Standard VI. Physical Resources and Facilities

VI.4 The staff and the services provided for a program by libraries, media centers, and information technology facilities, as well as all other support facilities, are sufficient for the level of use required and specialized to the degree needed. These facilities are appropriately staffed, convenient, accessible to the disabled, and available when needed, regardless of forms or locations of delivery of the school's program.

Information Technology Staff

The iSchool has two full-time professional information technology staff members and seven student videographers to support the recording of online course work. As the School transitions to Pitt Online, the faculty will use the University’s professional audio and video studios to produce online content for courses. More than a dozen students staff the iSchool Student Computing labs, which are open a significant number of hours, as described below.

iSchool Student Computing Labs

The School of Information Sciences has developed outstanding computer labs for education and research. Computing resources for the exclusive use of iSchool graduate students, faculty, and staff include a Sun UltraSPARC cluster with associated RAID array, Sun workstations, and Core i7-based Windows 7 system PCs. Computing equipment throughout the building is connected via a LAN (local area network), which employs a fiber backbone utilizing Cisco 10Gb ethernet technology. Software in the PC labs is shared through a Microsoft server. Peripheral hardware, including laser printers, scanners (flat-bed and slide), and CD-ROM read-write drives, also contributes to this rich environment for learning, teaching, and research. The student computing labs, currently located on the eighth floor of the iSchool, are staffed by student employees on the following schedule:

iSchool Lab Hours

Day	Hours of Operation
Monday	9 a.m.–10 p.m.
Tuesday	9 a.m.–10 p.m.
Wednesday	9 a.m.–10 p.m.
Thursday	9 a.m.–10 p.m.
Friday	9 a.m.–6 p.m.
Saturday	noon to 5 p.m.

iSchool Research Labs

As a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE/IAE) designated by the National Security Agency for 2004-2012, the School was eligible to apply to Cisco Systems for their competitive equipment donation program.  In May, 2005, equipment worth $129,472 was awarded to the School of Information Sciences for use by the faculty and students working in the area of information assurance.  The new equipment has been used to significantly extend the existing security laboratory facilities.  Included within this research environment are clusters of Dell servers employed to simulate the security issues related to grid and cloud computing scenarios. Forensics equipment in the form of drive write blockers, data recovery software, and malware deconstruction utilities are available to support analysis of the modifications made by suspicious software when applied to test bed computers. Additionally, an IPv6 compatible mobile applications test bed has been created in order to evaluate the security vulnerabilities related to the large scale deployment of personal device technology employing this protocol.

The Geoinformatics Lab is equipped with state-of-the-art geoinformatics hardware and software.  The hardware includes a high-end server, PDAs equipped with large-capacity memory expansion and Global Positioning System (GPS); 50 GPS receivers; a digitizing tablet; a Sony DV camcorder; a digital camera; two projectors; a scanner, a portable 60" x 48" wall unit Teamboard; and two printers (one color).  The lab supports a suite of GIS, GPS, remote sensing, and database management system software packages and tools, e.g., ESRI's GIS projects, ENVI, and Oracle 9i. Due to the computationally intensive nature of creating spatial databases, the laboratory employs a grid-computing environment in order to distribute and process spatial geometry information data sets in a timely fashion.

The Usability Laboratory has as its mission the investigation of human-machine interaction, in particular, developing strategies, methods, and techniques for making machines easier for people to use.  Work at the laboratory has focused on graphical user interfaces, but current projects and interests extend research into the areas of human-robot interaction and multi-sensor based ubiquitous computing.  The lab consists of two physically isolated rooms with an observation window in between.  The main lab is equipped with networked Core2Duo PCs with monitors and high-end NVidia GPUs for use in group and/or individual computer interaction experiments.  The observation room contains a dual quad processor workstation specialized for nonlinear editing and server functions.  Other equipment includes a 70-inch SmartBoard interactive whiteboard with 2 projectors, video production software, 3-D modeling tools, and CaveUT software.  A 17" Tobii eye-tracker serves as a standoff eye-tracking device built into a 17" TFT monitor. The hardware and associated software will enable more accurate behavior model development.

