Fedponek ICT

             Status of ICT development In FEDPONEK

The management of Federal Polytechnic Nekede, recognizing the importance of ICT in the repositioning of the institution both nationally and internationally, did not shy away from offering full support and material empowerment to those responsible for the various ICT networks.

In one of the previous editions of the magazine, we did mention that the Institution was planning to go about the business of Automating the entire processes and functions. Today, we take pride in announcing to the world, the successful implementation of the various projects.
PROCESS AUTOMATION:Today, Federal Polytechnic Nekede Owerri has one of the best and most interactive Web-Portal that could compete with international standard (www.federalpolytechnicnekede.edu.ng) (www.fpno.edu.ng). The Portal is designed to manage the entire process of the Institution. In order to fully exploit its features, we have decided to computerize the operation of all units and divisions.
Division such as Bursary, Medical, Registry, Library, and Security are at various stages of computerization of their core functions.
Bursary Division(www.fpno.edu.ng/nekedebusary): Development of system is completed. Training of all the users completed. Deployment and implementation done.
Registry Division(www.fpno.edu.ng/registry): Development of programme is completed. The computerization covers the entire Registry including Exams and Records. Screening module for screening officers is completed and implemented. Module for Records Archiving is completed and Staff training/ implementation is ongoing.
Library Division (www.fpno.edu.ng/library): Development of system is completed. Training of all the users is also completed. Deployment and implementation is presently ongoing.
Medical Activities (www.fpno.edu.ng/meregistry):): Development of system is completed. Training of all the users is completed. Deployment and implementation is presently on going.
We’ve also extended the Automation exercise to the following areas of the institution:
Cooperative Society (www.fpno.edu.ng/cooperative)
Staff School (www.fpno.edu.ng/staffschool): Development of programme completed. Deployment of computers completed. Training and implementation is ongoing.

A state-of-the-art cabling solution brings Gigabit capacity to Federal Polytechnic Nekede Owerri Student and Staff’s desktops.

Fiber Optic Cable
Since the beginning of this year 2014, staff and students at Federal Polytechnic Nekede Owerri, one of the nation’s best institutions for higher learning, have had unprecedented access to information through the efforts of the Rector, Dr. (Mrs.) C. U. Njoku  and the entire Management in a state-of-the-art fiber optic infrastructure. Previously, only a handful of major corporations and organizations have taken advantage of the new fiber optic technology which is capable of high-performance computer, telecommunications, and video applications. The new system has connected students and staff right from the desktops in their offices and rooms, and ultimately, from any administrative office or classroom on campus.
The new cabling solution offers secure, stable, and lightning fast access to information within and outside of the Polytechnic, as well as the ability to accommodate any application to come in the foreseeable future. The program outfits the Rectory Building, Registry Division, Bursary Division, Library, Medical Center, some of the computer Labs and Security Base of the Institution.
According to Engr. Yusuf Taiwo (the institution’s Network Administrator),
     “due to an increase in demand for network and broadband connectivity in the campus and as a result of the ongoing automation exercise, we have designed a more sophisticated campus network with Gigabit Ethernet Solutions, as the existing wireless infrastructure is not scaling well and can no longer meet the requirements of the increasing bandwidth demand for transmission of data, voice and video as well as providing a high level of security for the development of modern networks, most especially backbone network requirements. The Turnkey Optic Fiber infrastructure has enabled Federal Poly Nekede to deliver high speed internet and intranet to its staff and students in the campus respectively and will enable the Polytechnic to facilitate E-Learning, increase the efficiency and performance of the computerized applications of the Bursary Division, Medical Center, Registry and Library Divisions, (which are all online and are being accessed via the network) and enable the effective deployment of multimedia communication services (such as voice and video conferencing) for staff and students. Fiber Optic Cables are designed to meet these requirements. The aim is to provide an end-to-end infrastructure and implement a network that will guarantee availability, flexibility, scalability and security for the institution infrastructure.”
The Institution’s first priority was to complete the networks within the Administrative Buildings, providing each and every Staff with optical fiber connectivity. A major objective for the project was to accommodate future upgrades and support the more advanced interactive and multimedia applications that will be developed over the next few years.

