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IT Facts at Ohio  State 2005

Technology Enhanced Learning And Research

Ohio State’s current central course management system is used by more than 90% of the Columbus campus student population and 81% of all OSU students, and overall has served faculty and students from 125 different countries. In the first half of 2005, customers downloaded more than two terabytes of data.

In the first three quarters of 2005, faculty used the central course management system to teach 2,012 web-based courses and 3,243 sections. During that same period, approximately 5,600 students enrolled in more than 175 distance learning sections.

The university’s new Carmen course management system automatically generates a course shell for every course in the master schedule; 19,000 course shells were available for autumn 2005.

Since 2001, TELR has trained more than 400 faculty across the state of Ohio, representing 31 public and private institutions in instructional pedagogy and new media web technologies, as part of Ohio State’s outreach and engagement mission.

Started in 1999, the TELR Internship program has trained 444 students in web new media technologies who have worked on 228 faculty projects.

In its first year, the Digital Union, the university’s state-of-the-art technology evaluation center, served 7,838 clients and hosted 506 meetings, including three campuswide lectures and five regional/national conferences. Nearly 5,000 faculty, students, staff, and guests have attended Digital Union workshops and awareness and recognition events, and nearly 3,000 clients have used or borrowed equipment to explore potential for their teaching and research.

TELR’s emerging technology research currently has projects underway in ePortfolios, institutional repositories, digital television, and universal access.

Ohio State offers 10 partially or fully online certificate programs and degrees including Nontraditional Doctorate of Pharmacy, bachelor’s degree in General Business, Master’s in Nursing and in Welding Engineering, Executive MBA, and postgraduate Gerontology Certificate program.

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Faculty Computing

Faculty can work with class and grade rosters via the Registrar’s online services.

Instructors may store up to a gigabyte each of classroom materials on the classroom central server. By summer 2005, 238 instructors were using 13 gigabytes of space.

In 2004, faculty scheduled 11,700 hours in student computer centers for class work.

According to faculty respondents in the 2005 OSU Poll, 99% own one or more computers, 40% use handheld devices (PDAs), 91% use an Internet Service Provider from home, and 50% used technology in every class during winter quarter 2005.

Grants

TELR has distributed $300,000 in grants since the beginning of 2004. Funds supported new and existing information technology initiatives including Research on Research undergraduate student grants, IT Professional Development Awards, and a faculty-driven ePortfolio pilot.

TELR has partnered with Ohio State faculty from Allied Medicine; Biological Sciences, School of Communication, Chemical Engineering, Education, Humanities, Folklore Center, FTAD, Knowlton School of Architecture, Literacy Working Group, Libraries, Moritz College of Law, the Nisonger Center, Nursing, P-12 Project, Statistics, Veterinary Medicine, and the Writing Center to secure $3 million in grant funds for several projects running from 1999 through 2005.

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Student Computing

Ohio State provides more than 3,400 computer seats in Student Computer Centers and in college-supported labs such as Engineering and Business.

All computers in the Student Computer Centers and in Ohio State’s classrooms are connected to the Internet.

The Student Computer Centers have provided 618,652 hours as open labs this year and approximately 11,725 hours of classroom instruction.

ResNet service connects student residence halls to the campus network through 13,000 high-speed data ports, one for each student in every residence hall room.

OIT helps maintain 280,000 sq. ft. of classroom space, providing quarterly teaching and learning support to more than 3,700 class sections and 1,500 special events in 340 classrooms, 128 of which are technology classrooms.

BuckeyeLink is a one-stop online resource where current students can browse the master schedule, register for courses, check course availability, view grades, class schedules and account statements, and change addresses.

Online, students can reserve library books, activate their central e-mail service, use OSU Webmail, and change e-mail forwarding and passwords.

According to undergraduate student respondents in the 2005 OSU Poll, 98% own one or more computers, 94% use an Internet Service Provider from home, 87% took classes that incorporated instructional technology last fall, 51% are interested in taking partly online courses, 36% are interested in taking fully online courses, and 77% feel that information technology is important to their education.

According to graduate/professional student respondents in the 2005 OSU Poll, 98% own one or more computers, 89% use an Internet Service Provider from home, 68% took classes incorporating instructional technology last fall, 38% are interested in taking partly online courses, 23% are interested in taking fully online courses, and 80% feel that information technology is important to their education.

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Enterprise Services

OSU’s mainframe enterprise server, operated by OIT, provides about 6,000 processor minutes per month for administrative applications, 2,000 minutes per month for academic computations, and disaster recovery services through a reciprocal agreement with the University of Cincinnati. The server runs these campus systems: Registrar’s Student Information (SIS), Student Admissions, Student Financial Aid (SAM), Residence and Dining Halls Support, Billing and Accounts Receivable (BARS), University Development Information (AlmaMater), PeopleSoft environment printing, and mainframe academic computing for individuals and units.

Enterprise mainframe operations in the past year included impact printing 1.4 million pages and two million lines, storing 85 terabytes on disc and 175 terabytes on cartridges, processing 10,000 personal security change requests, and maintaining the mainframe and PeopleSoft systems with no lost system time since March 2003.

OSU’s PeopleSoft systems track Ohio State’s more than $2.4 billion in total operating expenses and more than $1.2 billion in assets. Systems include HR management, payroll, flexible spending accounts, purchasing, benefits administration, time and labor, general ledger, accounts payable, asset management, stores inventory, and grants management.

During the last fiscal year, the HR system produced 56,000 paychecks and receipts per month for 33,000 employees.

The Financials system processed more than 169,000 purchase orders with more than 675,000 invoices paid by accounts payable, nearly $13 million in Procurement Card transactions, and more than $17 million in University Stores transactions.

