January 2013 Archives

At the University of Minnesota, there are two centrally-provided options for uploading and sharing your videos: Kaltura (via Moodle) and YouTube. Learn more about how to select the appropriate platform for your needs.

Restricted-View Videos? Upload to Kaltura

Kaltura is a video publishing and management platform available to UMN affiliates via Moodle, the University's enterprise course management system. If you want or need to restrict access to your video, use Kaltura. Learn more.

Public-Facing Videos: Upload to YouTube

YouTube is available through the UMN Google Apps suite. If you do not need to restrict who sees your video, YouTube is recommended for video sharing. You will need to create a Youtube account before uploading videos. Navigate to YouTube and click Sign in. Enter your UMN email address for your username and click Sign in again.

Share

When publishing content to YouTube, please be mindful that it is a public environment where private or protected content, such as Protected Health Information (PHI) and FERPA, should never be shared. Read more about Acceptable Use and Data Security on the UMN Google Apps website.

When you upload a video it will be public by default, but you can change the setting to "unlisted," meaning that only those with the link can view it, or to "private" so that only you and people you designate may view your video.

Note: Although you retain ownership of your content, Google can use any content uploaded on YouTube--even if it has been made private--for marketing purposes. Review the full terms of services.

Video Size

You can upload videos of any size to your UMN YouTube account. However, video length is limited to under 15 minutes by default. In order to enable a feature that allows unlimited uploads, follow these instructions:

• Visit the upload page
• Click Increase your limit at the bottom of the page.
• Follow the steps to verify your account with either a voice call to any phone, or via SMS (text message) to your mobile phone.

The University IT community has been evaluating new web content management systems (CMS) to better serve the University's needs. After evaluating several products and viewing various product demonstrations, the decision was made to acquire Drupal as the University's new enterprise-level CMS. This is a systemwide initiative available to and supporting all system campuses.

The IT Leadership Community of Practice, comprised of IT leaders system-wide, convened on January 11 for a day-long working meeting. During this meeting, the IT leaders charged four new formal communities of practice (fCoPs). For a preview of those new communities as well as a recap of other items that were discussed, please download the January meeting minutes from the ITL COP google site. More information on how to get involved in the new fCoPs will be sent at a later date.

The Office of Information Technology recently implemented a service enhancement allowing the myU portal to remain available during the weekly 6 a.m.-noon Sunday enterprise systems maintenance work. Previously, system limitations prevented myU from being available during that time. With this enhancement, users now can access important applications such as Moodle during the maintenance time.

A SANS webcast entitled, "Uninstall Java? Realistic Recommendation? No. Insanity? Yes!" is scheduled for 1 p.m. CST, Tuesday, January 29.

In this webinar, experts will address Homeland Security's recommendation that organizations stop using and uninstall Java. A SANS account is necessary to view the webcast, but you can sign up for free. Learn more.

Bomgar is a remote-control desktop support tool that has been used by Carlson School Information Technology since 2008. It streamlines the support process, enabling IT staff to view and control the customer's screen to diagnose and fix most problems no matter where they are located or what system they are using. Carlson IT staff have also used Bomgar for Moodle trouble-shooting and training when instructors need just-in-time assistance. Communication is via phone, and customers are directed to a website to enable the use of Bomgar support while talking with the IT support staff.

Carlson School maintains the Bomgar server and shares licenses with the College of Biological Sciences (CBS) and University of Minnesota Rochester. Bomgar is also being used by the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) and the College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Sciences (CFANS). Due to successful widespread use at the University, Bomgar is being evaluated for its potential application across the University system with enterprise licensing and appliance(s) integrated into ServiceNow, the University's enterprise IT Service Management tool.

ULearn, a new Learning Management System (LMS) has been launched. The LMS will be used by multiple units, including the Office of Human Resources (OHR) Training, Technology Training and Usability Services, and many others. OHR was the first to go live with a pilot which began September 1. Other units (Technology Training and Usability Services, Academic Support Resources, U of M Duluth Human Resources, Veterinary Medicine, U-Spatial, Department of Environmental Health and Safety, and Academic Health Center) launched this month, with more set to launch within the next several weeks.

One of the advantages of ULearn is the ability for employees to track all new training and non-credit courses using one common system. ULearn is replacing the PeopleSoft Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) module which will be retired as of February 1. Technology Training and Usability Services previously used a locally-developed system. ULearn has powerful reporting capabilities.

