Information technology, Georgia. University System of Georgia. Board of Regents. Office of Information and Instructional Technology

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July - September, 1997 - Volume 9, Number 1
Contents
z From the Vice Chancellor z BOR Names New OIIT Vice Chancellor z Connecting Teachers and Technology Course Development Project: Historical Archaeology z "Assistive Technology": PeachNet and the Internet z EDP Audits/Year 2000 Readiness z ASDL Web Site Provides Information on DL Activities
From the Vice Chancellor
***PeopleSoft was awarded the software contract for the financials and human resources systems. The chart of accounts committee is working with PeopleSoft to define a new account number structure. Business and Finance Systems and Technology Support Services are discussing dates and sites for acceptance testing and the possibility of using PeopleSoft to help address Year 2000 issues.
***Training materials for GALILEO end-users are now available through links to online demos and tutorials via the GALILEO homepage under About GALILEO/GALILEO Training. Also at GALILEO Training are links to register for training in GALILEO Basics. This hands-on class provides an intensive overview of the unique features of GALILEO for librarians and library staff. Fall training includes open enrollment classes on October 7 in Athens and October 30 in Macon. Each library is entitled to one free training session per fiscal year-see Contractual Training under this link for dates. For more information about training opportunities, contact Lauren Fancher: voice (706)369-6282; e-mail at lauren_fancher@oit.peachnet.edu.
***The 26th University System Annual Computing Conference will be held at Rock Eagle 4-H Center, Eatonton, Georgia, October 22-24, with over 80 presentations focusing on "Bridging the Funding Gap." Registration forms, sent out at the end of July, are due by September 24. For further information, contact Andrea Wilson, conference facilitator at andrea_wilson@oit.peachnet.edu or visit the 1996 Rock Eagle web site at http://www.peachnet.edu/oiit/re/.
***This fall, as many as 40 of the newest Georgia College & State University students will be in the Pacific. Two graduate courses in the Public Administration program will be offered, via GSAMS, to the officers of the USS Carl Vinson, the world's largest aircraft carrier. Both Russell Library and GALILEO staff will provide essential library support-reference service, instruction, interlibrary loan, and library reserves. Joining the consortium, Georgia State University will assist by sharing its electronic reserves system.
***Ms. Karen Newcomb and Ms. Elizabeth Bryant join the GALILEO team as Help Desk Specialists in Planning Support-Athens. Effective July 1, Ms. Holly Parker became Help Desk Coordinator for GALILEO. Mr. David Quarterman joins Technology Support Services as Systems Support Specialist II. Mr. Roy Wilcox has been hired as Systems Analyst I in Business and Finance.
Randall A. Thursby, Acting Vice Chancellor

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BOR Names New OIIT Vice Chancellor
by Arlethia Perry-Johnson, BOR
The Board of Regents announces that Dr. E. Michael Staman has been named Vice Chancellor for Information and Instructional Technology and Chief Information Officer for the University System of Georgia. The appointment, effective September 1, was announced by Dr. James Muyskens, Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, to whom Dr. Staman will report.
Since 1991, Staman has served as president of CICNet, Inc., a not-for-profit organization located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, created in 1988 by the major research universities throughout the upper Midwest. In that role, Staman provided high-quality connectivity to the Internet for approximately 300 public and commercial organizations throughout an eight-state region. He also developed network-based applications.
He created several projects in support of the CIC Virtual Electronic Library, most notably the project which resulted in the creation of the CIC Electronic Journals Collection (EJC). In addition, he created and secured funding for the Rural Datafication project, a nine-state collaboration focusing on extending Internet infrastructure and services to difficult-to-reach or difficult-to-serve communities. Of particular note is Staman's participation in the founding of the Monterey Futures Group, which created the initial applications and architectural definitions for what is known today as the Internet 2 project, the next generation of the Internet aimed at supporting advanced applications within higher education. Prior to joining CICNet, Staman was the associate vice president for information services at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Staman earned his A.B. in mathematics from Elizabethtown College, his M.S in computer science from The Pennsylvania State University, and his Ed.D. in higher education administration from the College of William and Mary. The complete press release is available on the web at http://www.usg.edu/news/.
