- VoIP
- SamMenu
- Security
- Inventory
- Training
- New Software
- Blackboard
- Staff
- Hardware/Software
New Phone System
In the next month or so, your new Voice over IP phone will be placed in your office. Your old phone will continue to be the one you will use for the time being. We will call or e-mail you with the official changeover time for your building. We will be visiting with you before implementation time to explain the new features.
At this time, all but the most mission-critical phone moves are on hold as we work to stabilize records for this campus-wide phone conversion. Determining which phone goes where for 1,500 people takes some effort!
Campus fax machines will need to be tested with the new VoIP system. We will be contacting you regarding a time to test your office fax machines soon. During the testing phase, that fax number can be forwarded to one of your or another department's fax machines so you won't miss any important faxes. We appreciate your willingness to assist as we move forward on this project.
The SamMenu upgrade should be unnoticeable to you, we hope! We made this change for the following three reasons:
- To be current. We were running version 5, and they recently released version 8. We are upgrading to the latest version.
- To be compatible. Version 8 is the version that works with Oracle (our soon-to-be new database) connections.
- To make it better. We plan to incorporate new features into the SamMenu to make your interface smoother and provide additional features.
Note: We have experienced some glitches with the new SamMenu and the scanning program. Please contact the Helpdesk at 41950 if you have problems.
Homeland Security is offering a webcast to help you understand how to secure your home computer as well as ways to protect campus information. The following topics will be addressed.
- Implementing the first steps in securing a computer,
- Installing a firewall, anti-virus software, and patches,
- Recognizing the signs of a computer that is compromised,
- Understanding methods of protection, including encryption and use of strong passwords, and
- Physically protecting computers and private information.
We encourage you to log on to the Security 101 webcast at your home or office or attend with others at our lab. If you would like to view it on your own computer, you will register at http://www.msisac.org/webcast/. Space is available on a first-come, first-served basis at the site. The webcast will be Wednesday, June 18th, from 1 to 2 pm. in AB1 213.
Filemaker, PDFs and Blackboard are on the training agenda for June. Additionally, the Security webcast as mentioned above is an option.
Check the Calendar for class times and sign up now to reserve your seat. You may also request one-on-one training or training for your department. Just e-mail the Helpdesk.
The UCS inventory team may be visiting your building this summer as we work to inventory the campus technology equipment. Our students and staff will be wearing identification tags and will introduce themselves to you as they come around. Please stop and ask and/or give our Helpdesk a call if you see people wandering around without the ID tags. Help secure your area.
New Blackboard
SHSU, welcome to Blackboard 8.0. Our end of May upgrade from 7.3 to version 8 was a success. Some important changes and improvements come with this particular upgrade. The largest change is the move from the Blackboard Gradebook to the Grade Center.
Differences in the grade center include:
- Ability to enter and change grades directly in spreadsheet view
- Dropping Grades
- Viewing every student assignment next to student names with slide bar
- See the Grade Center Handout for more information
**NOTE: If your department is interested in a group Grade Center orientation please contact the Blackboard Team and we will set one up, otherwise just sign up for one of our Grade Center training courses this month.
Other new aspects of Blackboard 8.0 include a group of new critical thinking tools including peer review, peer assessment, and Blackboard Safe Assign, a new anti-plagiarism tool. Two more changes on display are the return of the Bb Search utility and the new Blackboard login page.
BBDYK: Blackboard – Did you know?
We are adding a new area to our Blackboard section of our IR Update called Blackboard – Did you know? This section will highlight underutilized areas of Blackboard, online learning & technology trends and more. With this month we will cover Post Tagging in the Blackboard Discussion Boards.
Did you know that you can add text labels of your own choosing to messages in a discussion forum so that your students can read, filter and search messages using those tags? Post Tagging allows arbitrary message grouping independent of thread or thread status.
Follow these steps to create and apply tags:
- Select specific messages and click Collect. (the collection page appears)
- Choose the messages to tag from the message list using the checkboxes. (hint: you can select all of the messages by choosing Select All and clicking Go)
- Enter a new tag name in the Add Tag field.
- Select Go to apply the new tag.
This weekend two new software packages have become available for our SHSU campus.
- The first is Audacity which can be especially useful for faculty for recording purposes; the Bb team will be sharing more information on it. You will receive a notification that the software is available as a balloon tip in the system tray. To install the software you can either use the "Add New Programs" area of the Add or Remove Software control panel applet or you can use the "Run Advertised Programs" control panel applet.
- Second, everyone will automatically receive the Java update. It fixes numerous issues and will allow other programs, such as Elluminate, to work.
Marcus Keeling is joining the UCS-Systems department. He will be a Network Analyst. Marcus's educational focus is Management Information Systems, and he brings over 2 1/2 years campus networking experience to the job.
We are looking forward to providing a reliable, efficient computing environment for our campus community in 2008-2009. We are very grateful for your patience this past academic year. As a thank-you this month we are offering some gifts. We will have drawings for Microsoft ergonomic keyboards & mice, a 1 Gig Flash drive, or a case of paper for your department use. Just e-mail us by Wednesday, 6/4/08 at 10 a.m. from one of the links and we will enter you in the drawing. Thanks again!
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 will be OS X, version 5 after the Leopard conversion which is underway. The supported version of Microsoft's operating system is Windows XP.
- Software Packages: The supported versions of office suites are Microsoft's Office 2007 and WordPerfect 12 for PC's. The new version of an office suite for Macintoshes is Microsoft Office 2008 and is being packaged for installation on campus machines.
- Hardware Configurations: The minimum requirements for SHSU local area network support for a PC are a 1Ghz processor, 512MB RAM, and a 40GB disk. Our recommended configuration is for a 2GHz processor, 1GB memory, and 80GB hard drive. The recommended configuration for a Macintosh on the LAN is a 1.6GHz PowerPC Single-core/Single processor, 1GB RAM, and a 40GB hard drive.
- 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. Additionally, certain systems may be unavailable on Friday nights after 6 p.m.
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.
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