Archive for the ‘Enterprise Technology & Infrastructure’ Category
November 14th, 2009 by Margaret Fischel
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20091112/NEWS0213/91111028&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
The preceding Burlington Free Press article was published on 11/12/09. In addition to Middlebury, UVM and St. Michaels College recently removed their room phones. But I do find UVM’s claim that they saved a half million dollars supporting 2800 student phone lines rather amazing.
November 12th, 2009 by Margaret Fischel
LIS announced to students earlier this week that telephone services will be removing dial tone and telephone equipment from residential hall rooms unless a student requests that we keep their service in place. The deadline for those requests is Sunday, November 15. From then through December we’ll be working to re-route remaining dorm telephone lines and remove port cards with a goal of reducing our active landlines by 2000. Ginnie Bukowski is shepherding this part of the project working with our contractor and facilities services. During the week of December 7, recycling services will place bins in dormitories where students can deposit their telephones. The phones will be moved to the Recycling Center where the equipment will be processed for either re-sale or recycling of parts.
The consequence of reducing our maintenance costs is that we no longer have full-time telecommunications maintenance services. Thus, there may be a delay for individual telephone and network repairs and installations as of January 1, though major repairs will continue to be a high priority.
November 11th, 2009 by Joseph Antonioli
This is the fourth biweekly update from the Web Programming work-group. (more…)
November 10th, 2009 by Jeffrey Rehbach
Working together with Facilities (taking advantage of their project to upgrade fire alarm wiring), we have just installed a number of Wireless Access Points to give wireless service throughout all floors of Painter Hall.
(from Howie McCausland)
October 30th, 2009 by Ian McBride
The new website for the Monterey Institute of International Studies went public on September 15th and is a combination of efforts from many areas of both Middlebury and MIIS, as well as brand new designs from White Whale Web Services. During this project, I got asked a lot, “So if you’re not building the new site, what are you up to?” And I thought I’d take this opportunity to answer that question, tell you how we developed the site, and give some previews of how we’re using what we learned to build the Middlebury web site.
(more…)
October 28th, 2009 by Adam Franco
This is the third biweekly update from the Web Programming work-group. We are moving to a cyclical task and project planning work-flow in order to better prioritize our work. We acknowledge that requests will always come to us in a variety of ways and do not wish to burden members of the Middlebury community with overly formalized request processes. At the same time we also need to acknowledge that institutional and departmental priorities often shift over time and therefore we must have a work planning process that allows for flexibility that addresses the needs of the community, and maintains a healthy work environment for our staff.
(more…)
October 26th, 2009 by Michael Roy
Map of Wireless coverage
Here is a map of our current wireless coverage.
October 16th, 2009 by Julie Tumminia-Tomsuden
The “display name” (or alpha name) shown in the web directory, Outlook address book, etc. has in the past been set so that it could only be corrected or changed by a manual process. This will soon be modified so name changes entered into the Banner database will flow through the Active Directory table and subsequently update the web directory, Outlook, etc. where the alpha name is displayed in the format Last, First Middle.
There is much work being done by data stewards of the Banner database to ensure that people who have requested a specific “display name” in the past won’t have that name replaced by this change. Look for the “display name” changes to be automated as soon as this work is completed.
One enhancement as a result of this change which should help people out involves the “Preferred First Name” field in the Banner database. For records that have had this data entered into Banner, the “Preferred First Name” will be appended to the “display name” and will be enclosed in parentheses in the format Last, First Middle (Preferred First).
October 14th, 2009 by Joseph Antonioli
This is the second biweekly update from the Web Programming work-group. We are moving to a cyclical task and project planning work-flow in order to better prioritize our work. We acknowledge that requests will always come to us in a variety of ways and do not wish to burden members of the Middlebury community with overly formalized request processes. At the same time we also need to acknowledge that institutional and departmental priorities often shift over time and therefore we must have a work planning process that allows for flexibility that addresses the needs of the community, and maintains a healthy work environment for our staff.