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Connecting Teachers and Technology Course Development Project: Historical Archaeology
by Anne Yentsch, Armstrong Atlantic State University Jessica Somers, OIIT
Dr. Anne Yentsch, a faculty member in the History Department at Armstrong Atlantic State University, was the recipient of an FY97 Connecting Teachers and Technology (CT&T) grant to develop a model course in the social sciences. The goal of Dr. Yentsch's project was to incorporate computer-based field and lab analysis into existing graduate and undergraduate archaeology classes. The results of her course development efforts were three model courses, Historical Archaeology, Fieldwork in Historical Archaeology, and Practicum in Historical Archaeology, which were substantially altered by the incorporation of technology.
Dr. Yentsch combined the $21,000 she received from her CT&T grant with funding from the Armstrong Atlantic Research Committee, the Council for the Americas, and the National Park Service to add computers, flatbed and slide scanning, CAD programs, GIS tools, database management, and in-house CD-ROM production capabilities to the Public History archaeology lab. These tools allowed her classes to present visual, analytical papers, utilizing a VIZ-CAM, large screen monitor, and computer data. Students also aggressively used the Internet to obtain bibliographic resources not available locally. The data management programs provided mechanisms for tracking the first Fort Frederica families-their kinship connections and the places they moved to after the fort was abandoned. The CAD and desktop publishing software permitted integration of traditional written narratives and both black and white or color illustrations into professional reports, master's theses, and seminar papers.
Dr. Yentsch met CT&T guidelines that encouraged collaboration across disciplines, as well as with other academic institutions and organizations. She formed partnerships with archaeologists at Boston University and used their ground penetrating radar to locate unmarked grave sites at Behavior Cemetery on Sapelo Island for the Sapelo Revitalization Society (see Georgia Journal; also Watters, 1997). She and her associate, Mr. Judson Kratzer, also

worked with the U.S. Park Service and the Glynn County School System on the Archaeological Education Program at Fort Frederica, which provides hands-on experience for all fourth graders in the county's schools.
One short-term goal of the project was met when a graduate student, Ms. Mandi Johnson, combined demographic information in a Fox Pro data bank and visual information obtained by color scanning and printing to create an exhibit on the different "faces" of Fort Frederica in the 1730s-50s. An international publication located on the Internet provided images of Salzburgers. A student from Mercer University in Macon led the way into Scottish archives. The results clearly illustrated the material variations in daily dress; in housing styles; in tools; and even in the look of cattle raised during the colonial era by the English, Scottish, German, Native American, mullato, and Spanish peoples that occupied the border-zone from the Altamaha River to the St. John's in northern Florida. The exhibit, which was initially shown at the First Annual Fort Frederica Celebration in March, was reworked and won first prize in a campus-wide contest at Armstrong.
Work was also begun on a long term goal-preparation of a CD data bank for visual images of artifacts and individuals from Fort Frederica for fourth grade students to access via computer. In addition, equipment to videoconference with the students and other archaeologists in the Frederica project was also obtained. Next year, the "parks as classrooms" project with school children will utilize cameras at the on-campus site and at the high school to share and discuss artifacts.
During the year, Dr. Yentsch worked with another graduate student, Mr. Ray Givans, who mined Internet resources to investigate the evolution of the sea island cotton industry in Georgia (see Yentsch and Givans, 1997) and its Caribbean roots. This research will also be linked to a GIS study of Sapelo and to work done at Behavior Cemetery.
Vernacular architecture student, Ms. Sonja Wallen, and professors Christopher Hendricks, Kratzer, and Yentsch also made a preliminary field survey along the north coast of the Dominican Republic, investigating Afro-Caribbean communities whose origins lie in the coastal islands from the Carolinas to Florida. This work will be extended next winter using GIS software, the database management programs, slide scanner, and more traditional historical resources.
