Overview
Who we are
What we do
Related Offices
Overview:
OCTET stands for the Oberlin Center for Technologically Enhanced Teaching. It started in the mid-nineties as a 1 person office funded by a Mellon Grant. It has since grown to an office of 5 full-time staff and 2 part-timers. We work with faculty in specific areas to help them plan and maintain the resources they use to teach and to engage students in research projects. This includes planning and purchasing equipment for and managing labs in Computer Science, Cinema and Art and recording studio. We also oversee and develop our learning management system and much, much more.
We also work directly with students to help them with assignments that require the use of tools, software and spaces that we oversee and with the Conservatory and A&S Deans on special projects and grants.
While our staff work in various locations around campus our main office is in Mudd 052.
Contact Info:
- octet@oberlin.edu
- 440 775-8345
Who we are:
OCTET main office is located in Mudd 052. Our main line is x58345 and the center’s email is octet@oberlin.edu. While these are the best ways to reach us, individual OCTET staff are located in key locations near the teaching faculty and staff with which they work most closely. See below for individual contact info:
Albert Borroni |
Director OCTET & Lecturer Computer Science/Neuro Mudd 052B x58345 albert.borroni@oberlin.edu |
open position |
Instructional Technologist, Learning Management & Instructional Designer Mudd 052 x55300 octet@oberlin.edu |
|
Chris Mohler |
Systems Administrator-Sciences & HPC Cluster Mudd 052A – M afternoon, Weds morning Science Center 220 – M morning, Th & F afternoons King 125 – M & W afternoons x58083 chris.mohler@oberlin.edu |
Shane Davis |
Assistant Instructional Technologist: LMS & SET admin, special projects Mudd 052 x56174 or x55124 shane.davis@oberlin.edu |
|
Kyle Hartzell |
Digital Arts Engineer Mudd 052 x56232 kyle.hartzell@oberlin.edu |
Grace Finney |
Student Technology Assistant Mudd 052 Work Hours: M 1:00-3:30 F 2:00-4:00 x58345 octet@oberlin.edu |
Overview
Who we are
Related Offices
What we do:
We work with faculty and students in 4 major areas:
| Science Research | Digital Arts | High-end computing | Online teaching tools |
We work with faculty, the Deans Office, the Teaching Center and others to find the best and most appropriate technologies that will help faculty to achieve their curricular and teaching objectives. We also work to create and maintain physical and virtual spaces where teaching and learning can take place AND work with students who are completing projects that use particular technologies. The list below outlines the major responsibilities of our office.
a short note on what we don’t do
Desktop support/basic office efficiency software, classroom equipment and networking are all best handled by the offices that specialize in these areas. They include Client Services (x58197), A/V (58757) and Networking (x58197). However, we are happy to talk to you and if we don’t have time to fix it ourselves we will quickly direct you to the relevant office.
Consult with teaching faculty/staff on appropriate uses of technology in and across courses.
Coordination with other Centers and committees on campus.
This includes the Cooper International Learning Center, the Committee on Teaching, Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation, the Library Committee
Coordinate/Facilitate directed workshops.
While our main workshop is a multiday, multi-topic summer session, we also sponsor many short sessions throughout the year and over Winter Term.
Manage Spaces
Media Production spaces
- Shooting studio which is located on the fourth floor of Mudd (443).
- Equipment Depot
- Production facility on the 2nd floor of the Apollo
Specialized labs
- Media Arts Lab (12 high-end Macs with added equipment for audio and video editing)
- Apollo Theater Media lab (14 machines)
- Research lab in Geology (5 high-end Windows machines specialized for doing spatial calculations with software such as ArcGIS
- 25 Computer Sciences I (triple boot machines)
- 27 Computer Sciences II (triple boot machines)
- 14 laptops in a cart used by the Apollo Outreach Initiative
- 27 laptops in a cart that is loaned out by A/V to faculty/staff
- 10 laptops in a cart used in our peer mentoring in the Digital Arts program
- 14 laptops in a cart used by Cinema Studies (not bought yet)
- 8 iPads for loan through the Digital Arts Equipment Depot
- 6 iPads in OCTET for teaching purposes
- 4 laptops for loan through the Digital Arts Equipment Depot
- 4 laptops used as loaners in the OCTET office
Individual computers in offices or small research labs
- >63 Research machines used in the sciences for research and student projects
- all machines used by the CS, Art and Cinema faculty
Install and/or assist with the use of software in the research environment
- Research level MatLab and Toolbox licenses (computational modeling tool)
- SPSS
- Software that runs on the cluster e.g. Gaussian
- Qualtrics licenses (survey tool)
Plan, implement and manage the online academic environment
- Blackboard application
- Campus Pack application
- Moodle
- WordPress in collaboration with CILC
Work with offices who use Blackboard
- Housing – ResEd Clusters
- Dining – eCard
- Class Deans
- Conservatory and College Dean sites and program reviews
- Academic Departments for tenure review
- Registrar’s office
- Committees
- Bonner Center
Plan, purchase and assist with the use of Systems and Servers
- 4 servers: OCTET1, OCCScurrent, OCCSnew,
- 6 xinu devices used to teach networking
- 64 node high performance computing cluster
Assistance with other systems or Projects
- File server for faculty who have Gb of content they distribute to students
- OMnI – modeling as a teaching methodology
- Peer-mentoring in the digital arts
- Faculty surveys
- Departmental efficiencies – work with AAs and Chairs to develop placement exams for Math and Music Theory
Work with Students
- CS
- Cinema
- Art
- Sponsor oversee workshops and Winter Term opportunities
Related Offices:
Contact info for related offices, centers and services:
| A/V 440-775-8757 Desktop/Networking cit@oberlin.edu 440-775-8197 CILC languages@oberlin.edu 440-775-6734 |
CTIE Steven.Volk@oberlin.edu 440-775-8522 A&S Dean 440-775-8410 Con Dean login required 440-775-8540 |
Overview
Who we are
What we do
