Our conversion of student email boxes to Office 365 is the first of several waves of upgrades taking place throughout the summer.  Our Technology Resource Center is now assisting students as they reconnect their mobile devices and begin using new system features.  With faculty and staff accounts to be converted in the near future, I need to alert you to the impact this work will have on our campus community.  The features of Office 365 go way beyond traditional email communications and will include integrated collaboration tools (i.e. Microsoft Lync) that will fundamentally change the way we collaboration and communicate online.

A six-minute video has been prepared for you to highlight what is coming your way.  Our TRC and Ed Tech teams are also preparing to assist you in many ways through fall semester as upgrades to these systems and to Moodle are now in full swing.  With the coming availability of Microsoft Lync, we are entering a new phase in the use of technology at Berea.  This is a very short video and one I encourage you to view it at your convenience.

I wanted to alert you that we are in position to move all students to cloud email the week of May 6 (i.e. next week).  Students were notified today via Kevin’s email below.  Some students are already on the new Office 365 system as part of a pilot group.  Nancy Sullivan in the Technology Resource Center will be sending a follow-up email to students in a few days with instructions on how to configure their personal mobile phones and other portable devices to access the new system.

The Office 365 transition also incorporates new online collaborative tools supported through Microsoft Lync.  Students will be transitioning to Lync through the fall semester and we expect to see a gradual increase in voice and video traffic as more students begin using the online collaboration tools and video conferencing features available through Lync.  Upgrades to our core network will be made over the summer to prepare for that.

Our Faculty/Staff transition is around the corner so there is more to come.

Just want to keep all of you in the loop!

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From: Kevin Blankenship
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2013 1:20 PM
To: #Students
Subject: Office 365 email transition

Students,

This summer will be an active summer for technology transitions. One very important transition will be moving your email accounts to the cloud based Office 365 platform. Office 365 is in use by many schools and universities. This move will have several benefits.

Office 365 gives users anywhere access to email and calendars, Office Web Apps, video and online meetings, and document sharing. It has your favorite Office features online and allows you to better prepare coursework, create sophisticated reports and presentations, and collaborate over the web. See a short promo video here:

http://vstream.berea.edu/app/sites/index.aspx?destinationID=0IT-X20beki4BULSTtGqKg

With Microsoft Office 365:

• No more cleaning out your inbox! You get a web-based email account with a 25GB mailbox.
• Work and communicate from your phone, PC, or Mac, using email, instant messaging, HD video chat, and online meetings.
• Create, edit, and share Microsoft Office documents online with Office Web Apps.
• Collaborate in online meetings; share your desktop, whiteboard items, and record a live video call.

Office 365 is fully interactive with the local email servers, so your professors and support staff will be in the global address list.

Transitions will occur the week of May 6^th. Look for more information later in the week. Have a great summer!

Kevin Blankenship

It is always nice to share some good news.  Our contract negotiations with Windstream for campus data and voice service went well.  Here is the good news under the terms of a new three-year contract:

1. Data Bandwidth: Bandwidth to the campus will double from 200 to 400 Mbps in order to address the growth in internet use and associated audio/video traffic.
2. SIP Voice Services: 3 Mbps of this expanded data connection will be used for phone service to/from campus at a reduced cost over traditional PRI lines.
3. Data Connection Redundancy: A new backup data connection will be established using a small cellular tower.  This data connection will bypass our primary ISP service and can be used to support critical business functions in the event of a network outage with Windstream.
4. Voice Circuit Redundancy: In addition to the new SIP connection to campus for voice traffic, a second PRI line will remain in service to address overflow and provide phone service in the event of an outage with our primary connection.

All of this will be accomplished at an annual savings of $8,052.  We plan to finalize this agreement on Friday in order to ensure work is scheduled and completed in June prior to the return of students for fall semester.  The savings can be used to shore up the growth in overall software/hardware licensing costs we are experiencing.

This summer will be a busy one as we also complete our campus transition to Office 365, Microsoft Lync, Bradford access control, and complete upgrades to our network core and our Moodle courseware system.  Contract negotiations with the CampusEAI consortium continues to address mobile apps, portal, and Moodle provisioning services.  We will share updates on these efforts and others when our planning team meets tomorrow.

Below is a brief update on several projects designed to increase the mix of communication and collaboration tools available to our campus community. I also wanted to send you a gentle reminder of our Group of 30 gathering with faculty from EKU’s Noel Studio to take place on March 22nd in Hutchins RM 106/107. Please let Lisa know if you are attending.

