through the new portal.
 
For more detailed information, see:
http://www.fis.ncsu.edu/sis/communication/enews_0807.htm
 
FYI, there are several other major modules within the new SIS that will launch over the next 18-24 months, including Financial Aid, Housing, Records, Advising and more. I'll continue to post updates.
 
 

The first Division of Student Affairs Tech Staff meeting will be held on Thursday, September 20, 2007 from 11:00 a.m. to noon in the Walnut Room of Talley Student Center. All Division LANTechs and Webmasters are strongly encouraged to attend.

Here is a tentative agenda:
1. Student email change (guest: Susan Klein)
2. Reorganization of all university IT services (guest: Susan Klein)
3. Upcoming Division Tech training
4. DETAG updates
5. Software purchasing
6. Computer Security Day (November 30)
7. Web stats software
8. Student Portal updates (sending announcements, etc.)
9. Clean Your Computer Day (to be scheduled very soon)
10. Lots more, TBD

I recently posted a link to some survey data collected at the University of Minnesota, and passed that along to colleagues in University Planing & Analysis (UPA). The Assessment Coordinator for LITRE is Dr. Geetanjali Soni and she is housed in UPA. She provided this update about LITRE initiatives on student and faculty technology.

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NC State University has been collecting information about student technology use as a part of the sophomore and graduating senior survey. Also a faculty use survey was done is 2003 and is proposed again for fall 2008. A portion of the 2006 faculty well being survey is also related to technology use.  Details are online. We are also in the process of looking at trends over time.

Additionally, last semester, LITRE did a some focus groups (Coordinated by Traci Temple and Janet Fortune of FCTL and in collaboration  with ITD, Delta and the Libraries) to find out WHAT TECHNOLOGIES STUDENTS ARE USING TO ?SURVIVE? AT NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY. The results should be on our website soon.

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The folks at the University of Minnesota have published results from technology surveys they conducted. They regularly survey both thestudent and faculty populations at that institution, and the results from the 2007 student survey are now available. (My recollection is that they survey faculty recently as well, but those results aren't up yet.)

A few highlights below; keep in mind that U of Minn has been identified by NC State as a peer institution.

1. Students are experienced in their use of technology, but not sophisticated.
2. Students print a lot.
3. Students strongly support use of significant levels of technology in the classroom.
4. Gender differences exist.

NC State collects some data on this front, but not comprehensively and from this perspective. There are data collection efforts through ITD, the Instructional Services unit in DELTA, LITRE, and FCTL. It would be great to see more collaboration, which may actually be happening through the LITRE assessment group.

I was interviewed at the ELI 2007 Fall Focus Session, which is an EDUCAUSE initiative. Here is the podcast of that interview, which is a summary of the presentation I made at this event. Materials from my presentation (and all the other presentations as well) are now available. There are a number of other podcasts from this event available as well; look for the ELI07netsavvy tag.

Here is an interesting event: Blog Action Day on October 15, 2007. This is an international event. I plan to participate with a post related to technology and the NC State campus environment (probably recycling hardware or something along those lines).

I don't think blogging has reached a critical mass yet at NC State, but I think that WolfBlog software will evolve (and improve) and more students, staff and faculty will engage in blogging (either as readers or writers or both). As blogging becomes much more mainstream, I'm wondering if we could do something like this on our own campus.