The existence of the Gigabit Ethernet (Fiber Optic) in the institution has created a platform for bandwidth sensitive applications and programmes.

E-Learning Solution
With the recent advancement in technology today, there is need for Tertiary institutions in Nigeria to upgrade their existing academic infrastructure. The Management of the institution has successfully upgraded all ICT infrastructure by investing on gigabit technology (Fiber and Gigabit equipment) in readiness for E-learning Solution. The fiber is a state- of- the-art technology solution that brings gigabit capacity to the institution. It has brought unprecedented access to information as it is capable of handling voice video and data traffic and also serves as the platform for e-learning. The available ICT infrastructure today is capable of handling E-Learning Solution that provides lecturers with the ability to instruct, monitor and interact with their students either individually, as a pre-defined group or to the overall class at the digital centres, combining Advanced Classroom PC Monitoring, Real-time Presentation and Annotation Tools, with an innovative customized Testing Suite, Internet and Application Control, Automated Lesson Plans, Printer Management, Instant Messenger Control, Content Monitoring and Desktop Security. A plan is on going to deploy the latest version of E-Learning Solution that will rise to the challenges and requirements of today's modern classroom. The proposed E-Learning Solution is a third-party off the shelf solution, which will be installed, configured and deployed by the ICT unit.

TECHNICAL DETAILS AND BENEFITS/ADVANTAGES OF THE PROPOSED SOLUTION

The E-Learning Solution to be deployed will at a minimum provide support for the following basic functions and benefits:
MANAGE
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

• Power On or Off, all classroom computers from the lecturers PC.
• Perform a Remote "Log off" on all PCs.
• Send a Remote "Log in" to all student PCs at the beginning of class.
• Blank student screens to gain attention.
• Lock the students mouse and keyboard when instructing.
• Create custom classroom layouts so the lecturers PC represents the layout of the physical classroom.
• Create individual lecturer profiles to deliver the specific features needed by each lecturer.

PRINTER MANAGEMENT

• Prevent students printing in the classroom.
• Limit printer usage by number of pages.
• Require lecturer’s authorization prior to printing.
• Prevent printers being added, deleted or modified.

DEVICE MANAGEMENT

• Prevent data being copied to or from USB storage devices.
• Prevent data being copied to or from CDR / DVD devices.
• Prevent new network connections being created.

STUDENT REGISTER

• Solution offers student registration where additional user information can be captured.
• Request standard and custom information from each student at the start of class.
• Distribute files to multiple PCs in a single action.
• View a contact summary for each student at any point during a lesson by using a "mouse over" of the Student icon.
• Use customized icons for individual or group of students.

STUDENT INFORMATION BAR

• Provides feedback to the student on the current lesson, time remaining, current websites and applications that are available, the status of messenger and keyboard monitoring and quick access to request help. The information bar is fully configurable by the lecturer.

HAND OUT AND COLLECT FILES

• With the solution, you can distribute files and data from the lecturers.
• PC to multiple student workstations.
• Transfer files to and from a selected PC in a single action.
• Distribute files to multiple PCs in a single action.
• Hand out files to all students and automatically collect them at the end of the lesson with each student’s detail appended to their file.

REAL TIME INSTRUCTION (SHOW MODE)

• Shows the tutor's screen to selected students.
• Shows a specific desktop to selected students.
• Shows just a selected application to selected students.
• Shows a replay file (previous screen recording) to selected students.
• Broadcasts a video file to selected students.
• Delivers your presentations optimized for wireless networks.
• Leaves a recording of your show, including audio, on the students PC for future review.

SCREEN HIGHLIGHTER AND DRAWING TOOLS (ANNOTATE)

• Solution provides as standard, a wealth of screen annotation tools to aid in presentations. These include Line Tools, Arrows, Shapes, Text Highlighters and more.

