// IT.ORU.EDU

Technology Roundtable News

08 June

Office 2007 Upgrade & Training

HR is offering more sessions of training.  Please call to set up a date and time.  If you are experiencing upgrade issues, please send an email to iServices@oru.edu or helpdesk@oru.edu

Mailbox Size Limitations

We are currently upgrading systems and storage for email boxes.  An email will be sent out giving specific limitations, instructions, and timing.

QAS 

The move for the Admissions Department to new server is complete.  Next to be moved will be University Development, Financial Aid, and then Registrar areas.

iTunesU

500 GB compressed space on Apple server has been made available for students as an online teaching tool.  The website will also be updated to offer Apple and Dell discounts and rewards for the University.

Inventory Activities

The physical IT inventory of the entire campus is now completed.  This inventory is in place to develop a purchase list based on dated priority.

IT Involvement in Technology purchases

Please keep IT involved in any tech purchases to maintain and acquire the best deals, contracts, and warranties.  This also helps us to maintain current database of all IT equipment.

Copy Vendors

Vendors will be doing research to access needs in areas and also offering solutions/bids.

eTrash

Any old ink or toner cartridges can be sent to A/V Services.  They collect old/used technology equipment to be recycled.

I.T. Roundtable News 5.27.2008

Announcements

New Project Manager starting in June

OREA Move and Information Storage

The separating of electronic information to the proper entity is taking a little longer than originally anticipated. This may take another 3 to 4 weeks to complete process.

Fiber Relocation/Activation

Carrier system done and the rest is approximately 1/3 complete

Revamp of Storage Management/Backup

Implementing new enterprise backup software, CommVault. Moving from Server SAN/Tape to SAN/SAN. Long term storage needs will be sent to tape. Everything else will be on disk to insure efficiency of backup retrieval.

Continued Telephone Switch Changes

Upgraded telephone switch in place and CallPilot upgrade complete. Complete cutover to new telephone switch pending balance of fiber installation. Suffered delays due to the size of fiber that was received from the fiber vendor. University Village is not on their own telephone switch.

Wireless Update

Targeted to complete last week of summer 2008

Dorm Switch Replacements

EMR

Vista and Virtual Machines

Testing and evaluating still in process. Discussing Vista implementation. Office 2007 training will be provided through HR later in the summer or fall of 2008. This service will be optional for those who would like to participate.

Inventory Activities

Campus wide physical inventory has been underway and is now in the data entry phase.

I.T. Roundtable News 4.29.2008

Opening Statements

As the 2008 Fiscal Year closes, we are looking forward to where the FY 2009 Tech Fees funding will be allocated. Keep in mind that the actual collection of fees corresponds to the beginning of each semester. Therefore, Tech Fee funded purchases will be light until such time that the revenue is received. Understanding the need across the campus to upgrade many areas, our goal is a timely purchase and rollout of equipment. The purchasing selection is driven by the existing equipment age and use. There may be selected purchases over the summer months as alternative funding permits.

Banner Advancement

The purchase of this Banner module has been made. We are in the process of determining the most ideal time to implement.

Library System

This project is underway. The Library Team is currently working on placing data into system and preparing for training that will be conducted over the summer months. The first phase of the implementation will take place in October.

Online Housing System

This project is underway. The project team is in the process of defining how the housing related data will be structured within the application. Once defined, application configuration and data entry will begin. The first phase of the implementation is scheduled for November '08. It will allow our new students scheduled to arrive Spring '09 the ability to select their housing online. The second phase will expand that feature to all students returning for Fall '09.

Telephone Switch Upgrade

The major aspects of this project are complete. The core telephone switch and our CallPilot voice mail system were upgraded last week. Some of the outstanding tasks include bringing the new Fiber Remote unit housed at the Mabee Center online and then transitioning the phone lines for our Mabee Center users to that unit. Once our new fiber, from the Fred Creek Project is in the ground, we will migrate to the new lines.

Document Imaging - Image Now

The target production use date for Accounts Payable is 5/1. After production go-live, we will monitor license use. If concurrent license use is as expected, we will be opening up to General Ledger and Restricted Accounts.

TMA Upgrade

Scheduled for Week of May 5^th. Impacts TMA users only.

QAS

QAS Server is ready. Jennifer will plan out the balance of rollout activities and related timing in the near future.

Inventory Activities

Physical inventory of PC's, monitors, laptops, printers, and scanners to resume week after graduation.

