Channel, Fall 2012

(1)

IT for Teaching, Learning and Research IT Infrastructure © I T S C C h a n n e l A L L R I G H T S R E S E R V E D . A B O U T U S C O N T A C T U S P R I V A C Y P O L I C Y Designed by PTC SEARCH

(2)

New Projects User Services

IT for Teaching, Learning and Research

IT Infrastructure

F a l l 2 0 1 2

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

With the great help from Publishing Technology Center, we are excited that this issue of Channel takes on a new look. More importantly, we hope you will find the content relevant and interesting.

First, I would like to introduce you to our new ITSC Service Desk. It is located on 2/F (Lift 2) and replaces the originally separate ITSC Help Desk and AV Counter. It serves as a single-stop shop for IT and classroom facility support services. The opening hours of the new ITSC Service Desk is also extended such that it should better match the University's new class hours.

Behind the Service Desk, we have continued to revamp the campus IT infrastructure and services to cope with increasing demand. Our connection speed to the Internet has been significantly boosted, both for overseas (+50%) and local connections (+100%). A new email and collaboration solution based on Microsoft Exchange has also been introduced to staff members. A similar plan for students is being conceived.

We have been consolidating and uplifting the campus IT facilities and services along the direction of “cloud computing”. Our private “cloud” has evolved into a critical infrastructure that runs more than 200 crucial servers for a dozen of departments/offices. In addition, students who want to use specialized academic software will no longer need to grab a physical seat in the Computer Barns on campus. They can simply do so by connecting to our Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) that is a pool of virtual computers accessible anytime anywhere by students' own computers or device. Students can also easily print out their files using the new Satellite Printers installed across the campus.

Reading through this issue, you will get to know more interesting IT projects and updates in various aspects like e-Learning, IT training, IT service management, the new Video Conferencing Room on 7/F, high-performance computing, etc.

Enjoy and wish you all a very fruitful academic year ahead!

Samuel Kwan Director, ITSC

NEW PROJECTS

A New Messaging and Collaboration Platform for Staff

Migration to Microsoft Exchange

IT Security The New Video

Conferencing Room New Classrooms in LSK Campus Towards Better IT Service Management

USER SERVICES

The New ITSC Service IT Training

(3)

Campus Software Licensing

A New Look of the Communications Directory

IT FOR TEACHING, LEARNING AND RESEARCH

LMES Upgrade Online Assessment

Management System

iPeer - a New Peer Evaluation System Mobile Development Framework for e-Learning Personal Response System What's New in Computer Barns Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for Learning

Satellite Printers for Learning

High Performance Computing at HKUST

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

HARNET & Internet Upgrade

Updates on Campus Wi-Fi Project

Awesome Growth in Wi-Fi Usage

Some Common Wi-Fi Problems

(4)

Updates on Networking the New Buildings

Updates on Telephone Services

Central Authentication Service

Private Cloud for HKUST

(5)

C O N T E N T S New Projects

A New Messaging and Collaboration Platform for Staff

Migration to Microsoft Exchange IT Security

The New Video Conferencing Room

New Classrooms in LSK Campus

Towards Better IT Service Management

User Services IT for Teaching, Learning and Research IT Infrastructure

A New Messaging and Collaboration

Platform for Staff

by Y.F. Lai

The email infrastructure for staff is undergoing significant revamp in the past few months. Namely, we are switching to a new platform for messaging and collaboration based on the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 technology. This new platform is intended to replace the aging iMail email infrastructure largely based on technologies from Sun Microsystems (now acquired by Oracle).

While the old iMail system has served the University for around ten years, it is apparently failing to keep up with latest user needs and new technological requirement. Over the years, Microsoft Exchange has evolved to become a popular and scalable messaging and collaboration platform for enterprises including higher education institutes all over the world. It offers electronic mail, calendaring, contacts and tasks in one integrated platform. It also supports email sharing and calendaring functions which are important in today business collaboration.

To fully enjoy the functions of Exchange, users are recommended to use Outlook 2010/2011 in Windows/Mac environment. For users who can only access to web browsers, the web-based Outlook Web App (OWA) is recommended. It gives you most of the same set of features and user experience as the Outlook software. It supports the most common web browsers including Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Internet Explorer. For users who are on the road, Microsoft Exchange supports the synchronization of the same set of data with any mobile devices running iOS, Android etc. Besides, it provides opportunities for other future add-on applications on a unified communication platform.

(6)

A New Messaging and Collaboration Platform for Staff

Migration to Microsoft Exchange

IT Security

F a l l 2 0 1 2 PREVIOUS NEXT

Migration to Microsoft Exchange

by Theresa Lo

The migration to the new enterprise messaging platform based on Microsoft Exchange is a long journey that started back in February 2012. It is carried out in three phases:

Phase I – Pilot Testing (February - May, Completed)

Purpose: To involve users in an early try-out of the new system

before the large-scale campus-wide deployment.

Activities: Briefing sessions for IDLPs and departmental technical

support colleagues were held. Colleagues were introduced to the benefits of the new Exchange server and the possible impacts of the migration IDLPs, departmental technical support colleagues and individual early adopters of Microsoft Outlook were invited to opt-in to be Exchange pilot users for an early try-out of the new email system.

Interesting facts & figures: Beside all ITSC staff, over 70

department users opted-in and joined the pilot testing.

Phase II – “Enabling” Step (May – Present, Progressing)

Purpose: To migrate users department by department from the

existing email server to the new Exchange server, laying a foundation for users to enjoy a new robust email server with rich collaboration capabilities that they can make use of later whenever need arises. At this phase, the migration exercise should be transparent with minimal impact to majority users. Colleagues can continue to use the email client they are currently using and familiar with.

Activities: On departmental basis, ITSC account managers contact

and coordinate with department IDLPs to trigger the migration. The user migration list is reviewed and colleagues with special circumstances may postpone to a later time as appropriate Briefing sessions are held to departments to go through the benefits and impacts of the migration.

