Business looks at using funds for wireless
The task force in charge of distributing funds to improve learning technology in the George S. Eccles Business Building is considering many possibilities, including wireless networking and Internet connections.
This is the first comprehensive improvement of technology in the Business Building since it was completed May 8, 1970.
“It’s now been over 30 years, so we’re due for a technology upgrade,” said Alta Markeson, director of development for the College of Business.
Markeson helped write a request with a group of faculty, teachers and people from the Multimedia Distance Learning Services for a grant from the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation. Markeson said they received $770,000 about six months ago to upgrade technology.
“The goal was to support the Business Building, the students, the staff and Utah State University. The building is named after Eccles, so [the foundation] had a personal stake in seeing this renovation completed,” Markeson said.
Markeson said a computer committee, or task force, of six to eight people was designed to make recommendations on improving the technology. The task force plans to install Internet access, video projectors and document-projection cameras in every classroom. It has also considered the possibility of installing a wireless network and Internet connections in classrooms.
David Luthy, senior assistant dean of the College of Business and the chairman of the computer committee, said wireless is just an idea right now but would give students the ability to bring laptops without cables or wires and access the Internet on campus.
“Wireless is less expensive in many aspects,” Luthy said. “The way the building is built it might be more expensive to tunnel and put in new wires.”
Many schools in the United States and Europe have started investing in wireless technologies.
Johns Hopkins University of Public Health in Baltimore is in the process of upgrading its Ethernet connections. The school ran into problems with rewiring the 80-year-old buildings. Planners compared the cost between conventional access and wireless.
For Johns Hopkins, the total cost of renovating the 40 classrooms in question using the conventional methods came to $720,000. With the wireless option, the school could renovate 40 classrooms, two cafeterias, three lounges, six conference rooms and two auditoriums for $210,000.
USU is still waiting for estimates, Luthy said.
According to an editorial by Sylvia Charp in “T.H.E. Journal,” a magazine covering technology in education, the wireless system would require two radio transmitters or access points, that would in turn be connected to a hub on the Ethernet.