The Telecommunication's program’s research and teaching laboratory is housed on the first and eighth floors of the IS building. It consists of a freely reconfigurable networking environment within which students can create and examine the performance of networked systems when subject to different degrees of loading using various network protocols. The environment was recently upgraded through the addition of ten traffic generating and analysis computer systems, as well as Cisco switch, firewall, and router gear that support instructional activities. The lab also hosts experimental wireless access points, Voice over IP technology, and will soon contain wide area PlanetLab systems to facilitate research involving the development of new network services.

iSchool Digital Resources for LIS

In the LIS Program, Christinger Tomer has created a digital learning resources repository of software for information technology and digital library courses. This gives students the opportunity to create knowledge repositories in the cloud utilizing an assortment of open source and commercial products. The commercial CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software by OCLC as well as web publishing environments such as Omeka, the Collection Workflow Integration System (CWIS), and DSpace are employed by students to explore building open digital repositories as well as the principles of metadata organization. A local grouping of four hosts, as well as Amazon cloud resources are employed to enable hands on learning in courses addressing digital libraries and information technology.

University Instructional Design Services

The University’s Center for Instructional Design and Distance Education (CIDDE) provides instructional design and educational technology support for teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh. CIDDE employs 48 professional and administrative staff, 13 of whom are instructional designers/technologists

Pitt’s Computing Services and Systems Development Department

The University provides computing labs, computing support, network capabilities, and systems design and development for the entire university community. Eight campus computing labs are available to students at the Pittsburgh campus, as well as computing labs in individual academic units. The labs offer more than 550 computers running Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. Computers are equipped with more than 100 of the latest software applications and tools. Scanners are available to be signed out and used in each lab. Printing services include high-speed print capability in all facilities and color laser print capability in the David Lawrence Hall computing lab. Self-Service Printing stations are available in all labs and at several additional locations across campus. CSSD provides the IT backbone for the entire university community including computing, e-mail, Web sites and access, and academic technology.  CSSD, with 198 employees, offers 24-hour technology support to faculty, staff and students. The third floor will now have printing and copying capabilities for our students, so they do not have to go outside of the building to print their work.

Pitt’s Library Services and Resources

The ULS is the 26th-largest academic research library in all of North America and the 16th-largest among the prestigious libraries of the Association of American Universities. It provides a large array of innovative, world-class services to faculty, staff and students. In addition to the collections, the ULS offers services including D-Scholarship, the University’s institutional repository for research outputs; electronic dissertation and thesis production; electronic journal publishing; an archives service center; and a preservation department. ULS employs more than 185 librarians and collections professionals. The libraries are accessible to students on the following schedule during the academic term:

Library Unit	Monday- Thursday	Friday		Saturday		Sunday
Hillman Library	7:50 a.m.- 2 a.m.	7:50 a.m.- 10 p.m.		9 a.m.- 10 p.m.		10 a.m.- 2 a.m.
Stark Media Services	8:30 a.m.- 8:30 p.m.		8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m.		Noon-8:30 p.m.
Special Collections	9 a.m.-4:45 p.m.			Closed
Archives Service Center	9 a.m.-4:45 p.m.			Closed
Business Library	8:30 a.m.- 9 p.m.	8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m.		Noon-5 p.m.
Chemistry Library	8:30 a.m.- 8 p.m.	8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m.		Noon-5 p.m.		Closed
Bevier Engineering Library	8:30 a.m.- 10 p.m.	8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m.		Noon-5 p.m.		Noon-9 p.m.
Falk Library of the Health Sciences	7 a.m.- midnight	7 a.m.- 10 p.m.		9:30 a.m.- 10 p.m.		9:30 a.m.- midnight
Frick Fine Arts Library	9 a.m.-9 p.m.	9 a.m.- 5 p.m.		Noon - 5 p.m.
Langley Library	8:30 a.m.- 9 p.m.	8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m.		Noon-4 p.m.
Barco Law Library	7 a.m.- 10 p.m.	7:30 a.m.- 8 p.m.		10 a.m.- 8 p.m.		10 a.m.- 10 p.m.
Music Library	8:30 a.m.- 9 p.m.	8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m.		1 p.m.-5 p.m.