Technology news for UMD faculty, staff and students
October 2005
New ITSS Staff Member
We are pleased to announce that Julie Ann Viken has accepted the position of Information Technology Professional with our department and will join the ITSS staff Monday, October 17. Julie's responsibilities will include providing enterprise and departmental application analysis, programming development, maintenance, and testing for customer business systems; special project Unix programming support; consulting with and supporting faculty, students, and staff in a variety of ways regarding information technology hardware and software; and assisting with administration and configuration of server hardware.
Julie has a B.A. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus. During the past four years Julie has been employed as a Web Developer for the Academic Computing and Distributed Services Department (ACDS) within the Office of Information Technology (OIT) unit. In this position she has developed and maintained an Oracle database for the Electronic Grants Management System (EGMS), managed, coded, tested and supported the Financial Forms Nirvana (FFN) web applications, and assisted with building other University web sites.
Prior to this position, Julie worked several years for McKessonHBOC as an Applications Analyst and Senior Software Engineer where she designed, developed and supported code for web applications and client/server applications for hospital scheduling systems used domestically and internationally. In addition, Julie has experience as a Computer Lab TA at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus.
Document Imaging Available on Campus
UMD now has the capability to image most paper that is handled within a department. This new technology, ImageNow, scans documents into a computer and indexes them, making them available immediately to all staff with the click of a button.
Benefits of this technology include reducing paper and increasing staff efficiency due to the work flow features that make documents move electronically through the office. No more misplaced or misfiled documents because everything is indexed.
ImageNow, a document imaging system from Perceptive Vision, Inc., was first used in the Twin Cities Financial Aid department and the project proved highly successful. The UMD Office of the Registrar in both the areas of Financial Aids and Student Records have been using ImageNow for a couple of years.
If you would like to learn more or have questions about document imaging at UMD, contact Debbie Wing, ITSS (dwing, x8784).
facultyEtools: WebCT Vista
WebCT Vista is a course management or learning management system that offers many tools to enhance the online teaching and learning environment. By using the internet and a Web browser, faculty and students can access their password protected courses. Course materials, grades or grade books, threaded discussions, course specific email, assignments, quizzes, tests, surveys, galleries, and glossaries, can be accessed from anywhere in the world. It combines many frequently used online tools into one location for faculty and students. Faculty may choose to use some of the tools available within WebCT Vista to begin with and later add other tools. WebCT Vista offers faculty great flexibility!
What tools are available in WebCT Vista!
- Classroom Management Tools: Online grade book, ability to generate grade
book reports and view student tracking (when students have logged in, what
they have viewed in the course, etc.), ability to export/import a grade book,
grades can automatically be placed in the grade book from quizzes, assignments,
and graded discussions
- Communication Tools: Discussions (threaded discussions, with sort features,
ability to attach files to the discussion, ability to grade discussion within
discussion area and send grade to the grade book), ability to create group
discussions by random groups, specified groups, or group sign-up sheets,
Announcement feature, Chat Room, Whiteboard, Course email, and Course Calendar
- Evaluation Tools: Quizzes, Surveys, Self-Tests, Assignments, importing
of test questions, importing of test banks, question statistics, various
questions types: T/F, multiple choice, matching, combination answers, essay,
short answer, randomization of questions and answers, Group assignments,
Group assignment sign up sheets, and the ability to have grades automatically
sent to the course grade book.
- Content Tools: With Vista you can add your course content, add your syllabus, lecture notes, presentations, links to other online resources and library resources, use animation, video, audio, and so much more. You can set release conditions of content and control permissions for teaching assistants.
Once you develop and use any of the tools in WebCT Vista, the tools or course content, quizzes, grade book, discussion questions, etc. can be copied into a new section or new semester.
