OIT News – March 2013

OIT News
Monthly news briefs, information and announcements
Office of Information Technology, NC State University
Issue 65, March 2013
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Follow OIT on Twitter @NCStateOIT
For up-to-the-minute reports on OIT systems, see SysNews
For help with computing problems, contact the NC State Help Desk
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01:
Help Drive IT at NC State
02: Indiana University CIO to visit campus
03: Get email to right recipient with Firefox and Chrome browser extensions
04: Receive your NC State voicemail via your Google mailbox
05: Active Directory Community Meeting scheduled for March 26
06: Take the 2013 Google Apps for Education Survey
07: OIT completes desktop migration to Microsoft Active Directory
08: OIT provides student-related documents as images
09: Financial aid processing improved by electronic document imaging
10: Students can upload class schedules to Google calendar
11: Moodle 2.3 available on March 18
12: OIT training opportunities: Website Accessibility, InDesign, and Google Apps
13: SAR training scheduled for April 17
14: Beware of Google docs phishing emails and websites
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01: Help Drive IT at NC State
As a significant first step in determining the future of information technology (IT) at NC State, the NC State IT Strategic Planning Process Steering Team invites you to attend one of the following information- and idea-generating workshops:

  • Thursday, March 21
    1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
    Walnut Room, Talley Student Center
  • Wednesday, March 27
    2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
    College of Textiles Convocation Center (Room 2309)

In these workshops, this newly created team hopes to engage you and other NC State IT stakeholders to help ensure broad-based support for a new university-wide IT strategic plan. This plan will provide both a vision and a framework for how the university’s comprehensive IT environment can best support and accelerate achievement of its mission, vision and goals, as conveyed in The Pathway to the Future: NC State’s 2011-2020 Strategic Plan.

You will be invited to share your beliefs about the current strengths and weaknesses of the IT services provided and supported by the university. In addition, you will be able to explore ideas for focusing IT resources in the coming years.

Your input from these workshops and the work of several campus IT groups — the IT Strategic Advisory Committee (ITSAC), the Campus IT Directors (CITD), and respective IT governance subcommittees — will be the driving forces to develop a university IT strategic plan.

By early fall 2013, the process steering team hopes to share an initial draft of the IT strategic plan with all stakeholders. By late October, the team expects to have the plan completed.

To find out more about the NC State IT Strategic Planning Process and to share your ideas, please come to one of the scheduled workshops. You may also visit the University IT Strategic Planning website.

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02: Indiana University CIO to visit campus
The campus community is invited to hear Dr. Bradley Wheeler, Ph.D., Indiana University vice president for information technology and chief information officer, speak on Monday, April 29, as part of the new campus IT Strategic Planning Process taking place on campus.

An innovator and leader in the field of IT in higher education, Wheeler’s presentation, including a question-and-answer period, will be held from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the James B. Hunt Jr. Library Auditorium. Wheeler currently leads university-wide IT services for IU’s eight campuses, and has co-founded and led some of higher education’s most transformative software and service collaborations such as the Sakai Project for teaching and learning software, Kuali for financial and other administrative systems, the HathiTrust for digital copies of scanned books as part of the Google Book Project, and the formation of Internet2’s Net+ Services. He is also a professor of information systems in IU’s Kelley School of Business.

More details about this event will be available soon on the OIT website. For information on the NC State IT Strategic Planning Process and how you can get engaged, visit the University IT Strategic Planning website.

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03: Get email to right recipient with Firefox and Chrome browser extensions
As you know, if you’ve ever accidentally sent email to  —  or received email from — an unintended party at work, it’s disconcerting, and can even result in a data security breach if the email contains sensitive or confidential information.

In Gmail, when you start typing in the “TO:,” “CC:” or the “BCC:” fields and multiple email addresses are presented to you, take care to not simply choose the first email address in the list. For example, if you type, “Rhonda Gre,” the first suggested email address that appears might be for Rhonda Green, even though you really want to send email to Rhonda Greene. With a number of people on campus with similar names, this is not an unlikely scenario.

Use the campus directory to confirm the correct email address of your intended recipient. You can check the directory without leaving the email composition page by installing a browser extension tool developed by Information Technology and Engineering Computer Services (ITECS) for both the Firefox and Chrome browsers. To download and install the extension, visit the Firefox and Chrome download sites for your respective browser of choice.

Once the extension is installed, clicking on the red magnifying glass icon that was added to your browser’s toolbar will open a small search window tied to the campus directory. Enter your email recipient’s name, and then use the results to choose the recipient’s correct email address before closing the window to continue composing.

If you have questions, please contact the NC State Help Desk at 515-4357 (HELP) or help@ncsu.edu.

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04: Receive your NC State voicemail via your Google mailbox
Are you interested in receiving your NC State voicemail messages in your Google @ NC State email account? If your answer is yes, then you can request your voicemail messages be sent as email attachments (.WAV files) directly to your campus email address.  

