From the Director's Desk

From the Director's Desk

The top priority of Information Technology is to support all teaching and learning activities and to provide a technical infrastructure and a technology environment to enable faculty, staff and students to fully engage in interdisciplinary and innovative teaching and scholarship on our campus.

Beginning in Spring 2007, Information Technology has realigned internally to include three divisions, Academic Technologies, Computer Services and Media Services, providing faculty, staff and students with "one-stop shopping" technology services. Our emphasis will not only be on high-tech delivery, but also on quality support for teaching and learning. We are very proud of our contribution to the provision of web-based instructional services, database services, campus web services, student technology support services and classroom support services.

• Starting in Spring 2007, IT Helpdesk has a physical location. Faculty, staff and students requiring technology assistance can walk-in to CP-005, phone 692-HELP (692-4357), or communicate with the Helpdesk via email, IT Web Form, or instant messages.
• In the past few years Blackboard has been made available, we are pleased to see almost 130 faculty members (up to 90% of fulltime and adjunct faculty), with over 500 courses using this platform.
• We have introduced a very advanced web site template for UWT departments that is inexpensive to implement and maintain. Currently more than 70% of the departmental sites are using this template. This is a huge cost saving measure in terms of staff time and external web design expenses to the university.
• The data group has contributed greatly to the needs of the university with the improvements to the "Student Information System" and its ability as a group to coordinate and deliver special reports requested by the administration as well as individual departments. Many of these reports have directly influence on recruiting strategies and the future growth and direction of the university.
• Our instructional space includes Smart classrooms, interview rooms/ observations, computer classrooms, videoconferencing classrooms and Smart meeting rooms to the campus. Most of these rooms are equipped with data projectors and instructor computers. Media Services can provide professional assistance in using instructional media to teachers and students alike.
• We have also designed and built a new "Collaborative Learning Classroom" in CP-105. It is equipped with nine computers, each with wireless keyboard and mouse for up to nine small groups of students to collaborate and learn together. Instructors have full control of the student group computers and can present side-by-side digital images using two data projectors. The wireless network in the classroom also enables students to collaborate with their own laptops.
• We are working on a Technology Sand Box for faculty to explore with new and innovative technologies. We will have various technologies including social networking software available for faculty to tryout. The list includes AristoClass, Moodle, Podcasting, MDID, SecondLife, ActiveWorlds, Wiki, Blog, Skype, Streaming media and many more.