We have been looking for funds to replace the public use computers in the Library.  These machines have been there for several years, but in these economic times we have not experienced success finding funds.  Recently we inventoried these machines and discovered that they are not as archaic as we had thought.  Specifically we discovered that the basic machine and processor has a lot of life left in them but that they lack adequate memory to handle the operating system upgrades that have taken place over the years.

With this in mind, we are in the process of adding memory to each of these machines!  You should see significant improvements in the performance of the machines in the next couple of days.  We also replaced all the old CRT type displays with flat screen monitors.

We hope you appreciate these improvements.

One of the dangers we face when rolling out a new application is that the initial release does not perform well and/or does not do those things that it was supposed to do.  It then becomes difficult to make up for these failures in version 2 of the application.  In all honesty, we should not have tried to implement the Faculty Portfolio last fall.  We did not have the time required to identify the problems with the application and to resolve those problems before exposure to our faculty.  For those failures we apologize!

On the positive side, we have been working since last fall to identify the specific problems with the system and to resolve those problems.  I’d like now to itemize what some of those problems were and report on the status of the system.

• Some information that was entered into the system did not appear on the Faculty Activity Report.  We believe we have modified the report definition to include all data that can be entered in the Faculty Portfolio System.
• The Faculty Activity Report that was generated included the names of fields that contained no data.  In general there are many fields to enter information that may not be appropriate for every faculty member.  In fact there are some fields that will only be used by very few faculty.     The report does not contain titles where there is no data entered.  Actually the format of the report is now very clean.  I hope you will generate a report now and see the difference!
• The system had the capability to save additional information in files on our system.  But there was no indication on the Faculty Activity Report that the files exist or how to view them.  These files are actually stored on a Bradley server rather than at the vendor site.  Each occurrence of a stored file now causes a url to appear in the Faculty Activity Report.  Currently only system administrators can access these files.  Our plan is to require authentication (BUnetID and password) for access and to limit that access to specific people.  Our current plan is to allow access to the owner of the file, the Department Chair of that faculty member, the Dean from the appropriate college and the Provost.  We are of course interested in receiving feedback regarding these security plans.
• The scheduled teaching information was spotty at best and our attempt to pre-load it caused more problems than it resolved.   All scheduled teaching information has been pre-loaded for Fall 2008, January 2009, and Spring 2009.  All future terms will be automatically loaded at the end of the third week.
  • In addition we are adding to each scheduled teaching record the ability to store your course evaluations.  If you are required, or choose, to submit your course evaluations then this will allow that to happen securely.
    
• There was no logical place to record information about the work activities involved in lab administration and/or new course development.  An area has been added to allow the entry of this type of activity.
• The sort order of general service types was not logical.  That sort order has been corrected.
• Specifically for the Foster College of Business - the information already entered in Scholar Systems had not been loaded into the new Faculty Portfolio.  We are in the process of finishing up the definition of  “how to” load this data.  The issue becomes that the information is organized a bit differently and we need to be sure that we are loading the data into the right spaces.  We hope/expect to have this data loaded within the next couple of weeks.
• We are in the process of determining how to add the capability to create a “Professional Plan” inside the Faculty Portfolio.  There are two options, one is to save it as an attached file and the other is to create a screen with appropriate data fields to define this plan.  We are working with the Deans to resolve this issue.
• Although the system provides the ‘capability’ of providing context specific HELP, none was programmed.  We have the potential to program specific help information for every data field in the Faculty Portfolio.  We don’t expect to need that much, but we do want to provide this type of help where it is needed and helpful.  A project is being led by Skip Burhans to identify the appropriate text for any needed help field.  If you have suggestions or would like to help with this effort, please contact Skip at x2848 or sburhans@bradley.edu.
  

Now that you know what we’ve been doing, I hope you will give the Faculty Portfolio another chance to actually reduce the work you have to do.  I believe you will find this a vast improvement, not just in what happened last fall, but in the effort required to produce those annual reports.  Please take some time now to try the system, look at the results, and tell us about problems that still exist or improvements that we can make.  We still have time to make further improvements before fall.  Please help us make this Faculty Portfolio System as valuable as it can be.

Available Now:

During Spring Break, working with Student Services, we installed a student printing capability in Sisson 141.  The desire was to make this available in the Student Center, but this was as close as we could come to that location.  This effort represents a temporary service for the remainder of the spring semester only.  We expect to have a more robust solution by fall.

This system consists of a PC with a printer attached.  It will allow you to either load a file via a USB drive (aka thumb drive or memory stick) or loading it from your email with a web browser.   You can then print the file to the printer and pay the attendant for your print.

Coming:

We have been working on a project to provide an improved printing solution in the Library.  Currently we are evaluating possible solutions and expect to have one installed and working by the start of the fall semester.

I’d like to summarize for you the major characteristics that I believe are important for this solution.  I have to admit that I still don’t know if we can accomplish all these goals, but we will come as close as we can.

• Allow students to print directly from their personal machine to any of the printers available.
• Deduct the cost of the printing from the student’s Quick Card account.
• Not require any special software on the student machines.
• Allow access to this printer solution from any of the public machines in the area.
• Install a solution that will scale and can be installed at other locations on campus.

Note that the printers must be located in a secure location with someone or some group responsible for the security of the printers as well as for keeping supplies loaded in the printer.  Because of this need it will probably not be possible to install printers in unmonitored public locations.

One of the divisions in IRT is Communications Engineering Services.  This group has been responsible for network hardware installations and architecture, telephone services, cable TV services, and broadcast engineering.  The broadcast engineering portion of CES provides engineering services for our public radio station, WCBU, as well as the Peoria public television station, WTVP.

CES was devastated by the loss of the Executive Director, David Schenk, in February of 2008.  Since that time CES has been operating without a leader.  The staff in CES stepped up the level of their performance and really did a terrific job filling the leadership void.  We searched for a new Executive Director but could not find anyone with the breadth of skills and talents that David had.  There were good applicants with networking experience and good candidates with broadcast engineering experience but none with both.  So, instead of hiring a new Executive Director, we have decided to promote two of our existing employees.  Rick Sanders is the new Director of Communications Engineering Services and Bill Porter is the new Director of Broadcast Engineering.  These new Directors will report to Nial Johnson the Executive Director of Instructional Technology and Media Services.

With this reorganization of these three areas, CES, Broadcast Engineering and ITMS into a single management group, we hope to take advantages of the skills and talents of each group to better provide service from each area.  There is great similarities in the work done by each group and we believe this new organization offers many opportunities for synergistic relationships.

by the loss of the Executive Director, David Schenk, in February of 2008.  Since that time CES has been operating without a leader.  The staff in CES stepped up the level of their performance and really did a terrific job filling the leadership void.  We searched for a new Executive Director but could not find anyone with the breadth of skills and talents that David had.  There were good applicants with networking experience and good candidates with broadcast engineering experience but none with both.  So, instead of hiring a new Executive Director, we have decided to promote two of our existing employees.  Rick Sanders is the new Director of Communications Engineering Services and Bill Porter is the new Director of Broadcast Engineering.  These new Directors will report to Nial Johnson the Executive Director of Instructional Technology and Media Services.

With this reorganization of these three areas, CES, Broadcast Engineering and ITMS into a single management group, we hope to take advantages of the skills and talents of each group to better provide service from each area.  There is great similarities in the work done by each group and we believe this new organization offers many opportunities for synergistic relationships.