To request this service, log in to your NC State Google email account and then complete the Unified Communications Services Request Form. This form will allow you to choose to:

  • Receive your voicemail messages in both your voice mailbox and your email inbox
  • Receive voicemail only in your email inbox
  • Retain your current voicemail settings


Please keep in mind that the email message (containing the voicemail) will not be associated with the Message Waiting Indicator (MWI) light on your desk telephone, if applicable; therefore, checking voicemail via email will not extinguish your MWI light.  

All voicemail received via email will be retained in accordance with the NC Public Records Law. For additional information on retention, see Office of General Counsel Public Records and the University Record Retention and Disposition Regulation. For additional information about this new service, send an email to oit_ct_uc@remedy.ncsu.edu.

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05: Active Directory Community Meeting scheduled for March 26
The campus IT community is invited to attend an “Active Directory Community Meeting” on Tuesday, March 26 from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Room 356 of Witherspoon Student Center. A Classmate waitlist is also available for individuals who are unable to attend or register for this session.

Debbie Carraway of OIT Infrastructure, Systems and Operation and Billy Beaudoin of Information Technology and Engineering Computer Services (ITECS) will facilitate this meeting for all technical staff involved in providing Active Directory (AD) services to campus.

This meeting is being held to address a recent internal audit of WolfTech AD. The NC State Internal Audit Division concluded that the university should have an overall strategy for AD services on campus. If you are a technical staff member who works with AD at any level, you should attend this meeting. It is not a technical problem-solving meeting, but an opportunity to discuss your needs and vision. The focus will be on collaboration, governance and management of campus AD services. For more information and to register, visit Classmate.

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06: Take the 2013 Google Apps for Education Survey
Google Inc. is reaching out to students and educators all over the world to gain an understanding of how Google Apps for Education is being used. You have an opportunity to respond.

Take Google’s customer survey by Tuesday, March 19 to provide your feedback on ways Google can improve and develop products that are useful to you. This survey is open to individuals age 18 and older and is estimated to take approximately 15 minutes of your time.
 
The NC State Google Service Team encourages you as a Google Apps @ NC State user to complete this survey so that your valuable perspective is represented in the overall response. Take the survey at Google Apps for Education 2013 Survey.

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07: OIT completes desktop migration to Microsoft Active Directory
OIT has completed the migration of its campus customers to a new managed desktop environment based on Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Active Directory.

The new managed desktop replaces the former Novell eDirectory that provided storage space, printing and access to software applications through the Novell Application Launcher (NAL). In late February, OIT decommissioned Novell file, print and application services. Any remaining Novell services will be discontinued on Monday, April 1.

The new managed desktop environment offers the Windows 7 operating system, along with substantially-increased file space—both for individual home directories as well as shared space for the department. The new tools associated with this environment will allow OIT Technology Support Services to do more remote support and more remote automation. Additionally, the new OIT managed desktop will be available to departments outside of the traditional business-related groups that comprised the former Novell administrative managed desktop.

For additional migration information, see Managed Desktop.

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08: OIT provides student
-related documents as images
The OIT EAS Enterprise Document Imaging and Management and the PeopleSoft Student teams are providing authorized campus users access to images of more than 500,000 student-related documents, including but not limited to:

  • Applications
  • Transcripts
  • Program Plan Changes
  • Patent Agreements
  • Transfer Credits
  • Support Documents

Only authorized faculty and staff — in the Graduate School, Records and Registration, the colleges and units — who share these documents have the ability to see them as links on the PeopleSoft Student pages, which increases efficiency and effectiveness in the processing of these documents.

For additional information about Enterprise Document Imaging and Management, please email Christine Schoaff at
cschoaf@ncsu.edu.

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09:
Financial aid processing improved by electronic document imaging
On Feb. 1, NC State launched the OnBase Student Financial Aid Module, a standalone electronic imaging and document management service.

This new paperless business process improves the financial aid activities for the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid staff, and for students, by providing:

  • Efficient access to documents, including image-sharing among appropriate staff
  • Increased accuracy and speed of document and information retrieval
  • Direct information entry and availability in electronic forms
  • Automated PeopleSoft Student and OnBase Student Financial Aid integration
  • Automated comparison of related documents
  • Direct email notifications to students at status checkpoints during the aid process


This service will process financial aid applications from approximately 16,000 students during the 2013-14 application period,. It will also streamline the verification process, which involves checking the accuracy of submitted information, for approximately 8,000 students.

This project was sponsored by the OIT EAS Enterprise Document Imaging and Management Team, the OIT EAS PeopleSoft Student Team, the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid. A Hyland Software team also contributed. For additional information about Enterprise Document Imaging and Management, email Christine Schoaff at cschoaf@ncsu.edu.

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10: Students can upload class schedules to Google calendar

With a few quick clicks from the Enrollment Wizard in the MyPack Portal, students can now load a single class section — or their entire class schedule — into their Google Apps @ NC State calendars.

