Report on AY06 Information Technology Activities
John Campbell
September 2005
This report documents recent information technology activities that might be of general interest to members of the Provost Academic Computing Advisory Committee.
Synopsis
The following were selected as relevant academic computing activities that committee members should recognize or even know a little about.
Activity / DescriptionBookstore / The student Microsoft Select Agreement sold 500 copies of MS Office Professional at a greatly reduced price ($80) this past academic year.
Desktop / The campus agreement with Dell for purchasing desktop machine closes in October, which will result in a new RFP.
Distance Learning / The Arizona Regents’ University is now the Arizona Universities Network and under the auspices of NAU.
E-LearningCenter / CTEL and CRADLEE have combined to form the new NAUE-LearningCenter.
Homedrive / A new service gives all faculty and staff on the NAU domain a new “H:” drive with 2 Gb of disk space.
IT Fee Projects / A new committee will address future year expenditures; meanwhile, 12 projects and one funding change are in place for this year.
Library / Five projects are underway or completed; three are funded by the New IT Fee and two are funded by the Arizona Universities Network.
Online Evals / A centralized online faculty evaluation system is moving out of its beta phase and a committee has been formed to identify who owns it.
SCAC / The Steering Committee for Administrative Computing has proposed a change to the NAU Email policy and is seeking funds to upgrade the Advantage and PeopleSoft systems.
Security / A new security policy has been approved and the results of a campus security scan have been released to network administrators.
Software Licenses / SPSS, Adobe, and MS Office licenses have either changed or are about to change.
Spam Upgrades / A new, more aggressive, tool is available to limit e-mail spam.
Student E-mail Addresses / At the request of ASNAU, shorter email addresses for students are coming.
Vista / The fall pilot started with 35 sections and 30 instructors.
Detail
Here are some details on each of the topics listed in the above synopsis. Feel free to request more information at any time by sending e-mail to . Alternatively, feel free to contact the people or access the websites listed below.
Bookstore
Through the Microsoft Student Select License, the bookstore sold 500 copies of MS Office Professional at a reduced price of $80 (compared to $150) this past academic year. The Microsoft Student Select License is a program the PACAC encouraged ITS and the NAU bookstore to pursue as part of a general discussion on student computing needs when the first round of IT fee discussions were taking place. At this time, a robust web site is available for students to purchase MS Office through the bookstore and other MS products at a highly discounted educational rate. For more information, look under “Computer Sales” at or visit
Desktop
For many years NAU has had a volume purchase agreement in place to reduce the cost of purchasing first-tier desktop, server, and laptop computers and to establish standards so that this equipment can be supported locally by ITS staff. The current campus agreement was established in March 2001 primarily with Hewlett-Packard and Dell. The agreement specifies certain pre-approved desktop, laptop, and server configurations. Compaq is also a recognized vendor for Intel-based servers and notebook computers. MacIntosh purchases, of course, are not subject to this volume purchase agreement.
The current contract will expire at the end of February, and a new Request for Proposal (RFP) will need to be written and reviewed before the old contract terminates. Certainly the ability to perform our own warranty work and the need to stick with first-tier products will be primary concerns for the RFP. At the same time, this is an opportunity to address other concerns or issues the campus might have related to our volume purchasing agreement. For more information on the RFP, contact .
Distance Learning
In the November 2004 Arizona Board of Regents meeting, NAU was given “responsibility for managing ARU in the service of all three institutions and the students of Arizona”[1]. In June 2005, based on a study by Lipman-Hearn, the Board approved changing the name of ARU to “The Arizona Universities Network.” At this same meeting, Priscilla Hardin and Marc Lord presented an updated web site that consolidates and replaces the previous ARU web site. Their revamped site was well received , which has resulted in a new Arizona Universities Network web presence can now be found at
The Azun web site provides information on programs and courses delivered by Distance Learning. With support from the Board, articulations between ASU, NAU, and UofA are also listed showing students which courses at the other institutions will be accepted as transfer credits. For more information, feel free to contact Marc Lord, Priscilla Harden, or Fred Hurst.
E-LearningCenter
As part of the annual review and in designing the next five year business plan (FY’07-11) for the TRIF funded E-Learning Initiative, CTEL and CRADLEE have combined to form the new NAU E-Learning Center (ELC). This change was approved by ABOR in Aug. 2005, and is part of an effort to streamline the organization and make it easier for faculty and the broader community to know where to get help and to understand what has been a defacto operational structure for almost 4 years.
Over the summer, the staff has been concentrating in implementing Vista and designing practices, procedures, training, and support for the anticipated full migration this coming year.
