ePortfolio Server

Rising demand for server space and increasing expectations lead to innovative approach to student storage.

Last year the IT & Infrastructure Committee supported a proposal for the development of the first stage of an ePortfolio system for students enrolled in courses in the Division. The Division has been offering students enrolled in some units additional server storage and display space on request from staff. The space was only made available for the duration of the unit, and any materials left on the server after the end of the unit were erased.

Executive approved the proposal for the first stage of an ePortfolio service in December. The hardware for the system is now on order and is expected to be commissioned over the next few months. By Semester 2 all students enrolled in courses in the Division should have access to 1GB of server space that they will be able to access until they graduate.

The plan has come as a surprise to several people around the campus, so the proposal is included here for information so news of the Division's initiative can be disseminated more widely.

Need
Network storage for students, especially those doing courses in media, journalism and education, is a big issue around the campus: the 20Mbyte limit on student storage imposed by ICT Services makes it impossible for these students to develop their assessable work online, and they are unable to keep their completed work stored for long periods. ICT Services believes that larger storage requirements beyond the 20Mbyte limit are specialist requirements and should be provided by the Divisions in response to individual needs.

Each semester the Division of Communication and Education makes available network storage space, on Divisional servers, for student enrolled in particular units where staff have requested it. In some Media courses, for example, students are provided with private network storage space, a "public" space they can use to publish work on the Internet, and shared directories for group assignments. Typically 1Gbyte of storage is allocated to each student: twenty times the space available to them through their ICT Services-provided Home Drive.

At the end of each semester, the storage is wiped and prepared for the next semester's units.

Recently the concept of an ePortfolio has been developed: "…an online environment loaded with electronic tools that can be used to develop and present a portfolio package." (Ali Jafari, http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm04/erm0442.asp).

In 2005 it is proposed to begin the development of an ePortfolio service to students enrolled in courses in the Division of Communication and Education: such that each student enrolled in a course in the Division, and students enrolled in units requiring server space additional to the 20MB offered by ICT Services, will be given continuing access to up to 1GB of space on a network server while they are enrolled at the University. The space can be used for private storage, public access or presentation, and collaborative work.

In later years, increased capacity, redundancy and backup will be added, as demand for more space and by more students requires additional capacity. It might also be possible to add content management tools: publishing tools to help students display their work in a number of formats, and so on.

The system should be built from the ground up to allow for expanded capacity to handle more students and to give each student more space. It should also allow for expanded capabilities (new electronic tools as they become available) without having to migrate older materials.

Justification
Increasing demands for network storage for students doing courses requiring it are driving this proposal: but as well a service of this sort would attract and retain students in these courses.

ICT Services believes that extra storage should be managed by Divisions on the basis of needs: there is a demonstrated need to give media, journalism and education students access to additional storage for their project work, and provide them with space where they can store and provide access to their "portfolios" to their assessors, peers, prospective employers and the wider community.

Future growth
Proposals to expand the system will be prepared as requirements become clear: for example to provide greater security (backup), greater capacity and more sophisticated tools.

Access to new Category B spaces in Building 9

Increased Divisional resources pose some challenges to the Technical Services Unit.

Since the spaces in Building 9 became the responsibility of the Division, there have been numerous requests for the rooms to be unlocked for scheduled classes and for casual use.

Often the doors have been left unlocked after the last occupant has departed.

The TSU does not provide security services, and staff needing access to these rooms should requisition the appropriate keys from their Head of School so they can access the spaces as required. They should also take responsibility for ensuring the spaces are locked when leaving.

The TSU has approached the University of many occasions to develop proposals for the installation of Cardax swipe card systems to access spaces around the Division (especially the Microteaching rooms in Building 5), but to no avail.

Divisional labs

An update on the current status of labs in the Division.

All labs should now be operational, with the CLRC upgraded to new machines and a printing function added to the photocopier; the new Media Lab is operational.

Video editing workstations are scheduled for upgrade from Media 100 to new machines with Final Cut Pro HD software this week.

Students can now log on to Macintosh computers in Divisional labs with their student ID and password.

Updated Helpdesk statistics

More complete February 2005 Helpdesk statistics are provided.

Last month incomplete data for February 2005 was provided: below the figures are updated. While the graph demonstrates the amount of requests dealt with by the TSU in February, we have been more diligent recently in adding requests to the system so that we can better manage the requests.

TSU statistics including final February 2005 figures

We have also added some features to make adding and tracking jobs easier, including a web form where users can add their requests to the database directly without sending an email. The webform is at http://www.ce.canberra.edu.au/tsu/staff_add_request.cfm

New online form to request TSU services:
http://www.ce.canberra.edu.au/tsu/staff_add_request.cfm

MacWorld Conference and Expo 2005

The world’s Number One Macintosh trade show, conference and exhibition.

IT and Media Services Manager was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship from the Apple University Consortium to attend the MacWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco in January 2005. The Division also contributed to the trip. He attended the PowerTools Conference on AppleScript, the Keynote address from Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the MacIT Conference aimed at IT Managers using Apple technology for clients, servers and management, and the Expo itself.

