Enterprise Information Technology Services Press Release
The University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia

Monday, November 20, 2006

WRITER: Bert DeSimone bert@uga.edu, 706-542-5359
CONTACT: David Matthews-Morgan dmm@uga.edu, 706-542-0355

UGA students make classroom wireless networking a high priority

ATHENS, Ga.—The UGA Office of the Chief Information Officer and Enterprise Information Technology Services are helping the University "build the new learning environment" by extending wireless access to all UGA classrooms and other areas where students congregate.

The University currently offers wireless access to students via PAWS (Personal Access Wireless/Walkup System), which covers parts, but not all, of campus. The classroom wireless project is an extension of the PAWS network.

"PAWS is being extended to classrooms because those are the areas students want to have wireless connectivity the most," said David Matthews-Morgan, IT Associate Director for Enterprise Information Technology Services. "The goal of this project is to make wireless access available to students ubiquitously on campus."

The wireless classroom project is being funded by UGA's Student Technology Fee. Since its Fall 2000 inception, the Student Technology Fee has provided students with computing equipment in the Student Learning Center, Internet support to students living on campus, the aforementioned PAWS wireless network, and many other technology services. Through this fee, students are contributing $580,000 this year to the wireless classroom project.

The multi-year project will bring wireless access to 264 classrooms in 48 buildings. According to Matthews-Morgan, approximately two-thirds of these classrooms will be covered by the end of June 2007.

"After all the classrooms are wireless," said Matthews-Morgan, "we will expand the service to other areas where students congregate. Included among these areas are student lobbies, lounges, study rooms, student offices, and student carrels.

Expansion priorities were established using data obtained from the UGA's Office of the Registrar and the Office of Institutional Research. Buildings were ranked by calculating the total number of credit hours awarded in classrooms without wireless coverage for academic year 2005, summer semester 2006, and spring semester 2006.

Please refer to the following Web sites for related information:

PAWS (paws.uga.edu)

Student Technology Fee (techfee.uga.edu)

Student Technology Fee Wireless Project ( http://www.eits.uga.edu/noi/ni/wireless)

EITS Mission
The Office of the Chief Information Officer and Enterprise Information Technology Services (EITS) are committed to the mission of UGA as a land-and-sea-grant institution where academics come first and the research extensive university community encourages research efforts at the undergraduate and graduate levels. To that end, under the direction of the University´s Chief Information Officer, EITS endeavors to provide a robust, reliable, and secure information technology infrastructure, maintain essential production services, and offer world-class support.