Jack Lule, Professor of Journalism and Communication, has agreed to serve
as the first Faculty Fellow for the newly created Lehigh Lab. As Faculty
Fellow, Lule will serve as representative and spokesperson for the Lehigh
Lab and a mentor to other faculty interested in exploring the use of technology
in their teaching.
"I'm very proud to have been selected as the first Faculty Fellow," Lule said. "For me, technology is most interesting as a tool to help students learn better. This position should allow me to explore exactly that: how technology can invigorate teaching."
Lule will man an office in the Technology Resource Learning Center (TRLC) being constructed in the Media Center in the Fairchild-Martindale Library lower level. He will work with instructional designers on teaching projects and meet with interested faculty.
The TRLC will be completed this fall. This space contains: a work area for faculty developing multimedia projects, a state of the art classroom/conference room with I2 and video conferencing capabilities, consulting space, enhancements to the current Media Center public area for students working on multimedia projects and an office for the faculty fellow.
Lehigh Lab will enhance Lehigh's support for the development of technology enhanced teaching and learning. Vice Provost for Library and Technology Services Bruce Taggart describes the Lehigh Lab as "a physical and virtual instructional development `collaboratory' to facilitate innovations in teaching and research with library e-resources, multimedia production, Internet, and Internet2 applications."
by Sharon Siegler
As you're reading the latest research in the web version of your favorite journal, you find a reference to a nifty Java applet you hadn't heard of before, or you question the accuracy of a data point, or you decide it's time for a brush-up in a technique you haven't examined in years. So you rummage in your office for that handbook you kept from your student days or you trudge to the library to find a programming manual. Certainly not! You can now do all of this from the comfort of your office by consulting the LTS E-book page at http://www.lehigh.edu/~inlib/ebooks.html.
Electronic reference books not only have the text and graphics of the print originals, but they usually offer searching over the full-text, superior graphics, and such features as bookmarking and downloading property spreadsheets. The Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology has been available at Lehigh since last year and now several new resources have been added.
Safari is an online service offering web-based manuals and how-to books for computer programming, information technology, and web design/programming. (The name was inspired by those O'Reilly books with the animals on the cover.) O'Reilly includes material from the introductory through the expert level and is very current, often producing updates and new editions within months of one another. Access to the service is via IP authorization; power users will want to establish their own accounts so that they can bookmark their favorite titles and add their own comments about the usefulness of the volumes. LTS will add/drop titles based on usage activity so that the service will always be current and relevant, and, because the title list will always be evolving, there will be subject links from ASA, the online catalog, rather than links for individual items. Try it out from the ebooks home page listed above.
ASM Handbooks Online is the web version of an old favorite (formerly known as the Metals Handbook). It's much more than metals these days; it's materials properties. More like an encyclopedia than a "handbook," this service includes lengthy articles and extensive property data. Searching is over the full text, but the articles are also displayed in volume/chapter order, taking advantage of the carefully-design system of this long-running reference series. Because of graphics display vagaries, it is best to use the latest versions of Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator to access the service.
Coming attractions include Access Perry's, a suite of
handbooks for chemical engineering and chemistry, and Key to Steel/Key
to Metals, which includes extensive property data.
A refurbished graduate student study/lounge in Linderman Library is now available for use. The study is located on the second floor of the rotunda, at the top of the west staircase. Two new computers are available there for use by graduate students in an air-conditioned environment. The space configuration allows for small meetings and group project work. During September some "finishing touches" will be added such as a white board and additional lamps and tables. Karen Huang, Director of Graduate Student Life, and graduate student Tina Sachar check out the new space below.
by Carol Lidie
As part of the PC lifecycle plan, Library and Technology Services replaced all Pentium II 400 MHz computers in registrar classrooms. These upgrades also occurred in PC classroom sites located at the Rauch Business Center rooms 50, 60, 70, EWFM Computing Center 292, Linderman Library, Media Center, Media Production and the IMRC. The operating system on these computers, as well as on all existing PCs at public sites, have been upgraded from Windows 98 to Windows XP Pro.
Eleven new registrar classrooms have been equipped with computing and presentation equipment including: Chandler 230, Iacocca 013, Maginnes Hall 483, Packard Lab 208, Rauch Business Center 241, 251, 260, 271, Sinclair 106, and Whitaker Lab 271, 207. In addition, projector upgrades were completed at Lewis Labs 270, Rauch Business Center 184 and Whitaker 303.
