| Ganesan Ravishanker Associate Vice President for Information Technology Services Wesleyan University |
|
The data storage needs at Wesleyan have grown exponentially in the last few years and the institution has been able to accommodate needs as they have grown. Increasing use of the Web and multimedia in teaching and learning are primary driving forces for this increase. It became apparent that the institution’s approach to meeting these needs resulted in a very fractured file space that was confusing and difficult to use. A radically different strategy was needed to provide a large and scalable data storage mechanism that was easy to use, that supported multi-platforms, and that distributed the access control to enable collaboration. In collaboration with the library (whose interest in the project stemmed from the need to manage E-reserves, special collections and archives), ITS launched a year-long search for such a system. In this presentation, the search process will be discussed in detail; the selection and implementation of Xythos and the current state of the project will also be considered. This product has been helpful in achieving some goals, but there are a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out that will be addressed in the presentation.
http://wesfiles.blogs.wesleyan.edu/