To help evaluate clickers as a possible alternative to scantron “bubble sheet” assessments, DoIT partnered with Dr. Tamara Mendelson in BIOL 142 “Foundations of Biology: Ecology and Evolution” to conduct a five-week pilot of the Triton Data Collection System (DCS) by Turning Technologies. Mendelson and her teaching assistants from all four sections of the 295-student course will share their experiences during an informal brown bag lunch on Friday, November 22, at noon. A box lunch will be provided for registered participants.
The goal of the pilot was to see if and how students might accept clickers as an alternative to Scantrons when given a choice between the two. During the first two weeks of the pilot that began just after the 10th day of classes this semester, students were only given Scantron bubble sheets for their weekly discussion section quizzes led by one of Dr. Mendelson’s TAs: Archer Larned, Michael Martin, Karan Odom and Tracy Smith. In the next two weeks, TAs asked students to only use the Triton DCS clickers. In the fifth and final week, students were given a choice between the two methods. The results? Overall, 88 percent of students chose the Triton DCS clickers over Scantrons, though individual sections ranged from a low of 81 percent to a high of 95 percent. Individual student comments included the following:
“clickers are easier to use than scantrons, clickers are a better quiz method”;
“I would like to continue using clickers because it is much more faster since we do not have to fill in a bunch of bubbles or waste paper. It is more fun!”;
“clickers are easy and efficient”;
“I would like to continue using clickers because once you get used to them they are very easy”.
As many of you know, UMBC has had a large number of phishing attacks in the past few weeks. This has resulted in a number of compromised accounts which the attackers are using to setup fake web pages and send out large volumes of spam. In an attempt to better protect accounts from fake web pages, DoIT will be removing permissions from user AFS web volumes for accounts not currently using their web space (http://userpages.umbc.edu/~username).
This will not affect anyone who currently has a web page or stop anyone from creating a web page, but will stop automated attacks and make it more difficult for attackers to setup web pages on people’s accounts. The permission change is minor, and can be easily reversed by anyone wishing to use their web space moving forward.
Directions for how to re-enable your web directory, as well as general information regarding using userpages, can be found at https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=31195980. If you have questions or concerns please contact the Technology Support Center (x53838) and they will be happy to assist you.
To learn more about Baltimore GiveCamp, visit http://www.baltimoregivecamp.org, or connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (@BmoreGiveCamp). To learn more about or register for Seminar Saturday, visit http://www.seminarsaturday.org. To find out more about the national GiveCamp movement, visit http://givecamp.org/.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAjbDyCHUNY
Press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11202568.htm
]]>A new phishing scam is attempting to fool people into providing personal information by claiming that there is a Blackboard notification waiting for them, and provides a link for logging into Blackboard. Do not click this link.
Blackboard email notifications do not require you to sign in to Blackboard to read them, the information is provided in the email itself. Always visit http://my.umbc.edu directly to log into Blackboard or by typing it in the address bar, or using your own bookmarks/favorites.
Here is an example of the phishing email to watch out for:
Good Morning,
Your school has posted an important information regarding a course for you.
You are required to immediately sign in to Blackboard Learn.
Click here to sign in to Blackboard Learn
Thank you.
Blackboard Learn Notifications.
Here is another example:
]]>Good Morning,
An important course form has been posted to you on the Blackboard Learn System.
Click here to confirm the form
Thank you.
Blackboard Learn Notifications.
The Division of Information Technology has been working with Turning Technologies to determine the optimum channel for clicker use so as avoid conflict with our campus wireless network, which was greatly enhanced this summer.
As a result of this review, please be advised that DoIT changed the Turning Point clicker channels on lecture hall computers on Friday afternoon, September 19. The new channel will be posted on the PC monitor and there will also be a sign facing the students. The channel was changed to reduce the possibility of RF interference with the system.
DoIT set the receivers in the lecture halls to channel 25 except ITE102 (LH8) which was set to channel 50. The reason for setting LH8 to a different channel is because of the proximity to LH7.
Instructors using their own receiver and laptop should select a channel between 74-82.
Turning Technologies has reviewed our recommendation and concurred.
Instructors:
To change/verify the channel on a computer (also found in Turning Point documentation):
1. Select the Polling tab in the TP software
2. The Receiver icon is located on the upper gray bar. If the PC channel does not match the posted channel, click on the icon.
