Cover story

KU pumps $2.4M into classrooms, technology

Last year the KU invested more than $2.4 million in tuition funds in technology improvements on campus. The funds supported upgraded computer labs and software, new classroom technology, the new Kyou Web portal, the Digital Library and many upgrades to technology within KU academic programs.

The university’s five-year tuition plan—now in year two—generates about $10.8 million in revenue annually. Twenty percent of the funds goes to grants for students who qualify for need-based aid. The remainder is allocated based on needs identified by the Ad Hoc Committee on University Funding, composed of students, faculty and staff.

Students and faculty enjoy dozens of upgraded classrooms with cutting-edge technology, a continually improving Digital Library, an online enrollment system and the first KU Wireless Zones as well as many other improvements across campus.

“Tuition enhancement funds have improved significantly the campuswide technology resources that we provide to students,” said David Shulenburger, provost and executive vice chancellor. “As a result of this new funding, students have more convenient access to the information and tools they need to manage their academic and business transactions at KU.

“Students advised us at all levels of these expenditures. The Student Senate’s Tuition Advisory Committee worked closely with our Information Services staff to consult on the campuswide projects, while the professional schools and the College used their technology advisory committees to obtain student input.”

Each professional school funded specific improvements, such as specialized software and equipment in several schools, a Mark III Disklavier Piano and an Avid Media Composer for theatre and film students, Biofeedback sensors and software for the education school’s Center for Psychoeducational Services, wireless transmitters in the law school and a Dead Sea Scrolls CD for students in religious studies.

In the next few months, decisions on expenditures for this year's technology allocations will be made.

"We look forward to making additional enhancements to technology on our campuses," said Marilu Goodyear, vice provost for information services.

A report on last year's accomplishments and next year's plans is being shared with KU Student Governance groups.

Campus-Wide Technology Projects:

Providing online self-services for students: The Kyou portal and Enroll & Pay systems - $459,000
As part of an effort to build the technology infrastructure to support student online self-services accessible anytime, from anywhere, in November 2002, a prototype Kyou portal was launched to introduce the benefits of portal technology to KU students. The prototype portal aggregated electronic services into one online location. The services included course schedules, instructor contact information, ARTS forms, tuition and financial aid information, grades, Blackboard and other online services. The portal also included non student-specific information, including the campus-wide people search, daily headlines from University Relations and the University Daily Kansan, and the KU calendar of events. Many of the portal modules were integrated into the ARGUS single sign-on system so that a single log-in gains a user access to many services. The pilot Kyou system was so successful that the Student Senate asked that their new online election system be built within this framework. Enroll & Pay, KU’s new online registration system, was introduced exclusively through the Kyou portal in spring 2003 for fall semester class registration.

A communication vehicle for instructors and classmates: KU’s Course Management System - $160,000
Blackboard™, a Web-based course management system, was upgraded to a multi-server configuration to speed up access to materials and enable the system to be integrated with other administrative processes, such as student registration and records. Blackboard™ continues to be used extensively by faculty. More than 1,000 instructors and nearly 17,000 students worked with Blackboard in the spring 2003 semester. The average number of “page hits” per day during the semester was over 140,000, with 235,000 page views per day during busy times. The system upgrade was completed over the summer. Improvements include additional features and flexibility for all users and more options for faculty in organizing their course materials online. Additionally, the upgraded version includes options for downloading documents to a PDA, enhanced real-time (chat) tools, and a spell-checker. Blackboard’s advantages to students include: 24-hour Web access to course materials, including course syllabi, grading policies, practice tests and assignments; an easy way to communicate with the instructor and fellow students outside of class while maintaining confidentiality of students’ personal information; and easier ways to manage communication about students’ group projects.

One-stop shopping for library resources: The Digital Library - $343,000
The new Digital Library provides more efficient online access to research materials for students, faculty and staff by supporting new methods of access to, and management of, external resources such as the commercial databases currently available through the KU Libraries, as well as locally-created digital content. Launched in November 2002, KU was among the first universities around the world to implement this type of system.
Students, in particular, will benefit from faster and more efficient research options using the Digital Library’s resource discovery functions. By providing the ability for a single search to access multiple databases at one time (currently over 50) and helping to quickly identify the most productive sources for the articles, books or other materials needed, the Digital Library will allow students and faculty to spend less time searching for information and more time interpreting it for their academic growth and research.
Work has also begun on LinkFinderPlus (LFP), which will allow linking from citations in one database to full-text in another. Implementation of the local digital collections module will begin next year.
In addition, internal grant awards were made to six faculty research groups to support the conversion of their research to digital content that will be readily accessible online. The selected projects are intended to highlight various collections and research areas around campus and to enrich classroom experiences. Projects were completed over the summer.