1. Email/Twitter: A small team led by Scott Steele is working with IS&S staff to rethink how we use email on campus. That team is preparing to pilot the use of Twitter to support certain on-campus communications with these twitter feeds linked to an email digest, our portal, and eventually to digital signage and mobile apps. This strategy will reduce the number of emails students (and others) receive while expanding the choices available for viewing this information.

   

   

2. Mobile Apps: We are engaging CampusEAI to provide a wide range of mobile apps and portal channels for use on campus. You may want to view this short video or browse the examples below that include out-of-the-box Banner integration. We will chat more as this work moves forward.

   

   

3. Voice over IP: Many of you have noticed the new phone sets being installed across campus. Six hundred of these new phones are now in place. They connect directly to our data network, have video features, and support voicemail integration with your email accounts.

   

4. Office 365: Student, faculty, and staff pilot groups will begin using Office 365 “in the cloud” the week of March 18. Features including expanded storage and a host of new collaboration tools for web conferencing, team collaboration, and for building public websites will be available along with the ability to edit, share, and coedit Word, OneNote, Excel and PowerPoint docs using a web browser to access these online tools.

   

5. Ensemble: Berea On-Demand is getting a face-lift with a new front-end product called Ensemble. This product will provide more functionality and ease of use in uploading, converting, and publishing videos and fair use content as well as live streaming.

   

IS&S, Integrated Marketing and Admissions staff met this morning and agreed we were ready to go live this afternoon with our new WordPress version of our college website. Once we make the switchover, it will take about 48 hours for all web users world-wide to be redirected to the new site. This is a “quiet rollout” because the look and feel of the website will not change at this time but the tools driving our website were significantly upgraded setting the stage for our future. I am alerting the Group of 30 and our OBC’s to be on the lookout next week in case problems arise requiring our immediate attention. Doug Widner (ext 3028) and Cary Hazelwood (ext. 3337) are the two individuals that will be monitoring site issues over the next few days.

One big change you will notice in the weeks ahead is the new distributed model for updating site content. After training, designated staff across campus will be given direct access to manage live site content for their areas using a standard web browser. They will have access to style guides, templates, and navigation structures already in place and managed by our Integrated Marketing staff to ensure site continuity. The new system features and analytical tools will allow the College to adopt more complex communication and marketing strategies in the future that will be informed by data and statistics available through this content management system.

This collaborative undertaking addresses faculty and staff requests for greater access to update site content and will support the work of our Integrated Marketing and Admissions staff that needed better tools to reach potential donors and students. We have much work ahead but this is a nice milestone for us and we will be watching closely for any issues over the weekend. I am grateful for the teamwork and collaborative spirit that led us to this important milestone.

Our planning team will be meeting twice this week to keep several key initiatives on track.  Below is the agenda for our Wednesday and Thursday meetings.  I am copying Lyle and the AC just to give them a heads-up on these summer activities.

1. Wednesday Agenda:

a. Stabile Active Learning Classrooms (Robert Lewis/Lisa Jones):
These are significant classroom technology upgrades supported by Ed Tech and TRC staff in collaboration with appropriate faculty. See attached proposal approved by Toni Stabile.
Deadline (Draper 100 and 314, and Tech 104): January, 2013
Deadline (Science 306):  June, 2013 but would like classroom technology in place much earlier.

b. Immersive Media Rich Learning (John Lympany):
This involves the full deployment of our three-pronged strategy that includes enhanced media streaming capacity (using Berea OnDemand), improved media content creation capacities (through our new production studio and new field equipment) and LCD’s in collaborative learning spaces that also act as digital signage to highlight activities and student work in support of our learning community.
Deadline: Summer of 2013

c. VOIP (Kevin Blankenship):
We are in the final phase of our campus transition to Voice over IP to replace our aging PBX and add new features such as unified messaging for faculty and staff and new e911 service.  Unified messaging allows voicemail to be accessed via email as well as through traditional means.
Deadline: End of Spring semester.

