Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Tegrity Deletions

The IT department will delete Tegrity recordings from the SMU Tegrity database on October 21, 2011.

Only Tegrity files from the semesters of 2010W2, 2010M2 (last spring semesters) or prior, will be deleted.

2010W3, 2010M3, 2011W1, 2011M1 will remain intact, as well as any organizations or courses that don't match that naming criteria.

If there are recordings you would like to keep from a previous semester, there are 3 options available to you.

1) Move those recording(s) to a current semester offering.

2) Create an Image CD of the classes you would like to archive. This process zips up the recordings into a file that you can then extract and save.

3) Log a call at the Helpdesk to request that we not delete those class recordings.

The HelpDesk will need to have the specific course ID to pass along to IT staff.

Also, Organization leaders, if you can, clean out recordings that are no longer relevant, it would aid in responsible use of SMU IT resources.

Please email helpdesk@smumn.edu, or call ext. 7800, if you have any questions or concerns regarding this matter.

Please note:

-- that unless you contact the Helpdesk with the recordings to saved, the Tegrity files listed above will be deleted.

-- this will only delete Tegrity recordings, it does not affect the course listings in Blackboard in any way.

Thank you for your cooperation,

SMU IT Dept.

Save the Date - GoogleApps sessions

Oct 19th & 20th from 12:30PM - 1:30PM

GoogleApps has a number of exciting collaboration features as well as a new way to get around your email/calendaring applications. We will help you to get familiar with new email and calendar system.

October 19th: Google Calendar
October 20th Google Email

Winona Campus participants will meet in the World Room, Hendrickson Center.

Due to the room shift we do not have computers readily available for use. If you have a mobile device and care to follow along you can bring it with you.

The next Google Sharing sessions are set for November 16th & 17th and December 7th & 8th. We are still working out the details of time/location. Watch future newsletters and your email for details.

Timeline for GoogleApps switchover

Oct - Dec: Information Technology will notify students when to expect their email to start delivery to GoogleApps. We will most likely group students up by discipline or grade classification. Existing email will stay on the Office-Logic email system and will not be automatically copied to GoogleApps. We will provide students with directions on how they can forward or copy their existing email over to GoogleApps soon. New email will be delivered to GoogleApps according to the timelines below.

Timeline for Undgrad Students

October 18 - credited Seniors and "super" seniors
November 1 - credited Juniors
November 8 - credited sophomores
November 15 - all other undergraduate students

Timeline for SGPP Students
October 7th: MeD Yr 1 students
October 16-17th: MeD Yr 2 students


Future Develpments: Information Technology has not identified how alumni or retired faculty accounts will be handled at this time. You email will continue to reside on the Office-Logic Webmail system. You may need to access the Webmail system from an alternate link in the future.

PDF files in Blackboard now open on Apple OSX computers

Thank you Apple users for reporting the issues with opening Acrobat (pdf) files within Blackboard Learn. This issue affected all Blackboard customers, and a patch was released last week which we applied to our system.

This patch adds a link that says "Click here to download the file if it does not open" to all Acrobat (pdf) files. When you press that, it should open the file in either Preview or Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Larger Harddrives in Library

We have installed 1TB drives on several computers in the library that were sometimes slow logging onto the network. If you can choose a computer you've logged into before, you'll notice that your log in times are faster. These new 1TB harddrive will allow the computers to hold your profiles for a longer period of time, therefore cutting down on the login times.

New Wi-Fi locations

We have installed new wireless access points (Wi-Fi) in the Business Office, Eds, Heffron, Benilde, and SM104.

On our Winona Campus, we are asking students to identify areas where you get no wireless coverage or areas where wireless coverage seems slow. For suggestions about classroom areas, we will defer final decisions to faculty and academic administration. However, your suggestions will help us determine need. Please access our Suggestions for Wifi survey anytime thoughout the year from the HelpDesk website.

HelpDesk Incident results for September

HelpDesk documented 700 Incidents for the month of September 2011.


HelpDesk and iT staff Closed 352 at initial contact (CoFC) for a 50% CoFC closure rate. HelpDesk CoFC goal is 55%. This has been increased this year from 50% in 2010-2011 academic year.
HelpDesk TAs and iT staff that personally achieved the 55% CoFC goal:
Brian Behling 67%, Jamie Carreno 80%, Jake Holzer 63%, Jill Congdon 55%, Bridget Ryan 60%, Scott Zengri 75%, Melanie Krivachek 63%, Ashley House 61%, Mark Samson-Ott 56%, Chris Froelich 56%, Ryan Weis 75%, Amanda Frost 57%, Chad Colt (MPLS campus) 90%, Kallie Biermaier 67%, Gary Welch 67%, Jeff Wieczorek 100%, Heidi Johnson 67%, Ryan Ballanger 100%.
It total 18 Tas and It staff achieved CoFC out of a total of 38 staff documenting incidents for September.