| Mission and Responsibilities | Methodologies | Statistics |
| Goals for 2002-2003 | Accomplishments | Areas Needing Improvement |
| Efforts to Improve | Activities | Awards |
| Survey Results | Faculty Comments |
The mission of the Arlington Classroom Support Office is to provide technical and customer service support to faculty, staff and students using a wide range of instructional technologies at the Arlington Campus. This support office demonstrates a commitment to the effective use of technology in instruction by designing, providing and maintaining reliable, user-friendly electronic equipment and facilities in the electronically enhanced classrooms, general-purpose classrooms and distance learning facilities.
This office is responsible for the efficient and effective functioning of the Electronic Classrooms, Smart Classrooms, Distance Education Services, Computer Labs and check-out equipment and services offered by the Division of Instructional and Technology Support Services. The responsibilities include providing support for all high-end Electronically-enhanced and general purpose classrooms, audio visual support, teleconferencing support, and computer lab management and support.
| Mission and Responsibilities | Methodologies | Statistics |
| Goals for 2002-2003 | Accomplishments | Areas Needing Improvement |
| Efforts to Improve | Activities | Awards |
| Survey Results | Faculty Comments |
Each electronically enhanced classroom has a listserv assigned to it. The purpose of these listservs is to enhance communications between the support staff and faculty teaching in these classrooms. The listservs are used in order to quickly and efficiently notify faculty of any problems that may arise in the classrooms, when those problems are expected to be corrected, and what accommodations can be made until the repairs are completed. Faculty are subscribed to the listserv for their respective rooms at the beginning of each semester. In addition, faculty are encouraged to use the listservs to inform the support staff and their fellow faculty members of any problems or difficulties they may experience while teaching.
A technician checks each Electronic Classroom at the beginning of each day in order to ensure that all equipment is functioning properly. All equipment is tested and any problems that are found are rectified at that time. This is done to insure optimum reliability of all systems upon which classes depend.
The support office maintains a cell phone in order to provide consistent and reliable service to faculty teaching in the classrooms. When all of the technicians are working with faculty, the support line is then forwarded to the cell phone. The object of this practice is to ensure that faculty teaching in classrooms receive immediate support and are not simply transferred to voicemail. When a trouble call comes in from a classroom, the technician attempts to troubleshoot over the phone. This is done in order to save class time. If the problem cannot be corrected in this manner, or the faculty member does not wish to participate in this effort, the technician goes to the classroom to correct it.
Faculty teaching in the electronically enhanced classrooms are offered one-on-one training in the usage of the systems in the classrooms. In addition, instruction sheets for the usage of these systems are posted in the classrooms.
In addition to the electronically enhanced classrooms, the Arlington Classroom Support office provides the delivery and setup of portable computers, LCD projectors, slide projectors, tv/vcrs, cassette recorders and a portable sound system for voice enhancement in the larger classrooms. All equipment is checked and cleaned on a regular basis.
The Arlington Classroom Support office also provides technical support for distance education classes. These classes are taught in the teleconferencing classroom in the Original Building. The staff provides all technical services for these classes, i.e. establishing connections between the sites, setting up presentations for faculty when necessary and training students in the use of equipment when necessary, researching and deploying new methods of delivering instruction at a distance.
