Faculty and Students Embrace TurningPoint
Audience Response (aka "Clicker") System

This semester saw one of Turning Technologies’ largest academic rollouts of clickers with over 3,500 students and faculty adopting TurningPoint’s XR clicker on Miami’s three Ohio campuses. Support for clickers has gone well thanks, in part, to the presence of a TurningPoint consultant on campus early in the semester.  Miami has experienced less than one percent of clicker returns at the bookstore, a stellar mark.

New Phone System On Its Way:
Town Hall Meetings Explain More

IT Services is excited to be kicking off a project that will make major improvements to a basic service while creating significant savings for the whole University. Beginning this semester, IT Services, working with Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions, will transition Miami's telephone service to a new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. All University telephones will be replaced as part of this project and a variety of new services and features will be available.

Faculty, staff and students are invited to attend one of the upcoming town hall meetings to learn about the new VoIP system and the implementation at Miami.

muConnect Exchange Calendaring Issues Under Intense Scrutiny

If you’ve experienced a duplicated meeting or a disappearing meeting on your muConnect Exchange calendar, you are not alone. IT Services has received a number of reports of calendaring issues and is diligently working with Microsoft to diagnose and correct the problems.

Just Like Your Car, E-mail Needs Regular Maintenance

Thinking Outlook or Entourage keeps running slower and slower? It very well may be.  According to Microsoft, the key to maintaining good performance in both Outlook and Entourage is managing your e-mail effectively. And the most important thing you can do is limit the size of your Inbox!

Do You Have an "OLD" Clicker?

Last spring Miami University announced standardization on Turning Technologies TurningPoint product paired with the XR clicker device. To help defray the cost of upgrading for students who purchased an earlier model in the past few years, IT Services and the Miami University Bookstore in Shriver Center have put in place a limited-time return program for the older style TurningPoint “ResponseCardRF” clicker.

IT Showcase on November 5th Highlights "Delivering Value" Program

Want to know what IT Services can do for you? Come talk with our staff and see poster presentations highlighting the many ways we're improving services and reducing costs. On Wednesday, November 5, from 10:30 - 2:30, IT Services invites the Miami community to a showcase in the Shriver Heritage Room, to see IT Services staff members present their responses to Interim VP Debra Allison's challenge to “Deliver Value” to the faculty, staff and many offices we work with every day.

Miami on iTunes U Takes Off After August Upgrade

Based on feedback received from last fall’s pilot of iTunes U, Miami on iTunes U was upgraded this August to make it easier to use and more effective. Now the results are in...

Flush the Phish

When someone sends unsolicited e-mail asking for personal information or to verify that an e-mail address is active, that's a 'phish'. They are 'fishing' for information.

Don't respond! Phish love knowing where to find you. And do not e-mail your password, Social Security number, etc. even if it looks like the request came from within Miami - we would never ask.

New Online Software Store Simplifies Software Purchasing

Software continues to be a large and growing expense for the university. IT Services is committed to negotiating vendor agreements and developing business processes that allow departments to easily obtain the software they need at the lowest cost possible. As part of this effort, IT Services is pleased to introduce Miami’s new online “Software Store” – phase one in a move to a more cost-effective, streamlined process for purchasing software.

Join Apple for Digital Video Creation, Podcasting, and iLife Tips & Tricks on November 6th

Apple will be on Miami’s Oxford campus on Thursday November 6th to share tips & tricks for creating digital video and audio using the Apple iLife suite and Final Cut. Session times & locations will be available soon. To learn more, sign up to receive the “Apple Day” event schedule.

October 28-30 Security Awareness Events Help You Prevent Electronic Identity Theft

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month and Miami's Information Security Office is celebrating in Oxford, Hamilton and in Middletown with a variety of events designed to highlight the importance of keeping your personal information, as well as Miami's, safe and secure.  Please join us and spread the word to your colleagues!

Cisco Clean Access (CCA) Configuration Changes to Address Problems With the Service

Students have reported significant problems accessing Miami’s network with Cisco Clean Access (CCA) this academic year. In response, IT Services brought the vendor, Cisco Systems, on site for an in-depth analysis of the problems. As a result of the analysis, brief early-morning outages occurred on October 3rd and 7th to implement configuration changes.  IT Services and Cisco expect the configuration changes to help with the performance problems. Analysis of Miami’s CCA environment continues, with additional configuration changes to be implemented if warranted.  If you experience problems with CCA, please contact the IT Services Support Desk at 513-529-7900 or ithelp@muohio.edu.

Make Your iPhone or iPod Touch Wireless Friendly

Enter a zealous student, early for class, listening to music and thinking "Hey, let me check Facebook quickly while I wait.” The student reaches in his pocket and pulls out his iPod Touch. “Oh darn – I have to log into MU-Wireless-Lite first.” The student enters his UniqueID on the Wireless-Lite login screen and brings up the on-screen keypad to enter his password -- because his Miami password includes special characters and mixed case. The classroom door opens. “Oh, never mind, I’ll just wait until I get to a computer after class.”

Miami's Dial-up Internet Service Slated for Retirement 6/30/2009

At one time, dial-up Internet service was one of the key IT services, along with e-mail, that universities offered to students, faculty and staff.  To have such a service, free of charge, was advantageous to both the institution and the individual, as it allowed academic work to be accomplished from home.  Today, high-speed access is the norm and dial-up is too slow for many uses of the Internet.

Microsoft Office 2007 Tip

Did you know Microsoft provides a free add-in that allows you to save Microsoft Office 2007 files in PDF format?  Once you install the Office PDF/XPS add-in, creating a PDF is as easy as choosing “SAVE AS” and then “PDF or XPS” from the Office menu.

Fall 2008 Lineup of Hands-on IT Workshops

• Moving from Office 2003 to Office 2007 or Office 2004 to Office 2008?
• Want to get started using the university-provided survey tools or learn more about generating survey invitations and reports?
• Need to learn Banner navigation basics before getting more in-depth training?

If so, IT Services has a workshop for you!

myMiami for Families Now Available

With the October 1 release of myMiami for Families, Miami students now have the ability to grant access to select parts of their student record to family members (and other selected constituents).  The system will create accounts based on the student’s selections so family members have their own “myMiami” account with relevant information. Students choose which information to make available; options include grades, student bills and student financial assistance information.

Release of New "Video on Demand" Service Delayed

Delivery of the new "Video on Demand" service has been delayed. This service, designed to provide digital video content for students to view online, was expected to be available at the beginning of this semester. This summer the project hit snags with the vendor who had been selected to provide this service. While a number of specific issues were involved, two major concerns that had not been resolved were the inability of the Vbricks product to work in a convenient manner on the Mac platform and unacceptable solutions for handling fail-over in the event of hardware failure.

Setting Up Windows on a Mac

With the increased number of students using Apple (Mac) notebooks on Miami’s campus, there has also been a corresponding increase in students who wish to run  the Windows operating system/applications on a Mac.  If you are interested in doing so,  IT Services has a few tips..