Faculty and Staff Edition February 2008

IN THIS ISSUE:

 
For Your
Students

2008 Spring Hours

ACE Support Center
328-5407
Student Computing Center
(Austin 101)
Mon-Thurs 8:00am - 6:00pm
Friday 8:00am - 4:00pm
Sat-Sun 12:00pm - 4:00pm

ACE West
744-5380
(Laupus Library room 3536)
Mon-Thurs 8:00am - 6:00pm
Friday 8:00am - 4:00pm
Sat-Sun closed

Student Computer Labs
View the labs located on campus.

Austin Computer Lab
328-6438
(Austin 104)
Hours of Operation
Sun-Thurs 24 hours
Fri closes at 8:00pm
Sat 8:00am - 8:00pm 

IT Help Desk
328-9866
The Help Desk is open:
Mon-Fri  7am - 5pm

Walk-in IT Help Desk

Visit Austin 103, a walk-in help facility for faculty and staff. The Walk-in IT Help Desk staff provide OpScan test grading, one-on-one training and consulting sessions on computing technologies, as well as access to equipment and software tools that may not be available within your departments.

About Tech Digest

ECU Technology Digest is an electronic publication sent to all university faculty and staff.

The Digest informs you of new technologies implemented on campus, upcoming training opportunities and provides a compilation of important service announcements about scheduled e-mail, network, academic and administrative computing interruptions and downtime.

New topics of interest to faculty and staff may be added to the Digest in future issues.

Technology Digest Archives

Student Tech Digest
Check out the Student Tech Digest for announcements
that pertain to your students.

Greetings ECU Faculty and Staff:

As our name — Information Technology and Computing Services — implies, we are a service organization committed to providing excellent information technology infrastructure and services for students, faculty, staff, and alumni. While many of our priorities are defined by policies and statutes, we recognize the importance of continually addressing technology needs and concerns of the campus community as well.

Thus, we encourage you to take a moment to respond to a simple, single-question survey this month. Communication is the key to success in any endeavor, and this survey is one medium through which we are made aware of your needs.

To learn more of ITCS's service efforts or to bring other issues up for discussion, we also encourage you to contact your representatives on the Information Resources Coordinating Council (IRCC), Faculty Information Technology Review Committee, Clinical Information Systems Committee, or Research Information Technology Committee. We appreciate feedback and seek approval from the Student Government Association (SGA) on matters of technology fee expenditures as well.

Thank you for your valuable input! We hope that each of you has a successful semester and that the ECU computing infrastructure and services will help facilitate that success.

Interim Chief Information Officer
Information Technology and Computing Services

Answer Single-Question Survey: What is Your Most Pressing Need?

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ITCS recently implemented a change to users' Microsoft Outlook e-mail accounts that will improve e-mail performance for the campus community. The change -- a Microsoft best practice -- involved enabling a great feature that allows users' e-mail accounts to operate in "cached" mode.

Benefits:

• Aids in disaster recovery practices and business continuity. While operating in cached mode, you can work offline with mail in your synchronized mailbox, even if you experience a loss of network connectivity on campus or travel off campus. While you will not receive new mail offline, you will still be able to read, reply, delete and compose new messages. You can continue to "send" messages -- they will be held in your Outlook Outbox folder until you are working online again when your network connection has been restored.

• Improves efficiency of other software. Operating in cached mode will speed desktop productivity tools such as Windows Desktop Search and make them more useful.
  

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NOTE: Since the change to cached mode, messages from “ANNOUNCE,” “ECU OFFICIAL” and other e-mails may be routed to users' Outlook “Junk Mail” folders.

In cached mode, it is possible for legitimate mail to be misinterpreted as SPAM and improperly routed.  Since ITCS uses MailMarshal for junk mail handling, it is recommended that you turn off Automatic Filtering of Junk Mail in Outlook to avoid this problem. To disable Automatic Filtering in Outlook, choose TOOLS, OPTIONS, JUNK MAIL and select “No Automatic Filtering.”

If you choose to continue using Automatic Filtering of junk e-mail, please be sure to check the Junk E-mail folder periodically to ensure e-mail is not misdirected to that folder.

Visit http://www.ecu.edu/itcs/outlook_cachedmode.cfm for more information and to review frequently asked questions about Outlook Cached Mode.  

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Faculty teaching in one of ECU's Smart Classrooms can now learn the ins and outs of Smart Classroom technologies from the comfort of their offices. ITCS has produced new instructional videos focusing on:

• classroom hardware,
• SMART sympodiums,
• the control panel interface,
• getting help, and
• additional classroom features

To view the videos, please visit the Smart Classrooms Web site at www.ecu.edu/itcs/smartclassroom and click Training & Tutorials in the left menu.