| Mission and Responsibilities | Methodologies | Statistics |
| Goals for 2002-2003 | Accomplishments | Areas Needing Improvement |
| Efforts to Improve | Activities | Awards |
| Survey Results | Faculty Comments |
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Class sessions supported in the Electronically enhanced classrooms for academic year: 1,316, (5% increase from last year) |
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Distance classes supported: 124 (310% increase from last year) |
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Equipment setups 737 (36% increase from last year) |
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Events supports for academic year 2001-2002: 139 (24% decrease from last year) |
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An Arlington DoIT presence on the web for Arlington faculty, staff and students. |
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More in-depth training of wages staff, including training of additional people on distance support. |
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Create a distance learning request form for classes. |
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Upgrade PCs in Electronic Classrooms |
| Mission and Responsibilities | Methodologies | Statistics |
| Goals for 2002-2003 | Accomplishments | Areas Needing Improvement |
| Efforts to Improve | Activities | Awards |
| Survey Results | Faculty Comments |
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Three people on staff have attended the professional training from VTEL for distance education, furthering understanding of VTEL protocols and enhancing our support for those classes. |
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Worked with Upen Malani of the Professional Center to change rental rates of equipment to reflect a more appropriate rate. It had been the same rate for several years, even though the technology had changed. |
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Worked with Upen Malani of the Professional Center to receive 50% of the rental fees the Professional Center charged outside groups to rent the computer labs. Before this, DoIT did not receive any part of computer lab rentals. |
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Upgraded equipment and added more equipment for checkout. |
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Budgeted to create a wage position to enable us to staff the lab in the Old Building 20 hours a week in the summer and 30 hours a week in the fall/spring. |
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Continued to foster a cooperative relationship between DoIT and the Arlington Campus. |
| Mission and Responsibilities | Methodologies | Statistics |
| Goals for 2002-2003 | Accomplishments | Areas Needing Improvement |
| Efforts to Improve | Activities | Awards |
| Survey Results | Faculty Comments |
Information available to faculty on how to reserve classrooms in Arlington. The procedures are quite different from Fairfax and this has caused some confusion.
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Established a position for and hired a classified technician for Classroom Support. |
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Purchased additional equipment for checkout to alleviate the supply/demand deficiency during exams times. |
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Purchased a portable PA system for the larger classes. |
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Purchased new computers and monitors for all four labs in Arlington. |
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Moved the distance learning classroom closer to the support office to make support more efficient and enhanced the design/layout of the class. |
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Improved the functionality of the Electronic classroom consoles. UPS backup systems have been put in place and the down time for any one classroom has been less than one day the entire fiscal year. |
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Formal VTEL training received by LeAnn Pittman, Nick Smith and Derrick Williams of the Arlington Campus to improve knowledge and support of distance education. This tremendously improved our problems with VTEL connectivity. |
| Mission and Responsibilities | Methodologies | Statistics |
| Goals for 2002-2003 | Accomplishments | Areas Needing Improvement |
| Efforts to Improve | Activities | Awards |
| Survey Results | Faculty Comments |
Participation in DoIT/ITU/University Activities
Participated in Online Clock timeclock group
Event Support Policy Task Force committee.
Immediate Impact Awards: Van Ky, Derrick Williams, Vandarine Ky
Outstanding Achievement Award: LeAnn Pittman
| Mission and Responsibilities | Methodologies | Statistics |
| Goals for 2002-2003 | Accomplishments | Areas Needing Improvement |
| Efforts to Improve | Activities | Awards |
| Survey Results | Faculty Comments |
Survey responses in Arlington is thus far extremely small, and as such the averages listed here represent the survey results for the entire academic year. Additionally, not all questions on the surveys received answers. Questions that were not answered have been omitted from this listing.
Room environment: Poor=1 Fair=2 Good=3 Very Good=4 Excellent=5
1.Please rate the lighting in the room.
Avg rating : 4 = Very good
2. Please rate the furniture in the room
Avg Rating: 4 = Very good
Hardware & Software Support:
7. Please rate the operation of the equipment in the Electronic Classrooms. How easy was it to use during lectures?
Operational Support:
11. Please rate the effectiveness of the support offered by the EC Support Staff
Avg rating: 4.7 = Very good/excellent
12. Please rate how well we responded when you had a problem
18. Please rate the overall support that you have received
19. Compared to your last experience using an Electronic Classroom, has the overall experience this semester been:
1. Please rate the lighting in the room
Avg rating: 3.3 = good/very good
2. Please rate the furniture in the room
8. Please rate the operation of the equipment in the Smart Classrooms.
How easy was it to use during lectures?
