25Live is an online interface used to reserve and request classroom and event space on campus. Members of the Brown community can check space availability and request space online.
The Active Directory domain, AD.Brown.edu, is the centralized Windows Directory Service for authentication of user, computer, and group objects. Active Directory is used primarily for the centralized Windows environments.
Development and delivery of reports, dashboards, and other output. Data is sourced from the University's administrative systems, such as Banner (student records), Huron Research Suite (research administration), Workday (faculty information), 25Live (space scheduling), and others.
Audio conferencing is a technology in which all participants dial into a central system that connects all parties instead of directly dialing each other.
Each desk telephone has the ability to conference up to 6 users. Dial-out only. Host must initiate all calls; if calls are long distance, normal charges apply. There is no cost (except long distance charges). There is no need to request this service, simply use the conference button on your phone.
Media Services provides design guidance, vendor selection and management services to departments interested in upgrading or installing AV technology in their buildings. Read about design and equipment standards for Brown's Meeting Spaces here.
Allows callers to be automatically transferred to an extension without the intervention of an operator or administrative assistant. This service provides a list of recorded selections for callers to choose from based on menu options. For example: "press 1 for Accounts and Passwords, press 2 for Computer Assistance".
Avochato is an enterprise-wide SMS messaging application that provides tools for ongoing, two-way messaging conversations. Avochato is approved by Brown to host SMS texting functionality using Brown telephone numbers.
Administrative web access to course registration, admission, student accounts receivable and financial aid administrative functions. For regular self-service access, see Banner Self-Service.
Web access to applicant and student data related to admission, financial aid, declining balance (available balance and a 30 day history), and course registration. For administrative (staff) access to banner, see Banner Access for Administrators.
With the BFit Brown Fitness web application, Brown, RISD and community members can view the offered fitness memberships and group programs. They can purchase these online and show up to work out. Fitness center staff can manage fitness offerings and track usage.
Your Brown account is the username and password you use to access most Brown services, including Banner, Canvas, and Workday. In most cases, the username is a combination of your first initial and last name, sometimes with numbers added for uniqueness. (For example, professor Josiah Carberry's username might be jcarberr.)
The Brown Image Gallery is a digital asset management system that contains images, video, audio and other digitized items related to Brown’s brand identity. An example includes a photo of the Brown campus for website use. Members of the Brown community can search for and download assets. This service helps departments streamline workflows by allowing them to easily store and access digital assets.
BrownGroups makes it easy to maintain lists of people in a department and to use those lists across many applications such as email, scheduling, Google, Canvas, Drive, etc. Departmental groups are automatically updated with the latest information from Workday and can be customized to include other people who contribute to a department's efforts.
BrownReady Continuity Planning is the web-based continuity planning tool used by the University to document departments' critical functions and the resources required to perform these functions.
The BrownU app has on-the-go information for the Brown University community including campus events, dining menus, the campus map, as well as schedules for special events such as orientation and commencement.
This service is used by high level University offices to send official email communications to large, specified segments of the University population. Requests must meet the policy criteria.
For management of high-volume inbound calls, this system allows for multiple users to answer one main number. Reports are generated listing call volume and operator effectiveness.
The Office of Information Technology (OIT) at Brown University delivers Storage services that are designed to meet the diverse needs of students, faculty, staff, university departments, and researchers at Brown.
Canvas, accessed via a web browser, provides a collection of built-in tools for uploading of content, communication, collaboration, assignments and assessments in support of teaching and learning.
Media Services provides classroom technology maintenance, upgrades and support. Classrooms are equipped by state of the art AV technology ready to serve pedagogical needs and providing a certain level of automation.
The OIT Data Science Practice offers consultation support for cloud computing across a variety of third-party cloud service providers (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure). This consultation support is primarily geared towards the use of cloud computing services for research (e.g., data-intensive and high performance computing). But the DSP also has expertise in—and the ability to support—application deployment and containerization using cloud service providers.
Research administration package which allows users to manage research proposals, grants, human subject and animal protocols. For the development and delivery of reports from Coeus, see Analytics and Reporting.
Brown University’s high-performance computing cluster Oscar - Ocean State Center for Advanced Research provides a high-capacity, fast, reliable, and secure data storage system designed, configured, and operated for the needs of Brown researchers in any field. Oscar data storage is well integrated with Brown’s Campus File Storage services and shareable with both on-campus and off-campus collaborators. Oscar’s filesystems provide work-area storage optimized for a wide variety of job types and are designed to perform well with data-intensive computations while scaling well to large numbers of simultaneous connections.
