You are reading the ninth 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, May 6th, to be included in the May 10th issue.
Users, researchers, vendors, and developers of Linux clusters from around the world will gather at the Carolina Inn to attend the Linux Clusters Institute International Conference for high-performance computing, “HPC Revolution 2005,” from April 25 to 28.
The goal of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), which Dan recently created, is to bring together researchers and scientists from all industries and leverage high-performance computing technology to benefit science and society.
“Hosting the HPC Revolution 2005 conference in Chapel Hill reflects the importance of scientific computing to Carolina and our role in leading the computing revolution. Advances in Linux clusters and the conference provide an ideal incubator for new applications of this technology,” Dan stated.
Linux clusters are used in academic research and in a diverse set of industries, including petroleum, geophysics, bioinformatics, aerospace, automotive, and finance. Reflecting the range of uses of clusters, the conference features keynote speakers Kelvin Droegemeier of the University of Oklahoma, Thom Dunning of NCSA/UIUC, and Mark Seager of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Conference organizers have targeted topics and speakers to address current efforts to integrate and develop science and engineering applications for large-scale clusters, to achieve maximum performance and scalability.
Carolina’s collaborations with peer intuitions and international research communities make it the perfect setting for this conference of technology, science, industry, and academia.
Ruth Marinshaw, Acting Assistant Vice Chancellor for Information Technology Services at the University, commented that “having the conference at Carolina complements our current efforts to enhance our campus research computing infrastructure. Expansion of central Linux clusters within the Information Technology Services Research Computing division further positions us to support the complex and extensive research HPC enables.”
“The information technology that keeps the stream moving has become one of the absolute keys to our success as scholars and teachers. Information technology is now the intellectual enabler for Carolina’s mission of research, teaching, and service.”
This excerpt from Chancellor Moeser’s remarks at the Friday, April 15th, groundbreaking ceremony highlights how IT at UNC-Chapel Hill is a valuable resource with an exciting future. From WRAL TV 5, to the News and Observer, to the Daily Tar Heel, the ITS groundbreaking ceremony received media coverage highlighting its importance to us, to the University, and to the State.
ITS CIT Video Services is providing the streamed video of the event, and you can read the transcript here in The Hub.
Remarks
ITS Building Groundbreaking
Friday, April 15, 2005, 9 A.M.
corner Manning Drive and Emergency Drive
Chancellor Moeser
Good morning, everybody, welcome, and thank you for joining us.
This is very significant occasion, and two members of the University’s Board of Trustees are with us today for the groundbreaking: Roger Perry, from the Board’s Buildings and Grounds Committee, and Rusty Carter, from the Board’s University Affairs Committee.
I am sure there are a few of you here who remember well the era of computer punch-cards that were processed in the basement of Phillips Hall. If you will admit to being part of those days, please raise your hand.
Welcome to the 21st century! Isn’t this an improvement!
Today, every one of us on this campus is surrounded by a constant invisible stream of data, zipping past us over wires or through the air. We are swimming in a stream of data.
The information technology that keeps the stream moving has become one of the absolute keys to our success as scholars and teachers. Information technology is now the intellectual enabler for Carolina’s mission of research, teaching, and service.
With that technology we make seamless connections to each other. We connect to the rich sources of data, people, and ideas that are our stock in trade as scholars, teachers, and public servants.
Likewise, that technology also makes it possible for the people of North Carolina to connect to us–to access our campus from their home and office computers–visiting our library collections, scheduling appointments here, filling out applications for admission, and sending us messages.
So now, for just a minute, imagine life at Carolina without robust, reliable information technology. Without it, we would spend our work lives flailing around in frustration. We would be academically unproductive. We would be parked in the IT breakdown lane of life–right next to those old punch-card machines.
The ITS building that we’ll break ground for today is vital to our mission both in the long run and day to day. It will bring under one roof the 250 or so IT staff members who previously were scattered across a dozen buildings at Carolina.
And the beauty of the new building is that it provides space designed specifically for high-performance and research computing–including 11,000 square feet of environmentally controlled computer space and the electrical infrastructure it requires.
By providing functionally up-to-date space and by gathering together all the IT people, our new building is going to enrich and empower scholarly activities all across our campus. The new building is going to be a blessing to all of us. It’s going to be a tremendous boon to productive scholarship, teaching, and service for many years to come.
I commend everyone who had a hand in planning this building. You have filled a great need and served our campus community well. Thank you!
Now I would like to call on Trustee Roger Perry to say a few words. Roger . . .
[Chancellor Moeser steps away; Roger Perry speaks]
Roger Perry
On behalf of the Board of Trustees and the Buildings and Grounds Committee, I bring greetings and thanks to everyone who helped bring the ITS building plan to fruition.
