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School of Journalism
and Telecommunications

College of Communications
and Information Studies

College Technology

"The use of technology, of course, is not an end in itself, but in the end it's useful to use technology." There it is -- my best chance for Bartlett's Quotations and immortality. It just so happens, however, that technology has become essential to very many of courses we teach in the College of Communications and Information Studies. At the least complex, but certainly not insignificant level, many courses are held in one of four "smart" classrooms in the Grehan Building. Two of these classrooms are very smart indeed, because they include computers for every student. A number of courses that require multimedia production skills are taught in these rooms. In-class writing assignments on deadline are also a routine activity in these facilities.

Some courses require the use of fairly elaborate audio, video, and computing equipment. For instance, we teach broadcast reporting and production for both radio and television. We have two television production courses and a digital audio production course. That means we have to have camcorders, audio production facilities, and videoediting facilities sufficient to supply 50-60 students per semester. On the computing side of things, we teach digital photography, desktop publishing, multimedia production, web design and publishing, and various short courses in specific software packages. That instruction requires multiple licenses for software and sufficient computers and peripherals to adequately serve literally hundreds of students every semester.

All of this is not cheap, and it comes at the expense of significant labor and support, as well. The College Technology Coordinator position was created and filled in the spring of 1996. I am the first and only person to hold the position thus far, though I have been lucky to be ably assisted by some really excellent student help. Much of the labor and support mentioned above has been at my personal expense, but I wouldn't have it any other way. During the time I've been the CTC, the College and the School have been relatively fortunate in their respective technology-related fund-raising, again due in part to my efforts. I've had the opportunity to gain absolutely invaluable experience (and impart some, as well) in computing, networking, digital audio and video production, and facilities design and construction.

Below you'll find some brief descriptions of our technological accomplishments over the last few years, as well as a photographic tour of some of the facilities. Just keep clicking "next page" through the tour and you will return to this page. Thanks for looking -- e-mail me and tell me what you think.

The Microlab facility in the basement of the Grehan Building was created during the summer of 1996, and was opened to students, in its present form, in the Fall 1996 semester. Prior to that, the space was used by the Journalism sequence for classroom teaching for a number of years. A joint funding agreement between the Presidentıs office, the Chancellorıs office, and Information Systems provided $288,000 as seed money for the Media Center for the Future. The majority of that money was used to furnish and equip the labs.

The lab consists of a four-room complex, of which two rooms are teaching labs, and two rooms are open labs. The teaching labs are given over to general use whenever classes are not meeting, which is more than half of the total hours the lab is open each week. Hours are 8:00 am to midnight, Monday through Thursday; 8:00 am to 5:00 PM on Friday; noon to 5:00 PM on Saturday; and noon to midnight on Sunday. At least one, and sometimes two student consultants are on duty at all times to answer questions and provide assistance. The agreement between Information Systems and the College that established the lab provided for only the classes of the School of Journalism and Telecommunications in the teaching arrangements, but COM classes have been taught in the lab in the summer, and numerous COM classes have made use of the labs on one-time basis. Additionally, instructors from other units on the campus may book brief periods of time in the classrooms during open lab hours.

Here's a rundown on the equipment in the labs:

47 PowerMac G3s -- 350 MHz, 6 GB, 128 MB
10baseT Ethernet
2 Proxima LCD projectors
PowerMac G3 file server
3 S-VHS videocassette recorders
5 Nikon CoolScan 2000 slide/negative scanners
2 Nikon CoolScan 1000 slide/negative scanners
Three UMAX flat-bed scanners
3 DV audio/video converters
Epson 3000 wide format color printer
2 Lexmark laser printers
Computer Software:

Nifty Telnet Fetch MT-Newswatcher Netscape Navigator Adobe Illustrator Adobe Pagemaker Adobe Photoshop

Turbogopher Acrobat Distiller Authorware Avid Videoshop Extensis Suitcase (fonts) Microsoft Office Suite Quark Express Passport