There are a variety of other options of which you can take advantage to become familiar with Smart Classrooms as well:

• Contact Tony Cooke (cooketo@ecu.edu; 328-9181), Smart Classrooms Coordinator, for one-on-one consulting and training appointments.
  
• Contact your departmental technology consultants for Smart Classroom tours and support specific to your building. If you're interested in teaching in a building other than that in which your department is housed, touch base with that department's technology consultant as well. He/she will be most familiar with the Smart Classrooms in their building and can help make your teaching experience a smooth one.
  
• For emergency support, contact the IT Help Desk (328-9866) and a technology consultant will be dispatched quickly to assist you.

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ITCS Now Supporting Office 2008 for Mac

ITCS is now supporting Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. To view system requirements, a list of some of the new features offered and version details, please visit the ECU Office 2008 Web site at: www.ecu.edu/itcs/mac/Office-2008-FAQs.cfm.

Once you feel comfortable upgrading, you can submit an Office 2008 installation request through the IT Help Desk (328.9866; help.ecu.edu).

NOTE: ITCS is continuing to test Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard. Once we have determined its compatibility with key campus applications and other software products, we will update the university community and announce support.

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Don't be a victim to e-mail scams:

The “VERIFY YOUR e-mail ACCOUNT NOW” is one of many e-mail scams circulating across universities. ITCS reminds you to be alert for e-mail scams, hoaxes and phishing schemes. This phishing scheme requests users to send their password in a reply e-mail.

Remember:

-ECU's ITCS department will NEVER ask you to send your password to them.

-NEVER provide account information, password and other personal identifying information in reply to an e-mail.

-Always verify the source of requests for personal information.

You are encouraged to check the IT Security website at www.ecu.edu/itsecurity > “Safe Practices” for tips on avoiding being scammed.

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ECU Policy on Social Security Numbers (SSNs) and Personal Identifying Information (PII):

On September 12, 2007, the East Carolina University Board of Trustees approved the “Policy on Social Security Numbers and Personal Identifying Information”. The policy requires that “SSNs and PII may only be collected, used, and/or disclosed by ECU and its employees and agents as permitted by applicable law and university policy and only in furtherance of legitimate university business.”   

This directs that university employees, including, but not limited to faculty and administrators, review the policy and take steps to comply fully with the policy. Please visit the SSN Resource Website at www.ecu.edu/ssnresource for information on steps you can take to protect SSNs and PII.

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Removal of SSN from University Forms:

Most university forms no longer require your SSN, but many still request it. Please verify with your departmental management that your SSN is still required on forms used by your department. If your SSN is no longer required, replace it with your ECU ID. Once the forms are updated, notify departments that they must replace them with the updated version. Ensure updated forms are posted on all Web sites that house them.  

If departments issue you forms that contain a request for your SSN, please question if your ECU ID can replace your SSN.

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We have received quite a few inquiries about audience response systems and whether a standard exists at ECU. We would like to gather faculty and technologists who are currently using the technology for a discussion. 

If you are currently using an audience response system, please contact Susan Thornton at thorntons@ecu.edu or 328-9270. We will follow up with a meeting of all who are interested. 

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...use the Out of Office Assistant in Entourage 2008 on my Mac?    

Your ECU e-mail is on a Microsoft Exchange server so you can now use the Out of Office Assistant.

If you have a POP, IMAP, or Windows Live Hotmail account, you will have to set up a mail rule to automatically reply to new e-mail messages. Please see http:microsoft.com/mac for details.

The Out of Office Assistant allows you to automatically reply to e-mail messages while you are out of the office. Entourage does not need to be running for the reply messages to be sent nor do you have to log into your e-mail through a Web browser.

To turn it on:

1. Launch Entourage 2008.
2. On the Tools menu, click Out of Office.
3. Click Send Out of Office messages.
4. In the Reply to message with box, type the text that you want to include in your automatic reply.

1. Launch Entourage 2008.
2. On the Tools menu, click Out of Office.
3. Click Do not Send Out of Office messages.
4. In the Reply to message with box, type the text that you want to include in your automatic reply.

More information on Macintosh support at ECU: http://www.ecu.edu/itcs/mac.

*Do you have suggestions for the "How Do I...?" section? Please let us know what technologies or computing-related activities you'd like more information about and we'll try to include your suggestion in a future edition of the ECU Technology Digest! Send e-mail to Jennifer Raby at rabyj@ecu.edu.

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Friendly reminder: Currently, ITCS is NOT supporting Windows Vista or Internet Explorer 7 for faculty and staff computers due to compatibility issues with key ECU applications.

Faculty who would like to have Vista available in departmental computer labs should contact their respective computer lab administrators.

More information: www.ecu.edu/itcs/vista

NOTE: Faculty and staff who would like to upgrade their Microsoft Office suite to 2007 can submit a service request through the IT Help Desk at 328-9866 or http://help.ecu.edu.

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