The Office of Information Technology offers a number of technology training courses. Please visit the Technology Training website for a complete listing of courses.

Moodle 2.0: What's Different from Moodle 1.9?
Sept 20, 1:30 PM-2:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Seminar

Gmail and Google Calendar - Learning Byte
Sept 21, 1:30 PM-2:00 PM
Sept 21, 2:15 PM-2:45 PM
Sept 21, 3:00 PM-3:30 PM
Sept 21, 3:45 PM-4:15 PM
Tech Stop, 1st Floor Coffman Memorial Union
Seminar

Moodle 2.0: Creating Basic Course Websites
Sept 22, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Geographic Information Systems: Analyzing Data and Creating Maps
Sept 23, 8:30 AM-4:30 PM
Wilson Library S30C
Windows

Web Development: Essentials - XHTML
Sept 27, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Web Development: Essentials - XHTML
Sept 27, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Google Docs Overview
Sept 28, 1:30 PM-2:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Seminar

Web Development: Essentials - Cascading Style Sheets
Sept 29, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Web Development: Essentials - Cascading Style Sheets
Sept 29, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Netfiles 7 - Learning Byte
Sept 29, 1:30 PM-2:00 PM
Sept 29, 2:15 PM-2:45 PM
Sept 29, 3:00 PM-3:30 PM
Sept 29, 3:45 PM-4:15 PM
Tech Stop, 1st Floor Coffman Memorial Union
Seminar

Posted 9:06 AM | Permalink

The online file storage tool, NetFiles has been upgraded to version 7. The upgrade includes several new features and improved functionality in a new, easier-to-use interface.

New features include:

• A new share feature that makes it easier to share files;


• Advanced upload feature that allows for uploading multiple files or entire folders at once with drag-and-drop;


• LDAP groups that allow IT staff to manage groups for departments and colleges;


• Users no longer need to sign up to use NetFiles.

However, if you had the link to the previous version of NetFiles bookmarked, that link no longer will work. The bookmark to the old version would look like this:
https://netfiles.umn.edu/xythoswfs/webui?x=y&stk=

If you follow this old bookmark and log in to NetFiles, you will come to a blank screen and it will appear that you have no files in your NetFiles account. The solution is simply to enter the URL http://netfiles.umn.edu in a your browser window and re-bookmark the page. Please be assured that all of your files are there, and will appear once you have created a new bookmark to the NetFiles site.

Some users create a "ticket" in order to share documents in NetFiles. This ticket creates a URL/link providing people access to a file or folder stored in NetFiles. Password-protected tickets will not work after the upgrade and will need to be recreated, which is easier with the new share feature.

Additionally, it is not necessary to have a new Xythos drive to access Netfiles after the upgrade.

An introductory video is available on the Technology Training website.

For more information, visit the NetFiles website. Questions or comments should be directed to Technology Help at (612) 301-4357 (1-HELP on campus), or netfiles@umn.edu.

Posted 7:39 PM | Permalink

Browser software and plug-ins/add-ons also need to be patched for security holes. Qualys BrowserCheck will perform a security analysis of your browser and its plug-ins to identify any security issues and help you fix the security issues discovered by the scan.

This tool is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and many other browsers, including mobile. Run the tool on all installed browsers. Students, faculty, and staff can install the tool on their personally owned computers or mobile devices at no charge. Install the tool at the Qualys BrowserCheck website.

Posted 9:31 AM | Permalink

Moodle 2.0 became available to the University of Minnesota on August 15, 2011. The Office of Information Technology (OIT) is pleased to support this open-source tool that enables web-enhanced course delivery, group forums, internal training, sharing of resources, and more. The Moodle 2.0 roll-out is the culmination of more than a year's effort. Implementation work began after the May 2010 announcement that the University would move away from supporting two Course Management Systems (CMS), WebVista and Moodle 1.9, and provide a single CMS, Moodle 2.0.

Current Statistics
As of August 22, a total of 2,460 academic course sites had already been requested for fall 2011. Based on historical data, we expect to see 4,100 to 4,400 total sites by the end of fall 2011. Below is the current breakdown, which represents about 60% of the expected total course sites.

• Moodle 1.9: 2,159 (87%)
  
• WebVista: 181 (8%)
  
• Moodle 2.0: 120 (5%) (+70 non-academic and development sites)

What to Do This Fall
For Fall Semester 2011, we recommend that faculty and instructors continue to teach in their current WebVista or Moodle 1.9 courses. In addition, we strongly encourage faculty and instructors to request Moodle 2.0 course sites in order to explore what the tool has to offer and to begin to transition course content from WebVista to Moodle 2.0 or upgrade course sites from Moodle 1.9 to 2.0. Request a Moodle 2.0 course site.

The CMS Implementation Timeline
The CMS Implementation timeline allows one year, from August 2011 to August 2012, to move to Moodle 2.0. To ensure that you are on schedule for your transition or upgrade, contact your local IT or Academic Technology support units. WebVista and Moodle 1.9 will become unavailable after August 31, 2012. To see a visual representation of the CMS Implementation timeline, visit the Moodle Transition website.