Faculty are encouraged to share this information with their students and direct them to Registration and Records’ step-by-step instructions, complete with screen captures, at Syncing your class schedule to Google Calendar.

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11:
Moodle 2.3 available on March 18
On Monday, March 18, Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) will upgrade the campus learning management system (LMS) to Moodle 2.3. The current version, Moodle 1.9, will be available for use through the spring 2013 semester.

Instructors can request “Moodle 2” courses through WolfWare for the summer and fall semesters on Monday. For those who are interested, DELTA is also offering training seminars to provide an overview of new features in Moodle 2 and to provide hands-on experience with the learning management system.

If you have questions about Moodle 2, visit Moodle 2 Upgrade FAQs. You can also check the WolfWare News section of DELTAwire to stay current on the latest LMS news.

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12: OIT training: Google Apps, Website Accessibility and InDesign
OIT is offering the following workshops:

  • “Beyond the Basics: Google Calendar” will be offered on Tuesday, March 19 from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. If you’re comfortable with the basics of Google Calendar and are ready to use some more of its features, this hands-on workshop is for you. This workshop will focus on features such as appointment slots, event attachments, maps and directions, sharing and embedding calendars, labs, quick add, search options, mobile notifications, and more. To register, visit Classmate.

  • “Website Accessibility Tune-Ups” will be offered on:
    • Tuesday, March 19 from noon to 1 p.m. in ITTC Lab 2 of D.H. Hill Library. To register, visit Classmate.
    • Tuesday, April 16 from noon to 1 p.m. in Room 106 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. To register, visit Classmate.

Do you have questions about your website’s accessibility, but don’t know who or what to ask? Bring your website and any questions you have to this informal Lunch & Learn session to get advice on how to make your site more accessible. Even if you don’t have a website to share, you are welcome to come learn more about accessibility.

  • “InDesign Introduction” will be offered on Thursday, March 28 from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Room 110 of Avent Ferry Technology Center. During this workshop, you will learn how to use InDesign for page layout for a single-sided project, and in the process, you will learn about typography and layout design. You will also investigate how tone, audience and purpose impact your design decisions. There will be an overview of applications within Adobe Creative Suite, including Bridge. To register, visit Classmate. A waitlist option is currently available.
  • “Google Apps @ NC State Mail and Calendar Training” will be offered on Thursday, April 11 from 9 a.m. to noon in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. This hands-on workshop covers everything you need to know to get started with Gmail and Google Calendar at NC State. Please note that you need an active Unity ID in order to participate in this training. To register, visit Classmate.
  • “Beyond the Basics: Gmail” will be offered from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, April 16 in Room 110 of the Avent Ferry Technology Center. This hands-on workshop will focus on more intermediate features, including multiple signatures, template text, mail filters, search operators, labels, labs features, keyboard shortcuts, people widget, contact groups, and more. To register, visit Classmate.

Check other workshops on the Classmate training calendar. If you’d like to request a custom training workshop for your department, unit or classroom, please complete the Custom Training online form. If you have any questions about OIT training, please email classreg@ncsu.edu.

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13: SAR training scheduled for April 17
Security Access Request (SAR) training for campus requestors and approvers of access to secured university data will be held Wednesday, April 17 from 9:30 a.m. to noon in the ITTC Lab 2 of D.H. Hill Library. Please visit Classmate to view available classes and to sign up for training.

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14: Beware of Google docs phishing emails and websites
As a user of Google Apps @ NC State, you should be aware that online hackers have created phishing emails and fake Google Docs login pages to obtain your login credentials.

You may have already received email that appears to come from another @ncsu.edu account with a message similar to: “Please view the document I uploaded for you using Google docs. Click here and sign in with your email to view the document.” Be very careful when entering your userid and password, if prompted, to access a shared Google doc.

As with most phishing attacks, the email message will appear to be an authentic Google message and usually will indicate that the document is very important and that you should act quickly. Here are ways to identify phishing email and websites.  

  • Use your mouse to hover over the link in the email to see if it starts with https://. Fake websites do not use encryption and their URLs begin with http://.
  • Hover over the link in the email to see where the URL goes? Documents shared with you by others at the university will have a URL that begins with https://docs.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/document.
    • Analyze the URL by finding the first forward slash (/) after the https//: and verifying that docs.google.com is to the left of that forward slash as illustrated above. Phishing sites may copy the /a/ncsu.edu to the right of the first forward slash, but willl have other data to the left of the slash like http://due.iwebs.ws/a/ncsu.edu/document.
  • If you are already logged in to Google and you are prompted to log in again to access the shared Google doc, that’s another clue that this may be be a phishing attempt. The hackers are hoping you have forgotten that you were already logged in, as it may have been a substantial amount time since you did. You should then look at the provided URL. You will see that the URL is not a Google URL, as described above.
  • Be careful and always check the URL of the Google doc before entering your userid and password, if applicable, to verify that you are signing in to docs.google.com.


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