SHSU Information Resources Update

The SHSU Web Site

SamInfo To Be No More: As of August 1st, we will officially remove the SamInfo page. SamWeb will now be the complete administrative web portal. Please check all departmental documents or web pages and remove any references to SamInfo.

New Home Page for Sam: It's time for a new university web presence. Last year 17 million hits were recorded on www.shsu.edu. We need a fresh look and for the past few weeks, we have been getting input from students through the SHSU Bulletin Board. You are now being invited to be part of the focus group to design the new page. Review the page designs and vote for your choice. Please include in the text of your e-mail ideas for improvements.

Don't Dread This Annual Physical

Laptop Clinic: On July 17th, from 2-5 pm, we will be providing tips (and a complimentary 512 MB memory stick) on how to best use and protect your laptop. Bring it in and learn hands-on how to make sure your laptop is getting the latest Windows updates or see that the virus scanner is running regularly. You will also have an opportunity to install Office 2007 on your laptop.

If your department has laptops that are only used occasionally, please bring one to this clinic. We recently had a faculty member leaving for an overseas trip in a matter of hours with an uncharged battery, out-of-date virus scanner, and an unpatched operating system. Take the time now to make sure your laptops are working well before you have to dash through customs. Sign up for your spot in this session which will be held in the White Hall computer lab.

Training Options

This month's training calendar has several choices: Word 2007, PDF's, profile management, Bb, and the laptop clinic. Reminder: Microsoft Office 2007 will replace Office 2003 this fall. Training on Word 2007 will be offered this month; register now.

Corrupt profiles cause all our campus community heartache. Please come learn how to better manage your documents and how to set an example for your students. You should never store documents on your desktop. Your roaming profile will take longer to log in and it increases the likelihood that you can lose those documents. Come learn account management best practices.

Auld Lang Syne

July 1st may seem premature for new year felicitations, but it takes careful planning to ring in a new academic year while still in the old (almost-out-of funds) fiscal year.

Want to get the faculty member's username and e-mail address before they're officially processed through the dean's office, provost office, HR, and payroll? Use the SAFS08MG program (Request E-mail Account for New Faculty) on SamMenu to add the person to the database early. After you have administratively added the new faculty member, they can activate their computer account online with SamWeb.
Is the new tenure-track faculty member a new position for your department? If he/she will need a computer, please place a Computer Services workorder within SamWeb under the faculty member's username and room location. Please have your requests submitted by Monday, July 11th so that we can ensure we can order the workstations, inventory-tag them, image them, and get them installed prior to start of classes.
Have you checked that the new faculty offices have sufficient ethernet connections? Include this in your WO if needed.
Are you fortunate enough to be in the the most rare of situations, where you have some funds that you can spend before year-end? If so, you may want to consider adding another wireless access point to your floor. You can add a WAP for about $600. Just do a SamWeb WO and we'll get it ordered for you.

Grade Change Simplification

Faculty members can now request grade changes for students from a new program on the Sam Menu. GRDC01MG, Request a Grade Change, will generate an e-mail from the faculty member to their chair to give notice of the request. Input required is the semester year, the student’s SamID, the course prefix and number, the old and new grades, and a short justification.

Chairs (and subsequently deans) will use GRDC02MG, Approve a Grade Change, to approve the requested changes. After the dean has approved the change, an e-mail automatically notifies the Registrar’s office to update the grade on the transcript.

Blackboard

What’s New in Blackboard 7.2? In late June, Sam Houston State University upgraded to version 7.2 of the Blackboard Learning System. As of July, your Fall Blackboard classes will be hosted on the newer version, while your Summer II courses will remain on our Blackboard 6.3 server. Some of the improvements in the upgrade are the:

Discussion Board – Provides enhanced options for statistics, grading, peer rating, thread subscription and moderating.

Assessment Tools & Gradebook – Changes include tracking and management of multiple attempts on a single test (taking high/low/average score), true self-assessment, more feedback, extra credit and a comments field.

E-mail – Instructors can now receive return receipts and all Blackboard e-mail users are able to spell check.

Visual Text Box Editor – Firefox and Macintosh users are now able to use a WYSIWYG editor to spruce up their text.

Announcements – Instructors can auto-generate an e-mail for each announcement they post.

Early Warning System – Based on the Performance Dashboard, this new feature alerts instructors if students should be referred to the First Alert SamCenter program.

For how-to guides on these new features, be sure to check out the What’s new in 7.2 section of the Blackboard Technology Tutorials page. To further prepare you for the changes, we invite you to:

Blackboard Day 2007

When – Monday, August 13, 9:30am – 4:00pm

Where – Criminal Justice Center Courtroom

Why - to introduce the new Blackboard features and allow you to share innovations and best practices with your SHSU colleagues.

All throughout Blackboard day, support staff will be available in the CJ computer lab (A111) to help step you through building your courses in Blackboard or just using the new features.

A Best Practices lunch will be provided and door prizes will be awarded. Each Blackboard Day registrant will receive a USB drive with all of Blackboard Day’s session materials. Be sure to register for each session online.

Staff Coming

Grady Mangum has been named an assistant director for Computer Services. He will have the responsibility for the systems team. Grady's a graduate of SHSU and also attended Texas A&M for engineering graduate hours. He comes to us from the Montgomery ISD.

What's Good, What's Not, and What's Happening When?

The Helpdesk provides support for university equipment and software on the local area network. Each month's update will include the versions of software and minimum requirements for hardware with the new or changed information highlighted and bolded.

Memory Sticks: Purchase (and encourage your students to buy) flash drives that are USB Mass Storage Compliant.

Operating Systems: The supported version of Macintosh machines is OS X, versions 2, 3, and 4. The supported version of Microsoft's operating system is Windows XP. Tentative plans are to move to replace XP with Windows Vista Summer 2008.

Software Packages: The supported versions of office suites are Microsoft's Office 2003 and WordPerfect 12 for PC's. Fall 2007, Microsoft Office 2007 will replace Microsoft Office 2003. The supported version of an office suite for Macintoshes is Microsoft Office 2004.

Hardware Configurations: The minimum requirements for SHSU local area network support for a PC are a 1Ghz processor, 512MB RAM, and a 40GB disk. With next summer's Vista roll-out, the minimum configuration will be a 2GHz processor, 1GB memory, and 80GB hard drive. The minimum requirements for a Macintosh on the LAN are a 733 Mhz processor, 512MB RAM, and a 40GB disk.

Computer Services may schedule significant periods of downtime for major system upgrades and maintenance. For your planning purposes, the weekend following each graduation will be set aside for scheduled outages.

All offers, training, and software above pertain to faculty and staff at SHSU only. If you have any questions, compliments, comments, or concerns, please let us know.