In commenting about her project, Dr. Yentsch said that "in terms of our ability to do research (whether student or faculty), we've already experienced a geometric impulsion that's having an impact on how we teach and how we think about projects. We now analyze data by placing it within a denser ethnographic context. We are better able to synthesize the interaction between the various cultures that inhabited coastal Georgia and the environments which they occupied. We can trace movements within these settlements, whatever their ethnic affiliation, across traditional boundaries and look at them in a variety of locations. It makes for a richer, more complex historical account and lets us read the archaeological record in finer detail than we could before."
All 47 CT&T Course Development Project Abstracts can be found on the ASDL Web site (http://asdl.peachnet.edu/funding/abstracts/cdpabstracts.html). The following references provide more extensive information on the project:
Sarah Metzer. 1997. "Historians trace Sapelo customs to Africa." Georgia Journal July-August, 1997: 6, 10.
Margaret Watters. 1997. "Behavior Cemetery, Sapelo Island, Georgia: Ground Penetrating Radar Survey for grave identification and location." May 1977.
Anne Yentsch and Ray Givans. 1997. "Borderzones: Cross-cultural and trans-Atlantic connections in the development of the Sea Island cotton industry along Georgia's coast." Paper presented to the First Conference on the Americas, Savannah, GA., May 1997.
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"Assistive Technology": PeachNet and the Internet
The Alan Lyons Technology Demonstration Center, one of seven centers associated with Georgia's Tools for Life program, is the only one situated in a library, a plus for library patrons. Ms. Deana Wallace, the coordinator of the center which is located at the Sara Hightower Regional Library in Rome, assists in providing needed services for disabled Georgians of all ages to lead more productive lives.
The Rome center has more requests for information concerning blindness and vision difficulties because of the presence of Ms. Wallace-she has been blind since birth-and because the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped is also located in the Sara Hightower Library.

However, in addition to dispensing mechanical aids for daily living, such as a long shoe horn, scoop dish for those having difficulty eating, talking clock, and magnifying glass, Ms. Wallace also investigates the Internet via PeachNet to find information for herself and for clients.
Thanks to speech software, Deana Wallace knows what has been written as each word is spoken. She began learning computers within the last five years and has been working with Windows for less than a year. She has had to learn an entirely new speech program, one that would work with Windows' products, including Netscape Navigator and Eudora. The speech synthesizer Accent works with two different speech programs: JAWS, which runs on DOS, and OutSpoken, which runs on Windows. Speech programs "audibilize" the information found via Internet sources, e-mail, or word processing.
Although it is sometimes difficult to connect to Internet sites due to heavy traffic, challenges can also be posed by OutSpoken; the speech program does not recognize all colors, it is inconsistent about what it will read and not read, and it will not read information that is not highlighted. Wallace emphasizes that users must exert a great deal of effort to become accustomed to the somewhat distorted sound of the synthesizer because it is not exactly human.
She hopes to work with additional speech programs for Windows in order to take full advantage of the resources available on the Internet. At this point, she is not as skilled as she would like to be in researching topics on the Internet, but she is confident that her skill level will increase with experience and improved technology.
Many people consult the coordinator of the center to gain information on a wide variety of subjects, from general knowledge subjects to locating special equipment or finding services. She has found the library's research capabilities, including the Internet, invaluable when assisting callers and visitors. For instance, a patron requested names and addresses for guide dog schools, and the information was gathered from the Internet with the use of the search feature. At the request of the family of someone with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-or Lou Gehrig's Disease), she searched the Internet, but was unable to find a support group. She hopes that in time, such a resource and similar ones will be readily available on the Internet.
E-mail is an extremely useful tool for her in exchanging information and keeping in touch. After Wallace accesses her e-mail via PeachNet, the voice program reads the e-mail aloud. She can also put the messages into Braille for portability or for perusing away from her computer. Speech access in only one form of assistive technology which in combination with PeachNet is opening up a whole new world of information for the disabled population.