(more…)
September 30th, 2009 by Joseph Antonioli
This is the first biweekly update from the Web Programming work-group. We are moving to a cyclical task and project planning work-flow in order to better prioritize our work. We acknowledge that requests will always come to us in a variety of ways and do not wish to burden members of the Middlebury community with overly formalized request processes. At the same time we also need to acknowledge that institutional and departmental priorities often shift over time and therefore we must have a work planning process that allows for flexibility that addresses the needs of the community, and maintains a healthy work environment for our staff.
(more…)
September 28th, 2009 by Adam Franco
I’ve just completed an update to our video hosting system, MiddMedia, to enable it to support the upload of additional video formats.
The Adobe Flash Media Server (FMS) — the software on MiddMedia that handles streaming the video data to clients — only supports the MP3 Audio (.mp3), Flash Video (.flv), and MPEG-4 video with H.264 encoding (.mp4) formats. Up until this point, users were required to convert their videos into one of the two supported video formats before uploading them to MiddMedia. Depending on the user’s operating system and the software they have installed, this could be a challenging proposition. With this update, videos in a variety of formats can be uploaded directly to the MiddMedia server where they will be automatically converted.
(more…)
May 8th, 2009 by Elin Waagen
Submitted by Elin Waagen
In collaboration with NExpress partner libraries, LIS has recently implemented a couple of very nice enhancements to the NExpress service we offer.
NExpress now offers a third renewal to accommodate research needs.
Midd now loans out DVD’s from the Browsing Collection – and we can now request DVD’s from NExpress partner libraries.
Books – 28 day loan
DVD’s – 7 day loan
Pass the Word!
Midd staff, faculty and students who will be living or traveling near our NExpress partner libraries during the summer can borrow directly from them – Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, Northeastern, Williams and Wellesley – with their Midd ID.
April 10th, 2009 by Michael Lynch
Submitted by Mike Lynch
On Wednesday, April 15th Barbara Herzog from Innovtive will be here to give a demo of their Encore product. The demo will take place in LIB 145 at 10:00 a.m. We saw a demo of this product some time ago but it has evolved a good bit since then.
This is just one of several products we are looking at which will enhance discovery of the resources we have to offer.
February 23rd, 2009 by Chris Norris
This will be my last post as the workgroup leader for the DAS workgroup, as we move into the new organizational structure announced by Mike Roy at the last all-LIS staff meeting. Here are some of the projects and tasks that DAS staff members have been working on during the past month…
Mike Schuster
- Several Revisions to Room Draw SSB forms and lots of testing
- Added new student search dropdown box and removed boxes used by students to enter group member IDs.
- Modified procedures so as each student is selected, several eligibility checks are made.
- Modified message text displayed when students are ineligible.
- Modified WebTailor Infotext for links.
- Added logic to allow the group representative to remove group members when they’ve accidentally selected one.
- Created a database view of instructors to be used by new online catalog web page.
- Modified web directory script to correctly select on leave graduate students during winter term.
- Created database tables that will be used by custom Monterey web admissions applications forms.
- Assisted the registrar’s office with running the Term Student Type Update program(SHRTYPE) and the Learner Curriculum Conversion Program(SOPLCCV).
- After the registrar’s office runs SHRTYPE for a particular term, I create a population selection in Banner and run SOPLCCV with that popsel.
- Reviewed Clearinghouse Self-Service Authentication documentation and sample code.
Liz Whitaker-Freitas
- Supporting Hyperion BI+ for functional & technical users
Ian McBride (Full list at: https://www.yammer.com/users/imcbride)
- Completed MiddMedia plugin for WordPress
- Assisted with completion of RFP for Web Makeover
- Created conference registration form for VCC
- Developed payment form for Print Management
- Modified Athletics Recruiting application to remove Primary Sport
- Designed database sync script for the Course Catalog
- Launched CSO and Judicial Boards sites
- Upgraded Key Survey to version 7.1
Travis Stafford
- Troubleshooting cForms issue
- Testing cForms 10.3
- Two cforms trainings (Chemistry Department, Institutional Planning and Diversity)
- Finished first wave of BLM implementation (is now live) as well as fixed various bugs
- List Manager Configuration for newsletters / MiddCMS Newsletter support
- General support and Heat tickets
Rob Pekor
- Re-aligned parent Donor codes for “Feb” students.