Most computer hardware is installed and set up by Department Computing Coordinators or OIT's IT Support Consultants, who provide departmental support in a shared model.
Courses@Brown allows students to browse, shop, and register for courses. Faculty can advertise courses they are teaching to appear as a suggestion when students are viewing related courses. Faculty and department websites can link to directed searches of courses in a department or taught by a specific faculty member.
Submit a syllabus for students to view during shopping period. Request tools and services for your course, such as a Canvas course site, a course blog, a Google course group, and more.
Brown University Library’s Data Management and Sharing services are available to students, staff, and faculty researchers interested in managing, archiving, and disseminating their research data and other digital research products to other researchers and the public. The Library provides several services and tools aimed at making data, metadata, and code, as well as other digital products of research, discoverable, and available for others to cite, reuse, and repurpose.
The Desktop Backup Service provides a method of backing files from a computer's hard drive to the cloud using the Druva application. In the event of file deletion or hard drive failure, files can be recovered from backups. This service is intended for University administrators and others who keep important university records on local hard drives.
The OIT Data Science Practice offers support with data mining, text mining, and visualization techniques for digital scholarship. We have a team of experienced data scientists, many of whom work on data-intensive research projects in the social sciences and humanities. We also coordinate with other resources on campus, such as the OIT Academic Technology group and the Center for Digital Scholarship in the Library, to help researchers identify the most appropriate support for their digital scholarship project.
Digital signage allows academic and administrative units within the Brown University community to reach and engage audiences by showcasing various aspects of the unit’s programs or offerings. The signage can reflect the life and vibrancy of a unit in a way that enhances the audience’s experience with a program, and can improve communications about key information. By virtue of their placement in locations frequented by a wide range of audiences, the signs also become a very visual and ever-changing part of what people identify as representative of Brown.
Digitization services are available for personal slide collections, photos, videos, audio cassettes, text (OCR and PDF) which will be used for faculty and graduate student teaching, presentations and research. Content is prepared according to Brown Library standards, and full quality archival copies are made whenever needed.
DNS (Domain Name Service) resolves names that are used by applications (like web or email) to their IP address. Brown maintains DNS names and their corresponding addresses for any name ending in .brown.edu. This service also provides a corresponding reverse lookup function to map IP addresses back to their respective names. Brown maintains the reverse lookup for its public IP addresses starting with 128.148 and 138.16 as well as many private IP addresses local to the campus network.
Faculty and staff are able to manage their email aliases/alternate email addresses by visiting MyAccount and choosing the Alternate Address(es) menu item.
Students needing an alias can request one by following the steps covered in this knowledgebase article.
Using Virtru, you can selectively encrypt emails sent from your Brown.edu address. You can also prevent a forwarded email from being read, set a read expiration, and revoke the ability to read an email after it is sent. Email recipients do not need to install Virtru to read or respond to your email.
BitLocker provides full disk encryption for Windows devices; FileVault 2 for Macs. ISG recommends that faculty and staff who use laptops containing Brown Restricted Information (especially frequent travelers) should encrypt their devices.
Brown’s FileMaker server can host FileMaker version 14 and up databases, offering the benefit of easier collaboration, higher security, and regular backups.
In order to promote and maintain the security of Brown data and its network infrastructure, firewalls have been strategically installed as part of the overall network architecture. Requests for the opening or closing firewall ports are reviewed, researched, and acted upon by the Information Security Group, who manages this service.
Create and share work online and access documents from anywhere with this web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, form, and data storage service provided by Google. This service allows real-time collaboration with others at and outside of Brown.
Google Groups provide a means to receive email at a general (rather than personal) address. Email sent to the address is redirected to one or more individuals at their personal addresses, and not held in a central mailbox. Google Groups can also be used to assign permissions within Google, such as the ability to view a Google Calendar, Document, or Site.
Users can create and edit a simple website bringing together information to share, including docs, videos, photos, calendars and attachments. Sites can be shared with any number of users within the Brown community or with the entire world.
The Multimedia Labs Graduate Center video studio space has professional video, audio, and lighting equipment that beginners can use to quickly capture video and audio. Students and faculty can use the space to easily record lectures, interviews and presentations. Once users are oriented to the space they may reserve time through an online calendar.
