WML Tech Updates

Were you aware that there is something called iTunes U?

“iTunes U is a free, hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to their educational content, including lectures and interviews, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. … Through iTunes U, students can download content to their Macs or PCs, regardless of their location. They can listen to and view that content on their Mac or PC, or transfer it to iPod for listening or viewing on the go. Instructors can easily post and change content on their own without impacting the IT department. And, of course, students can upload their own content to share with professors or with the class.”

Well, here at Vanderbilt, Ralph Knapp at Peabody and many others have been working with Apple to get Vanderbilt involved in this new tool.  And as of today, iTunesU is now integrated into Blackboard!

On Tuesday, May 22, 2007 @ 1:30 pm, there will be a training session in the Wyatt Center Macintosh Lab. The training will include how to create a podcast and how to interact with iTunesU. They are willing to entertain other questions and representatives from Apple will be at the training as well.

If you will be creating podcasts for your library, or plan on assisting faculty with podcasting and using iTunes U, or are just wanting more information about all this cool stuff,  you are certainly welcome!  For more info on podcasting in education, see this page on the Apple site.

If you plan on attending, please let Jim Parker, the University Webmaster, know that you will be there.  He can be contacted at jim.parker@vanderbilt.edu or 615-343-8557.

Today I attended our monthly Technology & Training Support Coordinators meeting over in the Baker Building. Jody had a full agenda as usual. Well, I did send him several additional questions ahead of time. ;-)

1. Stephen Nordstrom from the Music Library is now going to be joining us as the new music liaison. He’s the Music Cataloger over there.
2. Unicorn Patch cluster to be applied -Nancy is working on this, and it will be coming soon. It will help with the custom reports.
3. MS patch Tuesday report - As always, the TTSC meets on Patch Tuesday. The latest Microsoft patch will be released to all Heard networked computers tonight. I assume Owen will follow their usual procedures for patches.
4. Replacement of older circulating laptops - Recently, there were 11 REALLY old laptops in one of the libraries that were still circulating. LITS is no longer able to purchase support for these laptops, so they have been sent to the Virtual School. New laptops (Dell 620’s) have been purchased with reassessment money. Since the laptops are so heavily used, they wanted to replace them as soon as possible.
5. VUnetID authentication for ILLiad - Dale is meeting with the ILLiad group, and so far, things are going well. They are interested in expanding VUnetID authentication to other services, besides the basic login to ACORN and ILLiad. They are using LDAP servers for authentication.
6. Status report on Primo project - The next site visit with ExLibris will be April 18th and 19th, next Wednesday and Thursday. Julie Loder has been managing all the reporting of problems via the Primo site in OAK (Blackboard). Currently, only people involved in Primo can log in to view the problems. There are 2 new Primo teams: the TestIt Team, and the Usability Team. The project team charges can be viewed on the Digital Library Steering Committee wiki page. From WML, Cynthia Kutka and Laura Norris are on the project teams. (Rachel and Brent are already on the two various delivery Primo GetIt! teams that have been meeting for some time now. The Primo General Release 1.0 will be out around the middle of May 2007. This version will only contain the basic features, not all of them. Jody joked in saying that there will be things that we are guaranteed to like about Primo, as well as things that we will most definitely hate. He also mentioned that the faceted browsing is working well and will certainly help users, although not all of the facets are working correctly. The system overall seems to be running very fast. He hopes at the end of April that all library staff will be able to have a look at the current version of Primo. And once general release 1.o is out, LITS will begin working with ExLibris toward general release 2.0.
7. Vanderbilt Information Technology Services is transitioning all Vanderbilt www.vanderbilt.edu and www3.vanderbilt.edu websites to new server hardware on June 1st. Sites with” vanity” URLs (e.g., its.vanderbilt.edu) are also affected. They have previously communicated this transition to various campus technology groups. We here in Owen are fine. For more info, see this announcement.
8. I asked Jody to talk about Blackboard becoming more compatible with Windows Vista, since I knew there were some problems and that freshmen and anyone who gets a new laptop will be encountering problems. Jody said that when using Blackboard in IE7 on Vista (or in Safari on Mac OSX) things don’t work quite right (for example, you cannot save your changes). Blackboard works just fine in Firefox on Vista, I must add. :-) LITS plans on doing a patch level upgrade in June. Blackboard anticipates that this problem will be fixed over the summer. They are holding off the rollout of Vista until summer of 2008 (based on the recommendations from Gartner and others). Also, Vista isn’t entirely compatible with WorkFlows, so Rachel will need to check with Owen IT about their rollout schedule of Vista.
9. My second question for Jody was about the email client ITS has chosen (or are getting closer to considering). The Email Task Force is still investigating things, but ITS will primarily be supporting Outlook, it seems. They are migrating incoming students to this environment, as well as small departments. Many individuals are migrating to Outlook as well. Jody reassured those at the meeting who were concerned about security and hackers who hate Microsoft. Jody explained that there are a lot of protections built in that have made it more secure than previous versions. Outlook allows for enriched communication (images, html, etc.) that are a big improvement over Mulberry, and those extras also have settings that can be adjusted for different levels of security. There was a concern in how group mailboxes currently established in Mulberry would be dealt with, and they are investigating imap mailbox issues. But as you know, we here in Owen aren’t really affected by this (not yet) because we are already using Outlook, have exchange servers, and use Active Directory.
10. LITS is getting ready to rollout a “lite” RMS for VUPrint and for other groups and services within the library system.
11. I also asked Jody if he has heard anything about the servers in Owen moving over to ITS and if it is a push from Matt Hall based on his vision for the campus’s networked architecture? Jody said, no, he hasn’t heard anything. But he did talk about servers hosted in LITS vs. the servers over on Peabody’s campus that are maintained locally by ITS (they can still be maintained remotely too). Jody emphasized that the cost of buying and maintaining the actual server hardware is now dwarfed by the cost of cooling them. The new HVAC system in the General Library Building is coming along okay. They now have plenty of cooling, but are looking to get more power.