Protecting the KU network and its users: Authentication Database - $250,000
A new standards-compliant authentication database was installed. The goal of this new resource is to offer students, faculty and staff a single point of authentication, or single sign-on, so that one KU online ID will allow access to all of the online services available throughout KU. This resource will support the Kyou Portal and several other KU systems, including the student information system and the KU Wireless Zones the public areas of the Kansas Union and wireless capability in the Watson, Anschutz and Spencer Research Libraries.

Hands-on resources + advocacy for student technology needs: Computer Labs and Technology Programs – $203,000
The 24-hour Herb Harris Computer Lab in the Kansas Union was upgraded with
50 new computers. Forty Windows machines and 10 new Macintosh computers were installed in the fall semester. All of the computers in this lab require authentication, which means a KU student will simply enter his or her KU online ID to access all of the technology in the lab. In addition, a Student Technology Coordinator was hired in the spring to centralize management of technology support and assistance in all Academic Computing Services labs. In addition to managing all ACS-operated labs, the coordinator:
∑ Identifies student technology needs, based on interactions with students and on focus group discussions, and advocates for these needs with the central management of Information Services.
∑ Implements technology education presentations in the Kansas Union to teach students to use technology resources.
∑ Coordinates with external vendors to identify technologies and services that match student needs and invite those companies to campus to demonstrate their technologies.
∑ Serves as a liaison to KU’s student organizations.

Untethering users with laptops: The first KU Wireless Zones - $50,000
A Wireless Data Network was installed in the public foyers of the Kansas Union in mid-August. A feasibility plan was compiled to guide the implementation of this new wireless data network. This plan considered the practical logistics given the technology available; ongoing support issues such as the staffing, funding, hardware and software necessary to maintain this network; and the security issues inherent to wireless technology. Considerable resources were expended, over and above the allocation received from the student technology fee, to make the core network improvements necessary in the Union’s telecommunications infrastructure to support wireless technology and to attend to the largest effort of this initiative—security of the wireless user’s connection. Security is of utmost importance in terms of both protecting KU’s wired network itself from unauthorized intrusion and protecting the information exchanged between KU’s wired network and the wireless user. Students now may use laptops to access resources on the Internet while enjoying the freedom of movement in the KU Wireless Zones in the Kansas Union. This supports students’ research, study, e-mail accessibility, group projects and other academic pursuits.

Technology for teaching and learning: Instructional Technology in more KU classrooms - $298,000
Thirty general-purpose classrooms across campus were upgraded to include basic media capabilities, including data projection, VCR, laptop connection for PowerPoint and Internet access; such rooms are identified as media-lite in comparison to the more fully-equipped rooms. There currently are no plans to expand the number of more fully-equipped rooms due to security and personnel issues. Instructional media equipment also was purchased for room 100 Smith Hall, a large lecture hall. The updating process was done in coordination with the overall classroom improvement projects that also were funded. This model will continue.

Technology investments in the academic units:

The School of Architecture - $50,544
∑ An external SCSI disk array and an LTO Tape Backup Autoloader to provide students with more disk space than previously was available for them on the School’s server; students now have ample storage space and the School provides routine backups to protect student work files against crashes and to preserve their work for accreditation purposes.
∑ New equipment in the bridge lab: four new computers, a networked plotter for photo quality prints up to size A3 and enhancements to the UBPL lab in the form of a 40% match for TransCad software, memory upgrades and hard drive upgrades.
Note: The School was able to maximize on the technology fee by negotiating a 10 percent discount on the TransCad software and because a faculty member donated 50 percent of the cost of the software.

The School of Business - $176,652
∑ Continued support of the extensive rewiring project in Summerfield Hall, for which the costs were distributed over several years; will dramatically improve network speed and reliability.
∑ Upgraded the sound systems in five technology classrooms.
∑ 35 new computers with new operating systems in the Wagnon Computing Lab.
∑ Specialized software for individual course offerings.
∑ New statistical and modeling software for computers to serve doctoral students.
∑ Membership in the Microsoft Developer’s Network Academic Alliance, which provides a wide range of current software products for instructional and research use at a single, reasonable price. The associated license allows the School to provide students both lab access to and personal installations of the software products for course-related use, providing convenient access to state-of-the-art tools at no cost to them beyond normal tuition and fees.
∑ Firewall support in coordination with University security office.
∑ Several computer systems for instruction-related uses.