HDV
This is the year of HDV (High Definition Video), or at least according to Steve Jobs. He is putting Apple behind the push, with support for editing the HDV format available in Apple's high-end video editing software Final Cut Pro HD announced last year. At the MacWorld Keynote, Steve announced that the cheaper Final Cut Express video editing software will also support editing HDV video, and incredibly so will iMovie, the 'consumer' video editing package that comes free with every new Macintosh, or can be purchased as a part of Apple's iLife suite of media products which retails in Australia for AU$119 a copy (for the whole suite, which also includes iPhoto, iTunes, IDVD and Garageband).

Steve demonstrated Sony's new "prosumer" HDV camcorder, the HDR-FX1, that is available in Australia to the University for about AU$5,500. He then invited then Sony President and CEO Kunitake Ando onto the stage, where Mr Ando told us that Sony would be releasing even smaller and cheaper consumer HDV cameras onto the market later this year. A professional version of the FX1, the Z1, has also be released: about AU$7,500 to the University.

The Division has 40 computers in student labs capable of editing the new format, but we face challenges with storing the large video files required on the computers (most of the hard disks are just not big enough, and the networks aren't up to transferring the files around even if storage were available somewhere on the network). These issues can be solved, and if the demand is there a proposal to purchase some HDV cameras and to overcome the storage and network problems will be put to the Division's IT & Infrastructure Committee later this year for funding in 2006.

Why HDV? Superb quality at a low price.

Mac Mini
Of greatest interest to the University among Steve's other announcements during the Keynote is the Mac Mini: at well under AU$800 to the University (without keyboard, mouse or display), it is by far the cheapest Macintosh ever. While not suitable for high end tasks (like editing HDV, for example, although the machine is capable of it), as a desktop computer for Office and internet use it's hard to beat the price.

A standard Dell (with keyboard, mouse and display) in the Division's current configuration is priced just under AU$2,000. A similarly configured Mac Mini (with keyboard, mouse and display) would cost us less than AU$1,200: less than 2/3^rd the price of the PC.

PowerTools Conference
The two-day PowerTools Conference on AppleScript was useful in exploring using the technology to help manage the various aspects of the video servers. While not all of the components can be controlled through AppleScript, AppleScript can also control unix shell scripts. The Conference showed how a solution can be built through the use of a number of processes integrated together through the AppleScript environment (if only we had the skills, experience and most of all time).

MacIT Conference
Sessions at the MacIT of particular interest included:

• Macintosh in the enterprise
  What some larger corporations are doing to support the Macintosh.
• Managing a disparate computing environment
  University experiences in integrating the Macintosh.
• Using the UNIX shell
  A couple of sessions covering the use of the command line in OS X (useful for automating the video servers).
• Tiger Server in Depth
  A look at the next release of the Macintosh server software.
• Xsan
  Apple has just released Xsan: Storage Area Network technology allowing networked computers fast access to large central storage (particularly useful for video editing labs).
• Shell scripting
  Automating the management of recurring activities required to keep services running on Macinsh servers.
• Remote Desktop
  Apple software for managing users' computers at a distance.
• K2 (formerly known as KeyServer)
  Software asset management (making sure the software we install and use is legal) is a challenge for the University: K2 (an upgrade to a product the University already owns) can solve the problem for us for PCs and Macintosh computers.

Expo: the Show Floor
While not as large a previous MacWorld Expos in San Francisco (all trade fairs in the US are apparently down post 9/11), there was a positive feel on the floor of the Expo. The Mac Mini and iPod Shuffle (a merging of the iPod and USB key technologies at a bargain price) were the stars of the show.

There were a lot of iPod third party product exhibitors on the floor, which sometimes made the show fell a bit like iPod World rather than MacWorld, but it did demonstrate what a success the iPod has been for Apple. One particularly interesting piece of software for the iPod is iLingo: a language translator for the iPod. The English Euro pack contains over 450 translations from English in each of French, German, Spanish and Italian. Designed more as a companion for travellers, iLingo allows the user to display translations written on the iPod screen, and play a native speaker speaking the phrase out load in the chosen language. The content is intuitively organised into categories that make it simple to find the necessary phrase quickly and easily.

It was also good to be able to catch up with the latest from vendors like:

• El Gato (makers of the EyeTV hardware and software that forms the basis of the current live video streaming of local terrestrial television content around the University network)
• FileMaker (version 7 of FileMaker Pro has now been released that has great support for internet access to data: something there is a need for in the Division).
• Belkin, Kensington, Dr Bott and Griffin (all producers of a range of third-party products that provide additional functionality to the Macintosh, especially in video and audio capture, storage and peripherals).
• Printer manufacturers with good Macintosh support, including Canon, HP, Epson, Xerox and Brother.
• Camera producers Kodak, Nikon, Olympus and Canon, for digital still and movie camera, and scanners.
• Large software vendors including Macromedia, Adobe and Microsoft.
• Publishers O'Reilly and Peachpit Press
• Sorenson Media (producers of the software used here to prepare video for on-demand streaming).