We invite you to like "University of Minnesota Information Technology" on Facebook so you can get Office of Information Technology (OIT) news and information as it happens. OIT news releases are posted to our Facebook page throughout the month. This month, we also posted a fun picture from the "Paint the Bridge" event.

"Paint the Bridge" gives departments, colleges, and student organizations the opportunity to paint a panel of the Washington Avenue walking bridge in order to encourage involvement or promote services. This year, OIT's bridge panel--complete with a functioning QR code--promotes face-to-face technology help at Tech Stop in Coffman Memorial Union. The QR code, which in this case leads to the Tech Stop website, can be read by a QR code reader, a free application for mobile devices.

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

October Training Opportunities

Moodle 2.0: What's Different from Moodle 1.9?
Oct 3, 2:30 PM-3:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Seminar

Excel 2007/2010: Spreadsheet Basics
Oct 4, 6, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Windows

Moodle 2.0: Creating Basic Course Websites
Oct 6, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Macintosh/Windows

Web Conferencing for Distance Learners
Oct 7, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Seminar

Gmail: Effectively Managing your Email
Oct 11, 9:30 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Moodle 2.0: Grades
Oct 11, 1:00 PM-4:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Excel 2010: Managing and Analyzing Data
Oct 11, 13, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

Moodle 2.0: Collaboration
Oct 12, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Macintosh/Windows

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

UMConnect 7: Web Conferencing for Meetings
Oct 13, 1:00 PM-4:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Windows

Moodle 2.0: What's Different from Moodle 1.9?
Oct 14, 1:30 PM-2:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Seminar

Moodle 2.0: Assignments and Quizzes
Oct 17, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Google Calendar: Effectively Managing your Calendar
Oct 18, 1:30 PM-4:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Relational Database Design Basics
Oct 18, 1:00 PM-4:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Seminar

Netfiles 7 - Learning Byte
Oct 18, 9:00 AM-9:30 AM
Oct 18, 9:45 AM-10:15 AM
Oct 18, 10:30 AM-11:00 AM
Oct 18, 11:15 AM-11:45 AM
Tech Stop, 1st Floor Coffman Memorial Union
Seminar

Web Development: Essentials - XHTML
Oct 19, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Moodle 2.0: Creating Basic Course Websites
Oct 20, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Macintosh/Windows

Gmail and Google Calendar - Learning Byte
Oct 21, 9:00 AM-9:30 AM
Oct 21, 9:45 AM-10:15 AM
Oct 21, 10:30 AM-11:00 AM
Oct 21, 11:15 AM-11:45 AM
Tech Stop, 1st Floor Coffman Memorial Union
Seminar

Geographic Information Systems: Analyzing Data and Creating Maps
Oct 21, 8:30 AM-4:30 PM
Wilson Library S30C
Windows

Web Development: Essentials - Cascading Style Sheets
Oct 25, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Media Production and Publishing Introduction
Oct 26, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Seminar

Access 2007/2010: Basic Database Development
Oct 26, 27, 28, 1:30 PM-4:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

Excel 2007/2010: Spreadsheet Basics
Oct 26, 27, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

Moodle 2.0: What's Different from Moodle 1.9?
Oct 28, 11:00 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Seminar

Posted 12:15 PM | Permalink

On Friday, September 30, 2011, there will be a change to the University of Minnesota login page. This is the page that you use to log in to University of Minnesota applications such as email, calendar, and Netfiles.

Description of the change
The Office of Information Technology (OIT) is adding a link to this page, which will allow users to create a new guest account. For a visual demonstration of the change, compare the following:

• Old login page
• New login page

Reason for the change
Our current CAH login page deployment has a feature that allows an application to request changes to the appearance of the login page. For example, several applications that allow guest account logins use this feature to enable the display of a "Create a new guest account" button. So when a user attempts to log into an application that allows guest accounts, they see this button on the login page. But when they attempt to log into an application that does not use guest accounts, they do not see this button.

The look and feel of this login page is due for an overhaul to meet new branding and mobile requirements. This update will be implemented when the new CAH -independent Shib implementation goes live in January. This new Shibboleth implementation, however, does not support this feature that allows applications to request changes to the appearance of the login page. Instead, on this new page, there will be a "Create a guest account" link active on the page at all times.

The problem, and the need for this short term change, comes from the fact that a number of applications that require having the guest account button appear on the login screen and have been using this "guestable" feature will be converting to Shib prior to the rollout of the new look and feel. Since we need to have a way to support these applications, we are therefore adding the "Create a guest account" link to all login pages, regardless of whether the application requested it. This is a much more desirable solution than making significant changes to the CAH integration code, considering that CAH is going away at the end of the year.

Posted 2:06 PM | Permalink

Fall semester has started and students are back on campus. The streets and sidewalks are crowded and so are the fast food restaurants. More foot traffic on campus also means more Internet traffic. With thousands of students accessing the Internet, the University must make sure it has the capabilities to serve students' needs.

The Office of Information Technology has installed 4,300 wireless access points on campus, 1,011 over the last year, and 177 of them have been repositioned to get maximum output. To help you understand how important wireless Internet is to the University campus, during the first two days of the fall semester, nearly 400,000 wireless sessions took place.

Currently wireless is only being expanded through customer funded requests. For specific locations of wireless frequency, please see the Wireless Coverage Map.

New students and faculty who need wireless connection assistance may visit the Wireless website or stop by one of our Tech Stop locations.

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This online course is offered by the the Office of Information Technology. After enrolling in this course, you will have access to online training materials directly from the SAS Institute. You will also be able to enroll in optional hands-on lab sessions. For more information and to register, see SAS Programming I & II.