- Removed obsolete region codes related to “CA Mailing”.
- Enhanced existing “pledge installment” view.
- Investigate poor query execution between databases (production and non-production).
- Created table to hold local data for the Harris Online Community project.
- Sent sample dataset to Harris thus enabling them to begin on data mapping on their side of the implementation project.
- Continued to fine tune the web pages for Phonathon segment creation
- Created new indicator for “young Alumni” (alumni for only 1-10 years) for the Banner List Manager project.
- Create stewardship project codes for Athletics (ATHSTW) and the Axinn Center (AXNSTW)
- Rewrote of slow performing fiscal data view for CA
Chris Norris
Staffing
- Transition planning for organizational re-structuring with DAS staff, Area Directors, and workgroup leaders
Project Work
- Reviewed Phoenix BIA summary presentation
- Drafted spec for remote DR web presence
- Revised Banner-ListManager project requirements with DAS staff
- Revised Broadcast Email Newsletter request document
- Configured four new Broadcast Email Newsletter editions with DAS staff
- Completed work on 2008 Summary Web Statistics for Web Makeover project
- Completed work on Stakeholder Reports for Web Makeover project
- Completed work on GSA (Google Search) for MIIS sites
- Began configuration and setup of Google Apps for Education (alpha instance)
Meetings
- Participated in Web Makeover project team meetings
- Met with HR staff regarding OpenHire “internal job site” project
- Met with Brett Wilhelm regarding departure considerations
- Met with members of the web subcommittee of the Sexual Assault Oversight Committee regarding a new web presence
- Participated in College Advancement Operations team meetings
- Participated in Harris online community project team meetings
- Participated in Pay for Print project team meetings
- Participated in MIIS technology team meeting
- Participated in College Data Workshop with IR, Faculty, and other LIS staff
- Conducted final DAS staff check-in meetings
Systems Administration
- Ongoing monitoring and problem resolution of online services
- Configured new GO rewrite rules
- Ongoing tuning of GSA to improve search results
- Renewals of College-owned domain names
- Transferred UWAC domains to College-managed account
Help, Support, Training, Workshops
- Updated Middlebury’s United Way web presence (campaign stats)
- Provided support for Broadcast Email Newsletters, CMS editing, BLWC Submission Manager, HEAT tix, and various ad-hoc help calls
- Conducted a Broadcast Email Newsletter training with Young Alumni staff
- Conducted a Broadcast Email (advanced) workshop for CA staff
Vendor Related Activities
- Participated in Sun-Guard/SCT Banner DBA weekly status calls
- Participated in Velaris Hyperion SysAdmin weekly status calls
- Participated in Google Apps for Education project team call with Google
- Transitioned Hyperion SysAdmin vendor (Velaris) relationship managment to Jeff Rehbach
- Provided IMA (eCommerce) details for Harris online community project
February 6th, 2009 by Margaret Fischel
Submitted by Peggy Fischel
The Schools Abroad directors expressed interest in using the AlertFind emergency notification system at their schools. Liz Ross, associate director of Off-Campus Study, and I conducted two tests this winter with the directors and will train them as team administrators for their individual schools this summer.
February 6th, 2009 by Margaret Fischel
Submitted by Peggy Fischel
With the recent announcement from the CFO that most College-owned cell phones must revert to personal service due to IRS requirements, Ginnie Bukowski kicked into high gear. She convened a well-attended Q&A meeting with affected parties who have Verizon Wireless service and is now consulting with small groups and individuals to help them through the process. LIS will continue to maintain the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and add users who require Outlook e-mail and calendaring service for business purposes.
The new cell policy was devised by the Controller’s Office with input from Telephone Services. Even if you are not entitiled to a College allowance, employees can get discounted service from Verizon Wireless. If other carriers offer discounts, we will add that information in the future.