The Center for Computation and Visualization (CCV) maintains a large HPC computer cluster for research use. Researchers confronting problems which are too large to solve on a conventional laptop or workstation can obtain a free, exploratory account which allows limited use of the system, a priority accounts for a fee, or a subscription to ownership of a 'condo' giving the highest priority access. The CCV also provides Application Scientists to help researchers optimize their use of the cluster and to work directly on researcher grant funded projects requiring scientific software development.
The OIT Data Science Practice offers services related to acquiring, managing, and integrating data sources for research, and performing data and text mining. On the management side, we can help with data transfers; extract, transform, load (ETL) processes; data warehousing, and integration of disparate data; platforms for storing and accessing both small data and big data; and optimizing data access. On the analysis side, we can help with methods for mining structured data from unstructured data and for textual analysis.
The Information Security Group is available for consulting on all topics related to information security, privacy, P2P, compliance, social networks, wireless, laptop safety, and online protection. The group also consults on new and on-going security projects, and is also available for speaking at department and organizational meetings.
The Information Security Group provides various avenues for training to the Brown community, the most significant being the course Protecting Brown Information. Completion of this one-hour class is required for access to systems containing sensitive information.
Provide IP addresses for use by servers and end user workstations, routing to campus services and internet and DHCP service for dynamic or reserved IP address allocation.
There are several options for protecting systems and applications from unforeseen events. OIT will work with system administrators to select the best method to protect Brown's critical applications.
Jabber is a software-based device that mimics a desk phone by presenting a phone interface on the computer or smartphone, complete with a dial pad and call handling features (such as Mute, Hold, and Transfer).
With Jabber, you can bring your Brown phone number with you, even if you're away from your desk! Jabber is a unified communications application for Windows, Mac OS X, and mobile devices. It'll let you make and receive phone calls*, conduct encrypted chats to others who are logged into the system, and search the Brown directory.
Automated Lecture Capture is available in several rooms on campus. If you are giving a lecture in one of these rooms, you can request that your lecture be automatically recorded; the recording will include video of the lecture and your projected content. If you are not in one of these rooms and want to record your lecture, please see the Personal Recording service or request video recording services.
LinkedIn Learning provides thousands of self-paced courses on technology, software, and business topics. When you log in with your Brown username at the link above, you will have access to full course content and example files, and you can track your progress and print completion certificates. Pairing with a LinkedIn account is an optional step with the benefit of personalized recommendations.
Live streaming (media broadcast live on the Internet) is available for campus events. Events can be watched live on computers and mobile devices by visiting a Brown website. Live streamed events are recorded while they're happening, and can be repurposed after the event is over.
Need a loaner? The following equipment can be signed out at the IT Service Center. For current models and availability, get in touch or view this article.
The Brown ID Card should be protected in the same manner a credit or debit card would be protected. Lock your Brown ID card if you think it is lost or stolen, do not wait -- protect yourself and the Brown community.
The OIT Data Science Practice offers machine learning and data exploration support by data scientists who are experienced in collaborating with faculty and administrators on data-intensive projects.
Media Production Creative Services provides support to requesters seeking enhanced production value for their digital media products.
Some examples include cinematography, lighting, directorial and editorial for narrative composition - writing and/or editing - based on consultation and curatorial collaboration with Brown storytellers.
Support and Training, Teaching and Learning, Video and Audio
Media Services offers staffing, training, video recording and editing, live streaming and media platforms in support of courses and events on campus. Media Services is responsible for installed media equipment in most campus classrooms and event spaces. Services are available to faculty, staff and students.
Media Services supports hybrid teaching and online synchronous teaching via Zoom and manages OIT Zoom webinar service for the campus community.
Support and Training, Teaching and Learning, Video and Audio
In consultation with a department, the Telecommunications Office will select the lowest cost device and plan which meets the business need. Telecommunications monitors all bills on a monthly basis and notifies the cellular user if another plan or feature would be more cost effective to meet the user's calling patterns.
Desktop Computing Printing and Software, Teaching and Learning, Video and Audio
The Multimedia Labs are multi-computer teaching facilities dedicated to integrating creative technology with teaching and learning. We provide software, equipment and support for the production of web, software development, graphics, video, animation, 3D fabrication and sound. Students can use the labs for creative projects and faculty can use the labs as teaching spaces.
Namecoach is a service that allows students to create an audio recording to help professors and peers better pronounce their names. Namecoach also allows students to enter preferred pronouns, phonetic pronunciations, and enter an alternative name or pronunciation.
