Information Management Newsletter for Block 7, 2007
The Information Management Newsletter is a periodic publication during the academic year to keep the community informed about developments in information technology on campus.

We will announce publication of a new issue via divisional listservs and campus digests. If you aren't subscribed to one of these lists and would like to receive an e-mail notifying you when a new issue is published, please send your request to mbrenceaustin@coloradocollege.edu

Related Links

Network Upgrade Project
Help Desk web site
Password policy
Past IM Newsletters

In this Issue:

Network Migration Update

The first week of Block 7 proved to be a whirlwind, but a successful one from the perspective of the campus network upgrade project. We want to share some highlights with you, but most of all, we would like to express our sincere thanks for your tremendous support and patience during the last few weeks. It is great to feel your appreciation and enthusiasm for the new network!

Here are some quick statistics for you:
- 196 new switches are installed, enabling 11,144 ports (connections) all over campus
- 4,040 user devices have registered on the new network in the past week, with more being added daily (these are your computers, printers, etc.)
- 172 networked printers have been set up (out of about 180-200 total)
- 63 open tickets remain with the Help Desk

We experienced a few system-wide issues during the first week of Block 7, most notably with hubs, older networked printers, and instant messaging (via AIM). All of these issues have been resolved. The next big phase of this project involved the migration of our server fleet to the new network. CC has about 100 campus servers, and these were migrated during the Block 7 break, on April 19.

Once all of our equipment (from computers to printers to servers and more) is cut over to the new network, two important things can happen. First, we will begin to reap the benefits of a new network, such as increased speed and reliability. Second, we will begin our 40-day contractual “acceptance period” with Foundry. This will provide us with ample time to assess the network under load, with the full community utilizing it in Block 8. We have also designed some specific tests to be sure that the equipment functions as it should, and that the network monitoring tools function as they should.

The final phase of the network project will include the much-anticipated wireless upgrade, slated to happen this spring and summer. Our students, in particular, are most anxious for this upgrade! The site survey started during the week of April 2nd, when Aruba and Accuvant engineers teamed with CC staff to begin to map out where the wireless access points should be placed for maximum efficiency. When you return to campus next fall, the network upgrade project will be complete and you can expect notable enhancements.

Special thanks are in order for the talented IT staff from the network & systems group, from the user services (Help Desk) team, and from the academic technology services team. They have planned and executed this very visible and very important migration from the old wired network to the new, and they have worked tirelessly and collaboratively to make it as seamless as possible. Our experienced consultant has praised this as the “best” network cutover that she has ever seen. And again, a special thanks to you, our users, for your patience and support at a very busy time of the CC year!

Why Outages Happen When They Happen

We understand the campus community’s concern for the timing of critical network outages and upgrades, particularly with regard to the current network upgrade project. Occasionally, users ask us questions like, “Why can’t you do these upgrades at midnight, or on the weekend?”

We work very hard to help shape the calendar and timing of any planned outages. Unfortunately, we need to do network outages during business hours for one very important reason. We need vendor support during the hours that the vendors and their tech support teams are available. This means during workday hours, either because the various companies do not offer robust after-hours support, or because CC does not budget the prohibitive dollars for after-hours support. It's actually not because our dedicated staff do not prefer to work during after-hours -- in fact, they often do work long hours both before and after such outages, planning them and doing behind-the-scenes clean-up from them. We need to time the bulk of the work, where things can (and often do) go wrong with operating systems, hardware failures, and the like, for when we can call upon the vendors who support the hardware and special software that we run for the campus.

In the case of the April 19th server migration, we moved 100-ish servers, many of which run very, very specialized software and databases and sometimes even specialized hardware and peripherals, and so we most definitely needed to be in a position to call upon any of the companies' tech support and warranty lines if needed. (Additionally, we primed the many technical directors and departmental liaisons across the campus to be "at the ready" and available to us as well, since they know their servers and applications the best, and since they work directly with the vendors as well). This was as carefully timed and orchestrated as we could manage given all of the parameters.

