SU ITS News
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The new SU Visitor Wireless Access Guide is a printer-friendly PDF available for download by campus visitors and SU groups who are hosts or event organizers who wish to share it with their guests. This is intended to address the connection needs of conferences, seminars, vendors and others who visit the campus as the University's guests, and head off last minute support calls from these groups once they arrive on campus.
SU's leading-edge campus grid is a free, world-class computing resource for any researcher with an idea. Researchers in SU's academic community now have access to greater computing resources at no cost thanks to the expanding campus computing grid. The grid uses idle desktop computers to perform research-based tasks.
ITS is in the final stages of bringing the enterprise edition of Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) to SU. DPS was pioneered on campus by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications with their September, 2011 release of the "Best of Newhouse" app and Barcode Magazine for iPad. ITS has negotiated and funded an upgrade to the DPS professional license held by Newhouse. The DPS enterprise edition will enable all schools, colleges and departments at SU to create their own apps, using their existing Adobe Creative Suite and InDesign workflows to author layouts and add interactivity and multimedia. ITS will take these InDesign files and use the Folio Producer tools in DPS to publish .folio files as apps for tablet devices. Apps can be distributed directly, or through the device markets such as Google Play and the Apple App Store.
Several months ago ITS began investigating cloud application development platforms, including Force.com, a product offered by Salesforce.com (SFDC), a leading cloud SaaS (software as a service) application provider. SFDC offers an array of cloud based applications and platforms for a wide variety of purposes, and the Salesforce.com Foundation provides lower cost licensing to 501c(3) organizations like SU. Information Technology and Services (ITS) executed a Master Subscription Agreement with SFDC last December and started getting its feet wet with the service.
This team of students is putting SU on the social map. Last fall, Syracuse University put digital and social media on their list of priorities for communications and marketing by creating a team dedicated to university initiatives in the digital space. Leading these initiatives is Kate Brodock, executive director of digital & social media, who works with various constituents across campus to improve and increase SU's presence and strategies in the space
The Answers system (http://answers.syr.edu) is being redesigned to be a technical knowledgebase of self-help information for the SU community. The information within Answers will include solutions to common technical problems, FAQs, and configuration information. Screen shots and video demonstrations will be used to provide basic how-to information on key systems. According to Dawn Havill, project lead on the redesign of Answers, "when people are having trouble using a system, they want to quickly get an answer to their problem that is easy to follow so they can finish what they need to get done."
For several years IT units on campus have coordinated their Dell purchases in order to take advantage of greater discounts. By approaching Dell with a large commitment of purchases over an agreed period of time, all units can take advantage of the discounts regardless of the department's order size. This buying opportunity is colloquially referred to as the Dell "Big Buy."
This year, the special discounts will be applied to any purchases from Dell between April 23, 2012 and July 20, 2012 through the Dell web portal in eProcurement. If you want purchases to be applied to FY 2011-2012, it is advisable to place your order by June 1 to ensure delivery by June 30.
SU's new voice mail system - CallXpress® - will be activated on the evening of Wednesday, 4/4/12. Once activated, calls to the SU voice mail access number (3-2527) will be directed to the new system. CallXpress includes a new feature called Simple Unified Messaging (Simple UM), which allows you to receive an email notification and a WAV file of each voice mail message. Go to http://telecom.syr.edu for complete information, including detailed instructions.
ITS offers an tntensive experience for faculty looking to add online and technology elements to their courses. The Online Learning Services (OLS) group of Information Technology and Services (ITS) will offer its inaugural Summer Institute for Technology-Enhanced Teaching and Learning (SITETL) to be held this summer in two separate week-long sessions in order to accommodate different schedules. The two sessions are planned for May 21-25 and August 6-10.
News about IT staff at SU
Keeping current with software, systems, issues and devices at SU
Student team in ITS-Online Platforms nurtures beauty and function online.
As the internet has become a visual feast, institutions, businesses and other site owners are clamoring for skilled web practitioners who can deftly merge beauty and function online. An ITS program is preparing SU students for this digital realm, while adding to department capabilities. With the help and leadership of Jono Chowdhury, manager of Online Platforms, a group of twenty students have become Spiders, creating websites for the new digital age.
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