I also want to say a heartfelt “thank you!” to the people of North Carolina. In 2000, you voted overwhelmingly to approve the higher education bonds to pay for this building–along with many others at universities and community colleges across our state. By your “yes” vote, you cast a vote for a brighter future for our state.
The equipment and people who will work in the new ITS building are vital to the learning environment our students expect, the research environment that makes our faculty so productive, and the flow of information and services that makes Carolina useful to the citizens of our state. This is exactly the kind of investment we ought to be making.
Chancellor Moeser spoke earlier of the connections made possible by information technology. One of our university’s greatest assets is its culture of collegiality. At Carolina, ideas and information don’t come to a screeching halt at the boundaries of schools or departments. They flow through, and that interdisciplinary flow is an enormous source of strength.
Information technology by itself cannot create such a culture–but it can certainly help collegiality blossom and grow. I know that has been the case here in Chapel Hill.
I look forward to the day in 2006 when we come back for the dedication of the new building. I look forward to seeing the IT staff under the same roof doing the great things they do to keep us all connected.
[Roger Perry, steps away, Chancellor Moeser returns.]
Chancellor Moeser
Now I’d like to introduce Dan Reed, vice chancellor for information technology and chief information officer. Dan . . .
Vice Chancellor Reed
This is an exciting day for ITS and the University of North Carolina! Today, we gather to celebrate a new beginning–the groundbreaking for a building that will bring together the vast majority of the ITS staff, for the first time in its history, and that will house the world-class IT infrastructure needed for Carolina’s third century. We also celebrate the valued commitments by the State and the campus to a shared vision of ITS as the intellectual enabler for education, research, service, and economic development.
I am reminded of something the anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” The dedication and commitment of the ITS staff are the true foundation on which our excellence and vision of the future rests. To you, I say a heartfelt thank you for achievements and for tomorrow’s endeavors.
Remember the world before the Web? Before electronic supply chain management? Before the cell phone? Before the digital music players? And yes, before e-mail spam? Ubiquitous computing and communications have transformed the very fabric of our social, economic, and intellectual practices. And they have enabled anyone with a computer to compete in the global marketplace. Our challenge–one we gladly accept–is to invent the future, making Carolina’s students, faculty, and staff denizens of a world of unbounded opportunity.
The English chemist Sir Humphry Davy once said, “The native intellectual powers of men in different times are not so much the causes of the different successes of their labors, as the peculiar nature of the means and artificial resources in their possession.” Although Victorian in tone, the message is 21st century: those with innovative tools will lead the knowledge revolution.
Today, we celebrate the groundbreaking of a new building. More importantly, we celebrate the physical home for a revolutionary intellectual future.
[Dan Reed steps away, Chancellor Moeser returns.]
Chancellor Moeser
I invite everyone to stay for some refreshments after the groundbreaking. And now the moment we’ve waited for. Roger Perry, Dan Reed, John Oberlin, Robyn East, and I will all pick up our shovels and break some ground here!
[ceremonial shoveling]
For a class project in biomedical engineering, Ken Bradley, a December 2004 Carolina graduate who works in Information Security & Policy, developed assistive technology that’s used locally–and recognized nationally in a competition for Workplace Innovation and Design.
NISH-JWOD is a public-private partnership that supports the employment of people with disabilities, primarily through contacts with more than 600 community-based nonprofit agencies such as Orange Enterprises (OE) in Hillsborough. Nationwide, NISH helps bring employment to more than 45,000 people with disabilities.
NISH recently announced the award-winning designs in the National Scholar Award for Workplace Innovation and Design, and two teams from Carolina were among those recognized. Along with classmate Sirin Yaemsiri, Ken took third place and $3,000 for an audible counter for people with both cognitive and physical disabilities (such as autism). Doctoral student John H. Dumas III and then-senior Blair R. Roszell received an honorable mention and $100 each for their design of a small-item counter. The projects were supervised by Research Assistant Professor Richard L. Goldberg for his class in Rehabilitation Engineering Design.
In the class, BMME 290, students spend the semester designing an assistive technology device to help individuals with disabilities to become more independent. Dr. Goldberg gets ideas for projects from community agencies such as OE, and students choose from among those requests. At the end of the semester, the device is given to the agency free of charge. “Both of the counters are used every day at Orange, and they’re very happy with them,” notes Dr. Goldberg.