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences - $1,672,900
Thirty-nine units within the College used these funds for at least 500 different pieces of equipment, including but not limited to:
∑ Videos and DVDs in multiple departments to enhance classroom instruction.
∑ Mapping Stations and field equipment in Anthropology to enhance student field experiences.
∑ Mark III Disklavier Piano and an Avid Media Composer for Theatre and Film students.
∑ Student and faculty software and licenses, such as Eye Contingent Display software in Psychology and Mathematica Software in Mathematics.
∑ Model of the Larynx for Linguistics students.
∑ A CD of the Dead Sea Scrolls for Religious Studies Students.
∑ Laptops, computers, and printers for faculty, staff, and graduate teaching assistants to enhance teaching materials so that all machines are at least 200 MHz.
∑ VCR, DVD and CD players for classroom viewing of media materials.
∑ Web page re-design and update assistance and web design software.
∑ Digitization of slide collections in Anthropology and Art History.
∑ Microscopes and other lab equipment for many of the general science courses.

The School of Education - $217,652
∑ 22 new Windows computers, a printer and software including Dreamweaver, Photoshop Elements, Authorware, upgrades of Windows EX and Microsoft Office in the large computer lab in Joseph R. Pearson Hall. The lab’s previous computers were redistributed to upgrade computers for graduate teaching assistants.
∑ Probe equipment, a laptop and two desktop computers for the Science Education Classroom.
∑ Biofeedback sensors and software for the Center for Psychoeducational Services.
∑ A large-format printer for student use in the School’s Learning Resource Center.
∑ A motion analysis system, electromyography system and a “force place” for the Biomechanics Laboratory, as well as funding to support the purchase of DNA/RNA equipment, microscope equipment and gel electrophoresis equipment for the Exercise Physiology Laboratory.
∑ An eBeam system that digitizes handwritten notes on a white board for classroom use.
∑ A Hollywood Dazzle unit that digitizes video and audio input for multimedia and web use in the student project area of the Learning Resource Center.
∑ Four licenses for qualitative software, “Q6” (formerly called “NUD*IST”), in areas where students can use it, as well as a small selection of Math software to help students in methods classes experience software being used in middle and elementary schools.
∑ A Filemaker Pro Server and client software.
∑ Twelve wireless access points in JRP, requiring users to register with an online system to gain access to the network.

The School of Engineering - $140,977
∑ Five classroom renovations, including computer projection systems, replacement of vinyl tile with carpet, acoustical panels, new seating and improved lighting.

The School of Fine Arts – $112,286
∑ Hardware and software in several computer labs throughout the School of Fine Arts.
∑ Equipment for the Common Shop and the sculpture area.

The School of Journalism – $59,582
∑ Upgrade to one Stauffer-Flint Macintosh computer lab.
∑ Five PCs and software for a Stauffer-Flint lab.
∑ A variety of technology for use in the Dole Center broadcasting labs.

The School of Law – $65,164
∑ Projection equipment in four of the largest law classrooms and a teaching system called Sympodium for these classrooms. Sympodium allows instructors to use PowerPoint or other materials essentially like a computer chalkboard. Instructors can write on the slides while teaching the class, and it shows up on the projection screen.
∑ Wireless transmitters and more wireless cards for individual computers.
∑ Expansion and upgrade of the network in some parts of Green Hall.

The School of Pharmacy – $65,080
∑ Wireless Intranet capabilities within the classroom environment to facilitate access to the Internet and student use of laptop computers in the classroom; also to enhance teaching, learning and communication within the School of Pharmacy.
∑ Extensive classroom renovations in the primary classrooms in Malott Hall during summer 2003.

The School of Social Welfare – $62,798
∑ For the student lab, the School purchased three new computers, a color printer, specialized software for statistics, desktop publishing and office automation, as well as planning for necessary maintenance and upgrades.
∑ To promote instructional development, the School used the technology funds to purchase an LCD projector, a video conferencing kit, audio visual equipment, two laptops for classroom presentations and a web server, as well as provide partial payment of student hourly support.

The KU Edwards Campus - $136,280
∑ Upgraded two computer labs with 14 new Dell computers
∑ Nine ceiling-mounted LCD projectors for classrooms
∑ Wireless keyboards and mouses for classrooms
∑ A Polycom camera to facilitate videoconferencing