July 26, 2005 | In
News
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Under Construction
Mike Harris, ITS Construction Project Manager, has provided
The Hub with updates and several photos to share with the rest of the staff - including exclusive photos of recent lighting strikes and news about new work spaces.Monday night, July 18,
lightning struck the elm tree in the courtyard closest to the east end of the ITS Franklin building. The good news is that the building did not suffer any damage and the machine rooms continued to run without a problem.Wednesday, July 20, the
temporary uninterruptible (UPS) was pulled out of the parking lot. The Department of Insurance (DOI) and State Construction
approved occupancy of suite 1500. The occupancy of Suite 1500 allows the people who were occupying old office space to move out so that demolition of the old machine room can begin. The office moves to the newly renovated first floor of ITS Franklin were completed Friday, July 22. Demolition of the old machine room began Monday, July 25. --MH with MRB
July 26, 2005 | In
News
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Spotlight On
In the spring of 2005, ITS Research Computing announced the availability of a new computing platform for scientific use. Managed by Research Computings Loren Watterson and Larry Mason, the new SGI Altix is a machine with 128 CPUs and 512 GB of physical memory.The SGI Altix is primarily intended for parallel scientific code, although serial jobs are allowed to run. As currently configured, individual jobs can run for up to one month of wall clock time. These time limits can be adjusted to accommodate researchers needs. Available applications include a variety of computational chemistry packages and compilers for researchers who prefer to write their own code. The list of available applications offered and supported by the groups scientists (Shubin Liu, Chi-Duen Poon, and Mark Reed) will be expanded in the future as customer feedback is received.Unlike traditional Linux clusters, the Altix has only one operating system instance running, thereby freeing the majority of processors to complete computations with minimal overhead. The SGI Altix provided an immediate increase to our customers in program run times. Researchers have enjoyed getting back the results and data faster than ever before, Loren commented. Typical user applications are running four to six times faster than on the ITS SGI Origin 3800, a system that is being phased out. ITS Research Computing services are listed at
http://its.unc.edu/reco. Access to the Altix can be requested from the subscription services button of the
Onyen home page.--DBM
July 26, 2005 | In
News
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Bulletin Board
The new
Carolina Macromedia Group (CMMUG) was established to better connect Macromedia developers and users on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. The group is open to faculty, staff, and students who work with or who are interested in Macromedia and Adobe products. (A potential merge of the Macromedia and Adobe companies is currently underway.)
To join the
CMMUG e-mail list, go to
http://lists.unc.edu/read/all_forums/
subscribe?name=cmmug or contact the founder,
Dave Powell at the School of Pharmacy (843.3885/Campus Box #7340).--MRB with CK
CMMUG's first meeting, held July 19th, focused on the UNC-Chapel Hill Breeze
Partnership that was formed in 2004 by the Schools of Public Health (SPH), Pharmacy (SOP), Dentistry, and Education. The Partnership utilizes Macromedia Breeze and BreezeLive to provide seamless interactive videoconferencing support and asynchronous learning methods to partnership members. George Field (SPH) and Sarah Paliulis (SOP) presented on how Breeze is used by their schools.
ITS staff members Megan Bell (ITS Communications), Tamara Stegall (ITS Communications), Tom Cox (ITS Teaching & Learning/Video Services), and Todd Stabley (ITS Teaching & Learning/Center for Instructionlal Technology) attended the meeting. During the meeting, Tom shared an update from the Office of the President's current investigation into ways to maximize the power of the 16-campus system to reduce the costs of enterprise-level systems like Macromedia Breeze.
July 26, 2005 | In
News
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Newsflash
The new
Carolina Technology Consultants (CTC) Advisory Board members for the 2005–2007 term are
- Charlie Hitlin, School of Medicine, OIS
- Larry Fritsche, Kenan-Flagler School of Business
- Kevin Morgan, School of Nursing
- Ashraf Farrag, School of Dentistry
- Pamela Wimbush, School of Public Health
- Joe Waddell, Academic Affairs Libraries
- Penny Ward, ITS
Questions about the CTC should be directed to the CTC Coordinator,
Dee Marley. Dee is a member of ITS Communications and welcomes your contributions to the CTC.
Those new board members will be joining:
- Alan Forrest, Computer Science
- Andrew Lee, ITS Security
- Chris Lee, Family Support Network of NC
- Tim Rath, Carolina Population Center
- Christy Suits, ITS Distrubted Computing, Department of Athletics
- Josh Tewell, ITS Systems
Members whose terms end in November 2005 include
- Priscilla Alden, School of Medicine OIS
- Melinda Boyd, Carolina Mammography Registry
- Alex Marzec, OASIS
- Chris Ogden, School of Public Health
- Lars Sahl, Department of Chemistry
- Peter Smith, Kenan-Flagler School of Business
- Dave Terwey, School of Nursing
--DM and MRB
July 26, 2005 | In
News
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Newsflash
When ABC's
World News Tonight needed to interview a medical expert for "A Healthy Life" program on caring for premature babies, they went to Dr. Carl Bose, professor of neonatal medicine in the UNC School of Medicine Pediatrics Department. When they needed expert multimedia knowledge and support to provide a satellite uplink for the interview, they went to the staff at the
ITS Center for Instructional Technology's Video Services.
