When the campus-wide Internet connection was accidentally severed on Tuesday of last week, the importance of technology in the lives of Georgetown University students had rarely been demonstrated so powerfully. Students were unable to send or receive email from family and others off-campus, nor were they able to conduct research, nor could they send Instant Messages to friends down the hall.
However, the ability to connect with the world through the Internet is only the one way in which technology has transformed the campus over the past decade. Not only has it allowed people to share and retrieve vast amounts of information, but technology has also made once-tedious administrative processes easier, increasing student productivity.
Most powerfully, however, technology has begun to change the learning experience itself. Students have so far seen increased use of computer presentations in class, as well as increased collaboration with their professors and fellow students. The Internet has opened up new opportunities for research and collaboration with scholars and resources worldwide.
In many ways, it has come to the point where today’s Georgetown students take these technological advances for granted. The consequences of last week’s Internet outage show just how ubiquitous technology has become on the Hilltop. In the future, this trend will only escalate, yet it promises much to the Georgetown student of the future?the Georgetown experience will likely become more streamlined, more collaborative and more productive.
Yet while today’s Georgetown students are able to take advantage of the latest technologies in higher education, this has not always been the case. In no small way, Georgetown has been playing catch-up relative to many of its peer institutions for the past 10 years. While Georgetown still lags behind in a few respects, the past years have seen an unprecedented level of collaboration across the campus aimed at improving the student experience with regard to technology.
What has been done
When technology emerged as a central issue in higher education during the 1980s, large science-oriented research universities and small liberal-arts colleges took the lead in bringing state-of-the-art technology to their students. By the early 1990s, Georgetown, as a mid-sized research university without heavy involvement in the sciences, fell behind relative to such institutions.
By then, technology became part of the University agenda in a big way. During much of the decade, the Information Services and Computing Task Force?a group composed of staff and faculty from across the University? met to hammer out Georgetown’s technological future. By 1997, an action plan for campus technology had taken shape. Many challenges existed in breaking down boundaries
Perhaps the most farsighted and effective proposal was the creation of a campus-wide Office of Information Services, headed by the new position of Chief Information Officer and Vice President for Information Services, which provided a central agent for long-term technology planning and development. Under this structure, University Information Services was established as a unified campus department responsible for providing technology services to Georgetown students and faculty.
David Lambert has held the position of CIO/VPIS since its inception in 1998. In that time, Georgetown has seen a remarkable effort to improve campus technology infrastructure and services.
Among the most notable achievements of Lambert’s tenure has been the wiring of all campus dormitories. When he arrived in 1998, only three dormitories had network access in every room. Today, every on-campus housing facility provides network access. Currently, the University is in the process of rewiring campus housing with next-generation fiber connections to provide even greater network speed. Currently, New South and Harbin dormitories, as well as Village A, Village B and the Nevils apartment complex, feature the state-of-the-art fiber wiring.
While last week’s outage inconvenienced Georgetown students, faculty, and staff, it is particularly ironic considering that a concerted effort has been made to reduce the possibility of such an event. According to Lambert, as recently as five years ago, there were around 25 places on campus where an accident might have caused a catastrophic loss of network access. Today, only three such locations exist.
In addition, a network operations center was built three years ago to monitor campus information services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “Three years ago, we wouldn’t have known about the outage [Tuesday] morning until we came in and people were screaming and yelling,” said Lambert. “[Last Tuesday], there was a technician that got a phone call at home.”
While network speed and reliability have been vastly improved, new student services have also been implemented over the past few years to increase productivity.
Since the push to streamline and improve campus technology began, the University has been dedicated to building new computer labs in order to improve student access. Currently, computer labs are located in each first-year dormitory, as well as ICC, Reiss and LXR. In addition, a student multimedia development lab, the Gelardin New Media Center, opened last fall on the first floor of Lauinger Library.
In the fall of 2000, GUMail was implemented, unifying the disparate mail systems used by various campus departments. Though McDonough School of Business students remain on the GroupWise system, the task is essentially complete, Lambert said. UIS, however, is still considering implementing a new webmail client that features address book and calendar functions.
While system integration has been a goal of campus planners, network security has been a great concern as well. At the same time as GUMail, UIS also rolled out the NetID system, which promises more robust authentication. Every Georgetown student, faculty member or other employee receives a NetID, which he or she may keep for life. In addition, all new University web applications will be NetID enabled, allowing for a simplified and more consistent user interface.
In addition, the past years have seen an increased focus on technical support for students and faculty. In 1998, only eight UIS employees were students. Today, UIS employs around 40 students. According to Lambert, this has been in keeping with a goal of “services for students by students,” as espoused by former Dean of Student Affairs James A. Donahue.