Avg rating 4.1 = Easy
10. Please rate how well we responded when you had a problem
11. Please rate the effectiveness of the support offered by the EC Support Staff _____
Avg rating : 4.8 = very good/excellent
12. Please rate how well the Electronic Classrooms Support Office kept you appraised of the condition of the equipment in the room (i.e. what problems there were and when they would be fixed)
18. Please rate the overall support that you have received_______
Avg rating: 4.8 = Very good/excellent
19. Compared to your last experience using a Smart Classroom, has the overall experience this semester been:
Much Worse___ Worse___ The Same___ Better___ Much Better__
Avg rating : 3.8 = the same/better
| Mission and Responsibilities | Methodologies | Statistics |
| Goals for 2002-2003 | Accomplishments | Areas Needing Improvement |
| Efforts to Improve | Activities | Awards |
| Survey Results | Faculty Comments |
Dave Davis – “Classroom Support has been timely and complete. All that I would want.”
Thys Van Schaik – On Room Issues: (Teaching Lab 242) “Radiators clank during winter – quite disturbing. The climate is still very variable, despite the lab’s having its own system. It will at once be really warm up front and freezing in the back. Very unpredictable and students frequently complain about this.”
On Classroom equipment: “Basic operation of projector is fine, but trying to do something ostensibly simple such as focus without getting up onto a table seems impossible!” “LCD projector had problems, but has since been replaced – THANKS!”
On Classroom Support Staff: “Always responsive and friendly”
Connie McNeely – On room issues - “A permanent lectern (either free standing or table-top style) for the room would be useful.”
Catherine Rudder – “Your entire staff was terrific. Very helpful. Always on time.” “And thanks to your entire team. You folks do outstanding work.” “I’d personally like to be more adept at using (the technology). Plus, I’d like to learn to video-stream and to go to websites “live” during class (which I think I can do, but didn’t).”
Jack High – “I have been getting the usual level of good service from your office. I very much appreciate the effort that you and your staff makes to accommodate instructors.”
Mary Meixell – “I’ve had no problems whatsoever. I’ve been very pleased – I use a computer connected to the projector for powerpoint, and it is always ready and working. Thanks so much.”
Mark Addelson – “It would be nice to have a cord for the computer/projector connection in the room and of course a 768x1024 res would be great” ( We were storing them in the room, until we lost about 3 of them because they were not being put back in the box. We now put them in the room on request and 15 minutes before the class starts.)
Michael Wasserman – (on room ARL0-245) “Tables have become very wobbly. Also, a lectern with centralized controls for lights, screen, LCD projector etc. would also be helpful at some point.” “Don't know if my responses will be typical because I'm a pretty advanced user - I have my own equipment and can generally fix minor problems that come up, but I've been quite pleased with your folks! Thank you for your assistance.”
One professor ( nameless) said that the touch panel was intimidating and the instructions were not “dumbed down enough” for him. He was afraid to use the equipment. He did not ask for assistance during the semester, however, since filling out the survey and discovering his “fear” of the touch panel, arrangements have been made to call him one two weeks before fall semester to set up a one-on-one training session. He was most appreciative. The survey helped us to find out a problem with a professor we would not have found out otherwise.
Several people have requested tabletop lecterns or standing podiums. The Professional Center has purchased enough for every room on the second floor, from where all the requests came.
Ippolito: Room Arl1-121 "Chairs have too confined a movement. The response is excellent each time I had a small problem."
Rosenzweig - ARL1-329 "I like the split lighting to lower the lights up front. I would like a podium that moves forward so I can be nearer the class, yet is small enough so that I don't block the view of the screen. I do not like the 'corner' position where the big podium is now. I move around alot in class and need to return to the corner of the podium each time I want to change a slide -- that breaks the rhythm. Very responsive to my needs, walked me through over the phone as needed"
| Mission and Responsibilities | Methodologies | Statistics |
| Goals for 2002-2003 | Accomplishments | Areas Needing Improvement |
| Efforts to Improve | Activities | Awards |
| Survey Results | Faculty Comments |