AT News - August/September 2004
Academic Technologies (AT) is a department of Information Technology Services (ITS). AT News is a periodic newsletter about academic technology events and issues of interest to instructors and researchers.
To learn more about AT, visit our web site: http://at.its.uiowa.edu/
News Items
- Virtual Classroom and Meeting Collaboration Tools Service Pilot
- Moving Sybyl license from SGI to Linux a Success
- Want to Help Us Evaluate Which Course Management System the University Should Adopt?
- New Bioinformatics Server Also Provides SAS Capabilities
- Funding Available for Innovative Applications of Instructional Technology
Events
- Showcase of 2003 Innovations in Instructional Computing Award Winners
- World of Academy of Science
- The Iowa Virtual Soldier at SIGGRAPH 2004
- National Physics Grid Workshop
News items
Virtual Classroom and Meeting Collaboration Tools Service Pilot
This fall, in partnership with the Colleges of Business, Engineering, Public Health, and the Division of Continuing Education, Academic Technologies is developing a virtual collaboration tools service pilot based on Elluminate Live! (http://www.elluminate.com). Anticipated uses range from conducting in-house, ad hoc training, to delivering classes and training across the Midwest, to providing distance education to a large number of developing countries that currently have only limited bandwidth.
Some of the features Elluminate Live! provides are:
- 2-way, synchronous voice-over-IP audio that's accessible at low bandwidths.
- Shareable, interactive whiteboards that include drawing tools and PowerPoint import.
- Interactive quizzes and surveys.
- Breakout rooms that enable private audio, whiteboard, quizzing and application sharing.
- Sharing of applications, desktops or desktop regions.
- Chair control for attendee lists, permission granting, and sequenced hand raising.
- Record and playback capability.
- Direct text messaging offering instant public and private messaging to one, all, or a selected group of participants.
For more information, contact Academic Technologies at its-academic@uiowa.edu or 335-5194.
Moving Sybyl from SGI to Linux a Success
Sybyl, a suite of molecular mechanics and graphics tools supported by AT Research Services, has been ported from its original platform, SGI workstations, to Red Hat Linux. This change makes the management of using these tools easier and less expensive for research labs that would like to use them.
Jason Smart, a graduate student in Mike Duffel's laboratory in Medicinal Chemistry, recently moved the lab's Sybyl license from an old SGI 02 workstation to a Dell Precision 360n Linux workstation. In doing this, Jason reduced the costs for his lab, lowering maintenance charges and improving performance. For instance, a genetic docking algorithm that took overnight to complete on the SGI workstation (albeit last generation) now takes about 2 minutes on the Dell Linux workstation.
Academic Technologies supports a Linux workstation with Sybyl installed in Studio 107. For more information on how to access this system and to learn more on getting Sybyl installed on a Linux workstation in your lab through our shared Sybyl licensing, contact Daniel Langstraat; daniel-langstraat@uiowa.edu or call 335-5194.
Want to Help Us Evaluate Which Course Management System the University Should Adopt?
As you are aware, the University has been in the process of selecting a single course management system for our campus. Our process remains on schedule, and we are currently evaluating proposals from three vendors: Blackboard, WebCT, and Desire2Learn. The evaluation includes hands-on testing of these systems by faculty, staff and students through September 17, 2004. We are soliciting your help for this part of the evaluation. The hands-on testing is important and labor intensive, so we are looking for a large number of testers. To participate in the evaluation, please contact Aprille Clarke at aprille-clarke@uiowa.edu.
We plan to complete the evaluation and make a recommendation for the Provost's endorsement by mid-October. Implementation is planned to begin in Spring 05 and continue for 12-18 months. Resources will be available to faculty and staff to help migrate their materials to the new system.
For complete details on the selection project and on the E-Learning Project, point your browser to http://www.uiowa.edu/~provost/elearning/cms_selection/
New Bioinformatics Server Also Provides SAS Capabilities
AT Research Services has set up a new server that offers two different software tools for researchers: the Wisconsin Package, a suite of bioinformatics tools for processing and analyzing sequence data, and SAS, a suite of statistical tools. SAS is supported by ITS Campus Services.
This new server replaces two older servers and improves the reliability and performance of both of these tools. To apply for an account on this server, go to: http://rtweb.its.uiowa.edu/resourcereg/.
This service is available to University researchers at no charge. For more information, contact Boyd Knosp (boyd-knosp@uiowa.edu).
