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Instructional Computing (IC) is the major campus provider of student computing resources in support of teaching and learning. Since 1979 IC has overseen a number of campus computing facilities and staffs, and equips these units with appropriate material to meet today’s demand. In addition, IC houses the enormous student electronic mail system, “U-Mail,” the Campus Office of Software Licensing, the principal IT training program for staff and faculty, and IC also oversees the ongoing Course Management Systems (CMS) project. Following a recent student technology survey, responses concluded that IC, its labs and its services, are a cornerstone of the student IT experience at UC Santa Barbara.
IC provides a multiplicity of short courses in all standard software packages. The “Training & Development” unit often provides “on demand” training, where departments may request customized training in any package that is generally available on campus. Alx Sanchez oversees this unit. In the coming year, new course series will be announced quarterly.
The Campus Office of Software Licensing (COSL) is now in its third year under the management of Sherene Strobach, offering numerous software packages to faculty staff at significantly reduced prices. This year has been particularly noteworthy for the Office, as it rolled out a new web-based ordering system. Customers now experience a more robust, graphically based online experience, with secure authentication based on the UC Santa Barbara net-ID.
The Academic Systems unit of IC overseen by Steve Miley has expanded its course and lab management services around campus. Beginning Fall, 2008, the new online course management system, “GauchoSpace,” will debut. This will be based on the Moodle open source environment, since this was chosen over a competing system, “Sakai.” Development is an ongoing process and faculty may expect to see new enhancements on a regular basis.
For Lab Managements, Academic Systems plans to enhance printing services on campus in the coming year by providing double sided and color printing, along with the ability for students to print from their laptops. Additionally, Academic Systems will be deploying a new architecture of “green,” small, low-powered computers at different locations on campus using virtualization technology.
The Electronic Communications group (U-Mail) under the management of Matthew Dunham has added many new features to the associated systems. In the past year the U-Mail group overhauled the message store architecture, replacing expensive proprietary hardware with less costly commodity hardware. The new architecture is faster, more reliable, and much less costly than the previous messaging infrastructure. Additionally, the U-Mail team has developed software infrastructure to integrate U-Mail into next-generation identity management, which will eventually simplify the integration of U-Mail into other electronic student service offerings. All of these innovations, pursued in stringent budgetary times, typify Instructional Computing’s continued devotion to the welfare of UC Santa Barbara.
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