UK Technology gets an upgrade
September 10, 2013
By Laura Shrake
As technology seems to continuously out-date itself, UK is trying to keep up with the needs of the campus by adding and renovating the technology across campus.
Three of the most recent efforts include the Hub at W.T. Young Library, Tech Help at the Hub and the UKMobile application.
Ashley Tabb, marketing manager for the Academic Planning, Analytics and Technologies, said the department is working to provide strategic and technical support to UK’s administration, students and university community. APAT has recently adopted the Information Technology department into a larger initiative.
“The goal of APAT is to strategically align resources with UK’s educational and research missions, while maximizing effectiveness and efficiency,” Tabb said.
The Hub has been transformed into a student digital media space, now known as the Media Depot. Students can find technical support for the development of their academic media projects, use recording and equipment space, and editing stations with Adobe and Microsoft media editing software, according to the UK IT website.
Tabb said the goal of the Media Depot is to assist students with any media questions.
Audio and video recording equipment will be available, as well as editing stations with software and technical support to assist students with an assignment.
Hardware in the Media Depot will include 27-inch iMacs, Mac Pros, Windows 7 computers and Dell all-in-one Windows 8 Touch Screen Computers, Tabb said.
A second update is to the ease of access to tech help for students.
Tech Help @ the Hub is a new, walk-in support site at the W.T. Young Library that offers one-on-one assistance with virus protection and mobile device configuration, in addition to support previously offered in the Hub.
Tech Help @ the Hub will be open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The third most recent update to campus technology is that of the mobile application specific to UK.
According to a news release, myUK is now its own application, separate from the UKMobile app, and will provide an interactive campus map, course catalog, directory and the ability to view class information, register for classes and make account payments.
Aside from these most recent changes, UK has already improved its wireless internet services.
The new WiFi technology supports average download speeds of 20 times that of the previous technology.
Beginning this fall, Tabb said, students will transition from data storage systems like Locker and Mac File to using personally owned USB devices and cloud-based storage systems like GoogleDrive and SkyDrive. Tabb said students must transfer their files off of the old system by Dec. 20 and can do so by going to uky.edu/scslabs/StorageRemoval.html.