TESTING AND STUDENT SURVEY

• Find out if your students have understood the content covered during the lesson by conducting an instant survey.
• Create an instant survey using pre-supplied or custom responses.
• See instantly all student responses and a summary for the class.
• Create groups dynamically based on student responses.

STUDENT TESTING AND QUIZ

• Design tests and examinations with the minimum of effort, including text, picture, audio and video questions.
• Create a library of resources and questions that can be shared with other educators.
• Create any number of tests using questions from your library.
• Now utilize any of 8 available and different question styles.
• Set examination grading levels (i.e. over 75% = A grade).
• Track student progress in real time and see question success or failure in real time.
• Auto-mark the entire test so results are available as soon as the test is completed.
• Display individual results back to each student.
• Deliver results summaries (including highlighting the correct answers) to the class.

MONITOR
VIEW STUDENT SCREENS IN REAL-TIME (MONITOR MODE)

• Monitor the entire class in a single view.
• Scan through sets of student PCs in pre-defined multiples.
• Overlay additional information including: Active Application or Active website.
• Zoom for optimized high definition student thumbnails.

INSTANT MESSENGER MONITORING

• E -Learning extends its application control features with the availability of Messenger Monitoring. In addition to the ability to prevent messenger applications running within the classroom, the solution also provides real-time monitoring of specific messenger applications presenting the lecturer with a real time view of chat activity and content.

REAL-TIME KEYBOARD MONITORING

• New to E-Learning Solutions is Keyboard Monitoring. Designed to be used in conjunction with application control, this component provides lecturers with a real-time insight into student activity and topic understanding. During a lesson, while all students are working using any approved application, the lecturer can monitor the entire class and see quickly and easily their typed content and activity levels.

CONTROL
APPLICATION METERING AND CONTROL

• Monitor all Student Application use.
• View background applications running on all PCs.
• Open and close applications on all selected PCs in a single action.
• Record a full history of application use for the class.
• Allow the use of all applications.
• Prevent restricted applications from running.
• Allow only approved applications to run.

INTERNET METERING AND CONTROL

• Monitor all students’ internet usage.
• View background websites open on all PCs.
• Open and close websites on all selected PCs in a single action.
• Record a full history of internet usage for the class.
• Allow access to all websites.
• Prevent access to any websites.
• Prevent access to restricted websites.
• Allow access to approved websites only.

INTERNET SAFESEARCH

• Safe Search Feature overrides the search settings for most leading search engines and prevents inappropriate content being returned within search results.

POWERFUL REMOTE CONTROL

• Watch, share or control the screen, keyboard and mouse of any student workstation in the class on a 1:1 basis irrespective of color depth, resolution or operating system at either end.

COLLABORATE
VIRTUAL WHITEBOARD

• Full page whiteboard integrated directly within the Tutor supported by a wealth of drawing tools for improved collaboration within the classroom.

INTERNET CO-BROWSE

• Allows a teacher to open selected websites and synchronize this with the browser on each student’s PC. As a Teacher navigates across a website, the students’ PCs will follow.

GROUP LEADERS

• A nominated student can be assigned certain Tutor rights and act as a group leader until such privileges are revoked.

GROUP OR 1:1 CHAT

• Open a discussion session that all or selected students can join, enter their comments and share with the rest of the class.

AUDIO

• Broadcast audio to the class or transmit the Tutor's voice during a presentation. Audio support is included in all Show Screen, Remote Control and Chat sessions.

WIRELESS ENVIRONMENT SUPPORT

• Connect to computers over a wireless connection.
• Optimized performance to match wireless access point speeds.
• Create predefined class lists to connect to non-static computers.
• Work effectively with laptop and tablet computers.
• Publish a class and allow Students to join on demand.

FPNO is about to bridge the gap between traditional telephony and network telephony in the campus:

VoIP, Video, Instant messaging

 This solution will integrate fixed and mobile voice, IP telephony, unified messaging (UM), e-mail, chat, video, web and audio conferencing, call center applications, presence and many other communication tools.

