Colleagues:

Below is a brief update on several projects designed to increase the mix of communication and collaboration tools available to our campus community. I also wanted to send you a gentle reminder of our Group of 30 gathering with faculty from EKU’s Noel Studio to take place on March 22nd in Hutchins RM 106/107. Please let Lisa know if you are attending.

1. Email/Twitter: A small team led by Scott Steele is working with IS&S staff to rethink how we use email on campus. That team is preparing to pilot the use of Twitter to support certain on-campus communications with these twitter feeds linked to an email digest, our portal, and eventually to digital signage and mobile apps. This strategy will reduce the number of emails students (and others) receive while expanding the choices available for viewing this information.

   

   

2. Mobile Apps: We are engaging CampusEAI to provide a wide range of mobile apps and portal channels for use on campus. You may want to view this short video or browse the examples below that include out-of-the-box Banner integration. We will chat more as this work moves forward.

   

   

3. Voice over IP: Many of you have noticed the new phone sets being installed across campus. Six hundred of these new phones are now in place. They connect directly to our data network, have video features, and support voicemail integration with your email accounts.

   

4. Office 365: Student, faculty, and staff pilot groups will begin using Office 365 “in the cloud” the week of March 18. Features including expanded storage and a host of new collaboration tools for web conferencing, team collaboration, and for building public websites will be available along with the ability to edit, share, and coedit Word, OneNote, Excel and PowerPoint docs using a web browser to access these online tools.

   

5. Ensemble: Berea On-Demand is getting a face-lift with a new front-end product called Ensemble. This product will provide more functionality and ease of use in uploading, converting, and publishing videos and fair use content as well as live streaming.