December 12th, 2008 by Chris Norris
Submitted by Chris Norris
Here are some of the projects and tasks that DAS staff members have been working on during the past month…
Mike Schuster
- Ran the SYPAEMH process in production to apply Emergency holds for 394 students
- Modified off campus study, field of study database triggers and package to correctly build the first away term for students with multiple curriculum
- Modified SYPCSCC process for applying class codes to prevent it from including winter credits when calculating current credits and also to only copy specific attributes to future terms
- Worked with Jai Shankar to modify the TSRCBIL FormFusion template to print ‘Do Not Remit’ in a few places on student bills when their total is 0 or a negative amount
- Rewrote the LS Apps by Prior College report
- Diagnosed and fixed a problem where custom database procedures were sending email with a timestamp off by 5 hours.
- Modifications to LS & BLSE Financial Aid online web applications
- Expanded the answer box for the college currently attending question on the LS and BLSE Financial Aid applications
- Added error handling in save supplement procedure to check for nonnumeric characters entered as answers to questions looking for numeric answers
- Added text to top of ls_application and blse_application to tell applicant not to use the enter button. Changed text for “Save” buttons to “Submit” buttons
- Added text to explanations/special circumstances instructions: “Please limit to 300 characters.”
- Added error handling in save_application procedure to alert user if they didn’t enter a ‘.’ or ‘@’ in their email address
- Created a spec for the MIIS web application.
- Modified Faculty Advisee list SSB form to allow users to email all advisees or selected advisees
- Online Room Draw 2009 modifications
- Several modifications to room draw space maintenance SSB form for residential systems coordinator
- Several modifications to room draw SSB forms for student submitted applications
- Planning conversations with Jeff Rehbach, MBS Books, and Bob Jansen about creating a process to upload course information to the Online Bookstore vendor and modifying the course listing pages to include links to the bookstore software
Rob Pekor
- Put final touches on the Phone-a-thon data interface for College Advancement
- Added keyword descriptor to output filename of the segment data produced
- Enhanced and modified Oracle procedures behind a Hyperion Mailing report
- Corrected issues with the Volunteer web application (Agents-in-Action) for Annual Giving, problems centered around the field length of the home phone number
- Assisted in fixing problem with online donor roll.
- Created multiple data files for various populations (segments) specified by Annual Giving.
- Analyzing and starting to build specifications for the data feed for the Harris online community project
- Put final touches on the Banner/List-Manager (Broadcast Email tool) integration model with Travis
- This required new function to delineate language school and Bread Load of staff, faculty and students
- Set up volunteer data/assignments for Annual Giving
- Enhanced the Agents-In-Action application to allow input of new ask amounts and assignments
- Created new Oracle package/procedures to allow sending files via FTP from database procedures
Travis Stafford
- Banner/List-Manager Integration project
- Defined types and sub-types
- Defined admin model
- Web Forms
- Supported existing Web Forms
- Ongoing migration of new requests to WPcformsII for BLSE, ACE, RCFIA, HR
- Resolved numerous HEAT tickets and provided support for end-users of online services
Liz Whitaker-Freitas
- Hyperion System 9 Upgrade/Migration
- Resolved several post-migration issues
- Responded to unplanned services outages
- Worked with LIS Staff to develop lab images for new HS9 plugin
- Assisted functional/technical leads with publishing, scheduling and provisioning in new environment
- Researched and resolved connectivity issues with existing queries
- Resolved Oracle Client install issues
- Researched causes of failed jobs
- Tested and deployed Patch/SP
- Cleaned up some custom Roles/Groups
- Worked with Velaris on plan for log archiving
- Resolved report issues (Admissions Data Processing Reports, College Advancement Mailing Reports)
- Other Hyperion
- Trained Tech Lead on how to use derived queries and dashboards
- Trained LS on how to publish and maintain ad-hoc reports
- Processed Hyperion security requests
- Resolved Hyperion HEAT tickets
- Prepared list of services currently being performed by Velaris or Midd staff with recommendations for ongoing support
- Ongoing work for the Lockdown project to change reports using saturn or saturn_midd embedded credentials
- FileMakerPro
- Changed views for Athletics FMP application, troubleshooting issues, change nightly schedules to import view data
Ian McBride (was on CTO for a significant portion of this time)
- Participated in the Web Makeover team meetings and work on the Web Redo project