Interesting facts & figures: Around 50 briefing sessions were held

across departments Account managers have now covered around 95% of departments and offices Over 2300 staff accounts are now migrated to the Exchange email server.

Phase III - Full Deployment (November onwards, Planning)

Purpose: To introduce users to the extensive, rich and powerful

collaboration features available on Microsoft Exchange. Departments or individual users may pick up and deploy such features at their own pace and need.

Activities: Briefing and hands-on workshops to demonstrate how the

collaboration features could help users improve productivity and collaboration in their daily business operation.

(7)

(8)

A New Messaging and Collaboration Platform for Staff Migration to Microsoft Exchange

IT Security

by Charles Choy (IT Security Officer)

The Joint-University Computer Center (JUCC) is a collaborative organization formed by the IT support offices of the eight UGC-funded tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. For many years, members of JUCC have been collaborating in areas such as high-speed network, software site-licensing, high-performance computing and other emerging IT issues. In particular, the Information Security Task Force (ISTF) was formed in 2009 with the mission of promoting the information security standards among the JUCC member institutions through close collaboration and resource sharing. HKUST has been benefiting from this effort as one of the members. Several security conferences and awareness trainings were delivered to our users. Proposals for enhancing security guidelines and policies, based on the ISO 27000 security standards, were also prepared by the consultant (KPMG) with customization for the higher education sector.

Tapping on the pioneering work done by JUCC ISTF, ITSC has recently formed an IT security team with an aim to strengthen the current IT security practice and promote related standards among the campus community. Our initial focus will be on user trainings and awareness, incident handling, procedures and guidelines.

Security is a continuous effort that involves every one. Let’s work together to strive for a secure IT environment in HKUST.

(9)

A New Messaging and Collaboration Platform for Staff Migration to Microsoft Exchange IT Security

The New Video Conferencing Room

by David Shiu

A new set of video conferencing facility has been set up in the meeting room Rm7341 during this summer. With this new facility, units in the University can arrange moderate-size video conference sessions (10 – 15 persons) so as to hold meetings and small conferences with local and overseas partners in a more efficient and economical way.

The new video conferencing facility supports both Internet and ISDN connection methods. Internet connection does not incur a usage charge and provides more bandwidth than ISDN. More bandwidth usually translates to better video and audio quality. However, the stability would have to depend on the current traffic condition of the Internet.

On the other hand, ISDN connection is more or less like IDD telephone call, and incurs a usage fee. Its bandwidth is fixed and usually less than the Internet. However, it stability is well guaranteed by the telephone service provider. Event holders can select their connection method base on their budget, session quality and stability requirement.

The room is also enhanced with an advanced audio pickup system. Namely, "suspended microphones" (those hanging from the ceiling) are installed to ensure a good audio signal can be picked up from every corner of the room and ensure the voice of every participant can be heard clearly on the remote side of the video conference.

Apart from video conferencing, we have also taken this opportunity to re-ramp the AV setup of this meeting room. This includes:

A High Definition video projection screen and a LCD display panel for displaying both the remote side video and any embedded PC presentation Support of HDMI and Display Port connection from modern notebook computers (e.g. MacBook)

A blue-ray & DVD disk player

ITSC is planning to arrange briefing sessions for coordinators in departments about this new facility. Colleagues interested in this new facility are welcome to join.

(10)

(11)

Lee Shau Kee campus C O N T E N T S

New Projects A New Messaging and Collaboration Platform for Staff Migration to Microsoft Exchange IT Security

New Classrooms

in LSK Campus

by David Shiu

There will be more than 20 new classrooms in the new LSK Campus. In order to come up with a suitable design of the AV system to be deployed in these classrooms, colleagues in ITSC and SBM have been working closely together for over a year. The new design has the following features:

Dual Screen – We learned from the feedback

of some teaching colleagues: one projection screen is good, but two is better. Apart from showing a presentation, teaching colleagues would very often like to have another projection screen that enables them to elaborate details, derive equations, etc.

High-Definition Display – All video

projectors support natively true High Definition resolution at 1920x1200 pixels

VGA & HDMI support – The new system

supports conventional notebooks using VGA connection as well as newer notebooks and MacBook using digital HDMI or Display Port connection

Document Camera – All teaching venues

are equipped with high resolution Document Cameras. These cameras allow teaching colleagues to project the content of paper document with great ease. For example, imagine in a Economics class, the instructor can present a newspaper clip of the day in class for teaching, without having to scan the content into a computer file beforehand’

Blu-ray/DVD source – All teaching venues are equipped with Blu-ray/DVD players

Auxiliary Digital (HDMI)/Analogue (Composite Video) input – Very often instructors may

need to bring in new resource/equipment for class presentation. The new campus support not only conventional analogue auxiliary AV input, but also the new Digital HD input, which is now very common in modern AV equipment

Remote Support Management – The AV system in LSK provides more remote support and

management capability. This enables our service desk colleagues to provide more useful support remotely

Like most of the campus community, we look forward to the opening of the LSK campus and we are excited to learn how the AV facilities in the new classrooms will serve existing and emerging needs in teaching and learning. Such experience will definitely help shape our future plans on how and when the existing classrooms in the main campus should be revamped.

(12)

(13)

A New Messaging and Collaboration Platform for Staff Migration to Microsoft Exchange IT Security

Towards Better IT Service

Management

by Peter Chang (ITSM Project Manager)

ITIL Implementation Workshop in April

About ITIL

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of best practices in the

industry for IT Service Management (ITSM). It focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of the business. ITIL provides guidance to service providers on the provision of quality IT services, and on the processes, functions and other capabilities needed to support them. ITIL is the most widely recognized framework for ITSM in the world. The ITIL framework is based on the five stages of the service lifecycle.

Service Strategy Service Design Service Transition Service Operation

Continual Service Improvement

Each stage of the lifecycle exerts influence on the others and relies on them for inputs and feedback. In this way, a constant set of checks and balances throughout the service lifecycle ensures that as business demand changes with business need, the services can adapt and respond effectively.