3. Select the recommended channel. Laptop TP users should use a channel between 74 and 82.
4. Close the window.
Students:
To change the channel on a clicker (also found in Turning Point documentation):
1. Press the CH or Channel button (older response cards have a 'Go' button).
2. Enter the two digit channel for your location.
3. Press CH, Channel, or 'Go' again.
4. When the ResponseCard receives the new channel, the the light will turn green.
The reason for this change is that clickers use 1MHz channels within the 2.4GHz frequency band. On campus, we primarily use channels 1, 6 and 11 for wireless, which is occupied by the clicker channels 1-23, 26-48, and 51-73. To ensure that there is minimal interference, Turning Technologies recommends that devices are programmed on channels 24, 25, 49, 50, and 60-82.
More information from DoIT:
https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=41190437&src=search
https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=27297178&src=search
More information from Turning Technologies:
For questions or concerns, please contact AV Services (X52461).
]]>If you’ve been using the UMBC campus wireless system lately (and our administrative software says that you have), you may have noticed a big improvement in speed and coverage. That’s because this summer, DoIT’s network engineers completed, in record time, a comprehensive system upgrade that brings UMBC up to current 802.11 standards.
That’s not to say that the campus wireless network has been ignored until now. Far from it. But the piecemeal ways in which previous expansions to the network were done, with an eye toward basic functionality that provided coverage to about 90% of building interiors, left UMBC with a hodgepodge of technologies, some almost 10 years old.
Discussions about a possible upgrade began in April. Soon after, the Office of Residential Life, eager to improve the wireless network in its buildings, agreed to fund upgrades to all of the residence halls. After the university put forward the funding for the academic buildings, the project was approved.
The massive amount of new network equipment required for the upgrade was ordered in May and arrived in June, when work commenced in the residence halls.
In Chesapeake Hall, for example, owing to the building’s solid cinder block construction, wireless signals were often interrupted. To combat this, during the building’s renovation, access points were installed in every other room, giving each group of four suitemates a point of their own.
Another immediate problem was in locating all of the 900 existing access points, many of which weren’t mapped. This was done with detection software, and a fair bit of eyeballing. Within two weeks, over 500 access points in the residence halls had been upgraded. Each access point would require approximately 30-45 minutes of work from two student employees to complete, with the project ultimately requiring over 1500 total hours of work.
Six student employees, along with network engineers Carlos McKinney and Ray Soellner, did the lion’s share of the work. The project also received an assist from DoIT’s telecom group with helped with some tricky wiring issues, and some of the more problematic locations.
Once the student staff had done the hands-on work, they assisted the network engineers to complete the configuration tasks, including making sure to accurately map the locations for each of the now 1200 access points.
In mid-July, work on the main campus began, which presented some unique challenges, such as the access point located in the rafters above center court in the RAC, and the one 20’ from the floor in Public Policy’s Lecture Hall 9.
Network Engineer Carlos McKinney remembers Lecture Hall 9 well.
"What we ended up having to do,” McKinney said, “is calling somebody from the electric shop to get an extension ladder to get to this one access point at the top of the lecture hall.”
McKinney said, “It did more swaying from side to side than I would expect an extension ladder to do, especially when you're trying to climb it. Ultimately we were able to get the access point replaced, but that was a bit of a trial, especially for me. I generally don't like heights anyway, and now I'm climbing up this extension ladder that's swaying, and it's not like I can grab onto something - it's a sheer wall.
“So, that was fun. But ultimately we got the access point replaced, it came up and everyone was happy."
In the Commons, where up to 1100 wireless devices might be in use at any given time, the number of access points was increased from 22 to 46, and these were placed closer to the places where traffic was heaviest.
Damian Doyle, DoIT’s Assistant Director of Networks and Security, commented on the changes there.
“Last semester in Commons, if you sat in Main Street in the middle of the day and tried to use wireless, you could barely check your email. You could maybe get a third of a megabit through, it was just so saturated with people,” Doyle said.
“I went over yesterday and did some informal measurements and I was getting fifteen or twenty megabits down to my phone,” said Doyle.
Work on the project was completed on August 21, with only days to spare before the fall semester was to begin. Similar projects at College Park and Towson took 6-12 months, while employing outside contractors, which greatly adds to the costs.
Now that the upgrade is completed, wireless users should notice a number of immediate benefits.
Doyle said, “[Before the upgrade] I could stream YouTube or run basic services; if I tried to do a bandwidth calculation I could maybe get 10 megabits. Now, I get sixty or seventy.
“Users will now see a lot less buffering. They’ll be able to multitask. If they are going to do higher end computing, if they’re really pulling a lot of data down, it’s probably an order of magnitude different, maybe five or ten times faster,” Doyle said.
With this massive improvement behind us, DoIT is already looking ahead to the next generation of wireless infrastructure, which is up to 10X faster than current standards. That means that a repeat performance of this summer’s magic will likely be required in the next three to five years.
Let’s just hope that the same great team of engineers and technicians is involved in that project.
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