Posted: 04/18/07

Faster, speedier wishes
Students respond to a technology wish-list

Erin Millard | contributing writer
emillard@smcvt.edu

The St. Michael’s student body received an e-mail from Secretary of Academics, Jake Dubuque and the Technology Committee asking students to respond and list a technology wish-list for the campus.

“Respond to this e-mail with your thoughts and suggestions so we can better advocate for students needs with Information Technology (IT),” Dubuque wrote in the e-mail.

Comment and concerns

The e-mail’s purpose was to get opinions from students to bring up issues to present to IT.

Professor Marybeth Redmond uses the overhead projector to show audio and video clips during her Writing for Media II class (Erin Millard, photo) .

The internet is slow, unreliable, students say. They would like to have wireless access throughout campus, and to better integrate services that the school already offers.

“There were a number of days where the Internet didn’t work or was just slow and frustrating,” Dubuque says. “It’s very annoying when it’s something that’s necessary to have when doing homework, and we are used to high speed technology.”

Ninety percent of students who responded to the e-mail said they would like to have wireless access in the dorms, which is currently available only in the library and certain academic buildings.

“The administration is less than anxious to spend money on this,” Dubuque says. “I agree with that, but they don’t allow us to bring our own wireless into the dorms which would help the situation and not cost money.”

St. Michael's students are required to live on campus, but at other colleges, students are able to live off campus where they could choose to have their own wireless Internet access.

“It’s frustrating for admissions to get students to come here and not offer wireless, and it’s hard for students if you do actually go here,” Dubuque says.

A new era

Information Technology is located in St. Edmunds Hall 221. (Erin Millard, photo)

St. Michael’s has improved its technology over the years, and the wish-list is going to help with that even more, chief information officer William Anderson says.

“When the present senior class were freshmen, we had a serious virus attack,” Anderson says.“It was consistent in certain dorms, and they had to be quarantined.”

This resulted in students not being able to have Internet for a couple weeks, disrupting their school work and social communication, Anderson says.

“I’d like to think that we are making improvements such as wireless and going from few classrooms with overhead projectors with no smart boards to now half of them have it,” Anderson says.

In 2003, eCollege was adopted as a learning management system, which allows students and professors to post thoughts and view what is happening in their class.

“I think things in the future for technology could be something along the line of allowing everyone to have a computer to collaborate and show work on the projector,” says Anderson.

There has also been a discussion of Wickis, which serves as a type of bulletin board for students and faculty to post comments on.

“Student and faculty could post thoughts and reactions on this,” Anderson says. “It is like a group blog.

IT supports things that are helpful, and if they aren’t used then they don’t push them Anderson says. Other than improving and contributing to the students, the administration side is looking to be improved as well.

“This mostly has to do with data and how the school operates,” Anderson says. “They would put data into databases and then into a lager warehouse for data.”

Moving forward

Dubuque and his committee frequently meet with IT to discuss issues, Anderson says.

Students work at Information Technology (IT) helping to sort out technical problems on campus. (Erin Millard, photo)

“The student wish-list is good because we wouldn’t necessarily identify what students think is hot or interesting,” Anderson says. “I’m thinking there will be a lot of feedback related to gaming, music and video downloading which we should figure out a way to support that.”

IT is happy to help students with proposals, and figure out how to better cater to students Anderson says.

“IT is very open for student input, but student priorities could be considered more on the top list,” Dubuque says.

For the seniors now, it is a lot easier when dealing with the network than it was during their freshman year in 2003.

“When I was a freshman the registering process was terrible,” senior Brian Plante says. “No one was able to register and every time I tried it said I had a broken pipe.”

"Students used to choose their classes all at once and it would take hours to log on. There were points where the Internet wouldn't work for weeks at a time," Dubuque says.

“Students had to take their computers to IT so they could install a virus killer,” says Dubuque, “Dorms were shut down and [computers] taken to Alliot to be quarantined floor by floor.”

Although things are being improved technology is advancing and students use servers that take up a lot of internet capacity, Dubuque says.

“Students are using YouTube which takes up a lot of Internet capacity,” Dubuque says. “Sites just keep getting more advanced.”

Internet speed, especially in the evening is important for students to be able to utilize, and IT likes to get input from students about their priorities says director of information technology Billie Miles.

“If the students figure it out and you can actually do it we would help you,” says Anderson, “We would take it very seriously, but our budget is limited."