The Information Security Group performs regularly scheduled and ad-hoc scanning of network and web services to identify vulnerabilities, ensure security standards, and maintain regulatory compliance.
OIT Billing uses Pinnacle to provide detailed monthly statements for charges that appear on department accounts in Workday. OIT manages billing for services provided by the following campus resources:
OIT’s Endpoint Hardware Services provides comprehensive services throughout the endpoint lifecycle for Brown University property. This team ensures that it’s easy to procure, store, deliver, repair, and surplus computing equipment across the University. We can help you obtain University-owned Windows, Mac, cellular devices, desk phones, tablets, peripherals, and printers.
The library has migrated its online course reserves (OCRA) to a new platform in Spring 2023. Please visit the Library’s New Course Reserves Service for more information.
Personal Recording is designed primarily for professors and is a key tool for the flipped classroom model. It uses a stand-alone software application that runs on Windows and Mac computers; a smartphone and tablet app is also available.
The OIT Public Safety Applications team is responsible for implementing and maintaining Brown’s security applications (CCURE, Genetec, etc.) and a variety of police applications, as well as providing Access Control services to campus property managers.
The Public Safety Technology team provides physical security repair & support services, strategic planning, and hardware development for the Public Safety Technology & Building Security Systems used to protect the Brown Community by the Department of Public Safety at Brown University. We provide oversight and coordination for Public Safety Systems and Projects including major Public Safety initiatives as they relate to Public Safety Technology.
CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) is also known as “open captions” or “live captioning.” A trained operator transcribes spoken speech into written text. Speech to text software is used when voice writers provide CART.
Remote CART is a real-time text service that allows a student or event attendee to read what is being said in the classroom or event space on an installed display, laptop, tablet or smartphone. Some people may refer to Remote CART as live captioning.
Brown's RemoteApp service allows members of the Brown community to access software applications virtually without having to install them on the computer.
Research Services, Support and Training, Teaching and Learning
The Center for Computation and Visualization supports students both in formal class settings for courses requiring the use of CCV resources and in regularly scheduled workshops. CCV staff will come to a scheduled academic class to explain how the CCV system works and how to use the relevant tools and techniques appropriate for the students based on consultation with the professor.
Desktop Computing Printing and Software, Research Services, Support and Training
OIT regularly works with faculty members and researchers to develop proposals and budgets for the computational components of externally-funded research. This includes not only the IT equipment and services needed for research, but also staff support from Application Scientists at the Center for Computation and Visualization and Data Scientists in the Data Science Practice. These full-time research staff can provide a wide array of expertise in computational methods (including high-performance computing, software engineering, informatics, machine learning, visualization, and data management) and are often named as key personnel on proposals, with OIT directors serving as co-investigators. In cases where staffing is not needed as part of a proposal, we also provide letters of support and facilities statements for IT services, which typically include access to high-performance computing, research data storage, and secure computing environments for research with restricted-use data.
High-speed network that allows researchers at Brown to connect to Internet2 and peer research institutions. Once enabled for a lab, researchers will be able to connect their hosts by wired ethernet at 10 gigabits/sec for movement of large data sets.
The Center for Computation and Visualization (CCV) maintains a vast catalog of research software on the centralized High Performance Computing (HPC) resource. While primarily open source software, this includes several licensed applications as well. For more information on the types of software provided for HPC users, please visit the HPC page on the CCV website.
Researchers @ Brown brings together publicly available information on the people, departments, and activities that collectively make up research and scholarship in all disciplines at Brown. Profiles include information such as publications, awards, and courses. Faculty can maintain their own profiles and search for collaborators.
Desktop Computing Printing and Software, Teaching and Learning
With Rosetta Stone, members of the Brown Community (including alumni) can study up to 31 languages using a web browser - no software download required. A mobile app is also available; you must log in to the web version first before using the mobile app.
The OIT Data Science Practice can support researchers and administrators with information visualization, both for exploratory data analysis and for disseminating results (e.g. through dashboards and interactive, web-based visuals). We commonly use visualization tools such as R, d3js, and Tableau.
Enterprise Data can be encrypted and securely transferred via SSL from Brown's enterprise systems to external vendors or departmental file shares (XFER). Additionally, data from external vendors can be retrieved and securely transferred to departmental file shares (XFER). If needed, departments can post vendor data on a department file share (XFER) and it can be transferred to the enterprise systems.
