In the last issue of NACS News, we reported that the building distribution switches in Aldrich Hall and others were upgraded during the 2005-6 academic year. It was in fact during the 2006-7 academic year. We regret the error.
About NACS
NACS Shares at ACUTA
Bruce Cotsonas, NACS Project Coordinator, and Todd Strand, NACS Infrastructure Engineer, co-presented at the 35th annual ACUTA conference and exhibition in San Diego on July 27th. (ACUTA is an association for communications technology professionals in Higher Education.)
In their presentation, “Visual Documentation and the Installation of Communications Infrastructure”, Bruce and Todd demonstrated the use of “visual documentation” (also known as “visual scope of work”) to portray telecommunications infrastructure before and after installation projects on the UCI campus.
Google Earth (TM) satellite photography of UCI building sites and digital photographs of construction details as well as text and other graphics were imported into Power Point presentations. The resulting “visual documentation” helps to reduce ambiguity and clarify the reasons for infrastructure work, solutions to problems, conduit location and excavation, cable pulling/splicing/termination, and the transferring of services.
Bruce Cotsonas coordinates NACS cabling projects with clients, vendors and staff. He is a member of ACUTA, BICSI, CSI and DBIA, and he has over twenty-one years of experience in project management.
Todd Strand designs, plans, and provides cost estimates during communications infrastructure projects. He holds the Registered Communications Distribution Designer, Network Transport Systems Specialist, and Outside Plant Specialist certifications from BICSI.
Bruce and Todd work for Diane Dunn, Manager of NACS’s Communications Planning Group, which plans and manages all campus-wide network and telecommunications infrastructure projects.
UCI Hosts IT Guidance Committee Meeting
On Tuesday, May 2, 2006, UCI hosted the second meeting of the systemwide UC Information Technology Guidance Committee (ITGC).
The ITGC was established by the UC Office of the President to undertake an 18-month process of consulting with stakeholders at all the UC campuses. Its goal is to guide future UC investment in information technology to promote an effective academic information environment.
The formation of this committee recognizes the increasingly important role that information technology will play in sustaining the enhancing the University’s academic quality and competitiveness and in ensuring essential business effectiveness and efficiencies.
The meeting, held at Langston Library, consisted of three sessions: Infrastructure/Administration, Instructional and Student Computing, and Research Computing. A wide range of faculty and staff from throughout the campus attended. More information can be found at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/itgc/
New Talent in NACS
NACS would like to welcome Harry Mangalam to our Research Computing group, and announce that Isaac Straley has accepted the position of Interim Manager for our IT Security group.
Harry Mangalam earned his Ph.D. in Physiology/Pharmacology from UCSD, and has held positions at the Salk Institute, the National Center for Genome Resources in Santa Fe, and at Acero, a Bay Area commercial bioinformatics company, as well as IT support positions within UCI’s College of Medicine and Earth Systems Sciences. Harry has been under the thrall of computers since the days when floppy disks really were big and floppy.
Harry’s position is a joint appointment, with half his time supporting Dr. Falko Kuester’s HIperwall project and the other half with NACS Research Computing, assisting faculty with their computational science needs.
Isaac Straley’s previous position was within the IT Security group he now leads. Prior to joining NACS, he owned his own consulting business, providing services to financial institutions famous for their attention to network and data security issues. His background includes both technical and management experience. He is also a life-long computer fanatic.
As Interim Manager of IT Security, he will be working with NACS and the campus to ensure a continued safe and reliable computing environment.
Telecommunications Customer Services
NACS Telecommunications Customer Services (TCS) group provides customer support for an array of communications services.
NACS TCS responds to requests for telephone and data installations, repairs, and “Moves, Adds and Changes”.
In addition, NACS TCS provides advice and consulting on the campus telephone and voice mail systems, assistance with billing, telephone and voice mail training classes, the campus telephone directory, campus operator services, and support for the 800MHz radio system.
Did you know that NACS has a wide variety of telephone sets and related features available to the campus? We are here to serve your individual department’s needs. We are happy to make a site visit to your department to review your service needs and to help you select the features that can make your job easier. If you have the services you need, but are unsure of how to use the telephone and voice mail systems to the fullest extent, we offer training free of charge. Please contact NACS Telephone Customer Service at (949) 824-5123 or nacs-tcs@uci.edu to request a consultation or to sign up for training.