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We have been fortunate to make significant technology-based improvements in two Grehan Building classroom facilities. In addition to the computer lab teaching complex in the basement of the building, the College of Communications and Information Studies now offers its faculty and students two "smart classrooms." Room 225, which is used primarily by the Department of Communication, and Room 115, primarily the domain of the School of Journalism and Telecommunications, now feature computers, videocassette decks, visual presentation devices, and Ethernet connections. Ceiling-mounted LCD projectors display images from the new equipment on 6'x8' screens and provide credible stereo sound. The result is an enhanced learning experience made possible by the in-class use of multimedia, the World Wide Web, specialized software, and projections of books, other materials, and even three-dimensional objects.

Here is the rundown on Room 225:

45 student "traditional" classroom
Instructor workstation: Dell Win95
ELMO media presentation camera
Proxima LCD projector
10baseT Ethernet
S-VHS videocassette recorder
Computer Software:

NetMarket Netscape Navigator Quicktime for Win95 RealPlayer TCP3270 Think Wave Educator Adobe Acrobat Reader

Eudora Pro Internet Explorer Microsoft Office Suite Microsoft Access Spinner Plus SPSS for Win CommSearch 2nd ed.

Prior to 1988, the only data communication capability in the Grehan Building consisted of modem-based dial-up services via standard telephone lines. In 1988, all the offices in the building and the Communications Reading Room were equipped with asynchronous broadband connections to the IBM 3090 mainframe computer, which remained the standard for most of the building until 1993. The exception to that situation was in the Department of Telecommunications office suite. Using 1990 salary savings, Telecommunications established the first Ethernet LAN in the building and purchased a NeXT file and e-mail server, along with two networked printers.

In 1993, a combination of funding from the chancellorıs office, the College and the two undergraduate units allowed the purchase of hubs, conduit, and wiring sufficient to install Ethernet connections in faculty and staff offices on the first and second floors of the building. The exception was the deanıs suite, where Ethernet was finally implemented in 1996. Beginning in 1988, a succession of Appletalk networks were in use in the Journalism writing and editing labs in the basement of the building. All of these were funded by the School of Journalism. These labs, as well as the offices of the Kentucky Kernel, saw a partial implementation of Ethernet in 1993, when most of the rest of the building was done. The remainder of the labs were outfitted with Ethernet connections in late 1995 and early 1996 through funding provided by Information Systems, the presidentıs office, and the chancellorıs office to establish Phase I of the Media Center for the Future.

The School of Library and Information Science, which became a part of the College in 1993, began its own networking initiatives in 1992, but the first implementation did not take place until after the merger was accomplished. In October of 1993, Ethernet connections were installed in the SLIS Information Lab, which had been served by only an isolated Novell LAN and one asynchronous port connected to a dedicated NOTIS terminal. These improvements were funded by SLIS. Faculty and staff offices, which previously had only dial-up access to remote computers, were upgraded to asynchronous broadband in late 1993 or early 1994, when 18 ports were made available due to the Ethernet upgrade in the Grehan Building. About one year later, in early 1995, salary savings in SLIS made it possible to upgrade to Ethernet connections in all faculty and staff offices and to add a few more connections in the computer lab.

Since 1993, a number of additional Ethernet connections have been established in the Grehan Building on an as-needed basis, primarily in TA offices, conference rooms, the College Reading Room, and classrooms (enabling the creation of two "smart" classrooms). In the summer of 1998, the College purchased a new switch/router and three new hubs (with an additional three hubs slated for purchase in 1999) in preparation for construction of a new multipurpose multimedia production and research facility. One major benefit of this switch arises from fact that it enabled the establishment of the Grehan Building as a discrete subnet of the university backbone. The building had been sharing a subnet with the Gillis and Administration Buildings, but now enjoys the full bandwidth of a subnet. Additionally, the switch and hubs are capable of handling both 10baseT and 100baseT Ethernet standards, which will allow significant network upgrades in the future. The last remaining asynchronous broadband connections, in the Reading Room, were removed in October 1998.

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