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One of IUP's Computer Science Department student programming teams took second place at the 2003 Association for Computing Machinery  programming contest held in November. The "Bears" team won second among 35 other teams from all over the east central region of the United States and Canada. A second team took 45th among 140 competitors in another competition at the contest. Dr. Leem S. Shim is faculty advisor for the IUP group.

IUP’s computer science department received an $88,445 information security equipment grant from Cisco Systems in fall 2003.The equipment grant, which includes 10 Cisco firewalls and 10 Cisco routers, has been used to enhance IUP’s existing network security lab. This lab will help students gain hands-on experience in securing complex networks with a variety of configurations. The computer science department plans to develop red team competitions between 36 information assurance centers to stimulate interest and enthusiasm among undergraduate students and to attract them to pursue graduate study in the discipline.

Dr. Stanford Mukasa (journalism) completed an African Virtual University Non-credit Program in journalism in fall 2003. Funded through a $50,000 grant from the African Virtual University, Dr. Mukasa’s pilot project teaches non-credit refresher courses for working journalists in Africa through videotapes and online assignments.  Mukasa worked with WIUP-TV and the Instructional Design Center in Stapleton Library to design and film instructional videos. These courses were created to improve the quality of journalistic writing in Africa and to aid those journalists who cannot afford to travel to America for an education.

Indiana University has been named one of “The Top 25 Most Connected Campuses” by The Princeton Review, a national educational resources company. The list, released in October 2003, was designed to illustrate the depth and breadth of technology on today’s campus, Princeton Review officials said.  To identify the colleges on the list, The Princeton Review collated responses from more than 100,000 college students, as well as data from campus administrators.  Criteria included the student-computer ratio, wireless access on campus, the breadth of the computer science curriculum and comments from campus students.

IUP's Computer Science Department student programming team won the spring 2003 programming competition at the Pennsylvania Computer and Information Science Educators (PACISE) Conference held in April in Shippensburg. This is the fifth year in a row that an IUP team has taken "firsts" in the competition.

All IUP buildings, including residence halls, have high-speed connections to the campus-wide fiberoptic network and the Internet.

All IUP computer users, including students, have personal web and network storage space to enable access of files from any campus location (including the two branch campuses) and from their homes.

All IUP employees and students e-mail accounts and for students, storage space for a personal Web site.  More than 2 million e-mail messages are processed through the University’s server each month. 

Students utilize the web-based information system (URSA) to register for classes and perform all other "business" matters with the university.  Mid-term and final grades are posted electronically through URSA.

IUP has four state-of-the-art public computer labs, upgraded on a two-year cycle, and 40 college or department labs, all staffed with trained administrators or students.  There are a total of 755 computers available for student use in these labs. Academic departments offer 37 more classroom labs with computers at each desk, with a total of  816 computers within these classroom labs.

IUP has 106 multi-media equipped classrooms with an additional 40 classrooms being enhanced each year until all classrooms requiring multi-media are equipped with those enhancements.

There are a total of 3,331 PCs or Macs and 131 servers in the academic colleges and support units. In addition, there are central servers supporting a host of student needs, such as e-mail, web and network storage.

All faculty members are assured of current hardware through the Faculty PC Replacement Plan that replaces computers every three years, and of state-of-the-art software available through the Microsoft Campus Agreement.

For the fall 2003 semester, more than 90 percent of IUP students – who all receive WebCT accounts -- have at least one course being augmented with WebCT, and almost 2,000 “designers” – instructors and assistants – are registered in the system. This averages to 2.83 courses that include some use of WebCT for each registered student.  The Project Directory Service provides additional disk space for each course-section being taught.  Many faculty members utilize this service to distribute electronic documents and to allow students to electronically submit assignments.

IUP's Technology Support and Training Department is the recipient of the 2000 National Award of Excellence from the Association of Career and Technical Education. The award is given only every three years and the Association includes educators throughout the nation.

IUP is the only university in Pennsylvania or New York to be selected as a regional training center for WEBCT, a program that develops academic courses for Internet delivery. Training will be offered through the University's Instructional Design Center, which supports faculty in developing effective applications of technology for teaching and learning. More than 200 on-campus courses incorporate Web technology in course delivery and support.

Faculty from IUP, Clarion and Edinboro's Advancing the Development of Educators in Pennsylvania Through Technology Training Consortium will collaborate to develop nine online modules, focusing on how to use today's growing technology to benefit students as early as kindergarten. The Web-based modules will allow for the convenience of anywhere, anytime learning on topics including digital imaging to enhance instruction, developing multimedia presentations, videoconferencing for K-12 education and electronic communication and collaboration.

More than a dozen staffed student computer laboratories throughout campus and internet connections in all residence hall rooms through the University’s campus-wide fiberoptic connection are available to all students.

Dr. Steven Jackson, a political science professor, designed and implemented a Web-based course selected by WebCT for inclusion in their Exemplary Course Project. Jackson is among selected faculty from the United States, Canada and Australia chosen to participate in the project organized by WebCT, an internet-based course tool and management system that provides the opportunity for online teaching and learning. The project team based their selection largely on the academic rigor and the content robustness of the courses submitted, evaluating the realistic and relevant involvement of the student. Selected courses must also be as demanding as a traditional classroom setting would be. Jackson’s course "World Politics" concentrates on three main themes:  power and foreign policy, international political economy and new international issues. Each topic involves textbook assignments, as well as Web-based research and online interaction, such as in an interactive segment about turn-of-the-20th-century diplomacy. Students become involved by taking on the responsibilities of running a country, including building alliances and waging war. For this particular section of the course, Jackson was selected for the Innovative Teaching Excellence award at the University through the Instructional Design Center/Center for Teaching Excellence.

IUP offers a Software Development Center, designed to give IUP students real experience in software design and accommodate the region's custom software needs. The IUP center gives students the opportunity to develop software in a real-life setting that can not be duplicated in academic course requirements. The SDC helps students to understand that there is more to software development than just writing programs, that client relations and interactions are essential to the success of software development. Besides providing services to external clients, software center students also offer service to the University.

All campus residence halls have high-speed connections to the campus-wide fiber optic backbone and the Internet (currently 1,800 students are using this option); students can contract with private Internet service provider partner for off-campus access.

A campus-wide local area network for students with home directory services (personnel network storage space) for students enables them to access their files from any campus location (including our two branch campuses) and from their homes.

Library systems can be accessed from anywhere on-campus and from off-campus via Internet service provider, includes search and electronic materials.

IUP's Instructional Design Center supports faculty in developing effective applications of technology to teaching and learning.

More than 200 on-campus courses incorporate Web technology in course delivery and support.

Students in the College of Education and Educational Technology have the option to build an electronic portfolio, and this option will be expanded to other colleges in the near future.

Four academic departments specifically focus on technology training (Computer Science, Management Information Systems, Business Technology Support, Communications Media).

Banner Web-based system for student registration, grades and other services are designed to make student services as efficient and accessible as possible.