September | 2011 | Thomas' Work Space

The new way from Fall 2011 how teachers and students check LRC equipment in and out with LRC student assistants

2011/09/01 plagwitz 2 comments

After booking an LRC resource, if the resource is a piece of physical equipment (versus a room or tutor hours), the teacher/student needs to check it out from the LRC student assistant in COED433. We are testing the following procedure:
Check-out procedure when picking up
1. On the secondary screen of the PC at the reception desk (mirroring mode), in whatever browser the LRC assistant is not using, the teacher or student that wants to check out an LRC resource
  1. logs into her university email in OWA/NINERMAIL
  2. opens their “meeting request” with the resource from her calendar
  3. or, if they have no prior meeting request, create one now
2. the LRC assistant on her screen, views the “meeting request” to make sure
  1. that the checkout time is not in the future OR the item is not past due. If necessary and possible (= no conflicts, duraiton dos not exceed maximum allowed), adapt the meeting request start time , and end time, but mark in the notes field if the item was returned late
  2. what the item is, including the number (if any)
3. handles the item
  1. gets the item from storage shelves in COED436; make sure it is the same number as in the meeting request
  2. checks item, with the user, for functionality and completeness
4. in the MS-Excelfile: checkoutin.xlsm (auto-loaded during login of LRC assistant, if not open it from the recent files list in MS-Excel or from c:\temp),
  1. presses button:”check-in code” which generates a unique code in the file and puts it in the windows clipboard)
  2. even if the user has multiple meeting requests in her calendar, the LRC assistant can use the same code for all her meeting requests
5. in the “meeting request”, in the big notes field at the bottom:
  1. pastes the code at the end of the the subject line
  2. adds necessary remarks regarding broken or incomplete equipment (if any)
  3. sends the updated request
  4. logs the teacher/student out of OWA
6. If you need large amounts of equipment for an entire class, I recommend having select students access NINERMAIL during class (or prior and wherever they are ready to book equipment), book the equipment for your class hour with meeting requests (1 for each piece of equipment required). The person who booked it has to be present during pickup and is responsible for the equipment. One student can book as many pieces as she can carry. Since I hope to have 2 reception desk computers and 2 LRC assistants at the reception desk, 2 students picking up should make for the fastest checkout process.
Check-in procedure when returning: same as above, in reverse.

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers Tags: 2007, 2010, 2011, calendaring, live@edu, ms-exchange, outlook, outlook-live, resources, scheduling

The new way of booking LRC rooms and equipment from Fall 2011: Why?

2011/09/01 plagwitz 2 comments

With the upgrade to Outlook 2011, MS-Exchange 2010, and live@edu, unfortunately, we had to revise our booking system over the summer. Please note: Teachers cannot not use calendars in the public folders of Outlook desktop anymore since ”Public folders are going away”. The earlier instruction has been updated accordingly and links now to here.
Fortunately, this upgrade also allowed us to expand our booking system, to now include:
1. more than rooms and tutors. You can now also book LRC equipment – see the complete list of LRC resources that you can book or check out . And we hope to set up that you can truly sign up for tutoring.
2. more than staff: We hope that, with Ninermail (live@edu), students will also be able to book and check out. We hope to achieve better resource utilization this w
3. more and faster information to act on, and thus a better workflow
  1. you get an immediate response
  2. you can get always a positive response since in “scheduling assistant”, you can see the prior bookings, both times and organizers (hover your mouse over busy times), and can thus either can fit your request into the schedule, or contact the prior organizer for a resolution.
  3. your bookings and cancellations are immediately disseminated through the scheduling assistant and resource calendars, for others (students, teachers, support staff) to work with/around
Read more here on how to book LRC resources

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-teachers, e-infrastructure Tags: 2007, 2010, 2011, calendaring, ms-exchange, outlook, outlook-live, resources, scheduling

Film-studies educational community can get free Autodesk Software

2011/09/01 plagwitz Leave a comment

Autodesk offers free software licenses to the educational community if you register (free), some of which may be of interest for film studies (see selection of software below). Make sure you check fit into the licensing conditions: “Important Note :The Autodesk Student Version software incorporates all the functionality of our professional licenses, but includes a print banner making the software inappropriate for professional, commercial, or for-profit purposes. Autodesk Student Version software may not be used in the classroom or lab for instructional purposes, or for commercial or for-profit purposes. Annual licenses of Autodesk student software are not eligible for product upgrade or transfer to a commercial license. View print banner sample.”

Autodesk 3ds Max

Autodesk Maya

Autodesk® Maya® 2012 software delivers powerful new toolsets for previsualization and games prototyping; offers extended simulation capabilities; and opens the way for better pipeline integration.

Autodesk MotionBuilder

Autodesk® MotionBuilder® 2012 software delivers new tools for virtual movie-making, performance animation, and stereoscopic productions, and enhanced interoperability with other products in the Autodesk® Entertainment Creation Suites 2012.

Autodesk Mudbox

Autodesk® Mudbox™ 2012 software delivers enhancements to the painting toolset; innovative new UV and topology-independent workflows; practical posing tools; and improved performance and large dataset handling.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design

Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design 2012 software delivers powerful new rendering toolsets, accelerated iterative workflows, and enhanced interoperability that together help increase overall productivity.
Autodesk Softimage

Autodesk® Softimage® 2012 software delivers innovative new creative toolsets; enhanced interoperability with Autodesk®

Autodesk Smoke for Mac OS X

Autodesk® Smoke® 2012 software offers a timeline-based, all-in-one creative toolset for editorial finishing that spans color correction, keying, tracking, paint, cleanup, titling and 3D visual effects.

Categories: Film-studies, software, websites Tags: autodesk