The Grants system administered 3,327 research awards with 5,092 projects and a dollar value of $379 million during the last fiscal year. Expenditures for the period came to $348 million.

The University Development system (AlmaMater) currently tracks 486,030 Ohio State graduates, 278,926 Ohio State friends, and 47,933 organizations and foundations. This past fiscal year it processed 195,739 gifts to the university for a total of $140 million and added 36,128 new pledges committing $36 million. Total reported private support for FY04 (which includes money received through the research foundation) was $203.3 million.

Impact View, a web-based system for viewing data from the AlmaMater had 464 users in FY05. Impact Q&R had 159 end users who created their own AlmaMater queries, ran 3,683 reports, and used the data as input for 11 different reports.

OIT’s Partnership Management provided administrative system training for approximately 2,000 registrants last year on integrated applications for human resources, fiscal management, and purchasing.

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Internet Connectivity

Ohio State’s campus network provides computing connectivity at up to a gigabit (1000 mbps) to main and regional campuses and facilities, off-campus residences, the Internet, and experimental high-performance Internet2 facilities.

Ohio State is connected to Internet2 at 1,000 mbps. Through Internet2 membership, Ohio State is engaged in advanced networking and technology research.

Ohio State has dual redundant connections to the Third Frontier Network for both Internet and Internet2 connectivity.

The campus network is connected to the Internet at 250 mbps through OARnet, Ohio’s state-assisted regional higher education Internet service provider. Ohio State University is OARnet’s biggest customer.

Phase 1 of Ohio State's new Wireless network provides 190 hotspots in more than 60 campus buildings.

The campus network supports services such as web access, e-mail, streaming audio and video, e-learning environments, file transfers, remote logins, access to library resources and administrative systems, Internet video conferencing, and Internet telephony.

The campus network provides high-speed connections to remote locations such as Children’s Hospital, OSU airport, regional campuses, agricultural and instructional facilities, and OSU Extension offices and learning centers around the state.

Ohio State has extended the Internet to remote and rural areas with its Transportable Satellite Internet System, a small trailer that provides high-speed connectivity in any location, and by delivering satellite-based connectivity to communities in the Ohio Appalachian region.

Ohio State leads in Internet video applications, providing more than 8,500 port hours of videoconferencing for Internet2 members in FY05, and coordinating the annual Megaconferences, which last year connected 360 sites worldwide over a 12-hour period.

Ohio State’s record high inbound e-mail traffic to date in one 24-hour period is 15 million messages. Daily “normal” activity averages 1.5 million messages.

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Customer Services

OIT's Help Desk responded to 85,478 requests and inquiries last year. Of those, 65,601 were called in and 19,877 were sent electronically (13,114 e-mail and 6,763 via web).

OIT's Help Desk (8help) web site contains about 700 searchable knowledge base entries, which regularly appear in “top ten” hits for Google searches, and service request forms. During FY05, OIT’s 8help web site received 873,206 “hits” per month and 12 million hits for the fiscal year; and 36,881 unique visitors per month. OIT’s Walk-in Help Desk served 4,800 customers in the past year (approximately 80% for site licensed software distribution) in addition to processing approximately 11,200 requests from the virtual help desk and other areas of the university. The staff also produced, labeled, packaged, and sold via university internal order 2,492 pieces of site licensed software, and produced and managed the software distributed through loan or exchange.

In the first six months of 2005, OIT’s Classroom Digital Media facilities streamed 832,351 media clip plays for 32,678 unique online visitors from 102 countries. Of these visitors, 3,636 were using the Digital Language Lab and 1,520 were using OSU’s Annenberg online library mirror site. Classroom Digital Media staff began live streaming of the WOSU radio stations in July and served 5,076 unique visitors during the first month. The staff also supplied equipment and support for 401 interactive video conference classes during the same period.

In FY05, OIT’s system for automated customer support services, accounts, and issue management created 29,954 personal accounts for e-mail and Internet access, of which 27,299 were self-activated; processed 10,525 requests for e-mail address forwarding changes and 21,608 password changes, of which 12,847 were self-service; processed 107,573 e-mail messages; and tracked 74,060 calls for assistance.

Faculty, staff, and students submitted delivery and loan requests for 117,879 pieces of media and equipment including laptop computers, LCD projectors, televisions, VCRs, VHS tapes, DVD players and DVDs in FY05.

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Telecommunications

UNITS (a division of OIT) telephone, data, and video services for Ohio State include:

• Telephones and features such as voice mail
• Local, long distance, and toll free (800) services
• Authorization codes
• Administrative calling cards
• Audiotext and interactive voice response (IVR)
• Convergent call centers
• Multiparty teleconference bridge
• Sport and special event lines
• OSU Wireless data network and cellular service
• ADA-compliant equipment
• Pay phones
• Enhanced 9-1-1 network
• Diverse fiber optic networks
• Special circuits (ISDN, ADSL, alarms)
• Dialup Internet access (OSUWeb.net)
• Building wiring design and installation
• Video conference bridging and room rentals
• Satellite downlinks
• Broadcast services
• Cable TV and OSU Campus Information Channel

UNITS handles:

• 1.3 million inbound calls monthly
• 1.2 million outbound calls monthly
• 750,000+ voice mail calls monthly
• 650+ hours of video conferencing annually
• 60+ network broadcasts annually
• 1,800 multiparty teleconference calls annually
• 14,250+ campus directory information calls [2-OHIO (6446)] monthly
• 2,900+ customer service calls [2-UNIT (8648)] monthly
• 1,900+ service orders monthly

UNITS maintains:

• 26,000+ active telephone lines
• 30,000+ active LAN outlets
• 6,500+ active cable television outlets
• 100+ miles of copper cabling
• 120+ miles of fiber

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