Among OE’s contracts are those involving repetitive tasks, such as stuffing envelopes or assembling kits. Since employees are paid by the amount of work they complete, an accurate count is needed. Commercially available counters help achieve this, but have several limitations, Ken notes. For example, many people with cognitive impairments respond better to audio prompts than to visual cues, but commercial counters do not provide audio feedback. The complexity and accessibility of commercial counters also pose challenges. A previously designed audible counter was in use at OE, but features that seemed good in the design phase were unnecessary or problematic in the real-life setting.
In Ken and Sirin’s audible counter, each time the worker completes a step or a task, he presses a button on the counter. The counter counts up by one, says the new total, and displays the new total on an LCD screen. The button that activates the counter can be changed to any commercial switch, so that someone operating a device by turning his head, for example, could activate the switch with that motion. Additionally, at every fifth iteration, the counter gives verbal encouragement, such as “Good job!” or “Keep going!” This can help people with autism stay on task, as can the counter’s internal timer, which plays a prompt message (like “Do another”) after 30 seconds of inactivity.
Dumas and Roszell’s small item counter is designed to aid in kit assembly by helping employees to simultaneously count and package items. For example, OE packages the PEP-R autism test kits, which comprise a certain number of small wooden blocks, dowels, animal shapes, and so on. A job coach specifies a goal (the total number of blocks needed, for instance) in the counter. The worker selects the blocks and inserts them in a chute that leads to the kit container. An optical sensor in the chute counts up by one when the item goes by and buzzes when the goal is reached. Templates for each type of item fit over the mouth of the chute, so that a dowel can’t be inserted when a block is required.
“Job coaches have traditionally had to separate the counting and packaging into two tasks,” Dumas says, “and they had to check the accuracy of the count before allowing the employee to proceed with packaging. Because the employees are paid on a per-unit basis, any efficiency provided by assistive technology has a direct impact on the employee’s paycheck.”–LJB
GoToAssist, a “new” program that’s actually been in use for more than 3 years, is revolutionizing computer support. The Hub sat down with Ingrid Camacho and Christina Artis, Technical Support Specialists at the ITS Response Center, to learn how it’s used at Carolina.
GoToAssist, Web-based technology that allows help desk staff to remotely view and control users’ computers, is the solution for those times when you just can’t figure out how to make a supported software program do what you want it to, and don’t even have the words to describe what’s wrong. UNC-Chapel Hill has really been pushing its use over the last year or so. Time and again, Christina, Ingrid, and other ITS-RC personnel have seen it make the difference in successfully resolving callers’ computer problems.
GoToAssist boasts that support staff can communicate with customers in a chat box or on the telephone; view the caller’s desktop; share control of the mouse and keyboard; point to specific features or even use a “whiteboard” feature to teach brief how-to sessions; push out Web pages or files; use diagnostic tools to assess the status of the customer’s computer; and (if needed) transfer the whole session up to the next level of support.
At UNC-Chapel Hill, E-Services uses the chat box feature for e-mail support. They monitor it at all times and use it to push out the latest virus definition files, informational Web pages, and so on.
ITS-RC analysts use the whiteboard feature to “draw” on the customer’s computer screen. The customer can then do a screen capture to save the information for later reference. Ingrid notes that older customers especially like this feature. Analysts also can use the shared control feature to operate a customer’s mouse or enter keyboard commands that produce the desired results–and it’s much faster than when the analysts either had to have a document e-mailed to them or had to work “blind.”
“It saves us time and it saves the customer time,” says Christina. “We’re here to help the customer and we’re excited not to have to make them wait for an answer.”
Ingrid agrees. “The only bad thing is that we have only two logins, so only two people can use it at a time.”
Support personnel like the fact that they can use GoToAssist anywhere they have Web access; they don’t have to be physically at the ITS-RC to offer support. This is especially useful after hours or during adverse weather. Similarly, customers don’t have to be at their offices to reach the Help Desk; those who are working from home or traveling on business can even use a dialup service, although of course it’s a much slower connection.
But–isn’t it a little spooky to give up control of the computer like that? Won’t the analysts spy on what’s on your machine?
The bad news is, yes, they can see everything that’s on a client’s computer. The good news is multifaceted: GoToAssist maintains its programs on a secure server; customers have to agree twice to share controls; customers don’t give up all control; and customers can see everything that the support person is doing on the computer. While callers are encouraged to close any confidential files before granting access, anything visible to the analyst is visible to the caller, so the analysts aren’t snooping around without customers’ knowledge. In fact, says Christina, “I always try to let the customer know what I’m doing. They want to learn too,” so trying to do something without their knowledge is counterproductive.
