WI-FI IN THE SCHOOL OF NURSING

People may soon see OHSU School of Nursing students sitting outside on a sunny day operating their computers without cords attached. That's because the first and third floors, including the entrance patio, the student lounge and the auditorium of the School have gone wireless.

"We hope students, vendors, faculty and others will really benefit from this. Our classrooms are all wired, so now they will be able to sit outside, in the lobby area, or in the hallways where there's seating and dial into the Internet. Students will have access to their online courses, GroupWise e-mail, and the Internet on the wireless floors," said Brian Jones, technology coordinator, OHSU School of Nursing.

Unfortunately for users with personal laptops, access to print services and shared drives (such as your H:\ drive) are not available to wireless users at this time, Jones said. He suggests the installation of Adobe Acrobat, which allows the user to print to a pdf file that could be saved to print out later.

Only the specified card and included software will allow you to access the OHSU network from your laptop. The card is a Cisco Systems Cisco Aironet 350series Wireless Adapter for laptops (model #air-pcm352) which is available in the Edu-tech store for about $115.

The software that comes with the card allows the user to set up "Profiles". This allows multiple saved configurations of the adapter for access to different wireless networks. For example, someone could use one card to access OHSU while on campus, a wireless network at home and wireless network elsewhere such as a hotel or certain coffee shops.

The typical setup time is about 15 minutes. Jones said he is available to assist School of Nursing students with the setup.

-- Christine Decker, University News and Publications, 0503

Last updated January 14, 2005 by OHSU School of Nursing Web Managers.
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