As exams approach, students may find it useful to take advantage of group study rooms in Leyburn Library. Each group study room offers a whiteboard, a LCD screen monitor that you can connect your computer to, and a quiet place where you and your study group can peacefully get work done. You can reserve a group study room by following the link below.
Archive for the 'General News' Category
Group Study Room at the Leyburn Library
Published November 29, 2011 General News , ITS , Student Leave a CommentUpgrades to cause disruptions in coming week
Published November 17, 2011 General News , ITS Leave a CommentE-mail, wireless connectivity, WebAdvisor and a wide variety of other IT services will be disrupted periodically from Saturday, Nov. 19 through Friday, Nov. 25, as a result of upgrade and maintenance activities planned by Information Technology Services. Please plan your work accordingly, and contact the Information Desk (540-458-4357 or help@wlu.edu) if you have questions or concerns about any of these items:
Saturday, Nov. 19
9 a.m.-noon
- All network services will be disrupted for short periods of time for many occupants of Science Addition and Howe Hall. These faculty and staff members have been notified individually by e-mail
Sunday, Nov. 20
9 a.m.-noon,
- All network services will be disrupted for short periods of time for many occupants of Parmly Hall and Howe Hall. These faculty and staff members have been notified individually by e-mail
1-4 p.m.
- Wireless service for the entire campus, including fraternities, will be disrupted for short periods while ITS upgrades wireless equipment.
7-10 p.m.
- Many services, including faculty/staff e-mail, network storage, WebAdvisor, and others, will be disrupted for short periods of time.
Monday, Nov. 21
8-10:30 p.m.
- Many services, including faculty/staff e-mail, network storage, WebAdvisor, and others, will be disrupted for short periods of time.
Tuesday, Nov. 22
8-10 p.m.
- Services that rely on the W&L network username and password could be disrupted briefly during an upgrade to Active Directory.
Friday Nov. 25
7 a.m.-5 p.m.
- Power outage on campus, resulting from Facilities Management work. Many IT services will be available from off-campus, with the exception of the following:
- The Stable will be unavailable
- Network storage will be unavailable
During the 2011-12 academic year, Information Technology Services will implement a series of improvements to Washington and Lee University’s network infrastructure, laying the foundation for continuing improvements in network speed and reliability.
“W&L’s network is at the heart of many critical services benefiting students, faculty and staff. This infrastructure project is an important step to improve performance and ensure that we can meet future needs,” said Chief Technology Officer David Saacke. “This new infrastructure will help us to support teaching, research and other work that increasingly rely on the network.”
ITS has purchased new switches, fiber lines and other core infrastructure, and regular network traffic will begin to flow through portions of the new equipment in November, 2011. The implementation will occur gradually and on a building-by-building basis. In each location, ITS will test the equipment, notify the occupants of the affected buildings, and then re-route network traffic from old switches and lines to the new network equipment, resulting in brief network outages over a period of a few hours. ITS is scheduling the work outside of business hours in order to minimize disruption. When the series of upgrades is complete in summer 2012, the core portion of the network will be capable of speeds of 20 gigabits per second, ten times the current rate. In addition, the configuration of the new infrastructure will be more reliable, providing multiple, redundant paths for data to flow if portions of the network are impaired. The immediate benefit for faculty, staff and students will be more consistent and reliable network performance.
Also in summer 2012, ITS will move its servers into a new state-of-the-art data center operated by Rockbridge Area Network Authority, in which W&L is a key partner. ITS servers providing critical functions will be housed in the new Richard A. Peterson Data Center, which will operate more efficiently and be more secure and reliable than the current facility in Tucker Hall. The servers store critical University data, including employee and student records and personal and shared data, and provide functions such as course registration, Web publishing, faculty and staff e-mail and more.
The new data center is a key component of a plan led by RANA to improve access to high-speed Internet connections in rural portions of Rockbridge County. RANA was launched in 2009 with federal funding and support from W&L and other local partners; see http://www.ranabroadband.net/ for more information.
Technical, professional development and other titles are among the 777 new full-text resources that have been added to Safari Books Online, available to all W&L faculty, staff and students. Safari includes thousands of titles and is available from any location at http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/?uicode=washleeu
New titles include:
- Creative Blogging
- Communicate to Win
- A beginner’s guide to using your iPhone as a business productivity tool
- Adobe Dreamweaver CS 5.5
- Android Forensics
- Beginning iPad application development
- Camera guides on many models