Robin Anderson

"The only thing that works on a Mac is iTunes," said Robin Anderson, director of marketing and communications for Information Technology Services.

Anderson added that downloading iTunes music counts against students' bandwidth limit in the residence halls.

Mac sales seem to be on the rise at Pennsylvania State University where the Penn State Computer Store saw a significant jump in its sales of Macintosh computers this past summer as opposed to its summer 2005 sales, according to Robin Anderson, communications director of the university's information and technology services.

Robin Anderson, director of communication for information technology services at Penn State, said that the process isn't finished but that much of the work has been completed.Students and employees switched to using new nine-digit identification numbers and ID cards Monday.

"When we started over winter break, we started with the centralized computing system," Anderson said.That includes functions such as payroll and grades."When those were converted, we started to trickle down to other systems in the university."

Under the new policy, Social Security numbers cannot appear in any computers except for federal tax-related purposes, Anderson said.She said the university hasn't seen any cases of identity theft and didn't want that to happen.Other universities also have stopped using Social Security numbers as IDs.

Most of the changeover took place during the winter break.But planning for the switch, which covers everything from staff's record-keeping spreadsheets to the massive central systems, has been under way for about a year and a half.

Anderson said everything has been going very smoothly so far.

"It's not over," she said."We're checking with the 100 or so department, college and campus contacts to see where they are in their conversion."

The main systems were switched over during the holidays, so students couldn't check their grades starting at midnight Dec. 18.But, Anderson said, about 95 percent of grades were in by the time that function was shut off, and the conversion was completed before Dec. 26, allowing students to once again check their grades.

During the first week of November, the university shuttled students and employees through an ID pickup site at the HUB-Robeson Center and at Penn State's other locations.Anderson said 60,000 to 70,000 faculty members, staff members and students picked up their new IDs that week.
...
"It's not going to be as easy to remember because we all have the (Social Security) number branded on our forehead," Anderson said.

A cost estimate wasn't available, but Anderson said the main price was in the ID cards, plus the time people put into making the switch.

Robin Anderson, Assoc. Director, Customer Communications,Information Technology ServicesPhone: (814) 865-0362E-mail: rla1@psu.edu

Robert Anderson, chief information officer of the New Hampshire Office of Information Technology, resigned his position recently.

SOURCE: Jim Wager, Robin Anderson
...
Robin Anderson, associate director of customer communications for information technology services, said the conversion is scheduled to last one week, and teachers unable to enter grades before the conversion will be able to do so immediately after it.

"We picked a time with the least impact across the university by the number of systems and people, not just the students, that would be affected," she said.
...
Anderson said there is no estimate to total costs of the project.She said there will be a central cost to the university for the conversion as well as costs to individual departments to accommodate a new university policy.

"Once the conversion has taken place, no one within the university may use social security numbers at all," she said.

Students should not panic if they cannot access this semester's grades after Dec. 18, said Robin Anderson, director of multimedia technology at Information Technology Services (ITS).

To convert every Penn State student's Social Security number to their new Penn State ID number, eLion will be temporarily shut down beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 19.ITS plans to have the Web site available again by Dec. 26, Anderson said.
...
The conversion is expected to run smoothly because ITS has been running practice tests over the past year, Anderson said.

"I think the only thing that will be difficult for students to get used to is using their new number on everything," Anderson said.

Anderson said university policy requires all computers associated with Penn State, including those of all branch campuses and staff members, be purged of every student Social Security number within 90 days of Jan. 1, 2005.
...
Regarding disposal, Anderson said students should treat their old ID cards like credit cards.

According to Robin Anderson, the director of multimedia technology at Information Technology Services at Penn State, the switch has been in the works for a while.

"Our communications campaign took place over 18 months, targeted at students, faculty and staff, so there was little surprise over the interruption in services and the interruption turned out to be much shorter than expected," Anderson said."These massive conversions ran smoother than expected because of the detailed level of planning and cooperation that took place over the last 18 months throughout the University."

Penn State also decided to make these changes as a precaution against the increasing frequency of identity theft.

"Our President, Graham Spanier, mandated in 2002 that the University make the changeover because of the increasing concern and nationally reported incidents of identity theft.None had occurred at Penn State, but we didn't want to become part of the statistics,"Anderson said.

It can be done with any wireless device that can detect a signal," said Robin Anderson, director of multimedia technologies at Information Technology Services (ITS).

No statistics are available on war driving locally or nationally because it is difficult to detect, she said.
...
Although wireless devices scan for access points all the time, it is illegal if someone attempts to use or break into an access point that they find without permission, Anderson said.
...
ITS has taken a new approach to promote computer security, Anderson said.Early last month, ITS launched the Take Control campaign and contest.

"For years, ITS and ResCom [Residential Computing] have been telling students and faculty to make their computers safer," Anderson said."Take Control puts all of this information into one central location on the Web.We decided to run the contest to spark initial interest."

Along with various resources for computer security, the Web site posts a short quiz.When the quiz is filled out correctly, participants are allowed to register for prizes.At the end of last month, ITS gave away a digital camera and a Napster MP3 player, Anderson said.

ITS will be giving out the same set of prizes at the end of this month, she said.Registrations must be complete by Nov. 30 to be eligible for the prizes.As of this week, 11,000 users have logged onto the site, she said.

Spyware and personal firewalls generated the most interest among visitors, she added.