That’s all!

From Stephan Wininger in Owen ITS:

On Monday, a link to “Community Calendars” will appear on the Owen Intranet. We encourage you to take a moment and explore the many features that will be available to you when you click the Community Calendar link.

There are public calendars (viewable by anyone) and internal calendars (viewable only by the Owen community) with day, week, month and year views. You can even combine calendars so no matter which calendars you choose, all the events for your chosen calendars show up on one combined calendar!

• You can search for events, submit an event, view, print, set reminders, email an event to a friend, export events or add an event to your personal Outlook calendar!
• You can subscribe to calendars so when new events are added or modified, you will receive email notification.
• RSS feeds are also available!

Psssssssstt! ... read Monday’s Owen Daily News for details on how to win a 1GB USB drive!

1. VUprint - Bill Hook has added to the VUprint website more detailed information on how alumni are to get cards, get a username and password (which is their registered email address and assigned PIN), and how to put money on their card. He also reassured me that he would talk to Randy Crafton and the staff at the Card Office regarding consistency and providing accuracy in the information they are telling their patrons.

The information that Bill only recently learned was that the PIN users receive when they go to the card office is their password for VUprint. That PIN DOES NOT work as the password for the web interface. There is an overnight delay is in their EMAIL address being added to the web login. After registering their email with the card office, they must then ALSO register on the web site, but can not do so earlier than the day after going to the card office. So it is all the more important that users be instructed to add money to their account when they go to the card office initially. Clear as mud, right?