ULearn will also manage non-credit courses for anyone not affiliated with the U of M. Currently there are four colleges that are part of the non-credit division (College of Continuing Education, College of Education and Human Development, School of Public Health, and Extension). Plans are for those units to be live in ULearn by this spring or summer. These colleges will be implementing a credit card payment system to allow both registration and payment using one system.

More information:

ULearn News
OHR ULearn site
ULearn FAQs
New Technology Training and Usability Services site

The enterprise portal kickoff event will take place on Monday, February 4, from 2-4 p.m. with locations on each campus. The kickoff begins a University-wide conversation about creating an easy-to-use interactive web tool for facilitating access to information and services that are of primary relevance and interest to YOU and the University community. The event will include a short overview of the portal project and then move into World Café small group conversations about opportunities this project offers to the University community and strategies for being part of creating a new portal that delights the people who use it. Register for the event by Wednesday, January 30. Learn more.

Usability consultants were approached with a question: what will students want from a single, unified student portal? There are any number of options, features, or ways to present all the information available to students. So, the usability consultants team got together and researched techniques to assess user satisfaction, and prioritize the options the team had in mind.

The University of Minnesota is investigating the viability of acquiring a University-wide license for access to an online library of video-based training on tools such as Adobe CS, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, web development technologies, etc.

As part of the Request for Proposals (RFP) process, two vendors, Lynda.com and Atomic Learning, have been invited to demonstrate their services. The demonstrations are open to all interested University affiliates. Details follow.

• January 28, Walter 101, 1 - 4 p.m.- Demo by Atomic Learning (3.0 hours)
• January 30, Walter 101, 8 -11 a.m. - Demo by lynda.com (3.0 hours)

If you cannot attend in person, please join us online via UMConnect.

See some of the University's IT leaders provide updates on IT Governance, Alignment, IT Agenda and Helpdesk Consolidation at the January IT Leadership Community of Practice (ITLCoP) meeting.

http://youtu.be/GHFyZWwLk9s

An all-day multi-track event championing data at the juncture of business, technology, and math will take place Monday, January 21 from 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School. Entry is free to the analytics community. Register and learn more.

Effective immediately, students should place orders for Windows OS upgrades and Microsoft Office from the University of Minnesota's online Kivuto store, umn.onthehub.com. The most up-to-date versions are now available for purchase.

Give a cheer for the following University of Minnesota staff received who an IT Spot Award in December in recognition of their special contributions:

Brad Kaufman

Casey Clay

Dara Fu

Dave Lindeman

Garrett Kuchta

Joe Schnide

Josh Ruegg

Linda Theis

Mike Waltonen

Mike Williams

Peter Sedivy

Tom Illg

The start of the semester is almost here! In anticipation of a large spike in student traffic at University of Minnesota Tech Stops, we're looking for volunteers like you to help out! Tech Stops provide face-to-face technology consultations, support, and training to the Twin Cities campus.

Volunteers will augment the staff in Tech Stop locations; either by greeting University customers and doing triage--or for those more comfortable with the technology--helping with the more common problems. At whichever level you are able to help, we have reference materials to support you in being successful.

If you have some time and want to volunteer, your presence and assistance will be most welcome! Past volunteers have found that helping out at Tech Stop is great opportunity to connect with University students.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday morning (Jan. 15 & 16), experienced Tech Stop staff will be available to volunteers who would like to review support materials and ask questions. Attendance at a review session is optional. To sign up to volunteer and/or attend a review session, please fill out this Google form.

If you sign up to volunteer, a staff member will contact you to schedule a shift at Tech Stop and share support materials that will help you assist University customers in the best way possible.

On Sunday, Jan. 13, the latest product release for ServiceNow, the University of Minnesota's IT Service Management (ITSM) tool, will be installed in production. The product release, called "Berlin," has undergone extensive testing in a University test environment since November. During Sunday's installation, between 7 and 8 a.m., ServiceNow will be unavailable for approximately 30 minutes.

At approximately 2:20 a.m. Friday, Jan. 4, one of the University of Minnesota's national network infrastructure peers, National Lambda Rail, inadvertently initiated an overload of messages to its network affiliates while performing planned maintenance. This flood of additional messages sent the University's network routing table (a database used to calculate the destinations of incoming messages), over capacity, causing it to stop processing traffic.

A web-based enterprise alternative to conducting business via paper forms, Workflow Processing (WorkflowGen), now is available to the University of Minnesota. WorkflowGen is an environment that enables units to

• quickly generate web-based forms with defined business-process pathways; and
• monitor the progress of submitted forms