Please refer to the classroom web site to obtain more details about the hardware installed at these locations: www.Lehigh. edu/classrooms/sitenews99.html.
by Gale Fritsche
Lehigh University has recently acquired a 96 processor Linux cluster that will be used for high performance and parallel computing applications. A Linux cluster is essentially a group of personal computers linked together using network cards and cables and managed by special Linux cluster management software. This technology can be used to perform complex parallel computing tasks at a fraction of the cost of traditional multi-processor computers.
The majority of the cluster (64 processors) has been purchased by the Industrial Engineering Department and the remaining 32 processors are available for use by the Lehigh community on a fee basis. The usage fee will contribute to upgrades and the annual maintenance of the system. An approximation of the Beowulf usage fee is $10.00 per CPU-day. In other words, if researchers run a process that uses 24 hours of CPU time, the charge will be $10.00.
The cluster, known as Fire, is located in the Lehigh and Technology Services (LTS) computer room and is administered by Technology Management Services programmers and Client Services staff. For information about opening an account on Fire, contact Kelly Decker (ksd2). For other information contact David Morrisette (dpm3) or visit the Beowulf website at www.lehigh.edu/~insgi/beowulf.html.
by Gail Kriebel
The heavily used photocopiers at Fairchild Martindale Library will soon be replaced by new state of the art digital copiers. New digital copiers are expected to be installed throughout the Fairchild Martindale Library in September. The new Toshiba eStudio digital copiers are state of the art machines with superior resolution and copy quality. They’re also speedy. For multiple copies they are capable of printing 28 pages a minute and for a single copy they take only 3.9 seconds. Libraries with public digital copiers report fewer repair problems, increased uptime, and greater user satisfaction. Linderman Library is not slated to receive new copiers at this time because the Sharp copiers there are still in very good condition and do not need frequent repair.
When the new copiers roll in, so will a new price structure. The price per copy for a member of the Lehigh community using a GoldPlus account or a COPICO debit card will rise from 10¢ to 13¢. The price of copies made with cash will increase from 15¢ to 20¢. This is the first increase in 5 years and is necessary to provide acceptable service in the current copy vending market.
The other change on the horizon for photocopy service is that the set
value Copico cards sold at the libraries will be phased out by the end
of the semester. Although the new copiers will accept coins, cash, GoldPlus
accounts, and Copico cards, they will no longer encode extra value on Copico
cards. Card holders should plan on using the existing value on their Copico
card during the fall semester and switching to GoldPlus for copying by
December 2002. Those without access to a GoldPlus account will continue
to be able to borrow a GoldPlus card at the front desk of either library.
by Dina Wills
CyberTools for Teaching2, a conference and institute co-sponsored and funded by Lehigh University, LVAIC, and Gateway Computers Inc., took place at Lehigh University on June 3-6, 2002. The June 3rd one-day conference featured keynote speaker Steven Lerman, Director of the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives at MIT, who spoke about recent educational technology initiatives at MIT, and about the processes the Center uses to define priorities.
In two faculty showcases, Professors Natalie Foster (Chemistry, Lehigh University) and Glenn Asquith (Theology, Moravian College) demonstrated how they use online technology and the web in their courses. A panel composed of Professors Donald Bolle, Thomas Hyclak, Gary Lutz, Christopher Robe, and Glenn Asquith engaged the audience in a discussion of "The Pros and Cons of Teaching with Technology." The Lehigh Instructional Technology Team closed the conference, attended by 31 LVAIC faculty, with "Best Practices: Choosing the Right Tool for the Task."
During the hands-on Instructional Technology Institute, held June 4-6,
nine LVAIC faculty designed multimedia presentations for their fall courses
with the help of Lehigh instructional technology consultants. Their presentations
can be viewed on the web site: www.lehigh.edu/cybertools/archives.htm.
Some
22 LTS staff prepared these events plus several additional technology sessions.
Watch for CyberTools3 next year!
During the summer Library & Technology Services wished Joe Lucia well as he left Lehigh University to become Director of Villanova University's Falvey Library. As of August 1st Sharon Wiles-Young became LTS Director for Library Access Services with management responsibilities for many of the areas previously reporting to Joe Lucia. Judy McNally assumed the responsibilities of Team Leader in Library Technical Services, formerly headed by Sharon Wiles-Young. The library systems component previously reporting to Joe Lucia has moved organizationally under Christine Roysdon who now serves as Director for Library Collections & Systems.
