This month I want to highlight two summer projects we have going on.

Inside Augsburg’s revision

The time has come to modernize Inside Augsburg. The technical underpinnings of the site date back to around 2000. Maintenance is difficult and time consuming because it’s homegrown. It’s served us well but we’ve outgrown it. We have far more services that are integrated with our AugNet logins (called single sign-on in ITspeak) than we can put in the menu system on Inside Augsburg. It’s a fairly static and unchanging site beyond the social feed and the calendar feed. Plus we need to improve the mobile-ness of the site.

So we are exploring modern platforms that serve as an online hub for schools. We’ve begun connecting with departments who have a vested interest in Inside Augsburg and are starting demonstrations of possible solutions.

The future state we want to get to includes

• A reliable, secure, vendor-supported platform.
• A mobile app as an option beyond the website.
• A platform that connects to other systems to bring dynamic and personal information to you — things you need to know about like moodle deadlines, Navigate appointments, and eventually Workday notices.
• A means to have the process of logging in (entering your username and passphrase) be separate from and connected to Inside Augsburg but not the purpose of Inside Augsburg.

I expect we’ll see tangible results come winter from the first phase of this project. Since these platforms have much potential, it’ll take us a few years to grow into it.

Mortensen WiFi Upgrade

We are replacing the WiFi hardware in Mortensen Hall this summer. That includes the WiFi access points you see in the ceilings as well as the cabling that runs to those access points. Our last upgrade of the Mortensen WiFi was in 2016 so it is really time to do it. Due to how expensive such a project is, we gradually upgrade WiFi across the campus year by year, building by building.

This upgrade will increase the bandwidth and signal strength in Mort which means faster and more reliable WiFi for residents come fall move in.

What’s going on this week

We’re in a “watch and wait” mode now. We’re going to rely on feedback from students contacting the Tech Desk or using our WiFi reporting form to see if the experience is better. In the last week we’ve had 1 report using the WiFi reporting form. We’ve had a handful of students contact the Tech Desk in the past week and we’re following-up on those issues. Thanks for contacting us!

Since we don’t know exactly what the problem is we can’t check a specific metric or measurement to know if we’ve made an impact (recall we have little data from students so we’re making assumptions as to what may be the cause based on what we’ve heard from Gustavus and IT email lists).

What’s planned for next week

We’re still in a “watch and wait” mode.

What’s going on this week

On Monday at 5AM we updated the WiFi software and adjusted the WiFi settings in the remaining dorms – Urness, Mortensen, Anderson, and Luther.

What’s planned for next week

We’re in a “watch and wait” mode now. We’re going to rely on feedback from students contacting the Tech Desk or using our WiFi reporting form to see if the experience is better. Since we don’t know exactly what the problem is we can’t check a specific metric or measurement to know if we’ve made an impact (recall we have little data from students so we’re making assumptions as to what may be the cause based on what we’ve heard from Gustavus and IT email lists).

Reporting Form

Responses have slowed on our WiFi reporting form.   Please keep using it as it will help us determine if the dorm updates have made a difference. When we don’t hear anything we then assume things are going fine.

What’s going on this week

After last week we have talked with our WiFi vendor about the fixes that Gustavus did. They pretty much agreed with the approach. The first thing to do, much like with your computer, is update our WiFi software. So that’s our first step.

During the Zoom call the vendor looked at our overall WiFi connection status and saw many more slower (2.4 GHz) connections then they expected to see. To see why that matters look at last week’s post in the technical section. Most every device should be connecting at the faster 5 GHz frequency. This is a symptom of the problem we’re trying to fix.

This week we’re starting our first round of updates. On Wednesday at 5AM we updated the WiFi software in OGC and Hagfors and adjusted some WiFi settings recommended by the vendor.

What’s planned for next week

Next week we continue WiFi software updates at 5AM on Monday with the remaining dorms.

Will these changes fix every WiFi problem?

The short answer is “no.” Some problems are due to old software or drivers on a laptop or other issues particular to the situation. But the systematic trend we’re trying to stop, devices (especially Apple devices) connecting to a distant slower wireless, should be improved by these changes based on what information we have from Gustavus, IT email lists, and our WiFi vendor.

Reporting Form

We’ve started to get some good data from students who have used our WiFi reporting form.  Thank you for taking the time to fill it out.  Please keep using it as it will help us determine if the dorm updates have made a difference.

Day Student Government visit: 10/7/20

On Wednesday 10/7/20 Augsburg Day Student Government invited Scott Krajewski, CIO, to talk about the WiFi issues students are experiencing on campus. The senators had many good questions and shared experiences with Zoom disconnects and connection quality problems.

Scott shared this list of questions to help the Tech Desk troubleshoot student WiFi issues.

Reporting Form

IT has created this WiFi problem reporting form based on the above questions for students to fill out.  The Tech Desk will use this info to better troubleshoot and inform our solutions.

Research

In the past week Augsburg IT has began researching the WiFi issues with other schools. Several other schools across the country are reporting similar Zoom issues with their campus WiFi. There are several theories as to the cause and related solutions. In particular, Gustavus Adolphus College in St Peter, MN experienced the same problems this summer. Augsburg IT met for an hour with Gustavus IT to review their experiences and their solutions. IT is now working with our WiFi vendor to verify the suggestions from Gustavus before changing our WiFi settings.

Technical Notes (for those who are interested)

Several schools hypothesize this has been a problem for a long time however we never noticed it before now. Using Zoom requires a constant connection whereas web browsing or streaming recorded video does not need a constant connection.

The working theory, as of today, is that Apple devices (computers and phones and tablets) are jumping to slower and more distant wireless connections. The WiFi network is actually two networks – one running at 2.4GHz and one running at 5GHz.  The 2.4GHz network is slower and is there for older devices that don’t support the faster 5GHz network. Apple devices are ignoring a close 5GHz connection and instead are trying to connect to a further away (and poorer) 2.4GHz connection. And they are actively doing this during a Zoom session.

Since we have little data from our students at the moment we can’t be sure this is what is happening. However the anecdotes sound very similar what other schools are saying.