SHSU Information Resources Update

Software Choices

Talk to us now about the software you plan to use in the Summer and Fall semesters. If you will be using software other than Microsoft Office, please do a SamWeb work order, and fill us in on your intentions. You can simply put it under Helpdesk and it will be enough to start a dialogue.

We need to know if you will be using the software in conjunction with your lecture class. Tell us also if you plan to teach in a lab environment and the number of students who will need to access it at one time.

We hope to set up a sophisticated method of tying this information to the specific course CID's in the future. However, for now, please just take the time to, in effect, register your intention. We need acknowledgement of your planned usage, even for software packages which are already on the SHSU network. This will also allow us to add your e-mail address on a mailing list so that you are included in updates and decisions about version changes or licensing restrictions.

Academic software which is not specifically requested by a faculty member by 9/1/09 will be removed from the network. Help us make the best use of SHSU's network resources.

DARS

Last week, an update was made to DARSweb that allows it to pull and display audit information from the database faster. Whereas before it was taking up to a minute to retrieve and display information, it should now take only a few seconds. This update applies to both Student and Advisor copies of DARSweb. Hope you've been able to see the improvement!

Steps are underway to change the login from requiring your PIN to requiring your SHSU password instead.

Diet Now.... Avoid a Crash

Your profile is what defines what you normally see on your PC or Macintosh desktop. You have a profile, as well as, an S: drive.

To help increase the performance of logging on/off, the roaming profile system only uploads and downloads the folders and files that have changed since the last time you logged on/off. Therefore the performance of logging on your normal workstation is not impacted dramatically. However, when a faculty member for instance goes into a new classroom to teach and logs onto a new workstation for the first time, it can take some considerable time for the roaming profile to be downloaded.

Have you ever used the remote.shsu.edu login and felt it was very slow. This remote system is very robust now. So if it seems slow, it may be your profile which is large since each login would count as a new one with the system having to download everything you have stored there.

For PC's, in the past, faculty and staff at SHSU did not have profile quotas. In the next few months, that will be changing. We are still evaluating the quota maximum at this time. The industry standard for roaming profile quotas is 25 MB. Some major clean-up is needed first as hundreds of us have profiles way above that size.

Macintoshes are different as your "home"drive is combined with your profile. So your documents, music, and pictures are all on your profile. Look at your Macintosh folders and ensure you are only storing SHSU business files on your profile.

It's important to rethink how you use the desktop. It should just have your official SHSU programs installed, and on PC's no large files or other folders. Call the Helpdesk and ask for help or follow the tutorial on your own. We'll be glad to work with you to make your profile the "biggest loser."

Blackboard

Tracking student progress? Look no further than your dashboard.

The Performance Dashboard is a good way to keep up with the students’ progress within a course. The Dashboard allows the instructor to view students’ activity within a course, their grades, as well as if any information set under review status has been reviewed.

For more information about the Performance Dashboard, check out the technology tutorial.

Scheduling

Outlook's calendar gives you the ability to put reminders of happenings, even if you do not plan to attend. When you schedule an item in your calendar, normally that would show your calendar as "busy" at that time. You can instead change it to "Free", "Tentative" or "Out of Office." You may want to use the "Free" feature to indicate when people in your department will be out for instance.

Training

March classes include Using Social Media in Your Course. If you want to know what the word Twitter means, here's your chance. Once again, a couple of classes are being offered to ensure you can use Blackboard's Grade Center efficiently. For staff members, a session is being offered on how to download files from Nell or SamMenu to create and print your campus mailing labels.

Check the Calendar and sign up now to reserve your seat. You may also request one-on-one training or training for your department for some of the campus-specific programs which we have. Just e-mail the Helpdesk.

New Staff

We are pleased to announce two new staff members for the UCS-Systems Department.

Steven Williams has been a student employee since 2006. Steven will be a system analyst. His responsibility will be packaging and deploying the campus software.

Garrett Jeter was a December 2008 graduate of SHSU and worked for UCS-Systems for over two years as a student assistant heavily involved in the VoIP conversion. He will be a network analyst for the campus communication network infrastructure and will also provide telephone support.

A New Look to Nell

All campus users accessing Nell will need to use the Secure CRT telnet connection. This new telnet program is not identical to the previous one so your Nell "look" may be slightly different. Remember that it's worth it though since this program keeps your password and other confidential data private.

If you have an old shortcut on your desktop for the old method, it will not work any longer. If you have not yet made the switch, please do so now. Click Start, All Programs, SHSU Programs, Communications, CRT, Nell-Secure. Try it out and if you have troubles with key-mapping, please contact the Helpdesk.

When off-campus, you will remote in to your account, and then use the SecureCRT login option to reach Nell.

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 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. 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 the SHSU local area network support for a PC are a 2.5 GHz processor, 1.5 GB RAM, and an 80 GB disk, with 15 GB free. Our recommended configuration is a 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB memory, and a 250 GB hard drive.

The minimum configuration for a Macintosh on the LAN is a 1.6GHz PowerPC 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. and on holidays. On Wednesday, March 11th, we will perform maintenance on the computing systems after 6 p.m. Your phone and workstation will be unavailable that evening.

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.