The Student Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) held an open meeting with Elliot Fishman, an external consultant whose firm IS & T was hired to act as an intermediary between students and administrators.

Students at the meeting expressed dissatisfaction with both wireless Internet and the WUSTL Key system.

Although no administrators were present, students believe that the discussion demonstrated that the University cares about students’ technological concerns and shows that the administration is taking steps to implement improvements. The University has not hired a technology consultant since at least 2006.

“It’s nice that [University administrators] are addressing technical issues and taking them seriously,” STAC chair Anthony Bernatas-Popeo said. “After transferring here after my freshman year, I saw a noticeable difference in the way that the University handled situations.”

Throughout the past two semesters, many students have experienced problems with Internet access. These include issues with login, passwords and general connectivity to WUFI-S, the University’s most secure Wi-Fi network.

This difficulty is largely attributed to insufficient bandwidth, which is a measure of connection speed.

According to the advisory committee, the wireless network is at capacity between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., which means Internet speeds are slowest between those times.

Improving campus Wi-Fi and wireless access to online services is high on Student Union’s agenda this semester. In collaboration with STAC, SU has proposed to draw on the advantages of mobile Internet in order to make applications like WebSTAC and WebFood more accessible to students who don’t carry laptops.

“SU is working with administrators to better students’ college experience,” SU senator Vinoo Ganesh said.

The group also addressed issues with Telesis and WebSTAC, noting that because both sites are outdated and slow to load, they need improvement.

The students present agreed that both Telesis and WebSTAC have a variety of capabilities but are not used as effectively as they could be. Because some students must regularly access both sites, the group suggested streamlining the two into one central portal.

Fishman and his consulting firm are looking to pass recommendations to the University that will benefit students, faculty and administrators.

“We aim to collect and synthesize information about what’s working well and what needs improvement,” Fishman said. “Especially, we are looking at where the structure of technology service creates limitations. That’s our central goal.”

The IS & T project is sponsored by Provost Ed Macias, Executive Vice Chancellor Hank Webber and Vice Chancellor for Finance Barb Feiner.

Bernatas-Popeo hopes the University will make immediate efforts to resolve some of the issues that were raised at the meeting.

“Hopefully, noticeable improvements will be made in order to make campus technology sustainable for everyone,” Bernatas-Popeo said.

A GO WUSTL pilot program has been underway since mid-January. Student Technology Services (STS) representatives said it has been a success.

“The feedback has been generally good,” Director of Student Technology Services Barbara Braun said. “There have been a few hiccups along the way that were Microsoft-related.”

According to Marcia Mannen, associate director of client support for Arts & Sciences Computing, most of the questions that students participating in the pilot have raised were not technical. There have not been many questions regarding the actual program, but rather addressing issues such as mail forwarding.

The Student Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) has been happy with the pilot.

“It’s going to be a good transition,” said sophomore Brandon Lucius, a member of STAC. “There are a lot of tools and applications that are going to make students’ lives more organized and efficient.”

Tools available with the new GO WUSTL program include video and text chat, an application similar to Google Documents, and a global address book.

According to Braun, the global address book is among one of the favorite applications of the pilot program participants.

Issues that have plagued the new e-mail service since the pilot started include backlogged e-mail and issues with the spam filters.

Sophomore Betel Ezaz, who is participating in the pilot program, has found some of its drawbacks.

“It seems inefficient right now, even compared to what we already have,” she said. “My main issue is that it loses e-mails and that the spam folder always has legitimate e-mails. I think they can figure it out. They’ve been really good about feedback.”

To remedy the issue with regular mail ending up in spam folders, all e-mails from Wash. U. addresses have been whitelisted.

“Overall I think it will be better because of the options that are available through GO WUSTL,” Ezaz said. “It’s just a matter of working out the small issues before we go live with it. I think it’s good.”

Arts & Sciences and engineering students are making the transition from Squirrelmail.

“From our perspective we know it’s something to be excited about,” said Kristen Hornberger, communications specialist for the Engineering Public Relations & Communications department.

The business school is transitioning from a less advanced version of Microsoft Outlook.

“It’s a very smooth transition,” said Sharon Yoon, associate director of MBA student affairs. “It’s very nice I think. Students are very savvy, and this is very intuitive.”

The old e-mail accounts will not be phased out immediately; their end dates have not yet been decided.

STS will be offering a series of hour-long workshops in early March to help acquaint students with GO WUSTL. In the meetings STS will discuss how to use specific applications and how to forward mail. STS is also encouraging students to look to the GO WUSTL Web site to find answers to simple questions.

Expectations for the program’s success are running high.

“If the pilot program was any indication, it was pretty smooth,” Braun said. “I don’t think it will be too difficult.”

But this tradition will soon be changing. The Student Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) and Student Technology Services (STS) have teamed up to reduce printing waste in residential halls.

Their solution is a system that enables students to print to a virtual universal printer from anywhere in Residential Life housing. They can then go to a printer anywhere on the residential campus and release their print job from that printer. But they must actually be in the computer lab to print the job.

Members of STAC and STS hope this system will cut down on the number of pages students print and never pick up.

The new system is managed by PaperCut. PaperCut gives Washington University technology services the power to implement many different sanctions, including paper quotas, fees per sheet of paper and the new release system.

Members of STS have high hopes for the new system.

“We hope that by having to physically be at a printer, that will cut back on the amount of waste,” said Barbara Braun, director of STS.

Although STS has not kept count of exactly how much waste there has been in the past, employees say they often observe a large number of packets that just sit in the computer labs until someone recycles them.

Students have also noticed this wastefulness.

“There’s this big tray full of paper that nobody ever uses,” sophomore William Swanson said.

Few students have reported problems with the new system.

“I think that so far students’ reaction to it in res-halls has been really positive,” said John Bailey, manager of STS. “I think the students like that you can print to the system anywhere and release it to any printer in the system…which I think is a nice thing they didn’t have before.”

Students also seem to understand the need for the new system.

“In terms of wastefulness, yes, it’s a good idea. In terms of convenience it might not be, but when it comes to environmental issues in general, oftentimes convenience has to be sacrificed, because in the long run what’s most important is that our environment is in a stable condition,” freshman Justin Blau said.

“I think it makes sense because if someone goes there and prints and doesn’t pick their things up, it saves paper,” sophomore Bridgette Zou said.

STS will be tracking the results of the new program over the next few semesters.

“We’re going to be monitoring this fall and this spring, working with STAC to see how printing totals compare and watching recycle bins to see waste anyway,” Braun said. “We’re taking it out for a test drive, and we’ll see what happens.”