Highlights: there is now a faculty help line in ELC staffed 8am-5pm weekdays with plans to expand coverage (928-523-5554). There are six project managers who each will be aligned and be principle liaisons for each of the six colleges. The intent is to put a personality and face in ELC with each college. The next step is to recruit faculty liaisons within each college and provide a student workforce to assist faculty in “the field.” Some new applications have been acquired; Elluminate – a web-based conferencing tool, StudyMate – a Flash based tool for creating interactive activities, and in process is a site license for TurnItIn – a plagiarism detection tool.
Faculty projects continue with nine Shared Curriculum projects underway, eight Hybrid projects completing. The Fall 2005 FRP and call for mini-grant proposals will be out mid to late September. For more information, contact Don Carter, Director, or Larry MacPhee, Associate Director.
Homedrive
The “home drive” is a new ITS service gives all faculty and staff on the NAU domain an “H:” drive with 2 Gb of disk space. At the same time, email quota on “Jan” has increased to 1Gb of disk space, with more available upon request. These changes recognize that critical university data files are generated by individuals as well as departments.
The home drive is automatically attached as a network drive for anyone who logs in using the NAU domain. If you can’t find it, call the SolutionCenter (523-1511). Otherwise, look under “H” on the ITS web index (
One of the reasons for releasing this service is to give everyone a safe and secure place to put important documents and data. The new home drive is backed up nightly: In fact, the backup system allows users to retrieve a previous version of their files on their own. The home drive can also be accessed remotely through terminal services or through a VPN connection. For details on making full use of the home drive, see the URL above.
IT Fee Projects
At the March 2005 board meeting, the Arizona Board of Regents approved a mandatory student information technology fee of $2 per credit hour for up to $48 per semester beginning fall 2005. The fee is subject to a 14% Regents’ set aside for financial aid and is expected to generate about $630,000 in revenues. The Provost Academic Computing Committee (PACAC) recommended this fee to preserve and expand information technology services that students increasingly expect to find at a modern university. The PACAC proposed, at the request of the Deans, a fee that was independent of existing course fees. In other words, the student IT Fee does not replace course fees: It is a new source of revenue for technology-related student services and infrastructure.
This academic year, a committee with equal numbers of students and PACAC members will be formed to make recommendations on IT fee expenditures. This committee will also review past expenditures and work with the Associated Students of NAU (ASNAU) to make the projects and budgets transparent and well-known to students.
The first year’s IT Fee projects, of course, had to be launched without the help of the new committee. At the request of the President, Fred Estrella, NAU’s Chief Information Technology Officer, worked with key members of the PACAC IT Fee subcommittee to recommend specific projects funded by the new student IT fee for this academic year. The projects selected were also informed by an ASNAU student survey done in February 2005, which indicated that a 24 hour lab, more on-line classes, more wireless access, and more software would be projects strongly supported by students.
A quick summary of this year’s projects follows. Feel free to contact the designated project lead for more detailed information on any of these projects.
Project / Lead / Amount / SummaryWireless in the library / Bruce Palmer / $80,000 / Install wireless access points and supporting network hardware to extend the campus 802.11b/G wireless system to cover all of the library’s public areas.
Library laptop lending / Bruce Palmer / $35,000 / Purchase a pool of laptops for students to check out and use in the library.
Extended lab hours / Ray Gonzales / $24,000 / Keep the Residence Hall labs open two more hours each day.
South LRC 24/7 / Ray Gonzales / $38,100 / Keep the South LRC (the largest general purpose computing lab) open 24 hours a day.
RefWorks / Gary Gustafson / $15,000 / License web software to manage citations and automatically format references for papers, theses, and dissertations.
LiftText / Phil Voorhees / $38,000 / Purchase a web service to remediate legacy web pages and make then ADA compliant.
AZTutor / Dorothy Briggs / $29,300 / Preserve a successful on-line tutoring service run through the LearningAssistanceCenter.
Academic Computing Help Desk / Ray Gonzales / $51,460 / Extend full-time staff support to cover weekends and evenings and add an additional student position for walk-in services.
Replace state budget / John Campbell / $220,000 / Return a portion of the state budget to allow the IT Fee to cover lab student wage and maintenance costs.
Adobe licenses / Marc Lord / $10,550 / Procure Adobe Creative Suite software for statewide labs.
Statewide Network / Marc Lord / $12,000 / Increase bandwidth in critical statewide areas.
Vista / John Campbell / $30,000 / Cover a small part of the Vista project budget. (Vista is a replacement for WebCT Campus Edition.)
PeopleSoft 8.9 / Sue Stefanko / $46,590 / Cover a small part of the PeopleSoft upgrade budget. (LOUIE requires an upgrade.)
