|
|
|
Information and Communication Technology Center (ICTC)
Networking and Technical Support Department (NTSD)
The Networking department is responsible for establishing and developing the network infrastructure for all QOU branches, to ensure a continuous, reliable and efficient performance of the running services with minimum cost, depending on its highly qualified engineers and technicians (some of their CV's are attached in appendix A). Also, the department is responsible for setting the specifications of the University's hardware needs.
Mission
Deploy electronic services through a robust network to all QOU branches.
Objectives
Our objectives focus on efficient participation in developing ICT sector at QOU to satisfy its policy in distance education and e-learning.
- Constructing a Local Area Network (LAN) in each educational area and study center all over Palestine and joining them to the University's intranet.
- Establish and supervise many computer networks in every educational area or learning centers. Moreover, NTSD must connect these networks together to have one complete network at the university level.
- Supervise the establishment of a high level maintenance team who maintain the university centers and its educational areas instead of using other companies that have higher prices.
- Providing the academic instructors and students with a good environment to benefit from e-learning facilities.
- Providing technical support to QOU's employees and technicians, and recovering the emergency problems and disasters.
- Connecting all the computers in the laboratories and administrative units to the main network domain in order to be able to use internet service and other services.
- Providing e-mail service to all employees at the University.
- Using internet to connect to other local community and international networks that serve researchers in research and development (R & D).
- Gain a solid foundation in network technology and network administration to expose to the more recent trends in network technology.
- Installation and troubleshooting the network's operating systems and performing basic system administration on platforms such as:
- Active Directory Servers.
- Mail Server.
- Domain Name Server (DNS).
- Applications and FTP servers.
- Web Server.
- Antivirus Server.
- Portal Server.
- Avicenna Pleiad Server.
- VPN Server.
- Avicenna Lab Server.
[More | Hiding]
Achievements
- Intranet
Fiber optics line is connected to the main backbone, while the educational regions and study centers connects with the backbone as star topology using Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) technology.
- Internet service
There are two separate main internet sources:
- Leased line from local ISP with 1Mbps as a backup link.
- EUMED-Connect line with 6Mbps internet and 6Mbps for research purpose.
- E-mail service
We provide e-mail service to all its employees and staff. This service is based on open source technology. The mail system is customized to satisfy the University's needs. It is based on the following technologies:
- RedHat Linux operating system.
- Horde mail system application.
- Firewall and antivirus software for system protection.
- Computer labs
The department is responsible for providing and preparing well equipped computer labs at QOU. The labs are classified as follows:
- Computer labs: they are used for education purposes, student practice training and doing assignments, besides some practical lectures in IT subjects.
- Internet labs: Students use these labs for internet usage and to login to QOU portal system, email, etc.
- Multimedia labs: these labs are established to enable students to use multimedia that contain the educational material prepared on CD's, Tapes, etc. Beside instructors can use these labs for training on multimedia courses.
- Continuing Education labs: these labs are used for some IT training courses as a support for other labs mentioned above, especially in educational regions where there are many training courses organized for the local society.
- Computer Labs for students: two computer labs for visually impaired students are established in two educational regions (Jenin and Hebron). These labs are used also for all visually impaired students in the local society who wishes to get any kind of computer skills available in these labs. QOU is planning to establish more labs in other educational regions for its students and local society. See appendix C.
- Virtual Private Network (VPN)
According to the concept of the E-communication between the sites of the university inside and outside Palestine; Virtual Private Network (VPN) was established to connect the QOU site in Jordan with the intranet in Palestine.
- EUMED-Connect Project
The EUMED-Connect is a pioneering initiative project to establish and operate an IP-based network in the Mediterranean region. The EUMED-Connect network serves the educational and research communities of the Mediterranean region, and is linked to the pan-European GÉANT network.
For the first time, national research centres and institutions in the Mediterranean region have dedicated connectivity to more than 3,500 educational and research establishments in Europe, and other research communities worldwide.
Al Quds Open University is hosting the main link which is connected directly to UK with 45Mbps shared between Palestinian universities. Figure 3 below illustrates the map of the EUMED-Connect project links, which shows the direct link between UK and Palestine- Al-Quds Open University.
- Video Conference System
The project aims at interconnecting all the QOU's sites with video conferencing classrooms. As a rule of thump, open and distance learning are key elements of QOU philosophy, while the implementation of this philosophy on a wide range costs a lot. Some VC rooms are prepared for administrational and academic purposes, since we are all aware of the difficulties facing our University Council these days in their meetings on one side, and facing our students to attend the academic meetings on the other. Moreover, due to the shortage of academic supervisors in many educational fields, we found that the strategic decision is VC. VC system objectives can be summarizes as follows:
- Interconnecting the main educational regions with video conferencing connectivity.
- Increasing the efficiency of lectures in some subjects through enabling students and instructors to interact through video conferencing.
- Facilitate the administrational workflow.
- Enable the university technically to interact with its partners all over the world in different aspects, and exchange with other universities and most of all, for cultural exchange.
Because of the high number of nodes, the VC system project was divided into different phases. Phase one interconnected 4 sites; Ramallah, Gaza, Jerusalem and Hebron, where Ramallah is the central node. See figure 4.
Each site consists of two parts; the POLYCOM system which forms the conferencing infrastructure, and other devices and utilities like TV, projectors, smart board, etc.
The central node meets all the main system shell, so the system backbone will be located there and the main control operations are carried out from this node. It is equipped with POLYCOM VS 4000 multi-point, multi-mode system, which connects the other three sites and uses both ISDN and PRI line with 2 Mbps bandwidth. EUMED Connect line is used with IP. The system includes 42 PLAZMA TV, smart board, LCD Projector and a mixer as shown in the figure 5.
Intranet Topology
Figure 6 illustrates QOU network diagram that explains the technology used to connect all QOU sites together, and the speed of the links between ICTC and other branches. Besides, Figure 7 represents QOU-ICTC backbone network and technologies with all available systems and servers.
A sample of the network and technologies infrastructure is illustrated in figure 8. It represents one of the educational regions "Al-Quds Educational Region" which is one of QOU's 25 branches; of course the other branches have approximately the same architecture. Also, figure 9 represents a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that connects QOU Office in Jordan- Amman with our main ICTC site in Ramallah.
Network operating systems in the QOU are heterogeneous. It is powered by Digital Unix, RedHat Linux, and Microsoft operating systems with Distributed Active Directory. Machines hosting these systems are highly customized and dedicated for their applications.
Security and high availability are taken into consideration in the network, relying on high-specification machines, hosting the QOU applications. The network serves more than 33 computer labs and 19 internet labs around Palestine for education and training. Besides, more than 2500 PCs are distributed in QOU branches for educational and administrative purposes.
|
|
|
|
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}