Responding to a request from Stephanie Crayton-Robinson in the UNC Health Care Public Affairs and Marketing Office, CIT's Tom Cox worked with ABC staff to provide support for a live-on-tape feed of the July 20th interview of Dr. Bose by ABC's health expert, Timothy Johnson. The entire video services staff in Peabody Hall helped make the endeavor a smooth-running success.
According to Cox, Video Services can provide uplink services that match commercial services in quality. Programs such as ABC's provide valuable information to the public, while giving national recognition of our faculty, campus, and IT services. For Video Services, it's yet another opportunity to showcase their skills and professionalism.
"I was pleased to hear that the ABC producers called UNC Health Care back after the interview. They complimented us on our production values and smooth operation. Networks rarely call anyone back, so I was proud of our efforts," said Cox.--CK
July 26, 2005 | In
News
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Newsflash
The
Change Management Committee met Thursday, July 20, to determine--from the information gathered across ITS teams and divisions--what the priorities of the project should be moving forward. Updates from the Change Management Committee have been provided at the weekly ITS Service Managers' Council (SMC) sessions, and
The Hub has the recap.
Change management may be only two words, but it's a large concept that touches on many different points of project management, product development, communications, and customer service. The group was formed in May 2005 at the behest of
Robyn East, Associate Vice Chancellor and Deputy CIO, to provide a focused look by ITS staff members at the current change management practices in use today, and at what improvements could be made.
In June, the Committee pulled together notes, processes, and needs from across ITS to create a summary of change management and related issues for Robyn. The Committee met with Robyn to ensure that the group was focused on the key issues:
- change notification to ITS and campus technology staff
- change nofification to campus customers
- notification to target groups
During last week's meeting, the group decided to form a working group to focus on the creation of an accurate and updated
ITS service list. Greg Jansen, of ITS Communications and
ITS Knowledge Management, is heading up the project to create the service list, which will be used by Change Management, Remedy, Knowledge Base, ITS Web, and others.
Some immediate revisions of the
change notification system are being documented so that Todd Lewis, ITS Enterprise Applications, can implement them. While the immediate revisions are in progress, the Change Management Committee will develop longer term goals.--MRB
July 26, 2005 | In
News
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Newsflash
ITS Enterprise Applications is working with University Human Resources (UNC-HR) to provide campus with a streamlined process for documentation and processing of EPA positions. The
EPAWeb Personnel Action System (PAS) project team is focused on a couple of key areas:
- The pilot phase of the project entails setting up the system over the summer for a sample department (Psychiatry was selected by the Steering Committee). The pilot will verify that all components perform to spec and are as error-free as possible.
- User training will be offered for all EPAWeb users in the fall. A 90-minute pre-launch orientation meeting will be held to introduce users to the system, review resulting EPA business process changes, and answer general questions.
As work nears completion on EPAWeb Phase I, which has focused on replacing the PD-7 electronic forms system, the project team has begun to develop the requirements for EPAWeb Phase II. The primary goal of the second phase will be to add EPA position encumbrance, replace the BD119 and Position Control systems, and fully integrate these functions within EPAWeb.
Steve Seaton, of ITS Enterprise Applications, is the ITS contact for questions regarding the EPAWeb project. Additional information is available as well via the
project Web site.--MRB
July 26, 2005 | In
News
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Newsflash
Below are links to articles from and about ITS in two of the University's campus publications, the
University Gazette and
The Daily Tar Heel.Remember, if you are contacted by the press, please gather the reporter's contact information and e-mail
ITS Communications or call 843.9922.
University GazetteThe Daily Tar HeelUNC installs online safeguards, Covelight to watch over Student Central--MRB
July 26, 2005 | In
News
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Bulletin Board
Dan maintains office hours for ITS staff each week on Wednesday afternoons from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. Contact Executive Assistant
Debbie Cline to confirm or make an appointment. Dan welcomes the comments and suggestions provided to him on those issues that affect both our teams and the campus.--MRB
July 26, 2005 | In
News
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Newsflash
You are reading the fifteenth issue of "The Hub," the newsletter that is published by, for, and about ITS. The goal of this publication is to provide each other with timely information about the services and activities of our department and to support the ITS community, and we appreciate your support for our efforts. Submit your stories and announcements to
its_communications@unc.edu by
5 p.m. Friday, August 5th, to be included in the August 9th issue. --MRB
