Internet of Things Devices & Data Visualization Provide Insight into Indoor Air Quality

An image of the portable device used to measure carbon dioxide in classrooms on campus.Multiple campus groups and Office of Information Technology (OIT) teams have collaborated on a multi-disciplinary initiative to better understand indoor air quality on The Hilltop.

After continued discussions in the Faculty Senate regarding classroom air quality and the spread of COVID-19, Physics department faculty member Dr. Thomas E. Coan approached OIT staff to work together on a method to capture environmental data within classrooms and visualize said data to make inferences on possible pathogen spread, power consumption, air quality, and their possible effects on student attention and success. Continue reading Internet of Things Devices & Data Visualization Provide Insight into Indoor Air Quality

Zoombombing in the Classroom? Not On Our Watch

Zoom Update: In response to the issues concerning privacy and security, Zoom has automatically defaulted the as screen sharing settings for Education customers to “Only Host” as of March 26, 2020. To enable participant sharing, please visit the following link: support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360041591671

Yesterday, we discussed the trend of bad actors taking advantage of publicly shared Zoom meetings to take over with unwanted and disruptive screen-shares, called Zoombombing. While it is a trend in with publicly open Zoom meetings, we are in a new age of online learning and students are also testing the waters of these new platforms. Things like limiting your Zoom meeting video to Host Only will not work in an educational setting as we want to encourage student engagement and sharing. Let us look at some ways to limit the disruption of students in our live online learning environments. Continue reading Zoombombing in the Classroom? Not On Our Watch

SMU Linux User Group Arriving in October

Tux, the Linux mascot

The OIT Academic Technology Services is excited to announce the formation of a new Linux User Group (LUG) for SMU. Starting this September October, the LUG will be open to any campus community members who share an interest in the Linux operating system, free and open source software and other related topics—both technical and non-technical. Continue reading SMU Linux User Group Arriving in October