The latest version of ITIL is ITIL v3 (2011 edition) updated in July 2011, which includes 26 different processes and 4 functions.

Our Implementation

Back in the middle of 2011, ITSC has looked out for the possibilities to bring the ITIL best practices to our center as guidance for continuous improvement of our IT services provided for the HKUST community.

We decided that staff in the Center should be equipped with the basic ITIL knowledge as a first step. So, we looked out for external qualified ITIL trainers and had organized five different ITIL foundation in-house trainings for all staff in ITSC. In the first half of 2012, all the ITIL foundation

(14)

trainings had been completed and all staff including professional, administrative and clerical staff in ITSC had attended. Sixty-three of our staff who took the ITIL Foundation examination have all passed and have been awarded the official ITIL v3 (2011 edition) Foundation Certificate.

To gain more knowledge about implementing ITIL, several senior staff in ITSC have attended different ITIL workshops, either in-house or public, led by external consultants in the recent months. These one- to two-day workshops have highlighted to us the way to define our roadmap, do our own maturity assessment and find details about process implementation, etc. In one workshop, we also have the chance to exchange some valuable experience with other institutions in HK about their implementation of ITSM.

"The Goal of ITSM is to get disparate functional groups to work in a common manner based on accepted industry best practices to deliver services and value their customers want. In short ITSM is a people project supported by tools and processes, not a tool or process project supported by people!"

- Troy DuMoulin, Consultant of Pink Elephant

The following five ITIL processes are what we have identified to implement in the coming three years:

Incident Management Problem Management Change Management

Service Asset and Configuration Management Information Security Management

To move forward in the coming months, we will conduct our own baseline process assessment, set our priorities for areas to improve and then come up with a detail process improvement plan. We will start the implementation of the "Incident Management" process including the "Service Desk" function, together with the "Change Management" process first. We hope that our efforts in continuous service improvement can help to provide better quality service for our community to support the University in future.

(15)

C O N T E N T S New Projects User Services

The New ITSC Service Desk

IT Training

Campus Software Licensing A New Look of the Communications Directory IT for Teaching, Learning and Research IT Infrastructure

The New ITSC Service Desk

by Theresa Lo

"Where should I go to get help from ITSC?"

Going to different locations to get help from ITSC for different services can be very inconvenient and puzzling to the users. For example, if I want to borrow software and at the same time need some technical advice; I will need to visit two different locations. It had been our vision for quite some time to offer a convenient one-stop service to users who should just need to remember one location for obtaining IT and classroom support. Moving ahead to achieve this goal, we have recently amalgamated the original ITSC Helpdesk and ITSC AV Counter, which used to be at different locations, into a new Service Desk. The new ITSC Service Desk is located at Room 2021 (Lift 2 2/F).

The two groups of colleagues who used to support Helpdesk and AV Counter respectively have been working very hard for the past few months in preparation for this change. Numerous working, sharing and training sessions were conducted in order to share technical expertise, strengthen team working and in some cases re-train for new skills. The new ITSC Service Desk was first open in July in preparation for supporting the new cohorts. We are all excited by this unique opportunity to better serve the new demand arising from the University’s transition into the new 334 system.

Since the University’s class hours have been extended, the opening hours of ITSC Service Desk is also extended accordingly to provide timely support for teaching venues. We also take this chance to expand our service hours to cover the lunch hour, evenings and Saturdays.

New opening hours for Fall term: Mon - Fri: 8:45am - 7:30pm Sat: 8:45am - 5:00pm

(16)

Sun and Public Holidays: Closed

Please do come visit us at the new ITSC Service Desk in case you come across any problem in using our IT services or classroom facilities, and don’t forget to grab a piece of candy from the Service Desk. Yes, we understand your frustration when things that should work do not turn out so. We will try our best to serve you as soon as possible and in the meantime, please relax and take a piece of candy of your favourite.

(17)

Enroll in ITSC IT Training Sessions C O N T E N T S

The New ITSC Service Desk

IT Training

Campus Software Licensing A New Look of the Communications Directory IT for Teaching, Learning and Research IT Infrastructure

IT Training

by Theresa Lo

Nowadays, with IT evolving so quickly, it is not easy to keep up with the new technologies available and hence may miss on information, knowledge, solutions which could help on our daily computing needs or increase productivity of our office work; or even saving us from falling into the clever counterfeiting spam security traps.

Across the year, ITSC arranges workshops and seminars to update students and staff on various IT

areas e.g. technology trends, productivity tools, computing awareness, University's ICT environment and services.

To recap on seminars held in 2012:

February: Education campaign on personal data privacy protection (Booth at academic concourse and briefing sessions for staff and student)

April: IT Seminar on MS Windows and MS Office (for staff and students)

Materials for these seminars are available from the ITSC website: http://www.ust.hk/itsc/training/. You are welcome to take a look if you have missed these sessions.

In the past, we have heard from different offices with the need to know how to manage and do simple updates to their department webpages. A survey was carried out in April to understand more of the need and topics of interest to the different offices. Basing on the survey results, two classes of 2-days Adobe Dreamweaver training workshops, conducted by external professional trainer, were held for staff in June and July. There was an overwhelming response and over 170 registrations were received for the 80 available seats.

In the coming months, ITSC shall continue to organise a wide variety of seminars and trainings to staff and students. Please stay tuned to our announcements. In the meantime, should you have any training suggestions, we would be most happy to hear them. Please send an email to [email protected].