The improved service has, for example, seen a new emphasis on user-friendly documentation. UIS currently employs technical writers to produce easy-to-understand guides to campus technology, which are published both online and in hard copy. Besides the improved support and documentation, UIS has hosted a series of Technology Town Hall meetings to receive input directly from students.
While UIS has done much to streamline student services, this emphasis has been reflected in many campus departments. In few places is this trend more apparent than in the University Registrar’s Office. As recently as the mid-1990s, students were forced to navigate reams of paper during preregistration. “You had to get a paper biographic form, paper course request forms, a paper schedule of classes, a paper degree audit and a paper survey form,” remembered University Registrar John Q. Pierce IV.
Today, each of those elements has been replaced by electronic versions available over the World Wide Web. Students are able to browse classes, check available seating, preregister and complete their schedules entirely online. This semester, for the first time, an electronic waitlist system was partially implemented, and next year the Registrar’s Office is hoping to implement online add/drop, which would make the registration process entirely electronic.
When the Registrar’s Office first implemented student self-service through the Internet in 1997, the effect was profound. “The first couple days of classes, literally hundreds of students would come into the registrar’s office asking for a copy of their schedule,” Pierce said. “We’ve eliminated that altogether by providing access over the web.”
Not only have these changes made dealing with the Registrar’s Office easier, but they have also resulted in a cost savings for students. This year, the Registrar began charging students a one-time records fee of $30 for unlimited transcripts, rather than charging for each transcript a student requests.
Increased levels of self-service have been envisioned. According to Pierce, plans have been made for an online search engine for the University catalog that would make finding classes a more intuitive experience. Such a search engine would provide course information to help students select classes that would allow them to graduate on time.
While UIS was crucial in delivering the technology, Pierce was quick to point out that many other departments, such as Student Accounts, Financial Aid and the various Deans’ Offices, worked together under the leadership of the Office of Information Systems to make these services a success. “I think what has been really exhilarating has been the collaboration of so many people around campus in moving all of these things forward simultaneously,” he said.
The next steps
Next fall, student technology services will be vastly improved when the renovated St. Mary’s Hall opens on the north end of campus. Currently, student technology services are located at various locations across campus. When the renovated hall reopens, services located presently in New North, such as the Help Desk and Hoya Computing, which provides sales and service of personal computers, will be combined in a brand-new Student Technology Center for one-stop assistance.
Beth Ann Bergsmark, Director of Academic and Information Technology Services for UIS, also hopes the new St. Mary’s Technology Center will serve as a place for students to learn about upcoming technologies. Bergsmark envisions a “showcase” area for new technologies, such as new uses for PDAs (devices like the PalmPilot).
In addition to the relocated support service, a new computer lab will offer 24-hour access to students. According to Bergsmark, not only will the new St. Mary’s lab be more accessible, but also the workstations in the lab will be spread out to facilitate greater group interaction. Once the new lab is finished, more than 100 computers will be available for student use 24 hours a day, seven days a week in St. Mary’s and Lauinger, as well as in the dormitories.
While the efficiency of student services will undoubtedly improve with the move to St. Mary’s, just as important is the increasing role of technology in the classroom. The Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship plays a central role in bringing technology as an active player into Georgetown’s classrooms. For the past three years, CNDLS (pronounced “candles”) has worked with faculty to increase the use of technology in their teaching.
Randy Bass, professor of English and executive director of CNDLS, sees the center’s role as a “general contractor” to Georgetown’s faculty. “We want them to come to us and let us figure out all the pieces they need,” said Bass. “We don’t actually deliver technology, we just try to make delivering technology better, more efficient and more coordinated.”
CNDLS sponsors several programs to encourage technology implementation, including the Colloquium of New Learning Environments, a year-long exploration of technology in which 15 departments are participating, a Teaching, Learning and Technology Summer Institute, which assists both faculty and graduate students, and the TLT Fellows program, which selects five faculty members for intensive course redesign.
“Our function is to coordinate, to pull together, to make a whole greater than the sum of the parts,” said Bass.
While the Center deals directly with faculty, Bass sees the organization playing a central role in students’ classroom experiences. “Almost everything we do affects students, because we work with faculty to try to find all kinds of creative ways for them to think about student learning and to redesign courses so that they’re enhanced and more effective,” said Bass.
Response from the faculty has so far been enthusiastic. “We went from nowhere to everywhere in two years,” said Bass. In spite of such enthusiasm, the current level of participation represents only a fraction of Georgetown’s faculty.
“We certainly don’t spend any of our time trying to talk anybody into being interested,” said Bass. “Most faculty, sooner or later, will be interested in what we can help them do, but everyone will do that at their own pace.” Bass also noted that while only a relative handful of professors have consulted CNDLS so far, the center is presently unable to assist many more professors.