The Information Security Incident Response Team protects Brown University's IT systems and infrastructure by providing emergency response to significant information security threats (e.g., breached machines or accounts, malware/ransomware outbreaks, and network attacks).
Shared mailboxes provide a means to receive email at a general (rather than personal) address. Mail is delivered to a centralized location where it can be accessed by up to ten people.
OIT's Software Services negotiates and manages software licenses for the most commonly used applications at Brown. The software distribution download page provides an extensive list of available software which is available to members of the Brown community at no cost. Stand alone copies of software are also available for faculty and staff who require unrestricted access to certain packages. Software Services will assist in finding the best alternative source for software not available on the download page.
OIT has made an arrangement with InCommon for issuing digital certificates (cert). A cert is an electronic file containing personal information about its owner as well as the owner's public key, used to establish a web site owner's credentials when transactions on the Internet must be secured. Requests are managed by the office of Computing Accounts and Passwords (CAP).
Stronghold is a secure computing and storage environment that enables Brown researchers to analyze sensitive data while complying with regulatory or contractual requirements. It has been established by Brown University to be compatible with Federal and Rhode Island Law standards for data privacy and protection.
Teaching and Learning, Video and Audio, Web and Online Media
Consultation sessions may be scheduled by instructors seeking assistance in employing technology for teaching. This may include in-depth instructions on the use of individual tools or the development of course-specific strategies.
Telephone service is available throughout Brown University. The main telephone system provides on-campus service with standard features such as call hold, transfer, waiting, forwarding, conference calling, last number redial, voicemail, and music on hold. Local, long distance and international calling services are available. Telecommunications coordinates with other university groups to deploy phone system in new locations and upgrade phone systems in remodeled locations.
The Telecommunications Office can provide departments with consulting and advisory services to help determine what telecommunications devices and plans are needed for employees to conduct University business.
Technical training is available from several groups at Brown. Along with the links below, check the latest announcements on this site for a monthly listing of tech trainings and events.
Video and audio recording in support of courses and of academic events is available to faculty, staff and students. Priority is given to supporting teaching and learning and to events organized by Event Strategy and Management and other campus partners.
The Center for Computation and Visualization (CCV) provides several virtual reality facilities on the Brown campus for general faculty and student use. This includes the following resources:
Virtual hosting is aimed at departments or researchers who want access to a server but don't want to purchase or maintain the hardware. The virtual machines (VMs) can be either Windows or Linux servers. Depending on your needs, we can assist with basic system administration and maintenance.
Voicemail allows callers to leave a message in the event that a phone line is busy or the recipient is not available to answer the incoming call. Mailbox owners can record custom greetings, forward voicemail to other users on the system, set an extended absence greeting, and more.
Web Authentication (Shibboleth) provides the Brown community with the ability to protect web resources and exercise fine-grained control of access to those resources to members of the Brown Community as well as other institutions that use Shibboleth. As part of the Shibboleth federation, Brown community members may be granted the ability to access web resources at other institutions with their Brown username and password.
Wired ethernet network connectivity to campus buildings and the Internet. Brown is an Internet 2 connected site for high performance network requirements.
Brown is the recommended secure wireless network for anyone with a Brown username and password. Computers and mobile devices such as phones can be easily configured to connect to the network by visiting http://wifi.brown.edu.
If you are a guest on campus, you can connect to the Brown-Guest network.
"eduroam" is a free, secure worldwide access service which allows students, researchers and staff from participating institutions to connect to the internet at other participating institutions.
Members of the Brown community will be able to use their Brown credentials to obtain wireless and Internet access when visiting other eduroam member institutions, and visitors from those institutions will be able to log into the eduroam wireless network at Brown. Please note that while on the Brown campus, members of the Brown community should connect to Brown instead of the Eduroam network for wireless access.
Workday is Brown’s unified (integrated) administrative information system for human resources, payroll, financial management, and related business functions. The service can be accessed online via Web browser and from an iPhone/iPad app available for free from the iTunes store.
Zoom allows up to 300 participants to participate in a live web video or audio conference. Students, faculty, and staff can schedule and host meetings using the link above. Hosts can invite anyone, including people outside of the Brown community. Features include multiple screen-sharing, chat, video sharing, mobile collaboration including co-annotation, and recording to the cloud or to your computer. Robust mobile apps for iOS and Android devices are available. Toll-free and international numbers are available.