Let me take this opportunity to welcome
all new faculty, staff and students to Miami as we begin
another academic year. At the same time, I welcome all
of our returning Miami family. As a way of sharing what
is happening in Information Technology Services, let
me point you to our IT Services Annual Report (http://www.muohio.edu/itreport).
This document serves several purposes. It summarizes
last year’s accomplishments, presents the IT Strategic
Plan and the upcoming year’s tactical goals, introduces
the new organizational units and their respective leaders,
and provides an appendix of some technical details and
statistics about IT at Miami.
Introducing
New Member of the IT Leadership Team
We are pleased to introduce the
three newest members of the Information Technology
Leadership Team: John Goerke, Nate Johnson, and
Richard Knowles.
Banner and
BannerWeb Unavailable Sept. 30 - Oct. 4 for Banner
6 Upgrade
Banner and BannerWeb will be unavailable
to students, faculty and staff from Thursday, Sept.
30 at 10 pm until Monday, Oct. 4 at 7 am. This outage
period will allow IT Services to update the Banner
system from SCT Banner 5 to Banner 6. Banner is
the primary administrative software for Miami University.
This upgrade is a maintenance upgrade resulting
in few changes that will impact the clients.
What
You Need to Know About Windows XP Service Pack 2
Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) is the
latest release of Microsoft’s popular desktop
operating system. SP2 is a significant update with
the majority of the new features focusing on security.
In this article we will explain some of the new features
and how to interact with the improvements.
IT Services
Announces New Site-licensed Software—FullShot
8
FullShot 8, the complete image capture,
annotation, and screen printing program for Windows
users, is now available to faculty, staff and students
in the Oxford, Hamilton and Middletown campuses.
Summer/Fall
2004 Classroom Technology Upgrades
This
summer has been a busy one for IT Services-Classroom
Services. Over 62 classrooms in 17 different academic
buildings, some in conjunction with the Richard
T. Farmer School of Business, have been or are in
the process of being upgraded with new presentation
and electronic equipment. Another 13 rooms have
had reallocated equipment installed.
Faculty
Update: AREA 351 Now "Advanced Learning Technologies"
AREA 351 has recently undergone a name change to
Advanced Learning Technologies. While our name has
changed, our mission remains the same - faculty
are encouraged to contact Advanced
Learning Technologies with any questions they
may have concerning integrating technology into
their teaching.
ResNet Technology
Improvements
Multiple efforts have taken place in the last several
months that directly benefit the network users in
the residence halls.
VTC Web-based Computer
Skills Training Courses Soon to be Available to Students
As of October 1, 2004, students will be able to
use the VTC web-based training system that provides
200+ courses on computer topics like Mac OS X, FileMaker
Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, PHP and mySQL,
to name a few.
New
Services Available at the Print Center
Expanding its services to meet the needs and demands
of the university community, the Print Center announces
the introduction of wide format printing along with
a variety of new and improved finishing options.
E-Mail
and Calendar Study Underway
As a result of the development of the first
IT Services Strategic Plan this past spring, a “tactical
project” has been undertaken by the division
to investigate the “next generation” of
e-mail and calendaring for the university. This study
will result in a recommendation being forwarded to
the Vice President for Information Technology in the
spring of 2005.
Ongoing
Implementation of Network Protection Services
Multiple computer-virus events last year –
from the Blaster to MyDoom -- prompted IT Services
to explore technologies to protect the network and
the computers attached to it.
An alarmingly high number of computers on campus
are infected with some virus or another. In many
cases, these viruses launch attacks on the network
and can cause serious disruptions to service. To
address this growing problem, IT Services conducted
a study last year and established a team to begin
implementing solutions. A few of those solutions
are already in place and more are on the way.
Microsoft
Contract Renewal Extends Availability of Microsoft
Software
Last minute contract negotiations resulted
in Miami signing a new Microsoft contract this past
July that will continue to provide Microsoft software
for all university owned computers.
Update
on Mac Access to SkillPort and Other SkillPort Updates
Efforts to Provide Mac Access to SkillPort
Unsuccessful
After this summer's upgrade to SkillPort 6.0,
IT Services again evaluated the possibility of making
SkillPort available via Metaframe for Mac users.
What we found is that SkillPort does not interact
well within the Metaframe environment, so we are
not able to host the SkillPort application on the
Metaframe servers. So for the foreseeable future,
SkillPort access will continue to be limited to
Windows users.
New
Apple Subscription Plan for Macintosh Operating System
Upgrades
Apple is offering a new program to higher education
to help us stay current with Apple software. AMP
(Apple Maintenance Program) was designed to provide
operating system software for all university owned
Machintosh computers. The AMP program will begin
after the current Technology Assurance Program (TAP)
software license contract expires on September 27,
2004.
Numbers
Help Tell the Story
Curious about the role of technology
in the day-to-day functioning of Miami? Here are
some numbers that help tell the story - this issue
highlights the computing & telecommunications
infrastructure supported by the Computing &
Communications Systems unit of IT Services.
Did
you know?
Technology tidbits for Miami faculty, staff and
students...
