With the start of the Spring Semester, the university will be propelled into a new age of technology.
With the migration of Webmail users to the new T-mail configuration and many new library additions, students will find both subtle and drastic changes made to the campus’s technological environment.
At the head of the technology movement is T-mail. It has been almost a year since T-mail was first experimentally implemented within particular departments and among faculty. With mostly positive results, the Office of Information Technology has decided to go ahead and attempt to migrate the entire student body.
“It is my understanding that (OIT) will have the system in place for all students to voluntarily migrate at the beginning of the semester,” Bryant Mayne, student technology chair, said.
The reason for a voluntary system, said Brice Bible, OIT chief information officer, is that OIT cannot handle the large student population all at once. And not only will it give OIT a chance to gradually move students into T-mail, but it will also give students a chance to have a say in when they move.
“We’re setting up a Web site where students can go in and select the day that they would like to transfer from Webmail to T-mail,” Bible said. “Say the student was signed up for February 3rd, and during that time your e-mail will be down. And then sometime in the morning it will be back up.”
Bible also stressed that though the students will have most of the Spring Semester to migrate to T-mail, OIT hopes that eventually an entire migration of Webmail users to T-mail users will occur, thus officially eliminating Webmail.
For students who are eager to migrate, OIT does suggest some preparations. First, students need to clean their systems with an antivirus software like McAfee, which is freely available to all students at http://antivirus.utk.edu.
Secondly, both Macintosh and Windows users need to update their operating systems. Step-by-step directions for both items are included on the T-mail Web site under the migration schedule link.
But T-mail migration isn’t the only new technological advancement students will experience this spring. The Commons area of Hodges Library is also stepping up to the plate.
Rita Smith, co-manager of the Commons and head of the Reference and Instructional Services Department, outlined many of the spring library additions.
“For the Spring Semester, we’ve added new furniture, including new computer spaces. We’ve added the plasma screen with the Smartboard in Group Room 220C. We also added movable white boards and video-conferencing equipment as well,” Smith said.
The new computer furniture includes collaboration pods. The pods consist of three or four chairs around a table that has an arm holding a screen to project the visuals from a desktop computer for better group studying.
Smith said the pods should be ready at or close to the very beginning of the semester. The Smartboard in the group study room on the right side of the Commons still needs some electrical work but should be ready within the first weeks of the semester.
Video-conferencing equipment will also be made available within the first couple of weeks. The equipment will be checked out in the same fashion as laptops and digital cameras and can be used to support both individual and group study with people from outside the campus. And many new rolling white boards will be available to students who need a little more privacy and perhaps some board space for studying.
Also, Smith added that many students are not aware of the instant messaging service the library has for student help assistance.
“What we’ve been told is that our generation uses e-mail, but you guys use IM, so we figured we better do IM as well,” Smith said. “We started in the Commons an IM chat service as part of the AskUsNow program so that if students have a question they can contact us that way also.”
The hours of IM support are listed on the library’s Web site. Because of available personnel, hours are limited, but most fall early to late evening.
These implementations are just the start of a completely refurbished Commons area. The blueprint for the finished Commons area includes an entirely different floor plan with many new computers, laptops and other technologies available for checkout, as well as completely new furnishings.
“We actually had a designer architect to lay out the blueprint for the Commons,” Smith said. “All the furniture is on wheels for better access to shared information, and next year we’ll have group furniture pods that are similar but better for working on laptops.”
The blueprint also has plans to knock out some walls to allow for a different Commons set-up. The long rows of computers will be replaced by alternating grids of both individual and group study pods dispersed around the entire Commons area on both sides.
Outside the library, Bible said Utunes, the UT-operated music service, is not as widely used as OIT predicted.
“Utunes is available to all students, on campus or off, all through the semester,” Bible said. “I’m not sure all the students know about it though. It’s a good service because it’s really hard not to find any artist on there. There are several billion tracks.”
Bible also added that besides Utunes, he hopes to see wireless in the dorms in time for the Fall Semester. Though many of the dorm common areas and most UT buildings currently have wireless, by next fall, every dorm room should be equipped with working wireless Internet.