(18)

C O N T E N T S New Projects User Services

The New ITSC Service Desk IT Training

Campus Software Licensing

A New Look of the Communications Directory IT for Teaching, Learning and Research IT Infrastructure

Campus Software Licensing

by David Shiu

The University has joined a number of software licensing programs. These licensing programs provide University members with the relevant software either free of charge or at a very low license fee. Note that each licensing program is an individual contract with the software vendor and hence the licensing terms can be very different:

1. Microsoft Campus Agreement – It provides a number of Microsoft software products for running on University-owned PCs or Macs. The licenses are paid collectively by the University on an annual basis. Products covered by this agreement include:

Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise Edition upgrade – Please note that the PC must already have an existing Microsoft Windows license (e.g. Windows XP, Windows 7 Home Basic edition, etc.);

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 – This includes Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, One Note 2010, etc.

Microsoft Visual Studio

Staff members can also install these products to one personally owned PC or Mac for University related activities;

2. Adobe Contractual License Program – This licensing program provides almost all Adobe software products (e.g. Adobe Acrobat Professional, Photoshop Pro, Design Suite, etc.) at very affordable fees;

3. SPSS – We have joined an SPSS licensing program organized by the Joint University Computer Center. Departments can subscribe to a list of SPSS products at very low fees. The annual license period starts on 1-June and ends on 31-May every year; 4. SAS – ITSC and SBM have jointly worked on a licensing program with SAS Hong Kong.

With this program, University members can install and use a list of SAS software products;

5. Matlab – ITSC has licensed a number of Matlab network floating licenses for general causal users. These licenses can be used on any campus computer running Windows, Mac OS or Linux. The Matlab BASE license as well as a number of frequently used toolbox are covered.

As the number of network licenses is limited, it is possible that one may not be able to check-out a license at one time and may need to try again later. In case of you need to use the Matlab software very often, we recommend you to acquire separate Matlab licenses to avoid license outage.

(19)

(20)

In the Old Look

In the New Look C O N T E N T S

The New ITSC Service Desk IT Training

Campus Software Licensing

A New Look of the Communications Directory

IT for Teaching, Learning and Research IT Infrastructure

A New Look of the

Communications

LMES Upgrade

by Liona Cheung

ITSC has collaborated with CELT to implement and release a new version of LMES in Spring 2011-12. There are some new tools implemented in the new version. They are the Sign-up tool, the Messages tool, the Statistics tool, and a specific tool for presenting Library resources, the Library ToolBox.

Sign-up Tool

The Sign-up tool allows users to organize time periods for review sessions, study groups and similar activities. Instructors can provide different time slots, allowing students to sign up and join particular session. Students can take part in a session by picking a selection through the same user interface. This helps both instructors and students arranging their teaching and study schedules in the class.

Instructor View in Sign-up Tool

(22)

Student View in Sign-up Tool Messages Tool

The Messages tool is an internal messaging system between individuals and groups. It mimics a simple email system within a course site. Using Messages, users can disseminate messages to another individual, a select number of individuals, a select number of groups, or a combination of them. Messages sent out would be located in the Sent folder; while messages received would be found in the Received folder. Users can locate their messages easily.

(23)

statistics. Statistics are organized in two screens:

Overview – it is a summary presenting simple statistics information related to site visits, tools activity, and resources activity.

Reports – it provides user-defined and predefined detailed reports about site visits, tools activity and resources activity. The reports present detail statistics information in a printable format.

This helps instructors having an overall picture on the usage of the course site.

(24)

A Pre-defined Report – Activity Total Report Library ToolBox

The Library ToolBox is a tool jointly developed by the Library, CELT and ITSC, to present useful library resources from different categories, such as Facts and Figures, Databases, Library Services, and Research Guides in LMES. The tool provides flexibilities for instructors to determine the library resources to be presented in their course sites. Students can access the related resources at a single platform without leaving LMES.

Library ToolBox Interface

Apart from the new tools, the LMES 2.7 release also contains a number of fixes and enhancements from the previous version. If you have any enquiries about these new tools or other LMES functionalities, please contact the LMES support by email to [email protected] or call the hotline at 2358-8036.

(25)

(26)

LMES Upgrade

Online Assessment Management System

iPeer - a New Peer Evaluation System

Online Assessment Management

System

by Fanny Lee

Background

Nearly a decade ago in response to faculty demand, a secure online assessment system (SOAS) was developed to meet location constraints for examinations in large courses of over 600 students. In the past, the use of the system was minimal. However, the move to the new 4-year undergraduate curriculum with more high enrollment general education courses, alongside the rapid changes in technology and programming, has provided an opportunity to update the existing secure online assessment system.

In anticipation of this increasing demand, CELT has been working with ITSC to look for a new solution. While conceivably no single solution can meet all needs, we have identified a commercial product with good potentials. It is the Questionmark Perception assessment management system. As a pilot trial, the solution has been deployed by Center for Language Education in early September to conduct language tests on 160 students. Some problems have been identified and we believe more work would be required before the solution can be successfully launched. Anyway, we hope the following should provide a basic picture about its functionalities:

Overview

The Questionmark Perception assessment management system allows instructors to Author questions and organize them into exams, quizzes, tests

Deliver assessments via web browsers or secured browsers Analyze and distribute meaningful reports

Authoring

For creating and publishing questions and assessments, Questionmark provides browser based authoring features as well as a windows-based authoring application.

Questionmark Authoring Manager is a Windows-based application which provides richer features than the browser based authoring tool. It enables instructors to author questions, organize them into assessments in an intuitive way.

Item banking

Wizards for more than 20 different types of questions with a WYSIWYG editor Quick assembly of questions into assessments

Define sophisticated branching and scoring schemes

(27)

Questionmark Perception can deliver questions to any web browser, but most browsers are designed to be as open and flexible as possible. When delivering high-stakes tests and exams online, it needs far more security than a web browser can provide.

Questionmark provides a secured browser tool calls Questionmark Secure. It helps prevent cheating on high-stakes exams delivered online by disabling functions that participants could use to print or copy exam material, or gaining access to materials on their computers or the Internet that could give an unfair advantage.

Questionmark Secure can

Stops people from printing questions. Stops people from typing in their own URL. Always display in full screen.

Does not provide menu options or icons. Disables control keys and task switching Disables right-click menu options.

