INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES
August 2007
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Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L
08/23/07, Using Moodle in Your Teaching Workshop
Announcing a "Teaching with Technology Workshop: Using Course Management
Software (Moodle) to Support Student Learning" to be held from 1:00 to 3:30
PM Tuesday, August 28, in Humanities 401.
Sponsored by Information Services and the Center for Scholarship and
Teaching.
Do you wish that:
08/23/07, Electronic Mailing List Improvements
ITS is rolling out a new and improved system for electronic mailing
lists. The new tool is called Mailman. With Mailman, you should find
that mailing lists are more reliable, include more functionality and are
much easier to manage. Individuals who administer lists will receive
further information shortly. If you have questions, please call David
Sisk at x.6745. [Bulletin, also 8/28]
08/23/07, Wireless Network Registration Debuts
Network registration is a brief process that associates a computer with
the name of its owner or user. This permits ITS to immediately contact
the right person in the event of problems tied to a computer's network
connection, such as an attempted network hack. Registration for wired
computers has been active since January 2007. We are now expanding the
registration process to include computers that connect to the network
wirelessly, particularly for guests and visitors to campus.
Wireless registration for Macalester users will work the same way that
wired registration does - the wireless computer will be scanned to
verify that it's up-to-date on patches and anti-virus tools. Contents
of files are NOT scanned! Once the scanning is complete, the
registration takes place - assuming the computer meets all requirements.
Guest wireless registration is even easier. We do not scan guest or
visitor wireless computers, but merely associate the computer with the
guest's and host's names. Guest registration is limited to accessing
the Internet, and remains active for up to 24 hours.
If you have questions about wireless network registration, please contact
Geri Olson at x.6171 or olson@macalester.edu. [Bulletin, also 8/28]
08/20/07, 1600grand Maintenance, August 22
1600grand, Macalester's Luminis portal, will be brought down for
maintenance at 3:00 PM on Wednesday, August 22. Full service should be
restored by 8:00 PM that same day. If you have questions, please
call Rabin Bajracharya at x.6632. [Notification-L]
08/19/07, E-Mail Maintenance Sunday 8/19
On Sunday August 19, between 6:00 AM and 7:30 AM, the e-mail server will
be taken off-line for maintenance. While it is down, e-mail will not be
available. Incoming messages will be held until the system comes back
up, at which time the messages will be delivered. Incoming messages are
not discarded or lost, just delayed.
For those wanting more detail, the maintenance has to do with moving
data files to different parts of our disk array, in preparation for the
increasing amount of e-mail we will be seeing when the incoming
first-year students arrive. The system needs to be taken down in order
to move the data files. [Notification-L]
08/16/07, News from Information Technology Services
New Usernames and You
Every new Macalester account created after June 30 2007 includes an
eight-character username. This is typically the first initial and the
first seven letters of the last name; in cases of duplicates, the last
character will be a number. Last names longer than seven letters are
truncated and hyphens are dropped. The same convention applies to
everyone's new accounts - students, faculty and staff members.
Usernames for accounts created before June 30 have not been changed.
Before this change, it was usually possible to guess someone's username
and Macalester e-mail address. Don't guess! It's no longer an effective
strategy. If you guess wrong, you could send a message to the wrong
person - or send out a message that doesn't reach anybody. Instead of
guessing, check the online Directory. The Directory is linked from the
College's main Web page and also through the
1600grand portal. You can
go directly to the Directory at www.macalester.edu/directory.html.
The new username convention results directly from the implementation of
Banner, Macalester's new administrative data system. All usernames are
automatically generated within Banner when Human Resources creates a new employee's record,
and when the Registrar creates a new student's record. Banner imposes the eight-character
limit - that limit cannot be altered or customized at this time. ITS
recognizes that the eight-character limitation is inconvenient, and we
are exploring solutions to work around it.
More detailed information, including links to full documentation, is
available here: www.macalester.edu/its/whatsnew/index.html
Password Self-Service Debuts
For years, people have been asking for a way to reset their own
Macalester account passwords, quickly and without having to call ITS for
help. Good news! Our 'Self-Service' password page is now active,
whether you've forgotten your old password or just want to create a
new one. Go to the main ITS Web page and look in the left-hand column
for the 'Self-Service' link.
To augment security while giving you the control to change your own
password, we have implemented a series of 'challenge questions.' Answers
to these questions are unique to each individual, and yet easy to
remember. Our questions are based on similar questions used by other
secure Internet sites, such as banks. The self service interface
displays the status of your password, as well as giving you access to
change it. If you wish, you may still get help with resetting passwords
by calling the Help Desk at x.6525.
At the same time, the standard password convention has also been
changed. New accounts - for example, incoming first-year students - are
assigned 12-digit numbers as default passwords. Such
account holders are strongly encouraged to change their passwords
immediately to unique passwords that meet some simple requirements
(passwords must contain between 6 and 15 characters and must have at
least one number; some special characters may also be used). Please
note that existing account-holders' passwords have not been changed.
However, the next time you reset your password, the new convention will
apply.
More detailed information, including links to full documentation, is
available here: www.macalester.edu/its/whatsnew/index.html
[Bulletin, also 8/23]
08/02/07, Training for Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows
ITS is offering two-hour training sessions for Office 2007. Each session
will have 30 minutes to cover the new user interface. Hands-on exercises
on Word and Excel will follow.
1:30-3:30 PM, August 7
9:30-11:30 AM, August 9
You do not need to sign up for the sessions. Both sessions will be held
in Humanities 302.
[Bulletin]
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