VNCB is Launched

On April 28 members of STS and the Johns Hopkins Medical Administrative Board celebrated the official public launch of the Virtual New Clinical Building (VNCB) and began the official countdown to the opening of the physical NCB. There's no turning back now!

The VNCB is the result of an 18-month joint project between STS and Hopkins Medicine, made to make the transition between the physical building and the NCB easier for staff. In the Fall 2010 semester alone, about 4,000 student hours were worked on this project, doing the work of 10 full-time staff members at Johns Hopkins.In total, 23 students worked on this project in varying degrees of intensity with respect to the project, and they were all honored last week at the Medical Campus for their work on the VNCB.

Members of the STS Team and the JHMedicine Administrative Board

The Finished Product

For security reasons, no one outside of the Hopkins servers can view the finished product, but rest assured that it is a beautiful piece of technological art. If you're familiar with Virtual JHU, this is bigger and more detailed than that. It's no wonder it took so long to complete!

The head of the STS Team, Justin Tibbels

Two of our most enthusiastic teammates

This is more of a celebratory update than a blog post on recent research or new technological developments, but since this is such a big event, it's definitely worth congratulating the entire team on a job well done! Just in time for finals, we've finished the largest project ever undertaken by STS. Great job everyone!

Future Projects for STS

If you've been an avid reader of this blog, you may have noticed that the last few entries have not been about JHU or STS. The reason for this is because the entire department has been working on an outside project which, after 20 months of solid work, is finally coming to a close. So here's a list of the projects that STS is planning to work on for the remainder of 2011:

1. Modeling the Bloomberg School of Public Health: Like we did for the wildly successful Virtual JHU, STS would like to create a Google plug-in of the Bloomberg School of Public Health in downtown Baltimore. This project would likely take about 6 months, depending on the amount of hours the students are able to spend working on it, and assuming no other major projects are given to us.
2. Reducing the size of the Virtual JHU program to make it faster and easier to load: pretty much what it sounds like. In technology, there's always room for improvement.
3. Collegetown Shuttle Tracker: Have you ever used the Collegetown Shuttle? This project would take a 3D Flash PDF to show you where it is using a coordinated GPS tracking system. This would let students follow its path to know exactly where it is and where it makes its stops. This resource would be available for use by all students who use the Collegetown shuttle, including those at other schools. For security purposes we will require a log-in screen that will need a viable college ID to access the tracking page, but we feel that this will go far.
4. Continuation of the STS TechBlog updates.
5. Meeting the needs of those around campus who need our skills, such as:
1. Creating fliers for official campus activities and meetings.
2. Assisting students with technology problems.
3. Writing technical manuals for new freshmen and transfer students.
6. Updating our technology pages to make them more aesthetically pleasing. 
7. Training new employees in STS tasks.

That's pretty much what we do here. If you would like to learn more, feel free to leave a comment.

Restart Launched!

Returning students of Johns Hopkins:

You’ve been here for 1, 2, 3, even 4 years now.  You know the ropes – building and classroom locations, the best places to eat and have fun, how to study effectively.  So when you have technology issues on campus, you know where and how to take care of them…right?...

… Well just in case you need a little refresher, Restart (restart.jhu.edu) has all of your Hopkins technology resources compiled into one place.  From where to purchase computers and accessories to troubleshooting your internet connection, Restart has the information you need and tells you where to go.  For those of you familiar with JumpStart, which is geared towards freshmen, Restart serves a similar purpose but is more appropriate to the needs of upperclassmen.

So check it out, and even a veteran like you might be surprised to learn something new about technology at Hopkins!

Working at STS

With the school year starting (too) soon, many students think about looking for part-time employment during the school year. Working as a student not only provides some money for school (and fun), but also valuable experience beyond the scope of your education.

One of the things we're really proud of at STS is that the work we do is done almost totally by students. Every year, especially in the Fall, we hire new students to come work with us. Generally, we don't require any specific skill set, just that you be flexible and willing to learn. One of the great things about working at STS is that you get paid to learn new skills (and then use them and teach them to others). We hire people to fill a wide variety of positions: graphic designers, writers, web application developers, web designers, 3D modelers, etc. You can find a full listing of our positions on our website. We'll also be at the job fair in a couple weeks.

To give you a taste of what it's like working at STS, I'll share a little bit about my experience. I went to the job fair as a Freshman, looking for a job that would help me make a little money to help me pay for school. I signed up to interview with STS as a writer/editor. I came in for an interview and was offered the position. My managers decided, though, that they needed me to do more layout and graphic design than writing. So, I spent my first semester or so learning Adobe Indesign and Photoshop. During my first couple years working at STS the project I spent the most time on was the Jumpstart guide (back then it was a pdf, not a website). Even though I had never been interested in design before, I learned quite a bit.

The summer after my Junior year (which included studying abroad for a semester) I decided to stay in Baltimore for the summer and work at STS full-time. By that time, the Virtual JHU project was in full-swing and so I started to learn how to use Google Sketchup so I could help out with the 3D modeling. I spent that summer learning more than I ever wanted to about some of the buildings on campus, but I had also learned a new skill.

I kept modeling and helping with other projects through my Senior year. After I graduated (class of 2009) I decided to keep working at STS at least through the summer (we regularly retain students for up to six months after graduation). That led to the offer of a full-time position, which I decided to accept. Not only did I do more modeling, but I started managing our modeling and design teams, giving me even more valuable experience.

It's hard to believe that putting my name on a piece of paper almost five years ago would open up so many doors for me. As it is, I'm going to be leaving STS to pursue further studies in China. I'm very grateful, though, for all the experience I've gained working here, and I'd definitely encourage you to apply for a position.

As if you needed any more reason to work at STS, check out this video our students made a few years ago: