1. Enhance Access and Campus Connectivity -- Provide the opportunity to access information, library services, communication services and computational resources from any location, at any time for students, faculty, and staff.
- Expand wireless network coverage to provide comprehensive access in campus residences, academic, and administrative buildings as well as in additional outdoor areas.
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- Complete a network environment that permits appropriate access to common network resources for all classes of devices – desktop, laptop, handhelds, and cellular. Increase hardware and software support for handheld devices, and tablet PCs.
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- Develop a comprehensive campus network infrastructure plan that projects needs and service during the next five years, including the possibility of a converged (e.g. voice and data) network.
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- Ensure robust, reliable levels of internal and external connectivity through sufficient bandwidth and expanded network monitoring and maintenance capabilities.
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- Improve the security and reliability of departmental computing services and data that impact major activities on campus, including data encryption options. In collaboration with faculty, assess and plan for additional data storage capacity and effective retrieval mechanisms in a wide range of applications.
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- Deploy pilot implementations of new and newly integrated technologies such as Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, unified messaging combining voice mail and e-mail, and other innovative systems.
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- Enhance technology services for persons with physical challenges (vision and hearing impairment, restricted mobility, and others) so that there is universal access to resources.
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2. Enhance Library Access, Services, and Collections – Provide students, faculty, and staff with a robust mix of physical and virtual library resources that enhance and stimulate research, scholarship, and student learning.
- Complete the Linderman Library transformation project and implement a new service model that provides an inviting intellectual center for the entire campus and a home for humanities collections and services in spaces that are exciting, flexible, and technologically state-of-the-art.
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- Maximize access to scholarly information through continued conversion of journal literature and reference materials to electronic format. Lehigh’s library collections will be reconfigured in coming years: most journals will be received exclusively in electronic format; electronic books will emerge as a format of choice for course readings and online education; and the licensing of large electronic back files of commercial publishers will be required to create an effective e-collection. There will be continued and focused acquisition of scholarly print monographs and participation in cooperative efforts at every level for print and digital preservation.
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- Expand campus and global access to unique Lehigh resources by completing the Beyond Steel Digital Library project, initiating new projects tied to innovations in teaching and learning, and digitizing Lehigh documents: theses, photographs, and campus publications such as the Brown and White.
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- Explore and implement emerging systems to manage library/media resources and rights more effectively and to offer related new services. These may include electronic resource management systems, copyright management and clearance systems, and digital delivery of media and documents to the desktop and/or classroom.
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- Implement the next generation integrated library systems as new functionality and services become available.
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- Enhance Fairchild Martindale Library’s usability for collaborative and individual learning even as library print collections expand by transfer of appropriate collections to the Library Materials Center (LMC) and implementation of additional compact shelving in the LMC and Fairchild Martindale Library as needed.
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- Build on Special Collections’ strengths and develop a collections, acquisition, and management policy in coordination with faculty and administrative users to focus the objectives of the Special Collections and Lehigh archives programs.
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3. Create Flexible New Teaching and Learning Environments—Under faculty leadership and with LTS support, create attractive, flexible technology-enabled physical and virtual learning environments to meet Lehigh’s pedagogical objectives.
- Support teaching and learning innovations by implementing a broad range of new technologies from straightforward improvements like audience response systems to a new collaborative classroom to serve as a test-bed for future classroom upgrades. Address technological, space, and pedagogical issues to support visual learning initiatives (animation, simulation, virtual reality).
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- Capitalize on the capabilities of the new Digital Media Studio, the Technology Resource Learning Center, and other enhanced classroom facilities by significantly increasing training opportunities, course related special sessions, and evening and weekend hours of operation.
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- Increase reliability of classroom technology by implementing remote monitoring and diagnostic systems. Streamline faculty use of specialized software in classroom settings where possible including more flexible boot images to accommodate routine use of this software and the ability to load software in advance even from off campus.
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- Enhance distance education production and broadcast facilities to ensure professional quality programming for a full range of offerings: academic curricula, professional development courses, corporate training programs, and contracted services.
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- Implement as appropriate new distance education course delivery technologies that are cost-effective and provide a positive and effective learning environment for the student.