Prevents going backwards to a previous page. Hides the HTML source.

Reporting

Questionmark Perception Enterprise Reporter provides 12 report types to distribute meaningful reports on results. This also includes export the result to EXCEL / ASCII for data analysis using other tools and for archiving purposes.

(28)

Sample reports available in Enterprise Reporter.

(29)

LMES Upgrade Online Assessment Management System

iPeer - a New Peer Evaluation System

iPeer - a New Peer Evaluation

System

by Kenneth Cheng

ITSC is now working with CELT to adopt and customize a new system, iPeer, for teaching staff to conduct peer evaluations. iPeer, which is going to replace the current limited legacy system, OSSPE, is an open source system and originally developed by the University of British Columbia. It allows teaching staff to set up peer evaluation easily on their own.

Teaching staff can create surveys in four different types such as point distribution, rubrics, rating scales and commendation. Enrollment records are retrievable from student records system; evaluation results are available in an Excel file.

It is now undergoing final internal testing stage and if you are interested to know more about iPeer, please contact CELT at [email protected].

Course Management Screen

Rating Scale and Free-text Evaluation

(30)

Rubrics Evaluation

(31)

MWF mobile framwork Phonegap C O N T E N T S New Projects User Services IT for Teaching, Learning and Research

LMES Upgrade Online Assessment Management System iPeer - a New Peer Evaluation System

Mobile Development Framework for

e-Learning

by Kenneth Cheng

As web-enabled phones or devices are becoming popular, students and instructors are getting used to utilize their mobile devices for daily online activities. Mobile devices are proliferating fast and it makes building applications for mobile devices face many new challenges. Designed to solve the proliferation issues and hardware differences of mobile devices, some mobile web frameworks may help developers to build mobile applications to fulfill users’ new expectation.

Different Types of Frameworks

Despite the convenience that a native (i.e. device specific) mobile application could bring, it makes developing a native application for each mobile device impossible due to the fragmented and evolving nature of mobile devices. The following frameworks are designed with multi-platform and device-agnostic in mind.

Web application framework for mobile devices

UCLA Mobile Web Framework (http://mwf.ucla.edu/)

a cross-platform framework for building websites with mobile web standards and support of graceful degradation to less capable devices. Frameworks for building native mobile applications for various platforms

The following two frameworks enable web applications to be packaged as native

applications for various mobile platforms to utilize hardware advantages ● Phonegap (http://www.phonegap.com/)

● Appcelerator (http://www.appcelerator.com/)

Development Tools for Mobile Development

Development for mobile web applications needs similar tools as that used for ordinary website development. Native mobile applications development, however, will need specific tools required by some mobile platforms. For example, a Mac with Xcode is required for building native applications for iOS platform. Some development tools provide emulation of a mobile device for developers to do testing.

Functionalities and Limitations

Although mobile frameworks provide many advantages, they do have their limitations.

Most frameworks do not support cutting-edge functionalities which may have already been available in latest mobile devices

Those frameworks will usually go for a common-denominator approach that may ignore some platform-specific features

Applications built with those frameworks will not be as optimized or flexible as native applications

Examples of Using Different Frameworks and Other Technologies

UCLA revamped an ordinary web application into a mobile one by using their mobile framework.

(32)

http://m.happenings.ucla.edu/

Apart from the mentioned frameworks above, other technologies can be used to further enhanced mobile applications. Below are just a few examples of those technologies.

http://jquerymobile.com/test/ http://dhtmlx.com/touch/samples/

http://dev.sencha.com/deploy/touch/examples/ Support on Mobile Devices

Ordinary web applications, which need to be further optimized for mobile access, are bound to have the following limitations in mobile access. Mobile devices are mainly available in the following platforms with different versions and hardware form factors.

iOS Android Symbian RIM

Windows Mobile

Limitations of Existing Applications on Mobile Devices Display and Resolution Problem

As screens of mobile devices are usually smaller than that of desktop monitors, if web applications are not optimized for mobile devices, the display may not render properly on such devices. Users will need to scroll to view different areas of a webpage.

Bandwidth Usage

Mobile applications usually come with simplified interfaces that make the pages faster to render. The bandwidth usage will be smaller than that of an ordinary web application. To conserve bandwidth usage, applications will need to be simplified and optimized for mobile device.

Functionality Restrictions

Some functions that are supported in desktop browsers will not be supported in some mobile devices (e.g. file upload and support of Flash in iPhone and iPad)

Usage Statistics of LMES

The following charts show a summary of usage statistics of LMES with different operating systems and mobile devices. Windows platform is still the most popular operating system whereas the most popular mobile platforms are iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) and Android. The mobile devices accounted for more than 14% of the total visits of LMES.

(33)

(34)

Personal Response System

What's New in Computer Barns Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for Learning

Personal Response System

by David Shiu

PRS – Personal Response System is a tool used

to promote active learning. Students in class can respond to questions posed by the instructor, by clicking the answers on their PRS handsets.

PRS was first invented by Prof Nelson Cue, Head of Physics Department then. It was deployed in HKUST starting from 1998 and successfully used by numerous courses of the University.

After more than 10 years of deployment, the

maintenance of the old PRS system was getting more and more difficult and costly. Since Fall 2011, the University has deployed a new PRS system to all teaching venues. The new system uses radio frequency instead of infrared for signal transmission, thereby reducing undesirable interferences and thus improving the stability of the system. Besides, the new white colored handsets are slimmer and easier to carry around in student’s pocket.

Instructors interested to use PRS in their courses may sign up at:

http://prs.ust.hk

by clicking on the link “Sign up for PRS”.

(35)

Personal Response System

What's New in Computer Barns

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for Learning

What's New in Computer Barns

by Theresa Lo

In preparation for the new start of the 2012-13 academic year, a number of equipment upgrade and maintenance works were carried out over the summer in the Computer Barns. The following highlight the happenings in the Computer Barns over the summer:

Desktop Computer upgrades

78 units of the computers in Barn A (General Area) have been replaced with a more powerful model ASUS PC with processor i3-2120 (3.3Ghz), 4GB of memory and 22" Philips wide-screen LCDs for a higher resolution display.