I have included the link below to step-by-step directions that Bill complied for Alumni. We may want to print out this page and give it to alumni when they come into the library who haven’t encountered VUprint since its implementation. http://vuprint.vanderbilt.edu/index.php/Main/Alums

Also, see the page for LUC users: http://vuprint.vanderbilt.edu/index.php/Main/Access

2. Blackboard - Blackboard and WebCT recently announced their agreement to merge. The combined companies have over 3,700 academic clients. “Under terms of the agreement, Blackboard will acquire WebCT in a cash transaction for $180 million, which values the offer at approximately $154 million, net of WebCT’s August 31, 2005 cash balance of $26 million. The ultimate value of the offer will vary depending on WebCT’s cash balance at closing. The transaction will combine two pioneering academic e-Learning organizations into a single company with the client base, resources and expertise to uniquely meet the rapidly evolving needs of educators around the world.”

http://investor.blackboard.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=177018&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=767025&highlight=

In addition, Blackboard has launched a new portion of its Web site, http://www.blackboard.com/webct, where anyone can track the latest news and information about the merger.

3. Numbers - Rachel recently numbered the public workstations, the one upstairs, and the 3 student workstations. This will not only make it easier to report which computer is malfunctioning if there are problems, but it also makes it easier for Rachel to manage the frozen computers.

4. Database Update - The Information Services team recently tested new databases, but due to an already maxed out electronic resources budget, it seems that no new resources will be considered the rest of this fiscal year. Upgrades might still be considered, however.

5. Public Workstations - They have been re-reimaged and seem to be very happy. However, on the occasional reboot, the background is white and on the desktop is a message wanting to know if you want to restore your active desktop. Click on the button that says “Restore Active Desktop” and all will be back to normal. Rachel is looking into why this occasionally happens.

6. Digital Suggestion Box - Just a reminder that it exists and that it if for casual discussion of library topics (and the occasional silliness that inevitably occurs). But do remember that what is said there is seen by the world!

7. GIS Brown Bag - Rachel and 2 other members of the GIS Task Force will be doing a Brown Bag session on GIS later next month. This information will be advertised again in the November Staff newsletter (in it’s new form). But you are the first to hear about it!

Brown Bag: GIS, Vanderbilt, and You
Have you ever heard of GIS? Want to know why it’s increasingly being included in the curriculum and how it aids in research? Then come to this session on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) on Wednesday, November 16, 2005, from 12-1 pm in the GLB Room 612A. Three members of the GIS Task Force (Rick Stringer-Hye, Rachel Vacek, and Brian Christens, Director of Vanderbilt’s Census Information Center) will introduce the fundamental principles of GIS, cover how GIS services are being utilized in peer libraries, and highlight resources already available at Vanderbilt, such as data repositories, GIS labs, and the various GIS services that are currently being provided.

8. Acorn Upgrade - This is just a reminder that LITS plans to upgrade Acorn from U2003.1.4.5 to GL3.0.1.1 beginning October 24th at 12:01 am and finishing by October 24th at approximately 6:00 am. This upgrade will also require rebuilding some indexes and a client update. We will not be upgrading to the new Workflows java client (http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/WFJava/newfeatures2.htm) at this time, although this upgrade will enable us to begin using the new Workflows java client for testing in our production environment.

Rachel has a copy of the Workflows updates on CD-Rom in her office in case the upgrade doesn’t go a smoothly as planned. Webcat will be unavailable to the public between 12:00 am and 6:00am on that Monday morning. Should anyone attempt access during these times, a maintenance notification with contact email address will be presented. Reports should finish by 9:00am on Monday morning.

9. Heard Library Staff Newsletter Format - You should have heard by now that the Heard Library Staff Newsletter is changing format starting November 1st. It will no longer be just a plain, boring, HTML page, but will be more robust and give Celia Walker more features than she ever imagined. There will be daily digests, more links, committee meeting agendas and summaries, pictures, as well as an RSS feed. Below are 3 feeds that you can already subscribe to. If you have questions, just ask Rachel!

Heard Library Staff Newsletter feed: http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/newspub/jKwZYA/rss
LITS feed: http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/newspub/hYPrPi/rss
Vanderbilt University Daily Register feed: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/news/releases/rss

10. New WML Website - Rachel is making slow progress on the new website and the Staffweb.

Have a good weekend, everyone! Thanks for your attention and time!