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4. Foster a Balanced E-Learning Environment and Community—Engage university administrators and academic leaders in ongoing dialogue about the best ways to utilize information technology as a means to extend and enhance Lehigh’s distinctive culture and style as a primarily (but not exclusively) residential university.
- Document and extend Lehigh’s learning assessment culture for the upcoming Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools full accreditation review of Lehigh University.
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- Launch the new “Writing across the Curriculum” program to support faculty in improving undergraduate writing and analysis skills within the context of their disciplines. Coordinate with information literacy and instructional technology initiatives as appropriate.
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- Offer diverse faculty development opportunities targeted to address the needs of specific and varied teaching and research environments; for example: large lecture classes, uses of geographic information systems, new features of course management systems, etc. Further integrate instructional technology outreach efforts with faculty development activities to present faculty with a broad range of instructional approaches.
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- Maintain high quality in distance education courses by evaluating and assessing distance learning effectiveness and student and faculty satisfaction. Determine best practices as well as any need for modification in either student or faculty support or delivery features.
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- Build on the success of the award-winning Lehigh Lab including the Faculty Fellow program in which a senior faculty member serves as motivator, mentor, and facilitator for other faculty wishing to incorporate more technology in their teaching and the Technology Resource Learning Center, a facility that provides a demonstration classroom, a computer cluster, and various consulting services for faculty. Regularly promote these resources and their expanded use by communicating about them with faculty. Engage a second Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Fellow to introduce a beginning humanities scholar to research librarianship.
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5. Develop Enhanced Academic/Research Computing Capacity—Under faculty leadership and with LTS support, implement initiatives to meet high-end computing and network requirements in support of research and scholarship.
- Increase the concentration of high performance computing consulting resources; for example, through the addition of a research assistantship in this area.
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- Re-cable high priority research-intensive academic buildings to provide reliable building networks with bandwidth connections high enough to satisfy research-related requirements.
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- Expand training and awareness of high performance computing resources through workshops, special events, listserv communications, and relationships with other centers of excellence to share support of specialized applications.
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- Maintain regular life cycle replacement for high performance computing systems including the compute server, workstations, and Beowulf clusters.
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- Explore and adopt appropriate open source software (such as Sakai, Condor, and Fedora) and open access data repositories (such as dspace.org) when these systems are cost effective at Lehigh and provide flexible and friendly interfaces.
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6. Support Growth and Improvement in Distance Education –Develop high quality distributed education program offerings in all colleges utilizing various delivery methodologies for undergraduate education, graduate courses, and lifelong learning opportunities.
- Identify opportunities for new or expanded programming from university academic units, including degree programs, certificate programs, professional development courses, cross-departmental or cross-college programs, and cutting-edge research based programs.
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- Broaden marketing approaches and methods to reach the widest and most diverse market targets possible. Increase cost-effective use of web-based advertising and promotional opportunities.
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- Maximize student access to distance education programming by offering all courses in multiple delivery formats so students have the option of choosing their preferred system – satellite, web-based, video conferencing, Internet2, pod cast, and DVD as well as new technologies as they develop.
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- Research emerging tools and technologies that will further enrich the overall distance and traditional learning process and provide access to resources not previously open to learners such as audio pod casts, webinars, tablet PC applications in captured lectures for online courses, and web-based shareable programs.
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- Strive for maximum efficiency and cost-effectiveness in program development, management, and delivery to meet the expected and budgeted level of funds to Lehigh, the contributing colleges, academic departments, and programs.
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7. Implement Multi-Faceted Learning Models – Strengthen the technological and information processing capacity of Lehigh University’s students, faculty, and staff by providing development programs in concert with Library and Technology Services’ mission and University needs.
- Expand, promote, and enhance Lehigh’s array of tools for individual and classroom learning and research; for instance, citation management software, synchronous communications software, and classroom note taking software. Implement new delivery mechanisms for campus software.
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- Identify information literacy objectives for major subject disciplines in concert with faculty members in those disciplines. Develop classroom and online training curricula for inclusion in appropriate upper level courses. Assess, extend and improve the research skills literacy program developed for first year students.
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- Initiate a program to assess technological literacy and design curricula as needed in coordination with faculty. Explore opportunities to support visual learning.