Posted 5:41 PM | Permalink

On Friday, October 7, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM the Office of Information Technology will offer a new workshop that explores using web conferencing software to conduct training or instruction for users anywhere, anytime. Experience using interactive features such as audio and video, whiteboard, polling, content and screen sharing. For more information and to register, see Web Confernecing for Distance Learners.

Posted 2:13 PM | Permalink

There will be a planned twelve-hour interruption to IT services at the University of Minnesota beginning on Saturday, October 1, 2011 at 6:00 p.m., with service restoration beginning on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 6:00 a.m. All services will be restored by noon on Sunday. This service interruption will result from the Office of Information Technology (OIT) shutting down its main data center to perform necessary maintenance, testing, and repairs of facility infrastructure. A full list of the IT services that will be impacted by this work is available.

The Fire Marshal requires that the Emergency Power Off (EPO) and the fire suppression system in the data center be tested. This requires that the data center be powered down to protect the IT equipment from damage. Since this power down is necessary, the OIT data center services team intends to leverage the downtime to fulfill some additional data center activities that are less urgent, but require the power to be off. You can view the full scope of maintenance activities, including the schedule for restoring services.

All affected departments have been consulted and have been planning for this shutdown for the past several months through coordinated efforts with the OIT Change Approval Board and the University of Minnesota IT Leadership Alliance.

Every effort will be taken to ensure that the University community is notified of this service interruption. We ask you to assist us by sharing this message with your own colleges, departments, or administrative units. During the service interruption, updates will be available on the University of Minnesota System Status page.

Posted 3:56 PM | Permalink

October 3, 2011
9:30 - 11:00 a.m.
101 Walter Library: Map It

RSVP Today!

An Adobe PDF is much more than a document destined for the print queue. When it comes to creating and enabling a PDF with underlying "intelligence," Acrobat stands alone in improving educational processes in higher education; from creating research proposals and assembling instructional materials, to improving processes involving collaboration and rich media integration.

Whether you are a student, faculty member, researcher, or administrative professional this in-depth presentation will demonstrate how Acrobat can transform and repurpose existing materials for a more efficient environment for a number of common and complex tasks. Share your questions and successes and come see how everyone can maximize resources and time with the new interface and workflows in Acrobat X.

At the end of this session participants will understand:

• How Acrobat repurposes paper and digital documents


• Techniques for improving efficiencies in distributed environments


• The process of integrating and delivering diverse dynamic content in both single PDF documents or by using the new PDF portfolio tools.


• Data workflows using Acrobat's versatile forms environment


• The key workflows for reducing time and material costs associated with common tasks

Posted 3:07 PM | Permalink

September 20
Noon -- 1:00 p.m.
101 Walter Library
Twin Cities/East Bank

Please join us for the next University Video User Community (UVUC) round table on September 20 from noon - 1:00 p.m. in 101 Walter Library. At this b.y.o.l. (bring your own lunch) event we plan to discuss strategies for storage and retention of large video files as well as best practices concerning video storage on campus. Members of the University Libraries and Archives staff will be on hand to discuss submission of videos to the University Digital Conservancy. If you have experience with video storage and would be willing to facilitate the next UVUC round table, please let Susan Tade know at stade@umn.edu.

If you are unable to attend in person, UMConnect will be available at http://umconnect.umn.edu/uvuc. No RSVP is necessary.

Also, save the date for the UVUC quarterly meeting on October 28 from 9:00 - 11:00 a.m. in 402 Walter Library and stay tuned for more details!

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UMCal is scheduled to be decommissioned Friday, Sept. 30. Effective Oct. 1, UMCal no longer will be available, and Google Calendar will become the University's official calendar.

Users who have migrated to Google already and only use UMCal in order to collaborate with other UMCal users, may disregard the migration
instructions.

Users will not have access to log into UMCal after Sept. 30, and are encouraged to transition to Google Apps for the University of Minnesota before the Sept. 30 decommission date. Sign up is available on the University's Google Apps website. Once users have converted their account to Google, it becomes their official University calendar and email application. Please note that Academic Health Center (AHC) and other Health Care Component (HCC)-related accounts still will NOT be eligible for Google email accounts at this time, and those users will receive additional information soon about transitioning to Google Calendar.

Users who have transitioned to a University Google account and have items in UMCal that they want to place in their new Google calendar, will need to manually export their calendar data file, known as an "ics" file, and import it into Google.

To move information from UMCal to Google Calendar:

1. Using the UMCal desktop client, select File then select Export Data.


2. Choose iCalendar file as the export file format.


3. Click Continue


4. Choose a date range of items to be transferred from UMCal to Google Calendar. Save the file to your desktop. (OIT recommends All).


5. Open the new Google Calendar in a web browser and select Calendar Settings


6. Select the Calendars tab, and then click Import Calendar.


7. Click Browse to locate the exported calendar file created, and select the Google calendar (work, personal, etc) into which the UMCal items should be imported..


8. Click Import. View the new Google Calendar to verify the entries were created

Some limitations of which users should be aware:

• Recurring meetings will export and import but will not be associated with each other, and will appear its own meeting. Users may need to manually add recurring meetings.


• Attendees and resources will not be imported with meetings. Users will need to re-invite attendees and resources.


• Reminder notifications will be sent based on what users set as the default in Google calendar.

Those who do not use the UMCal desktop application, or need assistance your calendar information, should contact OIT Technology Help at (612) 301-4357 (1-HELP on campus).

Those who choose to not migrate their accounts to Google Apps for the University of Minnesota, still will not have access to UMCal or the University's official calendaring system, Google Calendar after Friday, Sept. 30.

Posted 9:30 AM | Permalink