Building Technologies
A Living Laboratory
The Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science was designed to serve as a living laboratory, where opportunities to investigate and apply computing tools on the building itself are integrated as part of the daily life of students, faculty, and staff.
Advanced wireless and wired communication networks, sensors, actuators, video capture and display equipment, video walls and information panels and storage and computing capabilities within the building allow researchers to examine communication and computation issues related to pervasive computing, multimedia infrastructure, building intelligence, security and privacy, and art.
Building Automation Systems
The Siebel Center building automation system (BAS) controls elock access, lighting and temperature while enabling remote state monitoring. With more than 400 doors with elock access, Siebel is an ideal test bed for exploring electronic access management issues.
A current research endeavor is exploring the way in which existing computer security techniques can be specialized to improve the connectivity of BASs without exposing them to undue risk. Researchers in Carl Gunter’s Illinois Security Lab will develop perimeter control, privacy and insider threat, and audit and intrusion detection techniques to address the relatively unexplored, yet high-priority, area of BAS system security.
Educational Technologies
Classrooms at the Siebel Center are the most advanced on the campus of the University of Illinois campus. Each classroom is equipped with an AMX NetLinx controller, allowing touchscreen control of the room’s lighting, sound, and projection system; the system can be controlled via web browser, allowing for remote control and troubleshooting.
Siebel classrooms are equipped with a digital drawing tablet, while instructional labs include a unique instructional tool, eFusion, that enables students and instructions to share the same teaching environment.
Siebel Center classrooms are equipped for multimedia capture using commercial and locally developed systems. The majority of content is recorded using Echo 360/Apreso Classroom, an automated recording platform. Lectures are scheduled on a recurring or one-time basis at the start of a term, and schedules uploaded to the encoding system. Room audio feeds, the classroom camera, and VGA feed of the slides are recorded and synchronized for online delivery using Flash video. The recording starts and ends automatically, content is uploaded to media servers and delivered by RSS feeds to local and distance learning students, all without the intervention of an administrator.
Visit the CS Wiki to find additional information about the Siebel Center's integrated technologies.
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