We want to reassure the community that we do not conceive of "block breaks" as actual "breaks-from-work." For most CC folks, perhaps excepting students, block breaks are just a different pace of work. Staff members continue to work through block breaks, and sometimes students do as well (particularly seniors working on theses at this time of year). And for faculty, we know that finishing up grades for one block while often prepping for an upcoming block, particularly when teaching back-to-back blocks, makes for an intense block break work period. We try to make the campus community aware of our need to juggle vendor support with essential network upgrades, though, and we simply cannot imagine planning to take down the network *during a block.*

So this leaves block breaks. And whenever possible, we aim for alternating block breaks, so that planned outages occur in Blocks 2, 4 (winter break), 6 (spring break), and 8 (after commencement). This season of our “network upgrade project” is a very special case, of course, and so we have experienced more frequent planned outages as we pull out our old network and install our new one. In the current case, for the April 19th (Block 7 break) planned outage, we strove to communicate it so that people could plan well in advance. We also strove to time it so that folks could finish up from the current block, give or take, on Wednesday through Thursday morning, and then so that folks could have some time to plan for Block 8 on Friday and through the weekend.

We hope that this makes sense, and helps reduce any concern you might have felt if you thought we were neglecting certain important academic aspects of the plan. We truly try to be service-oriented and academically mindful and incredibly supportive! :) And while we know that there is never a "good time" to take down the network, there are also times that are worse than others, or impossible due to fiscal constraints and such. So we'll continue to ask for the campus community's patience and understanding, and we'll work on ways to think "outside the box" in the future.

Computer Equipment for 2007-08

Spring has sprung, and with the chirping birds and blossoming trees come thoughts of new computers and technologies! We have been fielding many inquiries about the status of capital equipment requests for 2007-08, including whether or not the College can accelerate purchases before the new fiscal year starts on July 1, 2007.

This year, due to tight budget constraints, we will only be able to accelerate a very limited number of equipment requests. We will work closely with department chairs and staff assistants to determine priorities for any such accelerated needs.

If you are eager to plan your department’s computer orders, and particularly if you’ll be away for part of the summer, please contact your IT consultant* as soon as possible to set up a time to meet about your capital equipment items. Your consultant will work with you to finalize specifications, orders, priorities, and estimated timelines for deployment. Please bear with us as we anticipate a busy summer with a more compressed work window (July-September instead of April-September), but we’ll do everything that we can to meet your department’s needs. If you can confirm your department’s funded computer specifications and budget codes, then we can place equipment orders promptly on July 1 and outline a realistic deployment timeline from there.

*IT consultants:
Millie Brence-Austin, Administrative Executive Assistant, 389-6250

Tim Kallman, Administrative Technology Specialist, 389-6047

Justin Pohlmann, Academic Technology Specialist for the Natural Sciences, 389-6255

Peggy Quinn, Academic Technology Specialist for the Social Sciences, 389-6246

Sarah Withee, Academic Technology Specialist for the Humanities, 389-6381

Special Phone Greetings

Are you planning to be away from your office this summer? For all or even part of it (e.g., summer vacation or conference travel)? Don't want to change the standard voicemail greeting that took you hours to perfect? We have a solution!

Did you know that CC's CallPilot voicemail system allows you to create a temporary greeting in addition to your standard “internal” (on-campus) and “external” (off-campus) greetings? Follow these simple steps to create a temporary greeting to use for the time you will be away from the office.

1. Dial into voicemail (remember that you can do this from off-campus by dialing 389-6034; otherwise use the “Message” button on your campus phone).
2. Enter your mailbox number and password.
3. Enter 8* to get to the “Mailbox Commands” menu.
4. Enter 2 to get to the “Greeting” menu.
5. Enter 3 (for “temporary greeting”).
6. Enter 5 to record your special “out of office” message.
7. Enter the # key when you are done recording your temporary greeting. You can replay or re-record your temporary greeting until you are satisfied with it.
8. Enter 9 to set your temporary greeting's expiry date. You will be prompted to input the 2-digit month, 2-digit day, and 4-digit time you wish your temporary greeting to expire, with #'s after each entry. For example: 08#28#0800 translates to “Your temporary greeting will expire on August 28th at 8:00 a.m.”
9. Enter 4 to exit from the “Greeting” menu. Enter 83, or just hang up from the CallPilot voicemail system.

This is a great way to manage your voicemail while out of the office but still save the masterpiece greeting you created to use during the regular school year. Your temporary greeting will be played for all incoming calls (on- or off-campus) until the expiry date, when your standard internal and external greetings resume their use. Consider using a temporary greeting to alert colleagues, friends, and students that you are away, perhaps redirecting them to your department's main office for assistance in the meantime.

The Help Desk Is Moving!

