NIU Today

NIU’s Alumni Association has launched a newly redesigned MyNIU.com. Staff members spent 10 months redesigning the website to better serve alumni. New features include a news section, easy navigation and better integration with social media channels. Redesign also presented an opportunity to bring Northern Now online. On the new Northern Now site, alumni and other...

What better to do during the summer months while waiting for your favorite Northern Illinois team to return to action than talk Huskie sports online with other NIU fans, and Northern Illinois coaches, win prizes and have fun while keeping up with your social media platforms? That’s exactly what the Northern Illinois Huskies are doing...

NIU’s Information Technology Services (ITS) is modernizing and improving the services they provide to students and faculty. ITS has involved the Experiential Learning Center (ELC) of the College of Business to help construct a go green marketing and strategy plan. Through the use of surveys, student and faculty feedback regarding campus-wide services such as Wi-Fi,...

Can one be a fan without a text to be a fan of? What happens when fandom creates a text, and then poaches that same text? Paul Booth, an assistant professor of new media and technology in the College of Communication at DePaul University, will visit the NIU campus at 1 p.m. Friday, April 20,...

NIU’s School of Music continues to provide a unique learning opportunity for its students. Third-year tuba performance major Kurt Bonamer recently had the opportunity to receive a private lesson from Dennis Askew, a professor in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Bonamer took the lesson in...

From Google’s “black bar” to Wikipedia’s blackout, large Internet entities are mobilizing like never before to protect freedom of information online. These protests come in response to the U.S. government’s attempts to enforce copyright laws and prevent piracy on the web. Who do the proposed laws really protect and what are the ramifications of tighter...

Northern Illinois University’s oldest college was honored this week for its excellence in harnessing cutting-edge technology to educate the next generation of teachers and school administrators. U.S News and World Report announced Tuesday that the NIU College of Education had earned a place on its Honor Roll for Online Graduate Education Programs. Only 14 programs in...

NIU Libraries will introduce a new service this semester called “Primo.” Primo incorporates the most advanced developments in search engine technology with the aim of furnishing an easier and more intuitive process for locating academic literature. In effect, the database combines all NIU books, full-text articles and digital resources into a single search index and...

NIU’s Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center has received a major award for its work with Blackboard. This summer, the center received the 2011 Blackboard Catalyst Award for Outstanding Staff Development. Given by Blackboard Inc., the award salutes NIU for putting the online learning system to innovative uses that have created global reaches. NIU received...

Information Technology Services and Verizon Wireless worked together over the summer to meet the growing demand for cellular voice and data communications by faculty and students. As wireless devices are being used for Internet browsing, social networking, email, text and photo/video messaging, plus downloading a host of available apps, adequate and available network capacity and...

NIU technicians successfully installed a temporary power generator on the east side of Swen Parson Hall over the weekend.  The new generator will protect service to an important ITS computer room in Swen Parson Hall during unexpected electricity outages on campus. Workers had to shut down power to the computer room in order to install...

Wi-Fi (wireless network) has become an important way to communicate, collaborate and learn on college campuses. Students, faculty and staff expect Wi-Fi access everywhere on campus. In fact, most students say Wi-Fi access is necessary for a positive college experience. Currently, the campus has approximately 300 wireless access points. This summer, ITS will install over...