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- Increase the use of real-time conferencing tools to support distance education, research initiatives, global initiatives, and professional development activities.
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- Working with faculty, assess the value of current and emerging technologies to enhance learning within and beyond the classroom, including phenomena like instructional gaming and virtual environments, tablet PCs, and social networking tools.
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- Enable students and staff to showcase and assess learning through personalized, web-based publications and projects that are shared over the internet and generally known as “e-portfolios.” Increase recognition of and distribution of Lehigh University student research.
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8. Leverage LTS Resources for Expanded Development and Outreach Activities— Move aggressively to develop new partnership, funding, and support opportunities that will enable Lehigh University to play a prominent role in establishing itself as a regional, state, and national leader with respect to innovation in teaching, research and community outreach.
- Partner with vendors, academic institutions and other corporations and organizations to advance high priority projects of mutual interest. Specific areas of anticipated collaboration include portal development, computing infrastructure, training, journal storage, and digital library software and projects.
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- Increase awareness of outside funding opportunities such as research grants, project financial support, and appropriate revenue. Apply for funding directly and give technical support to other Lehigh University units making applications.
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- Select and implement constituent relationship management (CRM) for the university to enhance development and outreach activities. These systems are designed to assist with the management of student and alumni relations through the capture and leveraging of data relating to important prospects, donors, alumni, and friends. Investigate the utility of CRM for managing graduate admissions prospects.
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- Develop and strengthen relationships with existing and potential distance education corporate partners to increase enrollments and create additional programming opportunities such as specialized courses.
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- Collaborate with Advancement staff in identifying and cultivating donors and prospects for the Linderman renovation and other appropriate projects.
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- Increase the capacity of the Friends of the Lehigh Libraries organization to highlight LTS programs and to generate support on and off campus.
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- Communicate Lehigh’s accomplishments and share LTS expertise through leadership, publications, and presentations in professional organizations and user groups at many levels: regional, state, national, and global.
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9. Expand Lehigh’s Enterprise-Wide Information Systems – Leverage the unified enterprise-wide system (LEWIS) and other systems and facilities to improve access to institutional information, to ensure reliability and accuracy of data, and to enhance security and business continuity.
- Expand the LEWIS business continuity initiative to include Tier 2 and 3 systems in the semi-annual disaster recovery “rehearsals” conducted in coordination with Lehigh’s off-site disaster recovery provider.
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- Evaluate, procure, and implement an identity management system to secure and manage access to Lehigh’s networks and resources.
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- Maintain Banner, Luminis, and Oracle software currency and replace hardware on the appropriate life cycle schedule to support the enterprise systems infrastructure.
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- Enhance redundancy in campus communications systems by completing an alternate network operations facility on the Mountaintop Campus.
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- Integrate new university-wide enterprise initiatives into Banner (that reduce dependence on paper-based systems) such as an automated (check) clearinghouse function for use by students and their parents and an imaging system for record management and retention. Enhance functionality in other existing auxiliary enterprise software and systems.
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- Establish campus-wide data security standards and procedures consistent with the requirements of the federal HIPAA and FERPA legislation protecting health and education related privacy.
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10. Enhance Marketing and Communications—Promote and support the mission and services of Lehigh University to local, state, national, and international constituencies through state-of-the-art communication technologies and marketing in collaboration with appropriate academic and administrative departments.
- Create and support new web-based portals for alumni, admitted students, parents, and other appropriate groups within the larger Lehigh University community. Implement alumni e-mail for life.
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- Establish sustainable personnel, life-cycle, and software resources to manage a mature production portal environment.
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- In collaboration with University Relations, initiate a new portal-based system for campus communications, including staff announcements, etc. Empower campus units to create and manage their portal information through the implementation of content management systems and training.
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- Ensure full coordination of distance education marketing and promotion with other Lehigh units, both on the university and academic college level, through joint branding, marketing research, and as appropriate, media purchases.
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- Identify new prospects for diverse distance education programming opportunities such as school districts, Intermediate Units, community college networks and career and development centers.
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- Enhance communications through regular LTS online and print publications, effective web sites, client and market surveys, and other forums for interaction with faculty, staff, and students.
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- Facilitate use of the Lehigh University website with improved search software.
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