The Help Desk is moving to Tutt Library in the near future - renovations have been happening over the past several months, and are nearly complete! Look for more details soon, but our current estimate is that we will move to our new area after Block 8. The new Help Desk will be located at the bottom of the stairs next to the Reference Desk (Room 13). We look forward to the likely increase in traffic from being located in such a central part of campus.

Three Farewells Within Information Management

We are sad to report that three of our good colleagues have left Information Management for new and exciting opportunities.

John Bickar, our Academic Technology Specialist for Students, has accepted a position as a User Services Technology Specialist with the Cubberley Education Library at Stanford University. John started his career at CC in 2000 in the Art Department as a Digital Technology Supervisor. He spent five years in this position before pursuing a master’s degree at Harvard and returning in 2006. John was with us for 6 months until this wonderful offer presented itself – along with the opportunity to be closer to his significant other. We wish him the very best in his new pursuits.

John Pearson, our Systems Administrator, has been with CC for 16 years. John worked as a Special Events Technical Supervisor within the Media Services (“AV”) Department for 12 of those years. Over the past 4 years, he worked within the Network & Systems team, managing our ever-growing server fleet, our email system, and our data centers in Armstrong and Barnes. John has accepted a position with Dell's development data center, and while he will be leaving our CC family, he and his wife will be rejoining their extended families in the Austin, Texas area. John will be missed and we wish him much happiness at Dell.

Torrey Slattery, a.k.a. “Drak,” worked as a PC User Support Specialist at the Help Desk for the last 2 years. Drak was a 2005 Colorado College graduate who majored in Mathematics and Computer Science. He worked with IT during his time as a student, including a stint as our summer intern between IT and Summer Programs. Drak pioneered our night shift for Help Desk coverage in the library during the 2006-07 academic year. He plans on hiking the beautiful trails of Colorado this spring and summer before hunting for a new job, and we wish him the best in his adventures.

GoPrint – Printing Trends at CC

In August of 2006, just in time for the start of the 2006-07 academic year, we implemented GoPrint. GoPrint is a print monitoring system that allows us to better track and understand printing patterns in the public computer labs on campus. Working with the Information Technology and Library Board, and with our colleagues in the library and learning commons, we are striving to provide more sustainable printing on campus. We have noted dramatic increases in printing – and sadly, in wasted and uncollected printouts – over the past several years. This waste, coupled with increasing costs to maintain the printers and cover consumables such as paper and toner cartridges, led us to the GoPrint solution. One excellent feature of GoPrint is the implementation of “release stations.” This allows a student to queue a print job, but then it is not actually printed until the student is physically at the printer and uses a special touch screen to release the print job. This has reduced accidental printing to the wrong printer (e.g., sending a paper to the Slocum Lab printer when you are really located in the Keck Lab) as well as wasted printouts that went uncollected.

Recently, members of the Sustainability Council met with the members of the Information Technology and Library Board to discuss data and trends from GoPrint reports. We are hopeful that we will not have to resort to a pay-for-printing, but rather, we aim to raise awareness and shape students’ behavior regarding printing. Stay tuned for more information in the 2007-08 year.
In the meantime, here are some quick statistics about printing at CC:
• 73.5% of first-year students reported that they brought a personal printer to campus with them in the Fall of 2006 (97.8% of the same first-years reported bringing a computer to campus with them).
• GoPrint incorporates 13 public printers that offer free black-and-white laser printouts. These printers are located in various computer labs and large residence halls, and 6 of the printers are concentrated in Tutt Library. [There are hundreds more CC printers available in departments and offices].
• Tutt Library’s printers get over 70% of the print volume for GoPrint printers.
• Over 2,500 different students, faculty, and staff have used the GoPrint system since August 2006.
• On average, each user has printed a little over 650 pages in 7 blocks.
• On average, each print job is about 9 pages long.
• 84% of GoPrint users have printed well below 1,000 pages (2 reams of paper) during the academic year thus far. Another 13% of GoPrint users have printed between 1,000 and 2,000 pages this year.
• Almost 500,000 pages were NOT printed so far this year thanks to the “release station” feature of GoPrint. These were print jobs that were queued up but then not released to be printed.

Here is a graph highlighting annual cumulative trends for the past three years:
If you have questions or want more information about the GoPrint system at CC, please contact Kris Jones at Kris.Jones@ColoradoCollege.edu.