Misc. Discussions

Mobile Phone Settings: Instructions are located on it.oru.edu

Technology Upgrades: Make sure we are aware of your technology needs so we can place them on a list for prioritization.

Academic Advisement: Is it possible to get Banner, e-Portfolio, and D2L data together? Advisors have no way of knowing who they are advising. They must get a list from the Registrar and then add that information into e-Portfolio and D2L. Since e-Portfolio and D2L are hosted data imports slightly more difficult vs. if the solutions were hosted within ORU. Scott to see if e-Portfolio has an import feature or if we have custom features that can be built. D2L receives a mass import each semester. Also, regarding distribution of advisement list from Registrar, if this is not an automated distribution to Advisors then we should work in that direction.

I.T. Roundtable News 3.25.2008

Inventory

The I.T. Services group began a campus wide inventory during Spring Break to verify and correct our Asset Data Base. All computers, monitors, printers and scanners have been or will be checked for barcode, serial number, "owner", location and department. Most of the academic areas have been checked and the non-academic areas will be checked in the near future. This data base is the basis for our 3 to 5 year refresh cycle so it's very important that it be correct and kept up to date. Please contact the I.T. Service desk at x6315 if a move or change of "owner" is planned for a computer in your department so that the inventory can be updated.

Telephone Switch

ORU is purchasing an upgrade to our current telephone switch. Dates for the placement of the new switch have not been set, however, it should occur sometime between April 15th and May 1st. There will be in interruption in services lasting approximately 4 hours. It is our plan for this interruption to occur during the night. There is a possibility that we will be going to 5 digit dialing when the new switch is in place. This will be communicated as the facts are solidified.

Wireless

Most of phase 1 of the wireless installation has been completed. Almost all of the GC and LRC have good wireless signal. Plans are now being made to extend the coverage to all outside areas. Several antennas will be added to increase coverage. All Dorm lobbies will have wireless access points. Dorm rooms will still have the most reliable access thru the hard wire lan connections. Currently, the access available is for Internet only. All laptops and mobile devices including cell phones will need the guardian proxy setup to access the internet thru ORU's wireless service.

Changes to Novell systems, GroupWise, iFolder, Shared Drives

I.T. Operations group is aggressively moving into the virtual server world. The GroupWise post offices are currently being moved onto Linux virtual servers. In the near future, all network storage areas including shared drives will be moved to a new SAN. This is being done during the extended maintenance windows described in the 3.4.2008 update on the it.oru.edu home page. These changes should not cause any interruptions outside of these windows. In this effort, the operations group has already reduced the total number of servers by 30. The plan for the future is to reduce approximately another 30.

I.T. Service Desk

The I.T. Services group continues to deal with the flash drive virus outbreak. It appears that most of the ORU computers have been cleaned and protected. Please be cautious about flash drives.
Several new computers and various pieces of equipment have either been received or will be in the very near future. New computer placements will be made as quickly as possible.

Classroom Upgrade

Ten new classroom computers will be placed as soon as this semester is over. They will have the Vista operating system and Office 2007.

Questions/Open Discussion

There was some discussion on the campus wide printer maintenance contract that had been discussed in some earlier meetings. That option has not been ruled out and will be revisited as our current changes allow.
Will there be training for Vista? Yes. The HR department is currently working on training opportunities. Those classes will be available toward the end of this summer.

I.T. Roundtable News 2.21.2008

Virus Update

A computer virus was recently introduced into our systems. Virus removal scripts are being executed on all pc's that are a part of our network. Portable storage devices (thumb drives) are also susceptible to the virus and can be a carrier. Cleaning stations have been set up for faculty, staff, and students. Those who need assistance removing the virus after the cleaning stations are closed can call the help desk or visit the student computer lab on the 2^nd floor of the GC.

PC Purchase Strategy

Discuss 3 year cycle for faculty and 4-5 year replacement cycle for non-academic areas. Ken Weed to forward replacement requests for academic areas as they are received.

Update on Vista & Office 2007

This year 1/3 of the campus should be upgraded. Another 1/3 should be upgraded in the next fiscal year.

Classroom Computer Upgrades

All classroom PC's have 1 gig of memory. 10 new PC's to be placed in classrooms after conclusion of semester.