Neil Toporski now serves as Team Leader for Instructional Technology
with functional supervisory responsibilities for the Instructional Technology
consultants. Bill Mitchell now serves as the Instructional Technology
consultant on the Arts & Sciences College Team headed by Roseann Bowerman.
In early May Bruce Taggart announced in a message to the campus multiple telecommunications changes including a reduction in the size of the Lehigh modem pool. This message is repeated below and will take effect on October 1st.
In keeping with the Advisory Council for Information Services (ACIS) Policy #5, Library and Technology Services (LTS) will continue to "maintain free but limited dial-in connections for faculty and staff. These faculty/staff dial-in services will be available until further notice and assessed annually for their efficiency and effectiveness."
Based on the migration of student users to the free ISP service provided through the university-negotiated provider (currently Fastnet) and the need to avoid replacement of aging modem equipment without a clearly demonstrated need, LTS will be reconfiguring the modem pool to 92 modems rather than the current 138. LTS will continue to encourage students to take full advantage of the ISP offering and to monitor use of the pool. For faculty or staff interested in unlimited access, there is a Lehigh Fastnet price of $9.95 per month still available. To find out more about this service, connect to: www.Lehigh.EDU/helpdesk/fastnet.html. If you have technical questions, please contact the Help Desk at 610-758-HELP.
Students who pay the technology fee and live off campus in the local area are eligible for a University-negotiated Internet Service Provider (ISP) for their access to the Internet and to Lehigh's campus network. Part-time students who elect to pay the technology fee ("opt-in") and who live in the local area are also eligible for this service. "Local area" used here means the free calling area covered by the selected ISP. Accounts for students who returned in the fall and paid the technology fee for fall 2002 were re-activated by Fastnet before the beginning of classes.
Beginning in September, all students, faculty, and staff will be required to change their primary network passwords (i.e., LAN, e-mail, etc.) every 6 months, typically once in the fall semester and again in the spring semester. Expiration dates will be staggered so individuals are not required to make any password changes until notified. Accounts scheduled to expire in the summer months will remain open until September. For primary network passwords, daily e-mail warnings will be sent to the account starting two weeks prior to the password expiration and continuing until the password is changed or until the password expires. The e-mail messages will direct individuals to the account maintenance web page at http://www.lehigh.edu/open where the password can be changed. Passwords themselves must be at least 6 characters in length with at least one alphabetic character and one numeric or punctuation character; proper names and dictionary words should be avoided as passwords.
Passwords on all new computing accounts are now set to expire 6 months from the date the account is opened. Passwords on the Banner system are handled directly by that system. Upon expiration of those passwords, the user will be prompted to change the password upon the next login, or, depending on the system, may have a small number of grace logins prior to requiring a password change.
Upon recommendation of both the University's internal and external auditors, the University is implementing the changing of passwords periodically and systematically during each calendar year. While this policy is directly applicable to computer systems operated by Library & Technology Services, conformity with this policy is strongly recommended for all departments operating their own internal computing systems. For questions relating to network passwords, please contact the Help Desk at 8-HELP (8-4537).
by Sherri Yerk-Zwickl
In order to extend the live, online capabilities of University-sponsored web-based programs, Lehigh has licensed the Centra Symposium collaboration software. Centra Symposium provides a live, web-based environment that can support instruction, presentations, and meetings. Ideal for highly interactive team collaboration, virtual classrooms, and hands-on training applications, the Lehigh license accommodates up to 25 simultaneous users.
This full-featured tool includes: two-way voice chat, presentation slide display, web site viewing, a polling feature to gather feedback from participants and the ability to share computer applications. It also has the ability to record sessions for later playback to accommodate people who cannot attend a live event or to facilitate the review of difficult or complex material. These robust collaboration tools are exceptionally easy to use and require very little advance preparation.
Centra Symposium will be running on a server based at Lehigh, with training and support available on campus through the Instructional Technology consultants. There is a sliding scale fee per class/event for its use to cover the continuing costs of software maintenance. Classes in the College of Business and Economics have already planned to use it for the fall semester and others are actively investigating its use. To learn more contact an Instructional Technology consultant.
Other educational institutions using Centra include: New York University, Stanford University, UNC Charlotte, University of Calgary, University of Tennessee, University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and the University of Massachusetts.
In March 2002 Lehigh University contracted with Campus Pipeline to implement the company's open standards "portal". The enhanced digital campus that will result from implementation of the portal will enable users to set up an environment that provides information relevant to that individual without "drilling down" through many layers of a web site. It will also enable the university to communicate information from its databases specifically to those individuals who have requested it.