Library (update by Claudia Bakula)
In response to expressed student preferences, the Cline Library is pleased to report progress on the following three initiatives funded by the NAU Student Information Technology Fee:
By October, the Cline Library building will offer wireless network connectivity. Coverage will be achieved with the placement of 30 access points. Students who own laptop computers with wireless network cards will enjoy connectivity everywhere in the building, including the Assembly Hall. (Laptop owners who are not affiliated with NAU may connect as guests.)
Also later in the semester, NAU students will be able to borrow laptop computers (with wireless network cards) to use in the Cline Library building. The 20 laptops will include software and services comparable to those available at the standard desktop PC’s in the Cline Library and ITS labs. (Only NAU students may check-out laptops at the Media Services desk.)
Already up and running for fall semester, the Library has licensed RefWorks. This citation management software allows NAU students located anywhere to create their own personal research databases. Students simply importtheir citations from text files or online resources to their web-based RefWorksaccount. The collected references can be automatically formatted to the citation style of choice and incorporated into papers, theses, and dissertations. As for collaborative projects, a group of students can designate a single database for importing and sharing their citations. (NAU faculty and staff may also use RefWorks.)
Generous funding from the Arizona Universities Network has made possible the following two enhancements to Cline Library website:
The WebFeat multi-database search engine is now the feature attraction on the Find Articles & Research Information page ( WebFeat gives users the ability to simultaneously search50 electronic databases (catalogs, citation and full-text databases, etc.). Additionally, users canpick from the list of 50 to customize their multi-database searches.
The second AUN funded tool is somewhat transparent to users.ArticleLinker works in conjunction with the WebFeat search results toincrease direct access to proprietary full-text articles and other electronic content. ArticleLinker essentially connect a citation from one information database to the available full text article or content in a different database.
Online Evals
For the past two years, Brian Sawert and his team in ITS have been building a centralized on-line evaluation system. The College of Education has adopted this as a replacement for their paper-based faculty evaluations, in large part because it saves money and returns results within days instead of months. A problem with these board-mandated faculty evaluations, however, is that they are politically charged—there probably isn’t anyway to get broad consensus on their value, design, or validity. Even strategies for assuring acceptable participation rates in on-line evaluations seem to be contested territory.
Another, more prosaic problem is that an online system has unavoidable complexities. Building online evaluations requires entering data into an online database. Assigning evaluations requires an interface with the PeopleSoft student system. Controlling access to reports requires negotiating hierarchical roles. Running the system requires some sort of support organization and especially someone who is a first contact for assisting administrative assistants, chairs, and deans when questions arise. Because of the academic importance of online evaluations, a committee has been formed to find a home for this support somewhere in the Provost’s organization. Joe Collentine is the chair of the committee; John Campbell is a member. A representative from the PACAC, perhaps Barry Lutz, has been requested. Feel free to contact Joe, Barry, or John for more information as efforts progress to locate a home for online evaluations.
SCAC: The Steering Committee for Administrative Computing
The Steering Committee for Administrative Computing has proposed a change to the NAU Email policy that clarifies the requirement for the Bursary, Registrar, Financial Aid, and Distance Learning office to send official communications through US Mail for students who are on a special list maintained in PeopleSoft. Presumably, these students need an alternative to E-Mail in order to conduct NAU business. At the same time, the policy preserves the right of faculty to include class email or class listservs as a required part of their course activities. In short, students on the PeopleSoft list for having US Mail in addition to E-Mail notifications are still responsible for using E-Mail if it is a course requirement.
On other fronts, the SCAC is working with the budget office and the President’s Cabinet to find funds for two critical administrative system upgrades: Advantage and PeopleSoft. Like most vendor supplied products, these systems need to stay up to date on their version levels to stay supported by the vendor. Both will have problems in the next year if an upgrade is not done this academic year. Both upgrades cost a significant amount of money. A key discussion point is the balance between consultant fees and having sufficient staff in-house to do the work.
SCAC members were also involved in the hiring committee to replace Max Johnson as Director of Administrative Computing in ITS. Patrick Benson from the University of Washington was selected by the hiring committee and will report for work mid-September. Visit the “notes/minutes” link at for more information on any of these topics.
Security (Harper Johnson)
In June the NAU Information Security Policy[2] was approved by the President’s Cabinet. A part of this policy approves the creation of the Information Security Committee and a campus wide Information Security Program. The Information Security Committee will review and recommend, to the President’s Cabinet, information security policies and standards, and provide guidance and support to the Director of Information Security for the implementation and maintenance of the NAU Information Security Program. The first committee meeting will take place in early October.