Announcement of the AVS Center at East Carolina University
The UNC Office of the President (OP), Advanced Visual Systems, Inc. (AVS, Inc.) and East Carolina University (ECU) are pleased to announce the establishment of the AVS Center at ECU (AVScenter). The AVScenter provides AVS licenses to educators, researchers and classroom projects at North Carolina higher education institutions and provides technical support, first line user support, and training for both new and established users of the AVS software. The purpose of this notice is to inform faculty, staff, and students at North Carolina Universities of the availability of AVS resources in the AVScenter for their use in research and education.
Visualization tools, such as AVS, take advantage of human perception as a method for analysis and enable people to easily make sense out through visual processing of what otherwise would just be a set of meaningless numbers. These tools use the combined power of the human eye and brain to discern relationships by presenting complex data as multidimensional color images and animation. Above and beyond any other aspect of the learning process, visualization lies at the heart of understanding. It is through the use of an ever-increasing collection of media styles that we are able to represent better to students what, otherwise, would be vague concepts.
The AVS, Inc. suite of software offers scientists, researchers, educators and other professionals a comprehensive package of data visualization, imaging, advanced graphics, presentation, and analysis capabilities. The suite includes AVS Express Visualization Edition, Express MPE, OpenViz and AVS5.
The AVS Center will:
- Maintain a license server for the AVS software noted above with 24/7 operations support for the server.
- Manage the license database including adding new users to the database. A web form will be created for request submissions;
- Distribute and help install the software. Access to the software and installation instructions will be available via the web;
- Provide usage support via a web form or email;
- Periodically provide training sessions on usage, either at the AVScenter or at a remote site. Minimum class size will be 10 participants. Classes using the Access Grid or NC-REN will be considered.
The AVScenter, through this announcement, is making AVS licenses, training, and support available across NC universities. For start-up information for prospective users, or to request an AVS license for established users, please send email to avscenter@ecu.edu and for further information on the AVScenter, please visit http://avscenter.ecu.edu
The AVScenter utilizes the existing ECU infrastructure and is part of the Center for Interdisciplinary Instructional Technology Research (CIITR)*. ECU’s Information Technology and Computing Services Division provides the machine support, networking connectivity and backup.
*CIITR, formed by ECU is 2000 as part of its efforts in teaching and learning with technology, recruits and supports faculty to field test innovative technology in the classroom. CIITR’s primary technology focus is visualization and 3-d immersive visualization. CIITR fosters effective interdisciplinary teaching and learning methodologies, and serves as a catalyst for building an instructional technology pipeline on campus that incorporates research, deployment, dissemination, and integration of research findings into ECU classrooms and K-12 classrooms.