d. Wireless Upgrade (Randy Ellis):
Upgrades are moving forward and will significantly increase throughput using smart AP technology across campus to keep up with the growing use of mobile technology in our curriculum.
Deadline: October 31

e. Website Conversion to WordPress (Cary Hazelwood):
Project will allow for central management of the look and feel of the website while allowing others on campus to update their content directly using a web browser interface.  New feature sets will also be available to support future integrated marketing strategy.
Deadline: August 2012

f. Faculty Innovation Projects (Lisa Jones):
The number of faculty innovation projects is growing significantly and this is having an impact on both the TRC and Ed Tech staff.  Attached is an updated faculty list of projects.  
Deadline: This is ongoing work

g. Office 365 (Kevin Blankenship)
We are making preparations for student rollout to take place during fall semester.  I will speak to Lyle and Judge to discuss migrating faculty and staff as well.  There are many benefits for the campus community including new online collaboration/conferencing tools, increased storage space for email and documents, 99.9% service level agreement, along with cost savings for the institution.
Deadline (for student rollout): November 30
Deadline (for faculty/staff rollout): To be Determined

h. Network Penetration Testing (John Lympany/Kevin Blankenship)
An exit meeting with Crowe and Horwath will take place Wednesday afternoon.  We will provide a quick update to the team on this important work.

2. Thursday Agenda:

a. Backup and Virtualization System Upgrades (Kevin Blankenship/Perry Ingram)
We are meeting on Thursday with representatives from CBTS to review two key infrastructure projects that include enhancements to our institutional backup systems and to our virtual infrastructure to support high availability and effective disaster recovery.  We are now narrowing down our options on both projects. 

Related Links

• Project-Plan-Update-07-30-12
• Stabile-Proposal

We are experiencing a substantial increase in the scope and depth of this work so I wanted to give you a quick update on staffing.  We are assembling a new pool of applicants now for the Educational Technology Director position and our search team will reconvene shortly to review those applications and move the search process forward.  In addition, Cary Hazelwood, our Web 2.0 expert, will be officially joining the Educational Technology team in June after our conversion to a new website CMS system is completed.  I hope to have the new Director on board in June as well to join Anthony and Cary as we form this new team.  As you can see from the growing list of faculty initiatives, getting this team together is a top priority for me.

My thanks to Anthony Basham for assisting me in preparing this initial report.

Related Links

• Blended Learning Projects

Last Friday we also discussed our Library renovation planning and the recent opening of our new Production Studio.  It looks like our next meeting (likely in March) will focus primarily on active learning classrooms and classroom redesign.  This should be an interesting and lively discussion.  Below are some materials we are assembling for that lunch conversation.

1. Article on Active Learning Classrooms: “Pedagogy and Space: Empirical Research on New Learning Environments”.
2. Article on the 21st Century Classroom:  Dave Porter shared an article titled “Six Ingredients for the 21st Century Classroom”.
3. Conceptual Design for Main Floor of Hutchins: You will see classrooms and collaborative learning spaces included in this early conceptual floor layout prepared by our architects.

Rob Smith has some interesting insights on the Active Learning Classroom article (item 1 above) so I hope he might share his thinking with you as we think critically about the University of Minnesota’s approach to classroom design.  If you have other articles you would like to share, please do.

Below is a brief list of the topics we are currently covering.  I also want to thank the OBC’s for joining us on Friday.

January Meeting

• iPod Touches: Using the iPod touch “mini-lab” as a classroom teaching tool.  (Scott Steele)
• E-Portfolio Systems: Update on the benefits of an e-portfolio system (Rob Smith)
• Field Video Production Work: Expanding capacities for student documentary and feature film production work (Gordon Gray)
• Library Renovation: Technology and space planning for the main floor of Hutchins.  (Anne Chase and John Lympany)
• Production Studio: Quick update along with a possible tour after lunch (Deborah Martin, Billy Wooten, John Lympany)

March Meeting

• Active Learning Classrooms: “Pedagogy and Space: Empirical Research on New Learning Environments”.  (John Lympany)
• Use of Video Conferencing in the Classroom: LifeSize video conferencing systems available at Berea  (Kevin Blankenship/Anthony Basham)
• Live Video Streaming: Exploring our new BC On-Demand System for delivering classroom video content to mobile devices  (Kevin Blankenship/Robert Lewis)
• ARCT Subgroup on Learning and Technology: Update on recommendations made by the planning group in December.  (John Lympany)
• Scholar of Teaching and Learning and Educational Technology Director Searches: Update on position searches and how they will work together to support teaching and learning (Chad Berry/John Lympany)

I am pleased to inform you that students in several media courses taught by Deborah Martin, Billy Wooten, and Gordon Gray have moved into their new home! This is the initial phase of integrating the new facility into our curriculum. My thanks to Billy for passing these photos my way and to everyone that participated in this collaboration. We look forward to viewing some new content from the studio on our new BC On-Demand service as well as digital signage that is being placed in several locations across campus.