Software upgrades

A number of software in the Computer Barns was upgraded to the latest versions and obsolete ones were removed. Please click here to see the latest list of software available at the Barns.

Computer Barn Student Consultants

21 new students were recruited this summer to join our team of 34 Computer Barn Student Consultants this year, joining hands to provide assistance to students in the Computer Barns. We would like to thank those graduating ex-Student Consultants who had contributed great effort in operating the computer barns and providing support to barn users in the past year. Please click here to meet our team of Student Consultants.

Green Printing

In support to protecting the environment, half of the printers in the three Computer Barns will use recycle paper starting from this new academic year. Users are encouraged to make use of duplex printing and recycled paper whenever possible to save the trees. By duplex printing, you will save ten cents to every duplex page printed instead of two simplex pages.

What’s new coming…

A new Computer Barn is currently under construction at the Lee Shau Kee campus. This barn will house around 40 computers for students’ use. Please watch out for the opening announcement.

ITSC strives to provide a quality working environment in the computer barns to cater for the computing needs of students. Please do provide your comments and suggestions to

[email protected].

(36)

Personal Response System What's New in Computer Barns

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for Learning

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for

Learning

by Martin Leung

To cope with the surge in the number of undergraduate students in the coming semester, the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) that has been in pilot service is further expanded to allow more students to access software in the Computer Barn remotely using their own notebook or desktop computers.

The new service will be launched in Oct and more information will be available soon. Stay tuned!

(37)

Satellite Printers for Learning

High Performance Computing at HKUST

Satellite Printers for Learning

by Theresa Lo

"Are there any printing facilities on campus which operate 24x7?"

YES, you can do your printing at the Satellite Printers. These printers are so called because they are scattered across different locations of the campus, capable of black-and-white or color printing on double sides (i.e. "duplex"). The main purpose of Satellite Printers is to facilitate student's learning activities by providing more service points for networking printing, besides those printers inside the computer barns. Print jobs are charged at the same rate as printing in the computer barns.

Satellite Printers are located at:

Area Location

Coffee Shop Beside the paid phone (1/F) Academic Concourse Outside LT-J self-study area (2/F)

UG Hall I G/F Common Room

UG Hall II 2/F Common Room UG Hall III G/F Sitting Room More Satellite Printers will be added to locations at:

Area Location

UG Hall IV G/F Sitting Room UG Hall VII 1/F Rm C103

PG Hall II G/F Lobby

In addition, two Satellite Printers with capability to charge from the Octopus card will be installed next month for trial use. For more information about the Satellite Printers and setup instructions, please visit:

http://www.ust.hk/itsc/printing/sps/

Should you have a good location in mind for a Satellite Printer, please let us know by sending your suggestions to [email protected].

Satellite Printer

(38)

Satellite Printers for Learning

High Performance Computing at HKUST

High Performance Computing at

HKUST

by Charles Choy

The New HPC Cluster

With increasing demand for high performance computational power, the University has formed a High Performance Computing (HPC) Working Group in 2010 to explore how high performance computing needs in HKUST can be met. The Working Group concluds that needs could be met by two means: (1) setting up an in-house HPC facility at HKUST and (2) renting computational power from external supercomputer centers:

1. In-House HPC Facility

With funding support contributed by the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, School of Science, School of Engineering and others, a CPU cluster and a GPU cluster have been acquired. The details are as follows:

CPU cluster

27 x high-end compute nodes each equipped with Dual Intel Xeon E5-2670 CPU

64G RAM

40G Infini-Band network connection 20 x standard compute nodes each equipped with

Dual Intel Xeon E5-2670 CPU 32G RAM

Gigabit Ethernet network connection 96 TB disk storage

The total number of compute cores is 752 with theoretical peak performance of 15.6 TFLOPS

GPU cluster

11 x GPU compute nodes each equipped with Dual Intel Xeon E5-2650 CPU

Engineer Working on the New HPC Cluster

Delegates from NSCCSZ

Visit to NSCCSZ

(39)

22,528 respectively. The theoretical peak performance is 29.26 TFLOPS

The CPU cluster have been delivered in Aug and the GPU cluster is expected to arrive in this Oct. They will be installed and managed by ITSC. The arrangement is a continuation of the community cluster project which ITSC initiated in 2009. 2. Rental of Computational Power

Although purchasing our own on-site HPC resources allows convenience and ease of access, this strategy is hard to scale up and less flexible to cope with sudden surge in demand. Renting computational power from outside becomes necessary when demand is large or surging.

In early 2012, ITSC formed a partnership with the National Supercomputing Center at Shenzhen (NSCCSZ) to provide HKUST users with a free trial period of 6 months. More than 30 accounts were created. In May 2012, staff from NSCCSZ came to HKUST campus and delivered a workshop in HKUST to introduce their services. In return, a team of HKUST delegates visited NSCCSZ in Jun. Although the computing environment still has stability and reliability problems, many of our users manage to leverage this resource. The trial arrangement has already ended and the University is currently working with NSCCSZ for a longer term arrangement.

In the mean time, the University will continue to explore similar collaboration opportunitis with external supercomputing centers if deemed appropriate.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have further queries.

(40)

C O N T E N T S New Projects User Services IT for Teaching, Learning and Research IT Infrastructure

HARNET & Internet Upgrade

Updates on Campus Wi-Fi Project

Awesome Growth in Wi-Fi Usage

Some Common Wi-Fi Problems Updates on Networking the New Buildings

Updates on Telephone Services Central Authentication Service Private Cloud for HKUST

HARNET & Internet Upgrade

by Wong Chi Sing

As its name suggests, HARNET (Hong Kong Academic and Research NETwork) is a regional network linking up the eight tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. It also connects to other research and education networks as well as the public Internet using high-speed connections. To accommodate the growing demand on bandwidth for the arrival of the double cohorts of students in the new academic year, a series of upgrades are carried out on HARNET starting from May:

the core routers on HARNET's data centers have been upgraded for higher bandwidth;

the shared international Internet bandwidth has been upgraded by 50%, up from 2Gbit/s to 3Gbit/s in early September.

the local Internet bandwidth to HKIX will be upgraded by 100%, up from 2Gbit/s to 4Gbit/s in late September.

