Installations

Traditionally, non-teaching periods are busy for the Technical Services Unit with installations and other activities requiring access to the Division's teaching spaces at times of less demand.

This semester break sees the installation of or upgrades to data and video projection in several of the Division's Category 'B' Teaching spaces..

Two student-accessible multifunction devices are also being installed.

Work on the NeViLLs (formerly known as the Microteaching rooms) goes on, with completion by 19 July promised by the contractors.

TSU is also working to replace AUVA computers on staff and postgraduate student desks, and hope to have most if not all of the desktop machines removed and replaced by the beginning of Semester 2.

There are still three labs with AUVA machines: current plans are to upgrade these labs before the commencement of teaching in 2005.

Progress on the installation of satellite dishes on Building 20

Dishes are finally appearing on Building 20, and there is lots of activity in the “head-end” control room. A lot of the equipment required to receive, decode and retransmit the signals is now installed, with final tuning happening over the next few weeks.

Extensions to the RF network are also in progress, with cabling hooked up in Buildings 1, 5 and 9 (Building 20 was cabled when the building was built). The interconnections among the buildings is installed and final commissioning of the fibre links should be completed this week.

Once the network is in place, aerial outlets throughout the Division will be capable of receiving the 5 terrestrial television services, 14 satellite television services (including services in Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Italian and French: the Italian and French services are for the benefit of the CIT), and 8 radio services (over television frequencies) planned to be available. See the draft list of the services proposed to be provided.

A cable-ready television, VCR and monitor, PVR (Personal Video Recorder) or television tuner card for a computer will be needed to access the services.

Distribution of some of the services live over the computer network is the next step, followed by a system that will allow any of the services to be recorded onto hard disk centrally and streamed on-demand over the computer network. Suppliers are working on these solutions now and we expect to have something operating by the end of this year.

Assets

There is still room for improvement in the Division’s mangement of its IT assets.

A recent audit of the Division's assets revealed that quite a number of computers have been moved around the Division without the appropriate asset movement notification going to the University's asset management unit.

The Technical Services Unit has been conscientious in notifying Assets when computers are moved, but due to pressures of work and other factors not all movements come to its attention.

While the outcome of the recent audit was much better that a similar audit three years ago after the faculties were merged into the Division, there is still room for improvement.

Whenever any University asset is relocated in the Division, the comedu helpdesk must be notified.

Moving Assets off-campus
No University asset is to be removed from the campus unless an Application to Remove University Property off Campus form is completed and properly approved. Approval to remove University assets off campus must be renewed every twelve months if the item is still off campus. Contact the cehelpdesk to arrange for a form before moving an asset off campus.

Web Addresses

There will be a change to web addresses for the Division’s websites when the University’s new Web Content Management System (CMS) is fully operational in 2005.

At its meeting number 2004/4 held on 9 March 2004, VCAC notedthat:

Item 10: Consistent URLs for the University of Canberra

VCAC received and noted a proposal to establish consistent URLs across the University. The committee noted that the branding of UC as http://www.canberra.edu.au is an extremely powerful marketing tool and an important factor in search engine ranking and is lost in URLs where this is broken up. A consistent URL would also assist in the implementation of a Web Content Management System.

In VCAC resolution 2004/4/6, VCAC agreed:

• that the University adopt a URL standard of the form: http://www.canberra.edu.au/xxxxxx/yyyyyy; and
• that responsibility for the allocation of all URLs hosted on UC servers should rest with the UC Online Program Manager.

With the Web Content Management System coming on line over the next six months, "marketing" sites in the Division will be transferred to the new system.

UCOnline Guidelines for the generation of URLs for the UC Online website are available online at http://www.canberra.edu.au/aboutuconline/standards/url-guide.html.

What this means to the Division is that current urls will change. Any reference to existing urls in printed materials must be changed at the earliest opportunity, as existing comedu.canberra.edu.au or www.ce.canberra.edu.au urls may not function from the end of 2004.

A draft table showing existing and proposed urls that conform to the VCAC decision and UCOnline guidelines has been produced.