Wallace also makes presentations for schools, hospitals, support groups, and civic organizations. She realizes that improvements are constantly being made with assistive technology, and she wants to stay abreast of which products are on the market to assist the disabled patron. Her only regret is not being able to use a mouse-it seems to make the use of software so much easier.
For further information on services available through the Alan Lyons Technology Center, you may e-mail Ms. Wallace at wallacd0@mail.floyd.public.lib.ga.us.
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EDP Audits/Year 2000 Readiness
by Gloria Brown, OIIT
The State Department of Audits continues to work with the University System on EDP audits, or General Controls Reviews. The central office, the OIIT, and the institutions audited in the summer of 1995 are currently participating in follow-up visits to assess actions taken on earlier recommendations. Additionally, the Audits Department has identified the following institutions for General Controls Reviews for summer and fall of 1997: Albany State University, Floyd College, Southern Polytechnic State University, State University of West Georgia, and Valdosta State University.
Institutions are discovering that findings frequently center on areas that OIIT had already begun to address, such as disaster recovery and security issues.
Year 2000 Assessment Update
In June, a statewide contract was awarded to Keane, Inc., a Boston-based consulting firm, to assess the Year 2000

readiness of state agencies. Because of the significant progress made by many institutions, the University System modified its requirements and requested that the vendor perform only initial assessments and develop work plans for Year 2000 activities.
The goal is to have the consultant help identify gaps or deficiencies in planning and implementation efforts to bring all systems into compliance. The century date change will have an impact on everything from camcorders to elevators, phone systems, automobiles, security systems, routers, and computers, including operating systems and all software applications.
The consultants, while taking a slightly different approach at each location, will focus on an initial assessment, to be followed by the development of a basic work plan that should help identify the tasks to be completed and the types and numbers of resources needed to complete them. After these assessments have been completed, the OIIT will distribute to all campuses additional information and recommendations about Year 2000 readiness.
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ASDL Web Site Provides Information on DL Activities
by Marie Lasseter, OIIT
Academic Services and Distance Learning has developed a web site to help support the instructional technology and distance learning activities of University System faculty and staff.
The ASDL web site provides information about funding initiatives, conferences, distance learning activities, training in emerging instructional technologies, and other System and institutional projects that may be of interest to System faculty and staff. Major areas of information represented on the ASDL web site are as follows:
Distance Learning Activities
The Distance Learning web pages provide faculty and staff with information on Distance Learning in the University System of Georgia and State of Georgia: information on distance learning courses, programs, and services offered by University System institutions.
Connecting Teachers and Technology
ASDL coordinates and manages various programs associated with the Chancellor's Connecting Teachers and Technology initiative, by providing project design, development, delivery, management, and evaluative services. Course development project abstracts are available on the ASDL web site.
Major CT&T projects coordinated by ASDL are the Faculty Development Workshop, a comprehensive, two-week intensive technology workshop, and the Course Development Grants, which provides funding for release time and equipment needs. Current information about these projects and others is available in the Funding Initiatives section of the ASDL web site.
Training
ASDL staff identify, develop, and offer courses, seminars, presentations, and/or workshops which orient and/or prepare participants to use information and instructional technologies. See the web site Training section at http://asdl.peachnet.edu/training for class schedules, training materials, and related resources.
The web site can be accessed at http://asdl.peachnet.edu for further information about these and other major areas of ASDL responsibility which support University System faculty and staff.
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Publishing Information

Information Technology, The Office of Information and Instructional Technology (OIIT) News Bulletin, is published by the Board of Regents, Office of Information and Instructional Technology, 244 Washington St. SW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30334. Suggestions and contributions are solicited. Unless otherwise stated, permission to reprint articles in whole or in part is granted provided appropriate credit is given.
z Editor: Jayne Williams z Office: Georgia Southern University z E-mail: jayne_williams@oit.peachnet.edu
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