After a successful deployment of the Fiber Optic Infrastructure (Gigabit Capacity) covering every major part in the campus including the newly built School of Business and Management Technology (SBMT), the Management of the Polytechnic has embarked on IP network infrastructure upgrade by investing on gigabit technology. The Staff of the Institution resides in a number of office buildings located within the same vicinity. Lately, the Management added some other new buildings (Evening/Weekend building, SBMT building, Medical Center etc.) to the campus. This additional building houses a large number of staff. As such, rather than deploy a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) in the new buildings, we decided to deploy an IP Telephony Solution.

The foundational components of the proposed solution are:

• Presence: The staff of the institution will have the ability to understand the state and availability of other users in the campus. Owing to the fact that consumer instant messaging (IM) is so popular today, deployment of presence will intertwine with the Polytechnic’s chat application currently running at the Medical Center Database. After its deployment, it will be associated not only with people, but also with devices or objects.

• IP telephony: The voice service deployed will eventually be embedded into virtually every of the Institution’s application, making IP telephony a critical technology for the Institution’s unified communication. Additionally, the Management will deploy IP telephony first and then use the cost savings from IP telephony to fund the rest of the unified communication implementation. Services such as: Caller ID, On-screen dialing and screen popping (seeing who is calling you when they call), Interactive Voice response, Home working and scripting, Voice synthesis, paging, and lots more.

• Network: Since most unified communication services are highly dependent on a rock-solid, secure network to build the services on top of, our focus is now on network infrastructure performance and upgrade.

• Voicemail: This has been a standard feature of telephony systems for years. The voicemail innovation will revolve around the ability to provide a single voicemail box that is accessible from multiple devices within and outside the campus.

• E-mail: E-mail is another well-adopted traditional unified communication application. As a step in a positive direction and in order to free up strained Server resources, we decided to partner with Google and Microsoft.  We saw the switch to Google and Microsoft Apps as a great way of combining institutional system with technology that the staff and the new generation of students were most familiar with.  Both systems will synchronize with the Polytechnic’s directory and domain (fpno.edu.ng and federalpolynekede.edu.ng), and provide self-service functionality such as changing passwords and creating aliases. E-mail is a core unified communication application in the Institution today, although staff and students will begin to shift communications away from e-mail to the fpno community forums and chat, which will promote creativity and collaboration among them.

• Unified messaging: Staff of the Polytechnic will be able to converge e-mail, voicemail, faxes and other communications tools.

• Web conferencing: The use of Web Conferencing has skyrocketed over the past few years. The tool will be leveraged to share detailed information with a number of people in different geographic locations most especially the part-time programme students.

• Audio conferencing: Many organizations use audio conferencing service from a network service provider. However, companies that deploy audio conferencing solution integrated into the unified communication suite see payback in less than a year.

• Videoconferencing: This technology has been thought of as a nice-to-have and not a need-to- have for years now in the institution. However, reductions in travel, an emphasis on finding new ways of working combined with improvements in both quality of experience and ease of use will create new demand for videoconferencing.

• Document-based collaboration: This is rapidly becoming the integration point for collaboration. This feature will allow staff to collaborate and communicate with one another without having to leave the application. Staff will manage and share documents efficiently with this tool.

• Mobility: Mobile enablement is rapidly driving greater unified communication adoption. A robust mobile client will be used to bring feature parity, whether a staff is in or out of the office. Mobile workers now make up a handful percentage of the academic workforce, making mobile unified communication just as important as traditional unified communication. We are sourcing a very robust softphone.

• Social media: It will be intuitive and easy to use. This has typically been a tool used for consumers to connect with one another. However, as rapid consumerization of the institution continues, we plan to utilize social media as part of our collaborative strategy, and we’ll look to integrating it into the institution’s larger corporate unified communication suite of products.

• Communications-enabled business process (CEBP): Over time, the plan is to hire more application developers to integrate unified communication functionality into academic applications, allowing the institution to redefine academic process around the communications tool. This will give rise to a number of communications-enabled academic processes.