OIT News
Monthly news briefs, information and announcements
Office of Information Technology, NC State University
Issue 26, December 2009
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For the up-to-the minute reports on OIT systems, see SysNews:
https://sysnews.ncsu.edu
For help with computing problems, contact the NC State University Help Desk:
http://help.ncsu.edu
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01: NC State, UNC-CH partner on information technology
02: WolfWise upgrades and improvements continue
03: All invited to Gertrude Cox Award Ceremony on Feb. 22
04: OIT Lunch & Learn: “Complying with the Revised 508 Guidelines” on Jan. 19
05: SAR training scheduled for Jan. 7
06: OIT Lunch & Learn: “Podcasting at NC State” on Jan. 21
07: Join the SIS listservs
08: Share Microsoft Word documents safely!
09: Campus antivirus software upgrade to Trend Micro OfficeScan 10.0
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01: NC State, UNC-CH partner on information technology
NC State University is betting that its IT partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will save both universities money as well as improve efficiencies.
Both campuses use Oracle’s PeopleSoft software for their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems – major administrative systems for student services, human resources, payroll and financial. The partnership will focus on the human resources and finance components of their ERP systems. For more than a decade, NC State has used PeopleSoft for these functions and is currently upgrading to the latest versions. UNC-Chapel Hill also plans to implement these PeopleSoft components. By using shared equipment and staff resources, these changes can be implemented more efficiently and cost effectively. Both campuses hope to be running the new systems by 2013.
For more information about the partnership, read the press release in its entirety.
02: WolfWise upgrades and improvements continue
The WolfWise Implementation Team continues to make preparations to complete the migration of the legacy GroupWise users to the WolfWise environment and to deploy GroupWise 8. WolfWise is NC State’s implementation of Novell GroupWise for its single centrally supported calendaring and e-mail system for faculty and staff.
The team reports that the construction of the WolfWise test environment is progressing as expected. This test environment will allow the pre-deployment testing of a new service pack (OES2 SP1) that will enable more WolfWise system stability and the GroupWise 8 deployment. The team plans to test and implement OES2 SP1 by late January.
On Dec. 7, OIT Communication Technologies and Infrastructure, Systems and Operations moved the legacy GroupWise users’ accounts (those on Post Offices 1-10) to a new Storage Area Network (SAN). The old equipment will be retired. The team still plans to migrate in early February users of the legacy campus GroupWise system whose data still resides on the old GroupWise servers (Post Offices 1-10) to a single managed Linux environment.
The team will decide in early February when GroupWise 8 will be deployed to campus users. The GroupWise 8 deployment will apply back-end fixes for known bugs, improve IMAP stability, allow for ActiveSync (for mobile devices) and improve the performance of Windows, Mac, Web and Linux clients. The deployment is contingent on the successful testing of GroupWise 8 and the progress made in migrating users’ mailboxes to the Linux environment. To keep abreast of the WolfWise migration, visit the WolfWise Web site (no longer available).
03: All invited to Gertrude Cox Award Ceremony on Feb. 22
Celebrate the IT innovation of NC State faculty and staff at the Ninth Annual Gertrude Cox Award Ceremony! The ceremony will be held from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 22 in the Walnut Room of the Talley Student Center. The Gertrude Cox Award recognizes “the creative pedagogy of NC State’s faculty and technical staff and their work in integrating new technologies into effective teaching strategies.” The award is sponsored by the Teaching, Learning and Technology Roundtable; Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA); and the Office of Faculty Development. Refreshments will be served. For more information, visit the Gertrude Cox Web site.
04: OIT Lunch & Learn: “Complying with the Revised 508 Guidelines” on Jan. 19
OIT’s Brown Bag Lunch and Learn series presents “Complying with the Revised 508 Guidelines” from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 19 in 216 Scott Hall.
Accessibility expert Saroj Primlani will review the revised Section 508 guidelines, which are scheduled to be published in the Federal Register in the first quarter of 2010, and how they converge with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act was enacted in 1998 to eliminate barriers to access to electronic and information technology for people with disabilities. Based on this legislation, NC State issued its Web Accessibility Regulation and Guidelines in 2006.
Web page and software developers are encouraged to attend. To register, visit Classmate.
05: SAR training scheduled for Jan. 7
Security Access Request (SAR) training for campus requestors and approvers of access to secured university data will be held from 9:30 a.m. to noon on Thursday, Jan. 7 in the ITTC Lab 2 of D.H. Hill Library. Please visit Classmate to view available classes and to sign up for training.
06: OIT Lunch & Learn: “Podcasting at NC State” on Jan. 21
OIT’s Brown Bag Lunch and Learn series presents “Podcasting at NC State” from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 21 in 216 Scott Hall. Podcasting is a way to deliver digital media content such as classroom lectures, presentations or quarterly “State of the Department or College” addresses.
Hal Meeks of OIT Outreach, Communications and Consulting will talk to attendees about the cost of creating podcast content, which has decreased significantly in the last few years–down to a computer, a quick open source software download and a $20 microphone; the necessary tools to create content; and how to publish content using NC State’s iTunesU offering. To register, visit Classmate.
07: Join the SIS listservs
Interested in learning more about the Student Information System (SIS) project? The SIS project team maintains two listservs to facilitate campus communication: sis_info and sis_tech.
sis_info provides faculty, staff and advisors important information about the enrollment, academic records and graduation of students. To join, send your request via e-mail to sis_info-owner@lists.ncsu.edu or subscribe to the list via the NC State Majordomo SIS Listserv Web page.
sis_tech is provided for technical personnel on campus. It is used to communicate changes that have major impact on technical staff who supports reporting and business applications in their respective units. To join, send a request via e-mail to sis_tech-owner@lists.ncsu.edu or subscribe to the list via the NC State Majordomo SIS Tech Listserv Web page.
You can also learn more about the project by visiting the Student Information System Web (SIS) site.
08: Share Microsoft Word documents safely!
Did you know that your Microsoft Word document can contain sensitive, personal or hidden information? Such information can be stored in the document’s file properties or imbedded within the document itself.
Microsoft Word “File Properties” contain fields such as author, manager, company, and last saved by, while Microsoft “Track Changes” and other revision tracking features can create hidden text, old text that has been revised, editorial review comments, or field codes. All of this data can remain in a document, even though you do not see such information or expect it to be in the final version. Also, some Microsoft Office documents will store personal information, such as your name or e-mail address, if you entered this data when you registered your software. OIT Security and Compliance recommends that you review your documents before sharing them electronically.
To get specific instructions to remove these types of data from a Microsoft Word document, visit Microsoft’s Web page: Remove personal or hidden information. You may need to click on the plus (+) sign beside specific topics to display the details of each procedure.
09: Campus antivirus software upgrade to Trend Micro OfficeScan 10.0
Between now and the end of January 2010, OIT is updating the university provided antivirus software, Trend Micro OfficeScan (TMOS), to version 10.0. The update should be mostly transparent to users. The new version of TMOS updates more frequently, which causes viruses, worms and other malware to be detected and cleaned up quicker.
During the process, users might see the TMOS icon disappear from their computer’s system tray and then reappear a few minutes later. At a later point, the icon will change from the round blue circle with a white pulse line through it, to a “Smart Scan” icon, which will look like a world globe.
NC State Regulations require the use of approved antivirus software on all Windows and Macintosh computers connected to the NC State network. TMOS is available at no charge to all NC State students, faculty and staff. If you’re not currently running a university approved antivirus software, you can download Trend Micro OfficeScan Version 10.0 from the NC State Antivirus Resources Web page.
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