Focus on the IT Department

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By Amalie Rasmussen 

Currently, at BBIS there have been many uncertainties about basic technological aspects of the school such as printing, accessing the WIFI, and so on. Finally some answers have been found thanks to the new IT director, Ashok Khosla. Mr. Khosla studied engineering at university however instead of exploring a career in engineering he started working with IT and has done so ever since. The newly appointed IT director has worked as an IT consultant for the UK government and for the foreign commonwealth office with setting up computer systems in British embassies and diplomatic mission overseas. In 2003 he came to Berlin where he has worked for two different IT companies, as an International Consultant and as an IT team leader and now he is here at our school.

When asked the question “what improvements would you like to see made in your department?” the answer leaned strongly towards implementing a structural change. “This structural change will include the IT department being divided into two units. One unit will be very responsive and give the students and teachers a first user experience where things are done quickly. The second unit will be working on the infrastructure and making sure that the servers are working well. We are trying to implement this change within this year however we need more space.” stated Mr. Khosla.

While there are some more broad topics to be discussed about the IT at our school then there are also many basic uncertainties on printing, joining the wifi and so on which has now been cleared up:

Many students and staff members have been confused with the new printing system and what the difference between for example Print2Go and Print2Go_Finisher is. At our school there are three types of printers:

1. The local HP printer which can only be used for printing. The location of it can be recognized using the name of the printer; for example 3014 means house 3, floor 0, room 14.
2. If you print using Print2Go then your document will be printed however without a finisher function.
3. If you print using Print2Go_Finisher then your documents will be printed including a finisher function such as hole punching and stapling.

Once you send a print request to Print2Go or Print2Go_Finisher then you can pick it up at any of the Print2Go printers at the school (library, IB study room, House 3 top floor) by logging in with your account information and releasing the document.

Another unanswerable question has been whether or not the “Paper Cut” system still exists. The school still runs the system that staff and students have a limited monthly number of print-outs. However, instead of using the “Paper Cut” system the school now uses another system which can be accessed through this link: https://acmpsv02.bbis.local:2941/webtools. Here it is visible how many print-outs you have left and it is also possible to transfer copies to friends from here. If you run out of copies the printer will not print your job therefore you should make sure to check your balance at the end of the month. The first time that you access the link https://acmpsv02.bbis.local:2941/webtools you will be asked to add a security exception for this site. To log in simply use your BBIS account information.

In addition, it has been a difficulty for many to access the BBIS WIFI seeing as there are two options.The wifi you should be connecting your devices to is BBISWIFI2 using the password bbis2013.

Also, one limitation of our school is perhaps the lack of technology in classes especially in the middle and high school. In fact technology in the classrooms could be considered negligible compared to other international schools. However, this will soon change for the high school as the school has decided to go BYOD (bring your own device) as of the next academic school year. The school feels that going BYOD is a better solution than the school for example providing each student with a laptop due to the following reasons outlined by Mr. Khosla: Going BYOD allows students to bring the device which best suits their needs. Such needs could be a specific size of the computer screen or for example a specific brand. Although this requires some clear guidelines which need to be met so that all students are able to complete the same tasks in the same program, the school considers this a better solution than simply handing the students a computer which might not be the best model for the individual student.