Classroom Technology Tools Demonstration

• e-White board
• Memio
• Sympodium by Smart Technologies
• Panasonic Projector F100U Series
• Elmo - currently 2 in AV services for checkout through the AV Services Requisition Page.
• E-Tablet
• E-Pen

Questions, Answers, & General Discussion

• High level overview of technology projects recently approved

I.T. Roundtable News 1.31.2008

Telephone Outage

We experienced a brief period of switch outage on the D Channel. We currently have an RFP for upgrade or replacement. (see Telephone Switch Upgrade Project)

Telephone Switch Upgrade Project

Request for Proposal (RFP) was submitted to 7 vendors, three of which have expressed interest in responding. Proposals are due to ORU IT by 2/15/08. Project covers the upgrade, or replacement, of existing telephone switches and is key to the overall serviceability of the telephone system. Work is scheduled to begin mid to late March and, because of the Fred Creek expansion, must be completed before May 1^st.

PC Purchase Strategy

New Tech fees budget utilizing a 3 to 5 year refresh rate for all faculty and staff. Refresh schedules are approximately 3 years for faculty and 5 years for staff. IT is working off of an Asset Database that lists key pieces of information about the PC's. Currently the refresh of PC's is driven by age of existing equipment in conjunction with the area of use (faculty or staff). Special needs will be processed on a case by case basis.

Update on Vista & Office 2007

This year 1/3 of the campus should be upgraded. Another 1/3 should be upgraded in the next fiscal year.

Classroom Computer Upgrades

10 Classrooms to be upgraded Summer 2008

Technology Request Process

Please contact IT Department @ Help Desk x6315, Linda Grosso, or Steve Lacy so that they may be involved in the planning processes of implementing new technology.

Operating System Services Packs

Vista SP#1 - February 2008

XP SP#3 - April to June 2008. Service Pack will contain Internet Explorer 7, which could have negative impact to some applications. Meeting attendees asked to check their applications against IE7 and provide feedback in next meeting.

Microsoft will be releasing Microsoft Windows 7 by 2010

Questions, Answers, & General Discussion

University Dashboard - Cal Easterling discussed the need for a University Dashboard. Scott & Cal to meet with the appropriate individuals across the university to gather requirements.

Email Communication to Students, what e-mail should we be using? - Scott to draft an "E-mail Policy" and communicate to the applicable areas.

I.T. Roundtable News 12.07.2007

GroupWise Conversion

-The previous server was approximately 10 years old. It was replaced with 2 new servers, which are attached to the SAN Storage server.
-Conversion also addressed a corrupt database. E-mails created from late summer to the time of the conversion were temporarily taken offline. Only one account was not able to be restored with data intact.
-If sending out bulk email greater in number than 5,000 (without attachments) please notify the IT Department.
-If sending out bulk email less than 5,000 that either contain attachments or will be sent during late evening hours, please also contact the IT Department.

Mac Group

Server Virtualization

-60 Servers to virtualize
-Benefits:

• Saves money and space
• Since servers translated from physical to logical servers, they can share the memory and CPU of the equipment. This makes more "power" available to each server resulting in a more efficient use of the equipment.
• Applications and processes previously restricted by hardware capacity now have the opportunity to operate at an improved rate.
• Significantly reduces risks related to upgrades. Allows for testing on a clone environment before the actual upgrade in production.

-Recently virtualized 2 Banner servers
-Long term strategy - Image Now, TMA, QAS, and others will all be virtual
-Upgrade of core network being tested now

IT Survey Results

-Received high level on all survey results
-Overall positive feedback = 83.82%
-Survey participants were provided with the option include comments. All comments received were reviewed by IT management for action where applicable.
-Areas of improvement focus include:
-Communication timeliness
-Follow-up
-Striving to understand the customer's situation
-Offering a relevant solution
-Presenting a professionals and helpful attitude
-Results will be posted online

Click to see Survey Results

Identity Theft Committee

-Working to develop policy
-Ready during Spring 08 Semester
-Student ID (Z#) is considered sensitive and personal information. Should not be publicly displayed along student name or in a format where someone could associate Student ID with a specific student. Example given: Public posting of grades by Z#, without name given, but sorted alphabetically by name.
-Scott to share this information in future Deans Council and Chairs Council meetings.

