Technology News

This is a question that just came in from a student who was interested in knowing if video chat would work on campus using some of the popular tools such as Google video chat.  The short answer is well, sorta, but it might be sporadic.

For those who care about the details, the college currently has a 45Mb/sec connection to the Internet. This connection is shared by all campus users. The basic principal we follow in managing the connection is to share equally and create the best experience possible for the majority of uses.

Even though we have a relatively small connection, it is possible to share it amongst a large number of users because most uses consist of short bursts of activity such as browsing the web. There are uses such as streaming video and file sharing, that tend to be continuous rather than short bursts of activity. If even 30 people, were doing these kinds of continuous activities, it would severely degrade the experience of the large numbers of people doing the lighter activities such as web browsing. This is the instance where we do not just share equally. Preference is given to the traffic that is bursty such as web browsing. There is also a higher priority given to traffic originating from academic spaces and faculty and staff offices. This is done to ensure that class lab activities, etc go as smoothly as possible.

For an institution our size, we have a limited connection. During the coming year we will be upgrading the connection adding another 50% or more bandwidth. It is our goal to be able to at least double the connection by the end of the 10/11 academic year.

Thanks for the initial question (it’s a good one!) and we’ll keep you posted..

You are now automagically enrolled in your Moodle course if you are a student and enrolled in a program that has requested a Moodle site.  No longer do you need to mess around with that hinky enrollment key business.  Enrollments are updated frequently so you should be always able to access your course site once you’ve registered for your class.  There are a bunch of other changes that you can see by going to http://elms.evergreen.edu and look at our online documentation.

If you need more information, contact the folks at Academic Computing or call the Computer Center at 867-6227.

If you are a blogger at Evergreen and have logged in recently to Evergreen’s blog server, you may have noticed some pretty big changes.  blogs.evergreen.edu has been upgraded to the latest and greatest, WordPress MU 2.8.2 2.8.4a.  The dashboard has a whole new look.  If you have trouble using it our question, please get in touch with the folks in Academic Computing who can walk you through the new interface.

Through the work of a Administrative Computing and an energetic student intern, my.evergreen.edu will be transformed this fall based on a survey and assessment that will be conducted this spring.  For more information, please contact David Metzler at 867-6728