In the Electronic Lecture Centers

Instructors and students scheduled for classes in the Electronic Lecture Centers (ELC) in Lecture Centers B1 and E1 are in for a special treat. In addition to having new chairs and decor, the ELCs have impressive multimedia and computing facilities available at the touch of a button: laser disk video can be displayed on a huge projection screen, with high-quality stereo sound, images from a book can be projected with an electronic visualizer, or you can surf the Internet with a powerful networked computer. The bad news is that UIC has only two such rooms at this time. The good news is that additional rooms are now being planned.

Each ELC has two computers of its own, and has facilities to allow instructors to bring in and network their own laptop computers. The local computers in the ELCs are an Apple Power Macintosh 8100 running System 7.5 and a Dell Pentium 560 running MS-Windows and DOS. Both have CD-ROM drives and 40 MB memory, and their video and sound systems are fully integrated with the ELCs. They're connected to the ADN-ii network and have a rich set of software provided by the Computer Center's Novell Server Services. (See the January/February issue of The ADN Connection.)

Instructors in the ELC are also free to use small programs and files they have loaded themselves on the ELC computers' local drives, with the caveat that there is no guarantee that their files can be protected from inadvertent damage or erasure by others. This shouldn't be a problem, however, for small programs and files needed for a short period of time. Additional properly-licensed software needed on a more permanent basis can be loaded on the ADN network servers, on request. Please give us two weeks notice, in case we run into difficulties making the software work across the network.

What software is there? When you boot the ELC PCs on the network, you get the standard network software -- much too much to list here -- and some additional software available only in the ELCs, including Microsoft Word and Excel for Windows, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Aldus Persuasion Player. Similarly, there is a long list of available Macintosh software, including Microsoft Word, CU-SeeMe, and Aldus Persuasion Player. Both the PCs and the Macs have Mosaic and Netscape. (The URL http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/elc/ has a complete list of available software.)

The network connections provide the ELC computers other ways of accessing and running software, provided, of course, that you have the proper passwords and permissions. On the Macs, you can use AppleShare to mount the hard disk of another Mac connected to the ADN-ii. For example, you might want to mount a volume on one of the Macs in the InfoTech Arcade to access a multimedia title. Similarly, both the PCs and Macs can also share files and programs stored on private ADN Server Services disk space on the network servers.

If you have any questions about the ELCs, multimedia, or any computer-related questions, please contact the Computer Center Client Services Office in Room 2267 SEL, by telephone at 413-0003, or via email at consult@uic.edu. Please contact the Timetable office if you are interested in teaching at the ELC.

Comments are appreciated; send them to
Ed Garay, garay@uic.edu