This past summer Lehigh was one of ten institutions Campus Pipeline invited to participate in its Pillar Institutions Program. The program facilitates peer review of strategic initiatives and encourages product innovations associated with the Luminis product family that will be the basis of the Lehigh portal. Pillar Institutions play an instrumental role in directing the strategy behind the Luminis products. Pillar Institutions include: Appalachian State University, Drexel University, Mississippi State University, Notre Dame University, Pepperdine University, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, the University of Akron, the University College of Dublin, and the University of Miami.
Tm Lewis, chairman and CEO at Campus Pipeline noted that "Lehigh brings a very valuable perspective to the Pillar Institutions Program. Their early work in portal development along with their desire to implement an open standards uPortal framework furthers our understanding of the technology, its value, its potential, and its benefits to higher education." The August 9th issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education highlighted the growing interest in institutional portals around the country in an article titled "The Power of Portals". This fall development work continues at Lehigh on a pilot version of the portal.
The recently completed Library and Technology Services Strategic Plan for 2002-2005 is now available to the campus on the Web at http://www.lehigh.edu/ir/irdocs/ltsplan.html. The plan is the result of a six-month collaborative planning process that involved a broad cross section of the campus community. The plan identifies "Ten Goals for Library and Technology Services" with many specific strategies and initiatives addressed under each goal.
Key campus leaders representing each academic college and several student administrative support areas actively participated in identifying strengths and challenges related to library and technology services at Lehigh University and how they support and enhance instruction, research, outreach, student life, administrative services, and communication with external constituencies.
The following Lehigh University faculty and staff contributed time and
effort: Robert Kendi, The Philip Rauch Center for Business Communications;
Susan Lantz, Student Life; Joseph Lucia, Library and Technology Services;
Linda Mery, Office of the Provost; William Michalerya, Government Relations;
Professor Carl Moses, Earth and Environmental Sciences; Stephen Oblas,
University Relations; Peggy Plympton, Finance and Administration; and Professor
Edward Shapiro, Education and Human Services.
by Lizanne Hurst
A number of faculty and staff users have experienced problems with the new Scitec analog phone installed in May. These telephones are easily identified by the large red voice mail button. The problems include: a 2-3 second delay in call delivery when answering incoming calls; "dropouts" during conversations, where the call disappears for 1-3 seconds and then comes back; and display legibility. The Scitec phones will be replaced with the same model, or an acceptable alternative, as soon as practical. Over the last two months, Library and Technology Services has worked diligently with vendors to resolve the problems; this effort is still ongoing.
Scitec users are also experiencing another, unrelated problem: CallerID
does not show up on incoming calls, and the time and date on the display
itself are incorrect. In this case, the phone itself is working fine; the
problem lies with the card in Lehigh's new PointSpan telephone system that
controls CallerID on the Scitec phones. System vendor Intecom is working
on a solution and the campus community will be notified as soon as the
problem has been resolved. (Displays on the multi-line digital phones are
controlled by a different source on the system, so these have been operating
correctly.) There is no need to call in a trouble report if you experience
any of the problems described above since LTS is well aware of them. Please
feel free to contact Telecommunications at x85005 if you have questions.
The Digital Bridges Web site was launched in June 2002. The new Web site,
at http://bridges.lib.lehigh.edu, is an online collection of 19th
century American bridge engineering manuals, reports, and textbooks drawn
from Lehigh University Libraries' Special Collections. The site provides
a uniquely rich interactive research tool for students, historians, and
engineering professionals. It is representative of the new genre of web-based
scholarship facilitated by librarians that is emerging in many disciplines.
At noon on Thursday, September 26th, Professor of Art and Architecture Tom Peters will place the project in context by addressing the "Significance of 19th Century Bridge Technology for Current Scholarship". Peters is Director of the Building and Architecture Technology Institute and author of Building the Nineteenth Century (MIT Press, 1996). This program will take place in Room 200 (2nd floor east) of Linderman Library and is sponsored by the Friends of the Lehigh Libraries.
In addition selected volumes from the Special Collections materials used in the Digital Bridges project will be on display in the Linderman Library lobby during September and early October. Lehigh is continuing to add to its noteworthy collection in this area and in the Special Collections Flyer included with this newsletter Curator Philip Metzger describes the adventures and challenges of this activity.
The Robling Bridge over the Ohio River at Cincinnati is one of many illustrations in Modern Examples of Road and Railway Bridges published in 1872.