It looks like this year might be the biggest move in of freshman in my five years working here at WOU. We are looking at about 1500 students. We will be hoping for a smooth computer registration this year. We have an updated Cisco Clean Access Server and it should make the process of registering the student much nicer.
Recently in NSW Category
Sep 14th
Preparing for new student week, we transformed the upper lounge in the Landers Hall into our residential computing internet hookup service center.
Next a staff meeting with the students who will be working on new student week. We went over our new HelpDesk 2.0 system.
3Com!!! The 3com switches decided not to work the day before move in, what great timing, not. We were able to fix them by upgrading their firmware, but the tricky part is they had to be on to do it and they kept shutting off after we would restart them. This made for a long day. I think I ended up with a 14 or so hour day, and no dinner, oh well it had to be done.
Sep 16th
Sunday was our first day back with the students. It was busy, lots of parents trying to get everything done for their kids on the first day. Another long day 12+ hours. But I would say things were relatively smooth given the problems we had registering Vista the week before.
Sept 17th – 21st
First few days were busy, we had a few extra hundred students this year and a lot of new Vista computers, oh how I love vista, insert sarcasm here.
This year started off a little rocky. We were implementing a new student registration system called Bradford.
Bradford is a trap server that gets a message from a switch when a computer is plugged in or turned on. Bradford request information on the computer that have just be activated and looks to see if it is registered with it or not. There are 3 states to Bradford, you are place in Registration, Remediation/quarantine, or you are set to the Active internet vlan. Currently we are using Bradford to verify students are using updated operating systems, and up-to-date antivirus/definitions.
Monday was one hot summer day. Temperature over 100 degrees, little to no wind… it was HOT!
By that description you can tell it was the first day of summer term. When I woke up all I could think about was the cool air conditioned office, and doing some work on the computer. Then I really woke up as I found myself running from house call to house call, helping students and conference attendees. Most problems were very easy, plugging cables into wrong wall jacks, plugging modem cables in rather than network cables, setting IP to be obtain automatically, those types of calls. I like simple calls, easy to fix, customers are satisfied, but it was the 105 degree weather that made Monday such a hard day. Well knowing that we here in Oregon only have to endure a few days over 100 degrees each year, I am glade we can cross this one off.
An easily deployed software solution that can automatically detect, isolate, and clean infected or vulnerable devices that attempt to access your network. It identifies whether networked devices such as laptops, personal digital assistants, even game consoles are compliant with your network's security policies and repairs any vulnerabilities before permitting access to the network. Networks with Cisco Clean Access can realize benefits such as minimized network outages, enforcement of security policies, and significant cost savings with automated device repairs and updates. An optional component, Clean Access Agent, provides even more stringent device interrogation and remediation functions.
So what does that mean for WOU? I can see several areas where this could benefit WOU computer users. I am going to limit this to the Resident hall side. Currently residents are required to register through an online registration process before the connection is available in their room. This means that the student needs to have access to the internet before they can have access to the internet, hehehe. Computers with internet connections are placed throughout the halls for students to register on. This is the biggest bottleneck in the registration process, limited number of registration stations and lots of students needing them.
Imagine having the CA solution. No more computers needed for registration other than the computer they intend to hook up. Students will be blocked from internet access until they meet the policies of the network, ie an updated virus scanned, SP2, or what ever is deemed required.
Let’s talk money; CA is an expensive application solution. But many benefits and man hours are saved with this. No network setup CD’s required to be handed out to students. Less time needed for registration days. No need to place computers in minimal secured locations for registration. Distributed software is keep current, all changes an be pushed live. Money is also saved by having all computers on campus compliant with AV/updates, whatever. Network will be cleaner and safer.
Student internet registration in the residence halls has reached an all time high of 90%. Here is a break down of the percentages by Res. Hall
50% of Alder View
84% of Barnum
88% of Butler
95% of Cedar
81% of Gentle
92% of Heritage
91% of Landers
90% of Noble
93% of Spruce
This is a great accomplishment to have this many residents registered so fast. We however are still looking to make it easier and better in years to come.
Number as of 9/28/05
Total Registrations: 1031
Total Residents: 1220
Total Registration Percentage: 85%
Number as of 10/04/05
Total Registrations: 1067
Total Residents: 1189
Total Registration Percentage: 90%
Landers Computer Lab hours for new student week MAC registration:
Sunday 10a.m. till 11p.m.
Monday – Friday Noon till 11:00p.m.
We only checked in computer Sunday that needed network cards installed. We currently have over 750 students registered for ResHall internet access. Our peak hours for registration have been from 1pm to 6pm with an hour high of 64 registrations. Computers have been placed in Heritage, Gentle, and Sequoia Commons for the first few days for students to register their MAC addresses. After the first few days all ResHall MAC registrations will be done through the Landers Computer Lab.
Landers Computer Lab will open for normal use starting Monday the 26th of September.