- Installed a test instance of Drupal CMS for this project
- Finalized the soon-to-be-live new News site for Communications
- Moved all non-CMS web applications off the primary CMS server
- Ongoing work to build out site templates for the New England Review in WordPress
- Developed a web service for system monitoring and backup contacts
- Continued work on a web service API for MiddTube
Chris Norris
- Monitoring and Troubleshooting for Online Services
- Identified and resolved Hyperion issues related to SP1 update
- Researched issue related to Banner INB and IE crashes
- Resolved TouchNet Payment Gateway outages and related issues
- Identified and resolved issues related to recent www –> web forms/services migration
- Monitored Online Course Registration (10 days) and resolved related web issues
- Training and Support for End-Users of Online Services
- Conducted a ListManager-Basics workshop for College Advancement staff
- Conducted a ListManager-Advanced workshop for heavy-use broadcast emailers
- Provided ongoing support for CMS editing, resolved HEAT tickets, answered support calls
- Project Specs / Work Definitions
- Refined Banner List Manager Integration project spec with Travis and Rob
- Helped initiate development of Harris Online Community project spec for Communications
- Completed DAS workgroup SWOT analysis for LIS restructuring efforts
- Revised DAS workgroup goals and objectives for upcoming year
- Ongoing Maintenance & Support
- Processed new GO requests
- Updated Middlebury’s United Way web presence
- Coordinated changes to Monterey’s Online Giving Form
- Reviewed Project Phoenix BIA reports, ongoing planning and specification for remote DR web presence
- Tuned GSA Search to improve keyword matching in search results
- New Projects & Tasks
- Configured SubmissionManager web application for Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference
- Participated in the Web Makeover team meetings and worked on related assigned tasks
- Worked with Advancement and Communications on microphilanthropy test for Organic Garden
- Worked with LIS Budget Administrator to help identify areas for cost reductions
- Worked with LIS Licensing to clarify Hyperion software licensing details
- Worked with LIS Policy Advisor to clarify PCI-compliance status
- Worked with Dean of the College and Directory of Public Safety on new Emergency web site specification
- Vendor Related Activities
- Participated in Sun-Guard/SCT Banner DBA weekly status calls
- Participated in Velaris Hyperion SysAdmin weekly status calls
- Initiated contract re-negotiation with Hyperion SysAdmin vendor (Velaris)
- Transitioned DavisUWCScholars.org and DavisProjectsforPeace.org site management duties to external vendor
November 21st, 2008 by Alex Chapin
Submitted by Alex Chapin
Adam Franco and I attended meetings last week hosted by the MIT Office of Educational Innovation and Technology. Adam attended a meeting focused on OSID V3, the next version of the Open Knowledge Initiative open service interface definitions. Harmoni, our application framework, uses the OSIDs to provide services to Segue and Concerto. The latest version of the OSIDs solves some challenging obstacles to application interoperability. Adam will be collaborating with a developer from Sakai to create a prototype of an “enterprise service bus” that would demonstrate the power of OSIDs to allow multiple systems to share content. I pitched a similar idea in a brief presentation I did at Project Bamboo workshop earlier this month and in my contributions to discussions of a “services framework” on the the Bamboo wiki.
Concurrent with the OSID V3 meeting that Adam participated in was as another meeting I attended that focused on the idea of a “network for content and curriculum.” This is a logical extension of the Open Knowledge Initiative, exploring ways to make it easier for individuals and institutions to discover, access and re-mix educational resources. The meeting showcased the PERSEE project, a program at the University of Lumière Lyon II to digitize French scientific journals with the goal of provide interoperable access to this material.
November 14th, 2008 by Margaret Fischel
Submitted by Peggy Fischel
Ginnie Bukowski attended AMCOM’s Connect ’08 Conference in Minneapolis, October 12-15. She learned about the stability of Telident’s future, our 911 system, which had been acquired by AMCOM earlier in the year, and their suite of other products – most recently CommTech Wireless purchased less than two weeks before. VoIP, voice recognition, and 911 products were the focus of the sessions she attended. The most significant moments during these days were the frequent opportunities to talk with Telident’s product manager and application engineer. Suggestions that will improve the software were discussed. She was told some of her and others’ ideas may make it into the 9.0 version, which is anticipated early next year.
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