Open Discussion/Questions (topics not covered in previous sections)

-Status of wireless initiative
-Timing of QAS Project

I.T. Roundtable News 10.05.2007

Current Projects Overview

1)New Library System - to be in place by Summer 2008

2)Online Housing system - StarRez- to be in place by Fall 2008

3)Document Imaging - ImageNow - Phase 1-Accounting/Finance and Archive Areas. Testing 1st 3 Weeks in January. Go Live in February 2008

4)Wireless Project - 3 Year Plan-Implementation Underway now of Phase 1

• 52 access points - all of GC and LRC on each floor
• Each dorm lobby area
• Prayer gardens area
• Some of the Aerobic Center
• Johnson Stadium area
• Chapel building

5)Vista Office 2007 updates

• Some issues with Excel 2007 noted
• Seems to take extensive time to come up after machine goes into sleep mode

6)Banner Releases

• Updates will be made during Fall Break in October 2007

7)Licensing - Microsoft Office Products

• Visual Studio Pro, Visio Pro and Project Pro will be available to Faculty and Staff. Campus agreement does not provide licensing for Student use.

9)Desire 2 Learn - Student access issues. Please have students contact their instructor. Instructor can then contact Dr. Crossland if necessary.

I.T. Roundtable News 08.24.2007

1)Summer Projects Overview

APLG move from Mabee Center to Prayer Tower completed.

Three Registration dates completed this year.There will be four dates implemented next year.

Vista deployment in the Math/Computer Science area has a Vista Host with XP and Linux.There are computers setup for viewing and testing in Academic Lab 4 on GC 2.

Save all documents in 2003 format for Office.

Moved 11 departments, more than 26,000 feet of cable changed. Firewall change and packet shaping traffic being implemented.

There are two new application devices installed to take care of Spam issues - Barracuda.

Wireless Networks-We are testing Meru.

Desire 2 Learn - student access issues - please have them contact their instructor - instructor then can contact Dr. Marty Crossland if necessary.

2) Data Security

Continue to remain cautious about what leaves our environment. Secure information. There has been an Identity Theft Committee created. This committee is defining new data security policy procedures and how to take care of any situations involved. They will also address how to increase prevention.

3) Future Technology

Online Housing System to allow students to obtain housing and access through Banner to expedite user experience. Goal in place for Spring 2008.

Enrollment Management through Banner to help attract and recruit future students.

University Advancement through Banner to create better relations.

Document Imaging goal in place for October to kick off project for Finance.

Next IT Roundtable meeting will be sometime in September. We will discuss ORU Alumni email services - access discussion.

I.T. Roundtable News 06.29.2007

1)Vista - Office 2007

We have entered into Phase 1 of the conversion process. Computer Science/Math Department has been designated as a key strategic area and are now using Vista and Office 2007 with an XP Virtual Machine. Many members of the I.T. Department are also testing Vista and Office 2007. This is considered to be the beginning of a 3 year plan to implement Vista. This plan includes and aggressive plan to update hardware.

During the 08-09 school year we plan to be 2/3 ready for Vista implementation.

During the 09-10 school year we plan to complete the conversion.

We are in the process of arranging dates and times for Office 2007 and Vista training classes for faculty and staff.

2) Summer Projects

One of our main summer projects has been to study and make revisions to the Network Architecture. We recently tested and are acquiring an appliance to monitor network traffic and determine levels of various activities. One case being that file sharing was found to be using 57% of our network capability. A study is being done to determine how to best use our resources without limiting activities for faculty and staff or students.

3) Desire 2 Learn

D2L has gotten off to a good start. Faculty and staff are being exposed to the advantages of using this resource.

4) Document imaging system

The finance department will begin using a document imaging system in the near future. The hope is to have it open to other student services by next fiscal year.

5) Online Housing system.

A new online housing system is being implemented. This will allow students to setup their housing online.

6) QAS

The QAS system is being looked at university wide to cut down on number of faulty addresses utilized by several departments.

7) Data Security

We were reminded to use great care and caution with any information that leaves the campus, whether electronically or physically. Recently several security breaches have been experienced by universities around the country. This issue will probably be addressed often in the coming months.

I.T. Roundtable News 04.27.2007

1) XP ~ Vista Environment

Departments have been surveyed. Both the need and the upgrade requirements have been taken into consideration. At this time there is no compelling reason to change, however, we want to make sure we stay on track with technology advances. We have one department that will serve as our test area. The Math and Computer Science Department has agreed to use Virtual Machine appliances in order to do this. We are also looking into using these appliances in some of the labs that may need to be running either Windows XP or Vista. The library will have 6 units in the ERC running Windows XP and Vista in a Virtual Machine Mode. If you would like an opportunity to see Vista and Office 2007, please call Mel Schlatter in the library at x7189.We will carefully analyze their experience to learn when and how to advance the rest of the University.

