Portico keeps you in the know

5th October | No Comments | posted by | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

Lee’s Portico website, newly transformed as of last spring, is becoming the go-to place for all university-related information.

Information released by Lee, such as official news articles, announcements and the calendar of campus events, is being pushed to Portico, and Lee’s Information Technology team has been working to prepare the site for this new flow of information.

With Portico becoming the new home base for most of the official communication to the Lee community, the infamous Just ReLeesed emails are taking a dive and evolving into something much more efficient.

Instead of being sent out in the form of numerous emails about lost keys and student events, student announcements will be brought into the public eye by a new system called Regroup, a Datatel Inc. product that specializes in electronic notifications.

“If you are interested in staying connected, you still have options,” Nate Tucker, director of IT Systems, said.

Through Regroup, the members of the Lee community can have more control over what notifications they receive as well as how often they receive them. Email recipients can decide if they want immediate notification of these types of announcements via email or would rather receive a daily digest of notifications once every day.

While this type of information will continue to go out through emails, new tabs will also be created in Portico to allow a place for student announcements and lost and found inquiries so that they can be accessed at any time.

With the new system, the faculty, staff and students can get news and information out to the Lee community while avoiding a needlessly cluttered inbox.

And that makes everyone happy.

New website is on the rise

21st September | No Comments | posted by | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

Lee University is gearing up to launch a new website in the coming months that will feature larger-than-life photography, bold fonts and the integration of social media as it strives to tell the “Lee story.”

“We believe that Lee has an experience to offer that no one else has,” Nate Tucker, director of IT Systems, said, “and we want to offer that experience electronically through the website.”

Lee made its debut appearance onto the World Wide Web when it launched its first website in 1997. Though this initial site was extremely basic, Lee’s online presence has evolved over the years.

The website made its first changes in 1999, adding a more colorful design and allowing for the release of online news articles as Lee attempted to further its brand. However, the site was eventually thought to be cluttered, and the third version of the Lee website was born, stepping back to a more basic design.

The goal of this third site was to facilitate smooth navigation. Thus, features were implemented such as the scrolling iframe and the group headings (About Lee, Academics, Athletics, etc.) that are still listed across the website today.

In 2005, the site transformed again when the fourth version was put into place. This version remains active as the current Lee website.

The changes, however, won’t stop there as Lee’s IT team prepares to send the site into its fifth cycle.

“We are after a fresh site and fresh content,” Tucker said.

The actual look and feel of the campus will be pulled into the new web pages while highlighting the unique aspects of Lee, such as the Service Learning and Global Perspectives programs.

The central focus of the new site will be on recruitment as it incorporates a clean and open presentation of captivating images, a stronger use of social media and simple navigation throughout.

The Whiteboard Network is responsible for the graphic design of the new website. Also helping to tell the Lee story is the Alderman Group, which will contribute the strategic content design for the project.

Stay tuned for more news and information to come!

IT Operations integrates campus updates

| No Comments | posted by | in About IT Staff and Student Workers, For Students, Faculty and Staff

While on summer vacation, some Lee students traveled across the globe on a cross-cultural trip.  Others completed a strenuous, but valuable, internship.  Some even decided that they needed to continue their quest for a degree, so they remained on campus for summer school.

In the meantime, Information Technology Operations spent most of its summer months updating the technology at Lee University.  From getting rid of old switches to adding virtual servers, IT Operations prepared the campus for the upcoming school year.

The Lee network operates on a large number of switches throughout the campus.  A switch acts as a link, allowing the different areas of campus to connect with the network.  IT Operations replaced 30 of them, some of which were 10-15 years old.

“Can you imagine the difference between the [technology] today compared with it 10-15 years ago?” IT Operations Director Chris Golden asked.

The difference is significant to say the least.  To add some perspective, Lee University didn’t even have a presence on the internet until 1997, and some of Lee’s switches could have been as old as 1996.

On top of replacing the ancient switches, IT Operations swapped out several wireless access points around campus, leaving newer ones with a more powerful connection.

Then there were the additional servers.  Adding new servers is no easy job; it requires time to actually build the servers, install special software and tie the new servers into the already existing system.

These particular servers house many more “virtual” servers that allow for plenty of space to support the ongoing growth in hardware and software that the university acquires, including thin clients and virtual lab technology.

Supporting an entire campus full of technology is no easy task.  However, by applying these updates, the IT Operations team used the summer to take another step in the direction of a continuously stable technological environment for the Lee community.

LCD announcement screens now under central management system

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

The LCD screens that are positioned around Lee’s campus have not only adopted a fresh look but are also operating under a new and more efficient system called Blackbox.

Communication is key on a campus like Lee University, and the LCD screens allow for simple communication of information such as events, deadlines and other news throughout the Lee community.

Unfortunately, the previous system that controlled the screens was anything but simple.  Because the LCD screens needed a nearby computer in order to display announcements, multiple control computers had to be positioned around campus in places like mechanical closets and offices.

To put it simply, several computers were controlling the screens, and if a new announcement was to be added, someone had to go to each individual control computer to update each screen.

“There was really no rhyme or reason to [the old system],” Director of Information Technology Systems Nate Tucker said.

Under the new Blackbox system, however, the 40+ LCD screens can now be controlled from one central point in the Higginbotham Administration Building.

The central computer is called the “publisher,” and the outlying screens are called “subscribers.”  Any changes made on the publisher will, in turn, affect and update the subscribers all over campus.

The new system also holds other resources that have not yet been implemented, such as the ability to show video footage on the screens.

“We’ve not even touched the capabilities of [the Blackbox system] yet, but we are definitely moving forward,” Tucker said.

With this in mind, avenues of communication throughout Lee’s campus can only get better.