Burke and Bowers auditoria both received upgrades over the summer to improve the quality of their audiovisual systems, to better showcase the world-class teaching and high-profile events held in these venues.

In Burke, we installed a new projector that is twice as bright as the previous one and a new motorized screen.  Together, these upgrades mean that presentations are now bright and clear even without lowering the room shades.  We also doubled the number of wireless microphones from four to eight, while upgrading the sound system to improve audio clarity and greatly reduce feedback.  Bowers Auditorium also received a new top-quality wireless microphone system and now has four wireless microphones.

The projector that had been in Burke has been relocated to the 380 Edwards classroom, allowing us to finally retire the oldest classroom projector at FES – which was 6 years old. All classroom projectors are now three years old or newer.

Over the coming months, we will be upgrading the technology in Sage Hall room 41C and the 301 Prospect St. classroom.  It is our hope that these projects will be completed in time for the start of the Spring semester.

Over the summer, FES-IT continued the Dropbox implementation across the school.  There are three main advantages Dropbox, a cloud-based system, has over the system of storing files on local servers:  increased security, increased file availability, and decreased cost of file hosting.  See here for more information.

All masters and PhD students have now been invited or have joined the FES Dropbox instance.  Several FES administrative departments and Centers and Programs have already been moved from the primary FES file server to Dropbox, and more are in progress.  We expect to complete the transition by the start of the spring semester.

We have also created a video that will assist you in linking your personal Dropbox account with your FES Dropbox account for seamless integration on both your machine and through the web.
Dropbox and its related tool Dropbox Paper are proving to be extremely valuable for collaboration and information sharing.  Dropbox Paper, or simply Paper, is a collaborative document-editing service developed and launched by Dropbox in January 2017. It offers a web application as well as a mobile app.  With Paper, teams can create, review, revise, manage, and organize—all in a shared collaborative space.

FES-IT has already used Paper for many different purposes, such as new student on-boarding and Canvas Resources for faculty and TA/s.  If you haven’t joined the FES Dropbox instance yet or would like training or some ideas on how you can better use Dropbox, please send an email to the FES-IT Helpdesk.

As part of the rebuild of the Yale–Myers forest camp, A beautiful 12,000-lumen projector and screen were installed in the classroom. The extremely bright projector allows for a crystal-clear image to be displayed in the classroom without the need to darken the room. Along with the projector, a 65-inch flat panel display was installed in the common room of Building D. Additionally, a Logitech conference camera was also included to allow for video conferencing by connecting the user’s laptop to the display via HDMI and the camera via USB.

In addition to the A/V equipment, the YaleSecure wireless network was also installed, linking Yale-Myers to the rest of the Yale network. This will allow users at YMF to seamlessly connect their devices to the network and also allow connection to Yale resources without the need to use the VPN.

Did you know that PostDoctoral/Graduate Associates are required to use an FES-IT approved computer package in order to receive complete technical support for their devices? This new policy is effective for all PostDocs/Grads with a start date of July 1, 2017, or later. FES-IT offers many options for supported machines and will work you to find a solution that meets your needs. Full details of the FES-IT PostDoc/PostGrad policy can be found here.

Eduroam allows Yale students, faculty and staff visiting participating institutions to use their Yale credentials to access the institution’s wireless network for free.  You can access Eduroam any time you’re in range of the institution’s wireless network; e.g. at a nearby coffee shop. To use, simply select the wireless network “eduroam” and use “netid@yale.edu” for your username, replacing netid with your actual netid.  To see a list of participating institutions, please visit the Eduroam site .  Eduroam access can even be set up before you depart, so once you arrive, your wireless devices will join the Eduroam network automatically.  See instructions here.   For assistance, please email the FES Helpdesk .

Travel Tips
Please take a look at our travel tips page to get ready for your next trip.  Please keep in mind that requests for changes to your cell phone should be submitted at least two weeks prior to departure.

Over the summer, FES-IT created several software installation videos that were used for new student on-boarding, enabling self-service installation of CrashPlan backup software, Cisco VPN software, and Papercut/BluePrint printing and client software.  These videos can also be used by anyone who has purchased a new machine or who needs to reinstall this software for whatever reason.  We have also created a video that will assist you in linking your personal Dropbox account with your FES Dropbox account for seamless integration on both your machine and through the web.  If you have any suggestions for other videos that you would like to see FES-IT create, please let us know .

FES-IT can now provide PollEverywhere to all students, faculty, and staff.  PollEverywhere can be used in place of previous hardware or clicker-based response systems by using computers and/or mobile devices to poll your audience.  PollEverywhere allows for fast and easy integration with Powerpoint or Keynote as well as being able to deploy polls or surveys in a web-based format.  The application offers a wealth of features for interactive audience engagement whether in a seminar of 10 students or a conference with up to 1,000 attendees.  To get set up with your account or to learn more, please see our PollEverywhere Resource page.

We have recently added:

• Upgraded PixPros.  Similar to GoPros, the PixPros also allow for the creation of VR (Virtual Reality) content as well as the ability to operate in harsh climate conditions for field-based research.

• New audio recorders, featuring better sound quality, longer sound capture, and better compression formats than the older models.

• Adapters for USB-C based equipment such as the new Macbook Pro models, some new PC’s, and the new iPads with keyboard covers.

Equipment can be reserved by going to the FES webpage: http://environment.yale.edu/myfes/computing

Are you looking to find out the latest information about your help request to FES-IT?  Then please bookmark this link (https://yale.service-now.com/home.do) to follow up on your submitted tickets or add additional information.  The link above (which can also be navigated to by going to MyFES, then Computing, then IT, then click on “View Your Open IT Tickets”), will allow you to see all your ServiceNow tickets.  On this page, not only can you view but you can also submit changes to any currently open tickets as well as submit changes or respond to comments to FES-IT.