Get Help and Support
When seeking help for your transition or upgrade, or to learn more about Moodle 2.0, contact your local IT support services first; they know you best and can direct you to additional help and support services when needed. Review additional OIT support options including collegiate and departmental planning, technical help, consultations, and learning opportunities on our websites:

• For current WebVista users - Transition from WebVista to Moodle 2.0
• For current Moodle 1.9 users - Upgrade from Moodle 1.9 to 2.0

More information
Visit the University of Minnesota Moodle website, or send your questions and comments via email to CMS-TRANS@lists.umn.edu.

Posted 9:30 AM | Permalink

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) fall training schedule is now available on OIT's technology training web site (www.oit.umn.edu/training).

To view all available offerings click on "List of Courses" in the left navigation bar.

Posted 3:57 PM | Permalink

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) has partnered with e-academy to offer the Microsoft Work-at-Home option, an additional benefit of the Microsoft Campus Agreement. This option will allow faculty and staff systemwide who use Microsoft Office programs and the Windows operating system on their University-owned computers to use a second copy of a limited selection of products on either a laptop or desktop computer that he or she personally owns or leases. The software may be used only for work-related purposes and only during the term of the campus agreement. The Work-at-Home licenses do not apply to students, unless they also are an employee.

Strict guidelines govern the use of these products on personally owned computers for work purposes. Those who wish to purchase the Work-at-Home license are required to agree to and digitally sign a Faculty and Staff License Agreement during the check-out process before the purchase can be completed.

Products are available to download from the e-academy Work-at-Home web store, OnTheHub, for approximately $10. Users also have the option to order the products on CD for approximately $21. Complete and current fees are listed on the e-academy U of M Higher Education WebStore.

Microsoft products also are offered at educational prices for personal use, in the event that users are unable to agree to the terms of the Work-at-Home agreement and want to use the products for personal use, as well.

For more information and the latest news about these products, visit the OIT Software License UTools Windows and Office web pages for the latest news and offerings of these products.

Posted 1:31 PM | Permalink

NetFiles will be unavailable between 8 a.m Saturday, Aug. 27-3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 28, for the upgrade to version 7. The upgrade includes several new features and improved functionality in a new, easier-to-use interface.

After technical difficulties with the upgrade that was scheduled for June, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) has made several improvements to the upgrade process.

• We tested the upgrade in our test instance with a full copy of the production database, rather than a much smaller test instance of the database used previously.


• We worked directly with the vendor to identify the cause of the problem from the June upgrade attempt, and have put a fix into place to alleviate similar problems in the future.


• We've identified opportunities to improve our upgrade process, and put them into place.


• We thoroughly tested the upgrade with the fix and without the fix (to make sure our test instance mirrors the production instance) in place.

  With the additional testing and process improvements in place, we are confident that the upgrade process will succeed, bringing users the enhanced functionality and features of NetFiles 7.

  New features include:
  

  
  
  • A new share feature that makes it easier to share files
  
  
  • Advanced upload feature allows for uploading multiple files or entire folders at once with drag and drop
  
  
  • LDAP groups which allow IT staff to manage groups for departments and colleges
  
  
  • Users no longer need to sign up to use NetFiles
  
  
  
  Some users create a "ticket" in order to share documents in NetFiles. This ticket creates a URL/link providing people access to a file or folder stored in NetFiles. Password-protected tickets will not work after the upgrade and will need to be recreated (which is easier with the new share feature).

  Additionally, it is not necessary to have a new Xythos drive to access Netfiles after the upgrade.

  An introductory video is available at https://uttc.umn.edu/training/tutorials/netfiles/index.htm.

  For more information about NetFiles, visit www.oit.umn.edu/netfiles/. Questions or comments should be directed to Technology Help at (612) 301-4357 (1-HELP on campus), or netfiles@umn.edu.

  Posted 1:39 PM | Permalink

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) now offers Secunia Software Inspectors to help keep student, faculty, and staff personal computers up-to-date and secure. Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) scans your computer for thousands of known programs, checks for missing security patches and vulnerabilities in those programs, and reports back to you with information on how to update them. Students, faculty, and staff can download and install the PSI on their personally owned computers at no charge. For more information and to download the software, visit the UTools website

Posted 1:05 PM | Permalink

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) has expanded its walk-in technology help services to three computer lab locations in 103 Walter, B60 Coffman, and 50 HHH on the Twin Cities campus. The additions will bring the total number of walk-in help locations to five, including the current 101 Coffman and 50 Coffey locations.

All Tech Stop and computer lab walk-in technology help locations provide assistance for students, faculty, and staff to receive face-to-face technology consultations and support.

On-site staff offer assistance for University technology services including:
• Email setup and client configuration
• Internet password changes
• Account updates
• Software update assistance
• Wireless connection assistance
• Application support basic assistance
• Symantec AntiVirus assistance
• Consultations on virus removal--preliminary consultative diagnostics
• ResNet connection problem troubleshooting
• Updating drivers
• Common good software such as email, calendar, Moodle, and much more
• General "how do I get started with...." questions.