HKUST faculty members and researchers may like to note that HARNET currently links up to the following national research and education networks:

ASGCNet (Academia Sinica Grid Computing Center) ASNET (Academic Sinica Network)

CERNET (China Education and Research Network) KREONET (Korea Research Environment Open Network) TEIN3 (Trans-Eurasia Information Network)

(41)

HARNET & Internet Upgrade

Updates on Campus Wi-Fi Project

by Raymond Chau

Wifi at Use on Campus

Subsequent to our update in September 2009's Channel, we are pleased to report that the project has been completed back in March 2011. Wireless coverage has been extended to all offices and laboratories since mid-2010, except specific areas asked to be excluded by departments. Outdoor areas having frequent user access have wireless coverage since March 2011.

Wireless Usage

Please refer to the 'Wi-Fi Usage Statistics' article in this issue of Channel.

Upcoming Activities

The focus on wireless provisioning has since been shifted to Resolution of wireless issues

Bandwidth uplift via fine-tuning

Planning upgrade on popular usage areas such as bus stop Wireless planning in newly built areas

(42)

HARNET & Internet Upgrade Updates on Campus Wi-Fi Project

Awesome Growth in Wi-Fi Usage

by Clement Woo

The usage of our campus Wi-Fi service is having an awesome growth in the past three years. We also got new record device numbers, user counts and current connections in every semester. Our HKUST communities are now enjoying convenient Wi-Fi surfing in almost all campus areas after three years of IEEE 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi network deployment by ITSC.

Device Statistics

We had around 10,000 and 23,000 unique devices connected in May 2012 in hostel areas and whole campus respectively. Compared with last year, we got 35% and 40% growth respectively. Figure I below shows the number of unique devices which were connected to the Wi-Fi network in (A) hostel areas, and (B) whole campus each week in academic years 2009 to 2011.

User Statistics

Around 5,200 and 11,000 unique users used Wi-Fi in May 2012 in hostel areas and whole campus. It is amazing that over 85% of our students and staff out of total population of 13,000 users are already utilizing the Wi-Fi services in their daily life. Figure II below shows the number of unique users who used one or more devices to connect to the Wi-Fi network in (A) hostel areas, and (B) whole campus each week in academic years 2009 to 2011.

(43)

two years ago, each user then only had 1.4 devices on average. Figure III below shows the average devices connected to the Wi-Fi network per user in (A) hostel areas, and (B) whole campus each week in academic years 2009 to 2012.

Concurrent Connection Statistics

In the academic building, the Wi-Fi service is serving a peak of 5,800 concurrent devices on average during office hours in April and May 2012. Figure IV below shows the concurrent connection in academic building each day on average in academic year 2011.

(44)

In the student hostels, we are serving a peak of 4,800 concurrent devices on average during mid-nights in April and May 2012. Figure V below shows the concurrent connection in student hostels each day on average in academic year 2011.

(45)

Some Common Wi-Fi Problems

Updates on Networking the New Buildings

Some Common Wi-Fi Problems

by Raymond Chau

The most common Wi-Fi problem symptoms that some of our users may encounter are:

Sudden disconnections Slow network speed

Unfortunately sometimes it is not obvious in identifying the root cause of a symptom, as many problem sources may result in the same symptom, and more often than not, the symptoms happen only sporadically. Only through careful observation and in-depth analysis can the real source be found. Below are some common problem sources that we have identified:

Outdated wireless card software driver

Manufacturers often release software driver updates at times, to enhance performance, add features and fix issues. It is therefore essential and advisable to update to the latest wireless card driver software.

Interference sources – from Non Wi-Fi Equipment

Air is a shared medium. When one speaks, other Wi-Fi

devices will wait for their turn to speak up - everyone get some share of air time.

However, there is dumb equipment which also operates in the same 2.4 GHz frequency range as Wi-Fi. Most common ones are:

Microwave oven: affecting Wi-Fi users in nearby rooms, on the same floor and on adjacent floors Bluetooth earphone, wireless audio headphones, and wireless game controllers: these tend to be of lower power and thus will only affect users in the same room

DECT cordless phones that operate in the 2.4GHz range

Whenever they operate, they occupied a large percentage of air time, disregard of presence of nearby Wi-Fi equipment. As a result nearby Wi-Fi users will experience sudden lowering of network speed or even sudden disconnections.

Interference sources – from other Wi-Fi Equipment

Air is a shared medium with finite bandwidth. When nearby Wi-Fi equipment operate and has one or more of the following setting, bandwidth available to UST wireless’ users will be lowered:

Their frequency channel overlap with more than one UST’s Wi-Fi devices They are set to transmit at high signal level

They transmit at low speed (2Mbit/s for example), thus occupying more air time Common Wi-Fi interference we have seen includes:

Powerful broadband routers: Linksys, TP-LINK, Buffalo, etc. LG network phones

Apple Airport Extreme, Time Capsule Wireless (2.4GHz) cordless phones Wireless (2.4GHz) karaoke microphones

If you operate one of these, please help your neighbors by:

(46)

Lowering wireless signal level to lowest or next to lowest Set wireless channel to 1,6,11 or 13 (preferred, if available)

Use 5GHz range only, if available, in Airport Extreme and Time Capsule Switch off wireless service on it if not being used

Connect your computer to sMobileNet (wireless) or directly to wall network socket (wired) Power-off the unit when you leave your room

If you need assistance in adjusting the setting on your wireless device, we are more than glad to help - please contact us at [email protected]

End user equipment sensitivity

Our observation is that different notebook’s wireless sections are of similar sensitivity. On the contrary, we observed that handheld mobile devices (e.g. smartphones):

Have vastly different radio sensitivity

Are usually of lower sensitivity than a typical notebook

Could be affected by the way it was hold, which absorb/weaken radio signal reception As a result, handheld mobile users are more likely to experience these symptoms:

Most mobile devices can only get a lower connection speed than a notebook At the same location, some mobile phones can connect while others can’t

Problem Reporting

We investigate each and every reported case. To speed up our investigation, we will need the following information about your observations:

What did you see? Disconnections? Particularly slow program? No coverage? Where did you see them? In hostel? Library? Nearby room number?