Other Resources: http://www.webct.com/software/viewpage?name=software_vista_virtual
Other facultyEtools: http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/facstaff/WebServices.html
If you have questions about WebCT Vista or other facultEtools, or would like to set up a meeting to discuss using one of these tools, please contact Shelly McCauley Jugovich (smcaule, x6862) or Bruce Reeves (breeves, x6831)
ITSS Technology Resources for Faculty & Staff
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/facstaff/
Viz Lab Presents Series for Fall 2005
The Viz Lab Presents Series is back for another great semester. Please do not miss an opportunity to come and see what the Visualization and Digital Imaging Lab (VDIL) Summer Grant researchers have been doing over the summer. Please go to: http://www.d.umn.edu/vdil for further information on the VDIL.Steve Bardolph, Art & Design
Re-imaging and Imagining the Beautiful and Sublime
Wednesday, October 12
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
Saiyam Kohli, Graduate Student Computer Science
Visually Finding Sets of Related Words on the World Wide Web
Thursday, October 13
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
Steve Sternberg, Chemical Engineering
Visualization and Animation of Contaminant Movement in Porous Media
Wednesday, October 19
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
Josh Jacobs, Graduate Student Math/Stats
Dynamic Creation of Images from a Given Motif
Wednesday, October 26
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
Mark Harvey, Theatre
Pursuing the theatrical design attributes of both GarageBand and ProTools
Thursday, October 27
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
Rob Wittig, Art & Design
Blending Image and Typography for Digital Scrolls
Thursday, November 3
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
Mary Ann Marchel, Education
"Assistive Technology for Children and Youth with Disabilities" production
of an interactive CD
Friday, November 4
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
Margretta Meyer, Graduate Student Geology
Genesis of Rogen Moraine; a quantitative spatial analysis
Wednesday, November 9
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
Kristin Riker-Coleman, VDIL RA and Graduate Student in Geology
Designing Scientific Posters
Tuesday, November 22
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
Joseph Beer, Graduate Student, Geology
Three-Dimensional Visualization of Late Triassic Landscape Evolution of
South-Central Utah
Wednesday, November 23
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
Douglas Dunham, Computer Science
Creating a program that will print out 2-dimensional "nets" of patterned
polygon faces for polyhedra of positive genus, which can be folded up and
glued together, forming the whole polyhedron
Thursday, December 1
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154)
James Allert, Computer Science
Visualizations of Student Learning Style Data
Friday, December 2
12:00-1:00
VDIL (MPAC 154
VDIL home page http://www.d.umn.edu/vdil/
Phishing scams
Phishing is an Internet scam to get people to share personal or financial information, such as passwords and credit-card numbers. The scammer sends an email that appears to be from a legitimate company (such as an ISP or bank). The email asks the recipient to update or validate billing information to keep the account active, and includes a link to a forged web site that looks nearly identical to the real company's site. If the person fills out and submits the form on the fake site, the data is sent to the scammer.
Recent scams seen on campus include US Bank, PayPal, Citibank, eBay and Best Buy, where the emails directed people to web pages that looked nearly identical to the companies' sites.
The FBI called phishing the "hottest, and most troubling, new scam on the Internet."
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is working to protect consumers from identity theft and offers the following tips for avoiding this scam:
- If you get an email that warns you, with little or no notice, that an account of yours will be shut down unless you reconfirm your billing information, do not reply or click on the link in the email. Instead, contact the company using a phone number or address you know to be genuine.
- Before submitting financial information through a Web site, look for the "lock" icon on the browser's status bar. It signals that your information is secure during transmission.
- Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to determine whether there are any unauthorized charges. If your statement is late by more than a couple of days, call your credit card company or bank to confirm your billing address and account balances.
- Report suspicious activity to the FTC. Send the actual spam to spam@uce.gov.
info.tech.News is published monthly during the academic year by ITSS. An email digest is also sent to all users subscribed to the infotech.announce, UMD.business.announce and studenttech.announce. The goal is to distribute information useful to the daily routines of the University of Minnesota Duluth campus community in conjunction with computer and telephone technologies. Comments or suggestions may be sent to the editor at: sbradt@d.umn.edu.