The Coordinator of the Computer Center of the Polytechnic of Guarda, João Paulo Valbom, reflects on the positive impact of the IPG's connection to the national research and teaching network at 100 Gpbs (Project RCTS100*), also highlighting the role of the FCCN Unit's digital services in the daily life of the academic community: “The digital services and projects provided by FCCN to the academic community have always been fundamental”.
What is the significance and impact of activating the connection of the Instituto Politécnico da Guarda to the national 100 Gbps teaching and research network?
The widespread use of technology and the exponential increase in electronic devices (tablets, phones, laptops, etc.) has been a huge challenge for all higher education institutions in recent years, and the Polytechnic of Guarda is no exception. This leads to a pressing need for greater bandwidth to ensure better and higher-quality digital services for users in the academic community.
In this sense the connection of the Polytechnic of Guarda The addition of 100Gpbs to the national education and research network is essential to meet the needs of providing the various services available to many users. It is now possible to provide a higher quality and, in some aspects, more effective service, since the greater bandwidth has made it possible to support more users simultaneously with high quality of service.
At the same time, there was a need to adapt technological infrastructures to the new reality, which led to a profound technological restructuring of the computer network connectivity, making it faster and more energy-efficient, and of computer security, making it more secure.
At the academic level, these changes enabled a significant improvement in the quality of service provided, primarily due to the imposition of distance learning and hybrid models in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This upgrade now provides a new level of videoconferencing systems, with advanced image and audio technology, enabling meetings between multiple people to be held quickly and efficiently: whether for distance learning, online training, lectures, or watching high-definition multimedia content.
What is the importance and impact of the FCCN Unit's digital services and projects on the daily lives of the IPG community?
The digital services and projects provided by FCCN to the academic community have always been essential to the Polytechnic Institute of Guarda. Today, they are even more important in various digital approaches. During a particularly difficult period, given the pandemic, when the teaching model needed to be redefined to a primarily online approach, the Colibri service was crucial in this approach. Thanks to Colibri, it was possible to quickly shift the paradigm from in-person teaching to an online teaching model, supported by other services such as RCTSaai, Filesender, NAU, among others.
Another essential service for any higher education institution is eduroam, which guarantees connectivity wherever this network exists, making it essential for students physically on campus or on the move.
b-on also has a special relevance for our academic community, as it allows simplified access to a vast set of document and information repositories of enormous value to our students and faculty, thus promoting increased digital literacy.
Many other services such as RCTS-CERT, RCTS-Certificates, RCTSaai, RCAAP, PTCRIS, SCIENCEVITAE and SCIENCEID, Videocast, Educast, Ship, are essential for the daily work of our institution, and the increase in bandwidth has also led to an increase and improvement in its use.
- Project co-financed by the Operational Technical Assistance Program, Portugal 2020 and the European Union, through the European Regional Development Fund.
