Information and Network Center(Modern Educational Technology Center)

Brief Introduction

The Center of Information and Network (Center of Modern Educational Technology) was established on the basis of the former Center of Network and Education Technology, combining the Center of Educational Technology on the North Campus and parts of the functions of the university office and the academic office in April 2003.
There are three offices and three divisions under the Center of Information and Network (Center of Modern Education Technology): the General Office of the Center, the Information Management Division, the Network Management Division, the Education Technology Division, the North Campus Office, and the Zhuhai Campus Office. The general office and divisions are functional organizations university-wide, and the offices at the other campuses are extensions of the Center. The Center manages and coordinates the daily operation, human resources, finance and properties of all the divisions and offices. The Center is located in an ideal environment for work, and hires a batch of high-quality professionals in information and network specialties with Bachelor, Master and Doctorate degrees. The center is operated under the humanistic concepts of management by creating an atmosphere of unity and cooperation, aiming high and progressing; by emphasizing practical effects, and by stressing creativity and the best.

The Center of Information and Network (Center of Modern Educational Technology) is an important component of the university??s public service system, which musters teaching and learning, research and service into one department. Its functions include the planning, construction, maintenance, management, service, technological development of public information service, campus network, educational technology, and digitalized campus. The center offers training on information technology and modern educational technology to staff and students university-wide, undertakes research and development in projects related to computer network and modern educational technology at the municipal, provincial and national levels, unfold cooperation across disciplines and between teachers of different disciplines, and provide service for faculty and students of the university in network and modern education technology.

The construction of campus network started from 1995, and total investment has amounted to over 30 million yuan so fat. The network is laid throughout the main classroom buildings, office buildings, student dormitories, faculty dormitories on the three campuses (Guangzhou South Campus, Guangzhou North Campus, Zhuhai Campus), with a total length of fiber cable exceeding 75 kilometers. The network now has a total of over 20000 users and connects over 15000 computers. The scale and number of users of the network rank first among all universities and colleges in southern China. The network is also one of the campus networks among universities in the country covering the widest area and having the largest scale, the most advanced technology and the highest rate, which lay a good foundation for the overall improvement of teaching and learning, research, and management levels. The center now has multiple large-scale servers of the SUN, IBM, COMPAQ, DELL brands, and provides various types of information service on WWW, FTP, BBS, E-mail, personal storage, personal website, as well as office information system, academic management system and tele-education system. It is also the juncture of the Guangdong Cernet and the Zhuhai city network.

While dedicated to the infrastructure of the network, the Center of Information and Network (Center of Modern Educational Technology) is also devoted to popularization of network education. It has constructed the network education system, offering CIA in foreign languages and other subjects, courseware and videos of academic lectures, etc. It has also provided the software platform as technological support to the university??s tele-education. At present, the Network Education College of the university has 5 majors, with teaching locations in 17 cities in Guangdong and a total enrollment of nearly 2500 students.

Modern educational technology is the productivity of education. To prepare the teachers for the challenges of digitalization in education, one of the main tasks of the center is to popularize modern educational technology and carry out training for the teachers so as to improve their mastery and application of such technology. The center set up a ??Modern Educational Technology Training Center?? authorized by the national committee of educational technology supporting in universities in May 2001, and now it has lecture halls, multimedia classrooms, listening classrooms, courseware development labs, training classrooms, etc., creating an excellent environment for teaching and training. The center also collects all kinds of audio and video materials in an effort to build up its databases of educational resources and raw materials. It currently owns 26 varieties of 1487 video tapes, 61 varieties of audio tapes totaling 1530 cassettes, and 29 titles of television programs, all of which will be digitalized and are available for copying and other services. Another important aim of the Center of Information and Network (Center of Modern Educational Technology) is to carry out the full-scale construction of digitalized campus, or a first-class digitalized network environment, including digitalized resources for teaching and learning, digitalized environment of teaching and studying, digitalized management and working environment, to create cyber space and virtual university and to realize modernization and digitalization of education.

The basic tenet of the Center of Information and Network (Center of Modern Educational Technology) is to provide excellent network information service and technical support for the teaching and learning, research and management of the university, and to create a first-class digitalized campus.

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