Although we have pushed out the utility to make Office 2003 capable of opening Office 2007 documents, we are encouraging everyone, staff and students, to save their 2007 documents in 2003 format.This will be stressed to all incoming students as well as current students, faculty and staff.

If you would like to test your computer to make sure the utility has been installed, please email helpdesk@oru.edu. We will send you a test document.If you can open the document that has been created in Office 2007, your computer is equipped with the utility. If for some reason it did not open, please call the help desk at x6315.

The I.T. Department and Human Resources have been in discussions about providing training for Office 2007.

2) 07-08 Technology Needs

Departmental Technology needs should be emailed to Scott Carr. I. T. will be prioritizing need and making purchases as resources permit.

3) New Technology Initiatives - Goals
Phone System Upgrade-several options have been researched.
Wireless Fund Raising Campaign to give better coverage of campus-upgrades will be made in accordance with amount of funds raised.
Image Now 6.0 - document imaging-this will be initiated in the Finance area.
Fax Server implementation-this is being explored.
Desire 2 Learn is growing. First semester went well.We expect more classes to be available in Fall.
Online Course Evaluations are being tested.

4) SPAM

There are currently 4 servers filtering SPAM from out email.90% of all mail coming into ORU is filtered out because it meets the criteria for SPAM.This is a global problem requiring massive amounts of research and resources. ORU is not alone.

I.T. is diligently investigating all new options to deal with this issue.

I.T. Roundtable News 03.30.2007

With the activities of this week, we decided to forego an IT Round Table discussion for March... however I still wanted to provide a quick update on where we are with our efforts regarding formulation of a strategy for Windows Vista, and Office 2007, as well as some other items of note.

Vista & Office 2007

A few weeks ago, I distributed some survey sheets to each of the Department Chairs to help them put together their specific strategies.  As they turn those in, we will roll up each departmental strategy on the Academic side to become part of our overall strategy.  That input is starting to come in, and it looks like we will mostly be staying with XP and Office 2003 for next Fall. 

 

I, and several members of IT, attended a Microsoft event hosted by OU Tulsa this week which was also attended by most all of the local colleges and universities in the area.  Microsoft specifically addressed Vista and Office 2007, but stressed their change in philosophy that will allow the older Office 2003 to open files saved in the newer Office 2007.  At the end of the event, a poll was taken by OU Tulsa as to what the migration plans were at other institutions.  It was interesting to note that every college and university that responded said that they had no plans to go to Vista or Office 2007 for this next year - with some saying they planned to wait up to 18 months.  One exception to that was OSU which will stay with XP and Office 2003 in most cases, but have certain strategic areas that they will move up.

 

We received word that Oracle does not currently have a plan for upgrading their JInitiator, which is what allows Banner to run.  With that being the case, we will want to be careful - departments who utilize Banner will want to remain on XP until we hear something more definitive from Oracle.

 

As mentioned previously, http://it.oru.edu/ is our site where we are encouraging everyone to go to for updates on anything IT related.  In the coming weeks, we will be adding a new Vista & Office 2007 page that details the results of all the departmental testing - the software we know that doesn't work on Vista, and any updates of software that we have heard will be compliant and when.  Please be sure to check out this site periodically as we will publish the most detail of our findings there.

 

Projects & Events

We will be trying to formulate a process for how projects and events are planned that include any resources from IT (wiring, telephones, network, computers, etc).  You may begin seeing some elements on this at http://it.oru.edu as we assemble the tools we will be using to help manage this.  More on this as it happens, but we will likely begin involving some of the near-term events as we map our efforts to a new process.  We are excited about this because this should provide a much better experience for getting an event up and running.

 

Spam

I believe we had mentioned this in passing before, but I've had a number of questions regarding Spam appearing in email.  The difficulty we face with Spam is the same challenge every organization faces... it is not simply an ORU issue.  Some reports have said recently that out of every 10 emails being sent across the Internet, 9 of them are Spam.  We have attacked Spam fairly aggressively.  A couple years ago, we had a single server dedicated to killing Spam that was sent to any of our email accounts.  Today, we have three servers dedicated that run 100% of the time every hour of every day.  We literally receive hundreds of thousands of Spam every day - and during peak times it isn't unusual for some amount to over run our Spam filters.  Individuals experiencing an undue amount of these can have Groupwise assist with the setting up of the Junk mail filter, and perhaps even utilizing Rules, to make the Inbox a bit cleaner place.  For those individuals, the Help Desk can assist.