Funding Available for Innovative Applications of Instructional Technology
The Office of the Provost is pleased to announce this year's call for proposals for the Innovations in Instructional Computing Awards. Deadline for submitting a proposal is October 1, 2004. A total of $100,000 is available for awards. For complete details, go to http://at.its.uiowa.edu/atac/awards/index.shtml.
Last year's recipients will be showcasing their projects on September 16, 2004, 1:00 - 4:00, 301 Lindquist Center South. These demonstrations are open to all. Those who plan to submit a proposal this year are strongly encouraged to attend the showcase.
The goal of the Innovations in Instructional Computing Awards program is to raise the level of instructional computing at the University of Iowa by supporting significant and innovative instructional computing projects that have the potential to improve the education provided to students throughout the university.
For more information about the Council, the Innovations in Instructional Computing Awards program, and previous recipients, point your browser to http://at.its.uiowa.edu/atac/awards/index.shtml.
Events
Showcase of 2003 Innovations in Instructional Computing Award Winners
September 16, 1:00 - 4:00, 301 Lindquist Center, open to campus
Last year's recipients of the Innovations in Instructional Computing Awards will be showcasing their projects. Demonstrations are open to all. For descriptions of the award winning projects, point your browser to http://at.its.uiowa.edu/atac/awards/index.shtml.
World of Academy of Science
Jun Ni, Associate Research Scientist in AT Research Services, was presented with an Achievement Award from The World of Academy of Science at the 2004 International Multi-Conference in Computer Science and Computer Engineering. The award was given in recognition and appreciation of research contributions to the field and the conference. Jun served as co-editor and associate editor of the proceedings for the conference "Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Application (PDPTA2004)" and chaired a workshop titled "Grid Computing Technologies and Applications." He also presented two research papers from AT Research Services.
The Iowa Virtual Soldier at SIGGRAPH 2004
The Virtual Soldier Research (VSR) Program at The University of Iowa College of Engineering's real-time presentation of human modeling and simulation technologies was been accepted for this year's "Real Time 3DX: Demo or Die" at SIGGRAPH 2004 in Los Angeles, California. This event was organized by Sandy Ressler, National Institute of Standards Technology. Leonard Daly, Daly Realism, offered attendees a glimpse into the early stages of VSR's research in real-time human simulation. SIGGRAPH's Real Time 3DX event highlights real-time graphics of all types in a fast-paced, fun, and inspiring way. It exhibits the best real-time computer graphics work from industry, universities, and "secret" labs. SIGGRAPH, now in its 31st year, is the most prestigious conference of its type in the world, with the largest audience and the highest quality, state-of-the-art computer graphics publications.
For more information on the Virtual Solider Research Program go to:
vsr@ccad.uiowa.edu or http://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/~amalek/VSR
National Physics Grid Workshop
Over 40 researchers and educators from around the Midwest and others through VRVS (Virtual Rooms Videoconferencing System) attended the "CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) UIowa Tier 2 Workshop" held July 22 here on campus. This workshop was co-sponsored by AT Research Services and the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The workshop featured presentations and discussions about the CMS Physics Grid project, an international, multi-year effort to support the (CMS) instrument that is being built in CERN Switzerland.
Speakers included Dr. Ian Fisk, from Fermi Lab, who described the Physics Grid project and its need for developing several U.S. national Tier-2 computational centers to support the analysis of petabytes (10^6 Gigabytes) of data that will be generated each year by the CMS instrument; Dr. Ruth Pordes, of the International Virtual Data Grid Laboratory (www.ivdgl.org), who described the new multi-institutional open science grid project; Dr. Yasar Onel (Physics, Iowa) who described the high energy physics work his lab does and their part in building the CMS instrument, and Dr. Shaowen Wang (ITS AT Research Services) who described the physics Grid efforts of his Grid Research and Education Group at Iowa (GROW).
Dr. Onel and Wang organized and chaired the workshop. They said the main thrust of the workshop was to discuss the development of a proposal to establish The University of Iowa as one of ~5-8 U.S. national Tier-2 computational centers for the CMS Physics Grid. If successful, The University of Iowa would serve as a Grid-based shared computational center for high-energy physics and other data-intensive sciences that involve researchers and educators from The University of Iowa as well as other U.S. universities and national laboratories.
Visit http://www.physics.uiowa.edu/tier2/ for more information.
Please let us know what you think about this newsletter.
Email your comments and suggestions to: its-academic@uiowa.edu.
