Psych program ranks 22nd in productivity
A study in the May edition of The Counseling Psychologist names the University of Georgia 22nd in research productivity among counseling psychology programs in the United States, Canada and Israel.

The ranking is periodically conducted and is based exclusively on publications from 1993 to 2002 in the following four journals: Journal of Counseling Psychology, The Counseling Psychologist, Journal of Vocational Behavior and Journal of Counseling and Development. UGA has ranked 25th in the previous two studies.

“As most of us publish in other venues, I believe that this is a very good showing,” says Brian Glaser, professor and director of training for the program based in the College of Education’s department of counseling and human development services.

MSD will mark 18th anniversary
Managed Software Distribution, an EITS unit established to administer the distribution of software throughout the University System of Georgia—including UGA—celebrates its 18th year of operation next month. During that time, MSD has provided quality software and related services in a cost-effective manner to support the academic and research functions of all institutions within the University System of Georgia, according to Larry Pounds, who directs MSD operations.

“From March 2004 to February 2005, MSD has saved UGA and University System institutions nearly $5.6 million,” says Pounds. “Since its was created, savings are estimated to be in excess of $30 million when compared to statewide contract pricing and other dealer educational pricing. This savings is attributable, primarily, to the negotiation of multi-user licensing agreements and volume purchasing.”

Faculty and staff have benefited from these institutional savings, and students have also benefited from MSD’s extensive experience in negotiating the best price through multi-user licensing agreements and volume purchasing. The most notable example is Element K. An e-learning solution accessible through UGA’s student portal (www.my.uga.edu), Element K offers students hundreds of lessons in a variety of subject areas. Online learning opportunities offered through Element K include common software packages (Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), computer networking, computer security, plus many more.

“We hope to expand our efforts to students,” says Pounds. “There are a number of software titles we can potentially offer to students in the future.”

IR staff make conference presentation
Three staff members from UGA’s Office of Institutional Research were presenters at a national conference this past month. Marsha Allen, institutional research analyst, Karen Bauer, director of institutional research, and graduate assistant Charles Mathies were co-presenters of a research paper on “An Exploratory Examination of Grade Inflation” at the Association for Institutional Research in San Diego.

Advising program wins national award
A Web-based advising application, developed by members of the information technology staff and the Office of Academic Advising and Graduation Certification in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been named winner of a national outstanding advising technology award.

The award was given by the National Academic Advising Association for the SARA (Student Advising and Registration Assistant) program, which was developed and has been maintained by Michael Brewer of the Franklin College and Jason Orrill, now with UGA’s Enterprise Information Technology Services.

The honor will be presented at the association’s annual national conference in Las Vegas in October.

The award is part of the national group’s 2005 National Awards Program for Academic Advising.

“We are very proud that NACADA has recognized the collaborative efforts that Michael Brewer, the other information technology staff and the Office of Academic Advising and Graduation Certification have put into the development of the SARA system,” says Franklin College senior academic adviser Leigh Holland, who nominated SARA for the award. “Through everyone’s efforts, SARA has been finely tuned to meet the needs of our office by allowing us to create and maintain the data required for successful interactions between staff and students from orientation all the way through to graduation.”

Orrill designed most of the graphics and colors of SARA as well as three subsections of the site. Brewer designed the main database and programmed a large part of the site’s code, including maintenance programming of Orrill’s code since he left the Franklin IT group several years ago.