Technology help services also offer support and service by telephone, email, or chat. For additional information, visit www.oit.umn.edu/help, or call (612) 301-4357 (1-HELP on campus).

Posted 7:28 AM | Permalink

As a reminder, the CMS Implementation Project includes two major components:

• A major Moodle upgrade, from version 1.9 to 2.0


• Transitioning away from offering two Course Management Systems, Moodle and WebVista, to offering a sole CMS, Moodle

We intend to make Moodle 2.0 available beginning August 15, which will allow a full year for users to transition away from WebVista and/or upgrade their Moodle 1.9 courses. Moodle 2.0 will be the sole CMS as of September 1, 2012. To see a graphic depiction of the CMS Implementation Timeline, visit the Moodle website.

OIT Help and Support efforts for the CMS Implementation include a full range of services from collegiate and departmental planning services, to individual consultation, to technology training, and technical support.

For more detailed updates, you are welcome to attend the CMS Implementation Group quarterly meeting next Thursday, August 4, from 10:00-11:30 a.m. in room 101 Walter Library. (No RSVP required) or visit the Moodle website.

Posted 9:37 AM | Permalink

Due to the University's continued increase in JMP usage, OIT is, for the second year in a row, pleased to announce that we were able to lower the price for individual and departmental yearly license fees, effective July 1. In addition, we added a collegiate level of JMP licensing. An individual license now is $10 per year, down from $15 and previously $45, a departmental coverage license is now $250 per year, down from $500 and previously $2,100) and the new collegiate coverage license is $500 per year. Complete information on the University's program is found on the UTools website.

JMP (pronounced "jump") is a statistical computer program that performs simple and complex statistical analysis. It dynamically links statistics with graphics to interactively explore, understand, and visualize data. This allows you to click on any point in a graph, and see the corresponding data point highlighted in the data table, and other graphs. JMP can work with a variety of data formats, such as text files, Microsoft Excel files, SAS datasets, and ODBC-compliant databases. For more information, visit JMP Wikipedia entry.

Posted 9:24 AM | Permalink

The Office of Information Technology offers a number of technology training courses. Please visit the Technology Training website for a complete listing of courses.

Relational Database Design Basics
Aug 2, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Seminar

Excel 2007: Managing and Analyzing Data
Aug 2, 4, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Windows

Mobile-Friendly Webpages
Aug 2, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Macintosh/Windows

Access 2007: Basic Database Development
Aug 3, 4, 5, 9:30 AM-12:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

SAS Programming I - Essentials
Aug 3, 4, 10, 11, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

Moodle 1.9: Collaboration
Aug 3, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Web Development: Essentials - XHTML
Aug 3, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Collaborating with Web-Based Tools
Aug 5, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Web Development: Essentials - Cascading Style Sheets
Aug 9, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Wikis: Collaborative Content Development
Aug 10, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Macintosh/Windows

Google Apps: Collaborating in the University Environment
Aug 11, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Web Development: Dreamweaver CS5 Basics
Aug 12, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Video Production: Creating Effective Short Videos
Aug 16, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Windows

Excel 2007: Spreadsheet Basics
Aug 17, 18, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Windows

Moodle 1.9: Creating Basic Course Websites
Aug 17, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Macintosh/Windows

Web Development: Essentials - XHTML
Aug 17, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Google Calendar: Effectively Managing your Calendar for Executive Assistants
Aug 19, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Moodle 1.9: Assignments and Quizzes
Aug 23, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Excel 2007: Managing and Analyzing Data
Aug 24, 25, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Windows

SAS Programming II- Data Manipulation Techniques
Aug 24, 25, 31, Sept 1, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

Posted 9:13 AM | Permalink

2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Science Teaching and Student Services, room 131B
Twin Cites/East Bank

Register

"The Effects of Cloud Computing on your Business, Reducing Cost and Complexity" is planned for 2-3:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 8, in room 131B of the Science Teaching and Student Services Building.

Please join Steven Loeschorn, senior IT consultant with the IBM Executive Briefing Center to discuss how IBM's x86 systems can help keep costs and complexity under control.

The seminar will focus on the business impact and financial analysis of cloud computing. How does your business manage the public cloud, the private cloud and hybrid cloud? IBM's experts will lead you through the decision process to determine what the effects of each cloud offering has on your bottom line.

Seminar topics include:

• Cloud definitions (public vs. private vs. hybrid)


• Integration of multiple system platforms into the cloud (x86, Power, Mainframe


• Complexity control by implementing a fully integrated solution


• How to determine the financial impact of cloud computing on your organization


• IBM's approach to cloud computing and examples of successful implementations that reduced operating expense. and capital expense

This seminar is focused NOT on technology (speeds/feeds), but on the business case and impact of implementing a cloud solution. The event is sponsored by OIT.

Posted 9:02 AM | Permalink