University of Minnesota Duluth | Information Technology Systems and Services

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Infotech.News

Technology news for UMD faculty, staff and students

October 2012

ITSS Supports Both Macs and Windows Computers
We have heard a number of questions raised recently about whether ITSS provides support for Macintosh computers. Yes, we do! Many of us in ITSS use Macs, and our maintenance group is a Certified Apple Repair Center.
TechCenter Offering New Delivery Service
ITSS is now offering on site delivery and set up service for computers that are routed through the TechCenter for set up or repair. The service is available for a flat rate to on campus sites only.
Google Groups: Live October 1, 2012
Google Groups, a tool for a team of users to quickly collaborate with one another either via email, or any of Google's various applications, is available with Google Apps for the University of Minnesota.
Video and Moodle
Video can take up a lot of space, but you want to use it with your Moodle course. What to do? Use it with your Moodle course.
Accessibility eClasses
This semester ITSS will be offering several accessibility eClasses.
Assistive Technology Overview
Assistive technology (AT) is technology that may be used by people with a wide range of abilities and disabilities.
Active Learning Classrooms at UMD
There has been a growing body of research for quite some time that indicates "active learning" is a more effective way to move students up the hierarchy of Bloom's Taxonomy and thus maximize learning outcomes.
Student Computer Labs Moving to Virtual Workstations
After a successful pilot in the Library this past spring, ITSS staff plan to roll out virtual desktops to all basic access student computer labs throughout fall semester 2012.
NESC Middle Mile Project Connects Remote Sites to UMD Campus
UMD has completed contracts with the Northeast Service Cooperative (NESC) to participate in the NESC Middle Mile Fiber Project, funded in 2009 by federal stimulus funds.
UB Retiring; Bulldog Continuing
Because of the migration away from the hardware and Unix variant UB was using, and because of its changing role, it was decided to retire UB and utilize bulldog as its replacement.
PeopleSoft Outage: October 13-14
Beginning Saturday, October 13 at 6 p.m. PeopleSoft Campus Solutions (Student Admin and HRMS) and PeopleSoft Financials will be unavailable for use due to a planned upgrade.
AD SCCM: Symantec Scans Changed to Monthly
On September 13, ITSS staff adjusted the policy for UMD Managed Symantec EndPoint (SEP) 11 clients to require a monthly scan instead of a weekly scan.
AD SCCM: Out-of-band Microsoft Security Patch Released
The Office of Information Technology (OIT) released an out-of-band patch from Microsoft to fix an issue with Internet Explorer which was already seeing exploits in the wild.
Policy Update: Video Captioning
UMD has adopted this Policy on Captioning of Video as well as provided a Captioning Service.
ITSS By The Numbers
Ten Years Ago in ITSS

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