Upperclassmen living in the residential colleges received an unexpected welcome gift in their suites this year. Instead of the free T-shirts, unbreakable water bottles and coffee mugs they were given as freshmen, students discovered wireless routers blinking on the walls.
The University’s Internet service went dark Friday for more than an hour after a power failure in an Information Technology Services equipment room.
An Information Technology Services initiative announced in September aimed at providing students and faculty access to wireless from anywhere on campus is well underway, ITS representatives said, but it may still be some time before all 12 residential colleges enjoy full coverage.
“Technology is like fire — it’s neither good nor bad.” Instead, its importance depends on how it is used, says Chuck Powell, ITS senior director of Academic Media & Technology. And, as every Yalie knows, in most cases, this entirely depends on the professor.
Recent years have seen the rise of e-learning opportunities offered by the nation’s top colleges and by institutions around the globe. Initiatives such as MIT’s OpenCourseWare Web site and the popular Epsilen Environment networking site integrate technology into educational systems and help open up university material and resources to a wider, cyberspace community.
In response to the worldwide surge in spam in recent months — a trend propelled by the increase in “computer bots” controlled by spammers — ITS installed additional software in its e-mail spam-filtering system early last month that is dramatically curbing the influx of unwanted mail, ITS representatives announced this week.
The University announced Tuesday morning that several of its most popular lecture courses are now available for the general public to watch on the Internet, providing a slice of the Yale education free of charge to anyone in the world with access to the Web.
Yalies who have e-mail accounts cluttered with announcements from professors, messages from friends and notes from deans may now have one fewer item to clear from their inboxes.