When did you see? Date/time of occurrence or random occurrence?

On what device? Frequency band and model of your wireless device? OS version? Please send the above to [email protected], we will response as soon as we can.

(47)

Location Map LSK Campus UG Hall 8 and 9 C O N T E N T S New Projects User Services IT for Teaching, Learning and Research IT Infrastructure

Some Common Wi-Fi Problems

Updates on Networking the New Buildings

Updates on Networking the New

Buildings

by Raymond Chau

HKUST will have some new buildings in the next few years:

Lee Shau Kee Campus

Undergraduate Hall 8 and Hall 9 Cheng Yu Tung Building

In the following, I would like to brief you on the design and implementation status of computer networks in these new buildings.

The Lee Shau Kee Campus

The Lee Shau Kee (LSK) Campus occupies an area of about 10 hectares. It is approximately 3 times the construction floor area of the Enterprise Center. This campus has two main buildings – the New Academic Building (NAB) and the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). The NAB has one 200-seat Lecture Theater plus 27 classrooms/laboratories. The IAS has one 200-seat Lecture Theater, one open auditorium and 4 seminar rooms.

Connecting to Academic Building

Two fiber-optic cable systems will be installed between Academic Building and the LSK Campus. They are installed via two separate paths, providing adequate bandwidth as well as path diversity between the two campuses for resiliency.

Second Data Center

A second data center will be built on the G/F of NAB. It will have UPS power supply and 24 hours air conditioning, serving as the networking center for the LSK Campus as well as potential future developments in the vicinity. This data center will also serve as the backup data center during disasters; backup servers will be relocated from Annex of the Academic Building.

Networking in the Lee Shau Kee Campus

The second data center will have two load-shared/redundant backbone switch/routers, with 10G resilient connections to each floor. Gigabit connections will be available to each wired floor outlets with Cat-6 UTP cabling. Same as in the Academic Building, wireless access will be available to most areas of the campus.

Undergraduate Hall 8 and Hall 9

With an expected occupation date of early 2013, Hall 8 / Hall 9 is already under construction. Located next to the football pitch, the halls can host 700 students

(48)

Cheng Yu Tung Building altogether.

Design of the wired and wireless network inside the halls have been finished. Part of the extra fiber-optic cable required has already been installed.

Latest generation of network equipment will be procured this summer and with installation scheduled between October to December 2012.

Cheng Yu Tung Building

The Cheng Yu Tung Building is an extension of the Academic Building next to the Enterprise Center laboratories. With a floor space of 10,000 square meters. , there will be research laboratories, teaching and office facilities. The tentative completion date is mid-2014.

Network wiring design and wireless device placement has already been finished. Network topology design and equipment selection will start in mid-2013, according to the latest technology available at that time.

(49)

Updates on Telephone Services

Central Authentication Service Private Cloud for HKUST

Updates on Telephone Services

by Raymond Chau

Telephone Number Range Expansion

The majority of telephone numbers of the University starts with the prefix "2358". This is based on the telephone number ranges that were obtained 20 years ago and most numbers in these ranges have already been used. To cope with new growth in the coming 10-15 years, we have acquired an additional number range recently:

34692000 - 34693999 (i.e. extension number 2000 to 3999)

ITSC will soon start to release this new number range for new users. The following shows a complete picture of the University’s telephone number ranges:

Telephone Number Ranges Extensions

26231000-26231499 1000-1499 34692000-34693999 2000-3999 23585000-23585099 5000-5099 23585700-23588999 5700-8999

For easier memory recollection, you may be interested in knowing a coincidental connection between "3469" and "2358", namely:

2358 + 1111 = 3469

Anyway, please note that the University telephone system is set up such that internal calls can always be made by simply dialing the extension number (i.e. the last 4 digits of the telephone number), regardless of the prefix of the called number.

Telephone Service in the LSK Campus

The telephone service at the new LSK Campus will entirely be based on the VoIP technology that leverages a single network for both voice and data communication. The benefits include:

Cleaner office space: one wire for both IP phone and desktop PC

New service provisioning, not limited to traditional analog telephone system Better internal call voice quality, especially on calls between LSK and main campus

(50)

Updates on Telephone Services

Central Authentication Service

Private Cloud for HKUST

Central Authentication Service

by Y.F. Lai

Be noticed that the new CAS has got a slightly modified face

The Central Authentication Service (CAS) may be one of the most important infrastructural services that you may not be aware but are relying on every day. Based on an open-source technology that is widely adopted in the higher-education sector, CAS is a single sign-on service that allows you to access multiple secure web applications by just logging in once. For instance, the internal campus portal, namely myPortal, is using CAS for user authentication. Recently, there are some important infrastructural changes with CAS. The new CAS supports newer browsers such as Chrome, Safari, etc. and allows more sophisticated authentication arrangements. Behind the scene, the new CAS is supported by a cluster of servers which means it is more robust and resilient to server failure. For web developers, the new CAS supports the retrieval of user’s attributes by their web applications. This enables the backend web applications to determine the proper access control rights of an authenticated user. For more details about the new CAS, please visit:

http://www.ust.hk/itsc/cas

Last but not least, please note that the new CAS has got a slightly modified new face.

(51)