CNDLS provides a unique opportunity for the University to integrate technology into classroom experiences, due to its role as both a center for both technology and pedagogy. According to Bass, other universities have separate centers for teaching and technology that are often in competition. At Georgetown, CNDLS has been able to build bridges between those two realms. “One thing that we are ahead of the curve on is the collaboration and the vision and what it means to try not to make any one of these decisions separate from the others,” said Bass.
While increasing collaboration between and increasing faculty participation has been crucial, so too has been the implementation of technological infrastructure in Georgetown’s classrooms.
As University Registrar, Pierce has been particularly sensitive to these concerns, as the Registrar’s Office aims to match classroom facilities with the type of learning that a professor utilizes. “Classroom technology, for a long time, involved making sure that there was a blackboard and chalk,” said Pierce. However, with the advent of the Internet and the widespread use of applications like Microsoft PowerPoint, more professors than ever are requesting access to computing technology in the classroom.
According to Bergsmark, the University currently aims to equip 70 percent of classrooms with technological enhancements. Georgetown has developed the “ePodium” model for classroom technology, where the professor can centrally control audio, video, network access and room lighting.
In addition, several interactive classrooms, where each student has access to his or her own computer, have been built. Bergsmark said demand has been overwhelming for these classrooms, located in Reiss and the Car Barn. Next fall, the third such classroom, designed with input from CNDLS, will open in the newly renovated St. Mary’s Technology Center.
What to expect
While technology has become nearly ubiquitous in today’s Georgetown experience, what can Georgetown students expect five years from now?
Undoubtedly, new technologies will continue to emerge. The Office of Information Services continues to look out for new technologies on the horizon in order to prepare the Georgetown campus for their eventual implementation. It also participates in external forums to compare its progress with its peer institutions. Georgetown is a member of the Common Solutions Group, which provides a forum to see what other universities, including Duke, Carnegie-Mellon and MIT, are providing to their students and faculty, and to adjust Georgetown’s planning accordingly. “We’re trying very hard to make sure we’re well-positioned to make decisions when those technologies become mainstream,” said Lambert.
One of the most promising developments for University students is the forthcoming implementation of wireless networking. In locations like Lauinger Library and Sellinger Lounge, where there is great demand for network connections, yet only a limited number of connections, wireless technology offers great potential.
While advances have been recently made in the speed and reliability of wireless networks, Lambert said security concerns need to be addressed before implementation can be considered. “I’m not inclined to deploy wireless, even in a pilot test, in a place where we have institutional and administrative data going across [the network]. But would we deploy it for student access to the Internet in a building? Absolutely.”
Also, Lambert sees smaller computing packages becoming ever more prevalent, particularly through the rise of “converged” technology. Rather than carrying both a cellular phone and a PDA, convergence will mean a person carries one device that has the features of both cell phones and PDAs. According to Bergsmark, the University is now considering a long-term plan to implement support for such devices. In addition, a pilot program using PDAs in a first-year English class is planned for this fall.
Within five years, students will likely be able to access individualized web portals, where information unique and vital to each Georgetown student will be presented in a user-friendly manner, said Pierce. However, the portal project is not part of the current long-term strategy and is not presently funded.
As technology applies to the learning experience, Bass sees an increased focus on digital materials in the classroom. “We’re going to see a much higher percentage of students engaging in manipulating electronic materials as a part of what they do in their coursework,” said Bass. Facilities like the Gelardin Center, where students can create and edit digital audio and video, will become increasingly important.
Will these technologies eventually supplant traditional teaching techniques? Not necessarily, says Bass. “Will there be a lot traditional lecture classes? I’m sure there will be. Universities tend not to change rapidly and unpredictably. But I think we’re going to see that shift, and I think it’s going to start to grow in a faster curve than it has been growing.”
Lambert agrees that certain contexts will always exist where technology might not be appropriate. “There’s a lot that’s extraordinary about the analog world that’s always going to be analog, and if that isn’t reflected in our teaching, and our relationships between students and faculty, then I think we run the risk of losing a lot that’s critical to us,” said Lambert.
However, Lambert also claimed that the boundaries that define the role of technology are constantly changing. The emergence of new technologies constantly redefines these boundaries. “I have seldom gone more than three years without there being a technology intervention that I had not anticipated that is so significant that it had to go from being non-existent to being a driving priority in your planning in three months,” said Lambert, who cited the World Wide Web as an example of such a technology intervention.
Regardless of what technologies will emerge over the coming years, Lambert is confident technology will continue to improve student life. “You’re going to have opportunities to be interacting with faculty members before you get here,” he said, “You’re going to have opportunities as alumni to participate in the University in ways that you don’t now get as alumni. We hope that we can make the ‘administrivia’ of being a student much better than it is now.”
Certainly, the administrative framework set up over the past years has served Georgetown well. The Office of Information Services has worked diligently to tear down walls between campus departments in order to foster a better experience for both students and faculty. Whatever technologies the future will bring to the Hilltop, Georgetown students will be taking advantage of them.