The powerful GoToAssist multiplies the efforts of department support staff by allowing centrally located help services to do what department people would do if they were at the customer’s computer, says Christina. It also improves accessibility to help services for people with disabilities. She mentions one customer who was using JAWS, a screen reader, who got stuck and was having trouble describing the problem. Technical Support Analyst Sue Meyer at the ITS-RC was able to take over the computer, talk the user through the procedures she performed, and resolve the issue. “But if she hadn’t been able to see it, she couldn’t have solved it,” Christina says.
Ingrid summed up the program’s capabilities: “Besides the Help site, this is the best tool we have.”–LJB
The Training and Education group in ITS-Teaching & Learning is preparing to introduce puzzles and games to the campus community as a step towards providing different ways to LearnIT. Initial LearnIT activities will include crossword puzzles, matching games, and sets of flash cards. Two topics (afs and PowerPoint) will be released simultaneously; others will be added over time. And they need your help to beta test! Volunteers will just need to answer a few questions. Preview the afs activities by pointing a Web browser to http://LearnIT.unc.edu/puzzles. Select any file that ends in .htm to try out the activity. Direct questions, comments, and offers to play while working to LearnIT@unc.edu
Software
Two software packages are being used to develop these learning activities:
The Crossword Puzzle Process
The crossword puzzles are perhaps the most interesting activity to compose, since we’re trying to conform to how crossword puzzles work in general. For example, they frequently have themes (in our case, the educational content); puzzles by the same writer or company use clues that show up in multiple puzzles; clues can be straightforward (”Bing Crosby’s nickname” is “Der Bingle”) or obscure (”contrite encryption” might be “remorsecode”); and answers can be single or multiple words. Grid sizes vary and the difficulty of the puzzle is determined both by the difficulty of the clues and by how densely the grid is populated. (The more opportunities there are to fill in words across and down, the more likely it is that solvers will have clues–letters–to help obtain answers they don’t know.) LearnIT puzzles will draw on existing documents in the help.unc.edu collection for educational content. Clues that are re-used in puzzles will be drawn from a set that will include some ITS-specific information (”Who ya gonna call?–Ninesixtwohelp”) and will include some fun campus information (”You might get bowled over here–Student Union”). Of course we have to come up with other
clues that will vary from puzzle to puzzle, depending on what we need to make each grid sufficiently dense.
The Future
Although the two software packages do a good job of producing these activities, we’ll be working on improving the format as time goes by. For example, we can (and will) associate a set of resources with each crossword puzzle. The set will include the help.unc.edu documents from which the content is drawn as well as any other resources used to develop clues. Out-of-the-box, the software places the resource listing to the left of the puzzle. We want it to appear at the top or bottom to reduce the need for side-to- side scrolling. We know we want to improve or develop options for printing the crosswords so that people can work them when they’re not online. We want to “stamp” all the activities with a LearnIT/ITS branding. As we proceed, we’re sure to find other ways we want to improve the activities.
Wanna Play?
We need ITS volunteers to help test these activities before they’re released to the campus community. Content specialists will be asked to review the educational content for accuracy, but we also want people to help us determine how difficult the puzzles and activities are. Over time, we hope to develop a standard way of assessing the difficulty. For now, volunteers (especially with the crosswords) will just need to answer a few questions. Preview the afs activities by pointing a Web browser to http://LearnIT.unc.edu/puzzles. Select any file that ends in .htm to try out the activity. Direct questions, comments, and offers to play while working to LearnIT@unc.edu.–Elizabeth Evans
The 13th Annual IT Awards were presented at a lunch on April 13th in the George Watts Hill Alumni Center. The IT Awards were created to acknowledge and honor the hard work and accomplishments of technical support staff on campus.
The speaker for this year’s event was Tom Looney, VP of IBM Sales for the Eastern Division. Our own Robyn East introduced him and presented the awards.
A complete list of the winners is on the IT Awards page. This year awards were presented to 12 individuals and 2 teams. Winners from ITS were
In addition to paying for all interested ITS employees to attend, ITS also participated as a Platinum sponsor of the ceremony.
The IT Awards lunch was, as always, a fun event. The lunch provides a wonderful opportunity for the technical staff from all over campus to get together and celebrate each other and the work we do. Over 400 people attended this year’s award ceremony. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees!–DBM
The first meeting of the new ITS Service Managers’ Council was held Thursday, April 14th. Approximately 30 managers from all divisions of ITS met to review goals and future agendas for the group. Robyn East, Deputy CIO, led the meeting. “Communication among our service managers is critical for ourselves and to properly inform our campus customers. The suggestions and feedback from the Council in just the first meeting promises an active group that will help us improve ITS day-to-day operations,” she said. The ITS Service Managers’ Council will have weekly meetings that include reviews of high-impact projects and service updates.
