Autumn 2007 Registration

The Information School finally sent along some paperwork today for registration and providing some general information on stuff like orientation (yay). I immediately sent in my registration, just to get it out of the way, so I’m registering for the following:

IMT 500 A: The Information Management Framework (1 credit, credit/no credit mode)
Instructor: Mike Crandall

IMT 501 A: Technology Foundations for Information Professionals (3 credits)
Instructor: Barbara Endicott-Popovsky

IMT 510 A: Human Aspects of Information Systems (4 credits)
Instructor: Cheryl Metoyer

IMT 540 A: Design Methods for Interaction and Systems (4 credits)
Instructor: Jacob Wobbrock

Course descriptions are available here.

It’ll take a few days for UW Educational Outreach (which administers registration for the MSIM program) to get the form via snail mail and process it. This is probably my biggest gripe at this point – the MSIM program doesn’t register through the University itself per se, and since I’m receiving financial aid, I have to register by snail mail, since they require a payment agreement form that basically allows me to hold off paying tuition until financial aid is disbursed.

Job Description

The position as listed below has changed slightly – there are two hires for this position, including myself, so it’s now a 20 hour/week position during the summer and a 10 hour/week position during the academic year.

Position Title
SharePoint Administrator
Meets Internship requirement for second year MSIM students
Start Date: as soon as possible
End Date: June 15, 2008

Location
The Information School of the University of Washington

Position Description
Under the general supervision of the Director of IT and in collaboration with the Information School IT team, the SharePoint Administrator will complete a needs analysis of iSchool stakeholders, help faculty and staff members establish collaborative sites around work teams, assist faculty and staff in the creation of personalized “MySites,” design document work-flow, provide support and training to end-users, document process and procedures, develop work-flow applications, and market the intranet site to internal users to ensure its overall success.

This position participates in the continued enhancement of the Information School’s web presence and intranet architecture. Development functions will be performed in partnership with internal IT Services staff, including other developers, project managers, and IT operational staff. The Information Specialist will build, enhance and maintain the Information School’s intranet web architecture and platform, which is based upon Microsoft’s SharePoint software. This framework will be utilized to deliver critical web-based solutions to the Information School.

This is an hourly position working up to 19.5 hours during the academic year and up to 40 hours per week during summer quarter and other school breaks.

Requirements

  • Experience with Microsoft SharePoint 2003 and SharePoint 2007
  • Sharp analytical and project management skills
  • Ability to work well independently and as a member of a team
  • Strong information organization/information architecture skills
  • Experience writing documentation
  • Ability to train end-users
  • Excellent communication skills

Desired Qualifications

  • Bachelors’ degree in computer science, business or related field or equivalent experience
  • Experience with Windows and SharePoint Portal Server administration
  • Process management improvement/business analysis
  • Two years of information technology experience such as analyzing, designing, installing, maintaining or programming computer software applications

This position is open to all Information School students. Undergraduate and graduate level students will be compensated at a competitive hourly rate of $17 – $19 per hour DOE. This position is not benefits eligible.

Note: This job classification is governed by a negotiated labor contract and is subject to union shop provisions. For more information about union shop provisions, visit: www.washington.edu/admin/hr/jobs/apl/union-info.html

Moving to Seattle

June 29th, we move out of Olympia and make our home in a one-bedroom apartment at Solara, a complex along Lake City Way, about a 20 minute Metro ride from the University of Washington. Soon, I will also be starting a new job at the University of Washington Information School as a part-time SharePoint Administrator – I’ll post the job description shortly.

Of course, on top of that, I’m also in the Information School’s Master of Science in Information Management program, starting in September. I haven’t registered yet (and actually haven’t heard anything on whether I’m even supposed to register, despite having a time ticket), so I have no idea what classes I’m in – in general, I’m just waiting for the iSchool to give me more information, since I’m sorely lacking any knowledge beyond the fact that I’m now a UW student with a job.

We’re in the process of finding a moving company to get all of our stuff from point “A” to point “B”, so more on that later, hopefully.

Followup: Diversity in the Energy Market

In sort of a screwball way, an article in today’s Seattle Times follows up on one of the questions I asked when writing "Diversity in the Energy Market":

[. . .]wouldn’t it be interesting if tomorrow morning, the likes of Shell or BP stood up and said they wanted to eliminate all coal-fired power plants from the face of the earth while preserving the jobs that those plants provide?

The article, which talks about national contribution to the climate change problem and asserts that the biggest culprit in rising carbon emissions is coal-fired power plants, gives an interesting point of view about eliminating coal as a power source:

States that shun coal — Vermont, Idaho, California, Rhode Island — and turn to nuclear, hydroelectric and natural gas, produce the least carbon dioxide but often at higher costs for consumers.

It’s unfair to pin all the blame on the coal-using states, said Washington, D.C., lawyer Jeffrey Holmstead, who as an attorney at Bracewell Giuliani represents coal-intensive utilities and refineries. Holmstead is the former Bush administration air-pollution regulator who ruled that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant, a decision that was overturned recently by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Coal-fired generation is the most economical, least expensive way to produce power almost anywhere in the world," he said. He argued that outlawing such plants would have little overall impact globally; however, the U.S. has long been the leading global source of carbon emissions.

It’s perhaps this last point that is the most important, though my original comment was cast on the international stage. The issue here isn’t really pointing fingers; Washington might be doing better than, say, Idaho, but it’s not about gloating. It’s about realizing that we, as a global community, need to think about the solutions to these problems. If that means that we get to eliminate the top two- or three-worst polluting energy generation sources, great.

Diversity in the Energy Market

Today’s New York Times finds an article on where wind power is headed; it’s part of "The Energy Challenge" series of articles, covering ways in which the world is and isn’t moving towards sustainability. The article discusses how wind power and tax credits have become symbiotic; if Congress chooses not to continue tax credits for wind power, we may find that that alternative energy source no longer sees new plant production.

Wind energy holds a very small niche in the overall energy production picture for the United States, covering only 1% of total generative capacity; it is very much a part of the idea of diversifying our energy resource pools by taking on a large number of small projects in alternative energy. Other efforts have focused on such resources as tidal power (power generated by tidal forces on the ocean floor), biomass power (usually via methane generation), and, of course, solar power. The energy industry is very diversified as it attempts to find these alternatives; what’s funny is that none of them (to my knowledge) have committed to completely eliminating particular forms of energy production, such as coal or nuclear plants. I do not call such a plan practical, necessarily, since a lot of our energy production is tied up in such resources, but wouldn’t it be interesting if tomorrow morning, the likes of Shell or BP stood up and said they wanted to eliminate all coal-fired power plants from the face of the earth while preserving the jobs that those plants provide?