Marriage and family grad program integrates use of Apple products

27th January | No Comments | posted by | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

When Lee’s Behavioral and Social Sciences Department ran into some “technical” problems after deciding to implement the new graduate program for marriage and family therapy (MAFT), administrators turned to the iPad 2 for answers.

Along with the new MAFT program came stricter supervision guidelines from the American Association for Marriage and Family.

The grad program requires two internships and a practicum with supervised sessions, meaning a professor or professional oversees any sessions that student counselors conduct with clients.  Usually, this is done in-house at various counseling centers, with in-house professionals supervising the sessions.

However, because of the stricter regulations involved with the new program, Lee faculty must oversee the sessions for themselves. Students counsel in churches and clinics all across the area, which makes it difficult if not impossible for faculty to be present at each session.

In short, the counseling sessions must be recorded on video and brought to class.

Providing video equipment for each student in the program could cost thousands of dollars, and simply setting up the equipment could prove to be problematic too the program.

“My fear was that supervision sessions would be all tech time,” said J. Trevor Milliron, the director of graduate studies in counseling psychology.

Milliron was relieved to find that the iPad 2 provided a solution for the problem

The iPad 2 is equipped with features that appeal to the department’s needs, including the iMovie application and 10-hour battery life.

“It was exciting when we saw the technology come out,” Milliron said.

Security concerns also sent Milliron looking for a less expensive but secure way to record the supervised sessions. HIPAA violations are a serious matter, and administrators don’t want to risk slipping up.

The students in the MAFT program will be trained in how to lock their iPads, using what Milliron called a “suicide switch” in order to keep the contents of their counseling sessions safe from unauthorized viewers.

If someone is trying to unlock the iPad who doesn’t know the password, they will only have a limited number of attempts to log in before everything on the iPad is erased.  This protects the client information and recorded video sessions in the case that an iPad is stolen or falls into the wrong hands.

Milliron also said that all records will be kept online instead of on paper, which he thinks will also contribute to tighter security.

The famous Apple product has a few more tricks up its sleeve that the department plans on utilizing.  The FaceTime application could provide for live viewings of sessions in class, and Apple TV’s that are set up in each supervision room can save class time by making for smoother transitions between videos.

The iPad-infused MAFT program is expected to officially begin in summer 2012.

 

 

 

Improvements come to spring registration

23rd January | No Comments | posted by | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

Lee students witnessed a new approach to the registration process in January as it was moved to the Science and Math Complex and infused with new tools, such as card scanners and self-help kiosks.

Rob VanHook, Information Technology senior programmer analyst, worked for over two weeks on the new kiosk web application before implementing it into registration this spring.

After arriving to the SMC, students swiped their ID cards at one of the several kiosks in order to view their personal registration status.

The web application at the kiosk ran a report to see if the student had completed all steps required to confirm registration for the spring 2012 semester.  It determined if the student had already registered for classes, if he or she had a balance left to be paid from last semester, if he or she had financial aid available and if a down payment for the semester had been paid.

If a step hadn’t already been completed by the student, a nearby printer printed out the student’s check list, and the student could then go through all the necessary steps to confirm registration.

“The change was made to prove a point,” VanHook explained.

His point being that all of these steps could be completed by students online. If students registered for classes and confirmed registration on Portico, they wouldn’t have to physically come to registration at the beginning of the semester at all.

The new system is also set up in a way that conserves a significant amount of paper. In previous semesters, every student registration data sheet was printed off whether or not every student came to registration. The new kiosk method allows only those who need to print their schedule out to do so.

VanHook plans to do a few more things to the kiosk application, including make it more user friendly and work out the bugs that come with most new programs. He also plans to revamp the registration process on Portico to make it look more like the kiosk application.

While VanHook was working on the web application, IT Operations was breaking a figurative sweat for two to three weeks in advance to prepare the SMC for spring registration.

“There is a lot of work that goes into registration set up,” Chris Golden, director of IT Operations, said.

The work involves setting up a committee to lay out a plan and meeting with departments to determine the various needs.

Afterward, IT Operations gets to work, running cords and installing new switches to support the technology. After the initial set up is approved by the departments, Operations makes everything look clean and polished.

When the two days of registration come to an end, IT Operations and physical plant tear it all down in record time, pulling out all the wires, re-imaging machines and placing them back in computer labs to be checked and tested.

“It’s a thing of wonder,” Golden said.

Luckily, the IT Operations team had carefully planned this process, so tear down went smoothly.

 

 

Regroup streamlines Lee-related information

20th January | No Comments | posted by | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

As promised, Regroup, Lee’s new multifaceted notification system, replaced Just ReLEEsed and Everyone Mail forms of communication across campus in late fall 2011.

“We are trying to make our email

more relevant to a broader stroke of the campus,” Morgan Adams, IT project manager, said.

Now that the spring semester is in full swing, Regroup notifications are showing up daily in staff and student email accounts. Unlike the former methods of notification that were recently done away with, Regroup actually allows the recipients to control how notifications end up in their inbox.

“The whole goal of Regroup is to provide an avenue for everyone to determine how they want to be communicated to,” Director of IT Systems Nate Tucker said.

Regroup funnels all Lee-related messages and announcements into a central source that distributes the information, but the program also allows for individualization by offering the option to receive notifications that are specific to a group or club on campus.

To procure the benefits of this new system, virtually any member of the Lee community can log in to leeuniversity.regroup.com with their Lee user ID and password. From there, a user can choose the groups that they want to subscribe to, such as the athletics group and lost and found.

Lee students and staff do not only receive the information that is distributed through the site, but users of Regroup can create their own groups and post their own notifications as well.

Every request for a post must go through an approval process, and announcements deemed as Lee-related or Lee-sponsored are disseminated throughout a group or throughout the campus, depending on the what the sender prefers. Likewise, messages can be sent to staff only, students only or both.

Another much-appreciated perk of the new Regroup system is that it allows users to decide if they want to receive notifications as they are posted, or if they would rather receive them in a daily digest of information. This gives the user even more control of their inbox.

“Instead of multiple emails, Regroup is one mainstream way to communicate to the staff and students,” Adams said.

Regroup offers possibilities of connecting user notifications to the social media world via Facebook and Twitter, and it also serves as Lee’s emergency text message alert system.

IT works to create a social atmosphere with technology

24th October | No Comments | posted by | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

Today on Lee’s campus, students can take the time to grab a bagel or even a foot-long sub sandwich while spending some valuable one-on-one time with a computer of their choice.

The various new Sodexo dining locations have brought a world of possibilities to campus, and Information Technology didn’t waste any time in adding their own possibilities to the mix.

By adding Macs, PCs and plentiful wireless access to campus locations such as Einstein Bros Bagels and Subway, the IT Department has allowed students to more easily juggle the aspects of their busy lives, and they can do so in a much more social atmosphere.

“People are busy now, and they like to multitask,” said Nate Tucker, director of IT Systems. “Eating locations now contain Wi-Fi for free, so we are using that same concept and putting it on the Lee University campus.”

Speaking of being social, it’s hard to miss the new social lab located on the first floor of the Humanities Center.

The idea was first integrated on campus in the Science and Math Complex, and because of its success, the IT Department brought the concept to the larger computer lab in the Humanities Center as well.

“We wanted to … create an environment that would foster collaboration,” Chris Golden, director of IT Operations, said.

Check out the video below to see for yourself!