New Trends in CityU By Annie Yu

Technology trend has been evolving rapidly over the years. Most users in the CityU are beginning to appreciate new technology and are making every effort to keep up with its fast pace. Being a technology centre, the Computing Services Centre (CSC) has an obligation to develop new services and find ways to cope with the increasing needs. To name a few popular services, they are the CityU Intranet, Campus News, CityTV and CityVoD.

The transition from the old text-based Network Menu to the current Intranet page had been smooth for some people. Gathered from our monthly statistics, a majority of departments have already accustomed to the new Web-based user interface and are using the Intranet practically every day. They found the Intranet user-friendly and convenient as compared with the previous text-based menu. However, statistics also showed that a few departments still lag behind which might be due to the fact that their PCs have not been upgraded yet and consequently not powerful enough to use the Intranet on a daily basis. Hopefully, with sufficient funds on hand, the situation will improve after their PCs have been upgraded to newer models.

Following the launch of the CityU Intranet, "Campus News"has also become Web-based. One major advantage of putting up University messages, Departmental messages and Leave messages etc. on the Web is that they can be accessed anytime and anywhere as long as an Internet connection is established. Statistics showed that the total number of users who read Campus News on a daily basis was increasing remarkably. Although a few departments are still reluctant to switch to this Web-based environment, the CSC will try its very best to persuade them to adopt this new user interface as soon as possible.

CityTV has gained popularity ever since its launch. This is especially true during the months when special events were being broadcasted via the CityTV channels. Furthermore, it is found that the Cantonese speaking channel, Cable News 2, seems to be the most popular channel as its total number of viewers often exceeds that of the other TV channels. CityVoD, on the other hand, does not attract that many viewers owing to the fact that this service is still at an early stage. Currently, high usage is found in the Lecture Theatres, CCIV and the CSC Student Terminal Area where teaching is concerned. The number is expected to increase in the future when CityVoD has been proved useful.