Our Current and Emerging Projects

For the upcoming year, the following projects are considered "ITS-Instructional Services Key Projects".  While these are not the only active projects in IS, they will definitely be afforded a high priority for staff resources during the coming year. 

Elluminate to Full Service

Elluminate Live! is a virtual meeting ware product that allows moderator-led internet-based elearning and collaboration with options for full duplex audio, sharing PPT presentations, instant messaging, application sharing, breakout rooms, recording sessions for later playback and more.

UPDATE 2009-March-20 - Draft of the "next to final(?)" version of service review document is underway.  Formal service review targeted for April/May?

ICON Integrations

    • Complete ICON Integrations with Exchange (calendar integration with ICON courses, times and locations), Elluminate, Turning Technologies, and Turnitin.

Instructional Mobile Application Development

  • Create a plan for the deployment of iPOD touch devices and UI-centric applications to students.  Analyze the functionality that would be of most benefit to different types of students, and develop proof-of-concept software to demonstrate the value of implementation.
  • Ensure digital media delivered using ITS media servers are viewable on handheld devices. 
  • Work with faculty to develop proof-of-concept, instructional, media-based applications for handheld devices. During this process, identify and gain experience with tools, documentation, training, and other development resources for mobile computing.
  • Look for opportunities to sponsor/support events like the February 19th Apple iPhone developer seminar. 
  • Gauge interest level for iphone developer SIG. 
  • ICON & handheld devices - Collaborate with ICON application administrators to provide digital media support for handheld devices.

Instructional Technology Support Project

Assess campus needs for increasing faculty digital literacy.  A team of CITL and ITS staff will provide the assessment and create a recommendation to put a program or changes in place by fall 2009, with full impact realized in Summer 2010.

 

Online@Iowa, Phase 2 architecture update

Online@Iowa is an all-online course with the goal of teaching incoming students about Iowa's digital resources.

This project is a redesign of both the technical and pedagogical approach for Online@Iowa.

 

Podcasting and Lecture Capture Project

Lecture capturing has become an important emerging technology on the higher educational landscape in the last 2-3 years. Beginning with simple podcasting, colleges across the country have turned to lecture capturing as a means to enhance student learning, as students can revisit classroom content with peers or by themselves outside of the classroom environment. Our peers at Purdue for example, have selected Echo 360 as a campus solution and have implemented lecture capture in all their general assignment classrooms. Northern Iowa has invested in a solution from Accordent. Iowa State is currently investigating a campus-wide lecture campus solution using echo360. Here on campus, two collegiate departments, College of Business and College of Nursing are working with ITS to on piloting lecture capture service. Other collegiate units have expressed interested in following suit in the near future.  Our plan is to have a limited campus service in place by Fall, 2009 with a more complete service available Spring, 2010.

 

IS Training Team efforts

The IS Training Team is working to enhance our training program for instructional support. New courses in ICON with more thematic topics such as teaching for large lectures, using ICON for distance learning, and using ICON discussion forums in a more advanced manner.

New courses may also include iMovie, Captivate, Basic Power Point and more.

 

Spaces to Transform, Interact, Learn, Engage

TILE is a project that has been awarded ARRA funds to create new learning space structures that address a variety of teaching and learning needs on campus and help recruit and retain students. These new student centered spaces will support a variety of models for teaching and learning, including self-paced learning; active learning; increased student engagement; collaborative teamwork; and increased interaction with faculty. In addition to the physical and technology enhancements to these spaces, a key component of the project will be to provide technical support and course design assistance to faculty to use these spaces for active and engaged learning.

 

SUMIT

The goal of the project will be to create an infrastructure of technologies that will allow for easy uploading, encoding and management of media, all through a simple web interface. The primary goal is to give faculty and students the ability to upload media material through a secure and controlled system, for assessment, collaboration, or general sharing. This would be accomplished using a similar work-flow used by media sharing sites like YouTube.

UPDATE 2009-March-20: Development continues throughout the semester. Various project leads in IS have begun stress testing the system, with non-ITS faculty/staff access planned for next week. By the end of this semester, we plan to have data regarding the stability and robustness of the encoding server, and whether multiple encoders would be required for the inclusion of SUMIT in ICON and iFolio.