In general, Moodle 1.9 and Moodle 2 are quite similar, but there are some important differences. To help you quickly learn about what has changed, OIT's Technology Training has prepared both a one-hour seminar and a series of short videos. Choose the format that works best for your schedule and learning style; the content is the same.

Topics include:

• The new way to display blocks
• The new Navigation and Settings blocks
• Similarities and differences in the ways files are managed in the two versions
• The new way to restrict access to parts of your site until prerequisite activities are completed
• A brief look at some interface changes

Posted 4:48 PM | Permalink

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) invites and encourages University of Minnesota instructors to move their WebVista and Moodle 1.9 course sites to Moodle 2 for Spring Semester. Moodle 2 has been available at the University since August 15. Its improved interface makes the course design process easier and more intuitive for instructors and designers.

If you have not done so already, contact the IT and/or academic support staff in your college or department to learn about support services available to help ease your transition. Remember, WebVista and Moodle 1.9 will be decommissioned on August 31, 2012.

• WebVista users - Learn more about the transition process, help and support options, and request a course site at www.oit.umn.edu/moodle/transition.


• Moodle 1.9 users - Learn more about the upgrade process, help and support options, and request a course site at www.oit.umn.edu/moodle/upgrade.

If you have questions or concerns regarding the transition or upgrade to Moodle 2, please send an email to CMSTRANS@lists.umn.edu.

Posted 4:27 PM | Permalink

Issue
At 10:45 a.m. the University became isolated from the Internet, and off campus users were unable to connect to the University network or websites. This condition was resolved for most users by 12:45 p.m., and for all other users by approximately 4 p.m. The network on campus was still functioning throughout this time period.

Cause
A change was scheduled at 5 a.m. and was completed by 8 a.m. This change is designed to re-organize and streamline our Internet borders. At 10:45 a.m., one of the University's main routers for Internet access with a local Internet service provider (ISP) failed, and our provider thought it was still up, even though content and web pages were not loading for off campus users.

Resolution
The condition was resolved by forcing another provider to assume the traffic and forcing out the provider who was associated with the malfunctioning router. The malfunctioning router also services direct peering with certain ISPs such as IP House, US Internet, Visi, and Access Media 3. Users were unable to connect to University websites via these and other ISPs throughout the afternoon. As our engineers received reports of which ISPs still did not work throughout the afternoon, they shut down our peering connections with those providers.

The engineers who performed the earlier change to our borders immediately began troubleshooting to uncover the cause of the disruption. They felt this service disruption was caused by the earlier change, so they worked for several hours to investigate and completely back out of the change to restore our infrastructure to its original state. The engineers gathered logs with the vendor, and the vendor helped identify a main routing table that was overloaded and caused the router to become unstable. They worked to back out of the entire change, and they rebooted the failed router per the vendor recommendation. The change was completely back out and all services deemed stable by 7 p.m.

Timeline of Events

• October 30, 2011, 5 a.m. -- Border change started


• October 30, 2011, 8 a.m. -- Border change completed


• October 30, 2011, 10:45 a.m. -- Router failure began


• October 30, 2011, 10:50 a.m. -- Network engineers still on site began troubleshooting


• October 30, 2011, 12:45 p.m. -- Network engineers recovered services

• Evaluate the change to understand if this could have caused this failure


• Work with the vendor to evaluate if the root cause is related to hardware or software


• Continue to evaluate why redundancies did not function correctly to prevent service disruption


• Re-evaluate in the test environment


• Validate with the vendor these changes


• Reschedule the change for another weekend with adjusted plans

Posted 2:28 PM | Permalink

The Office of Information Technology released a new support website for UMConnect. The new site includes a user guide section that replaces the FAQs that were on the old site. The user guide is better organized and enables users to easily find the information they need.

UMConnect enables University faculty, staff, and eligible graduate students (e.g., teaching assistants) to host on-demand web presentations and to communicate and collaborate through web conferences and webcasts at no cost.

Posted 11:25 AM | Permalink

On Thursday, October 27, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) added Google+ to Google Apps at the University of Minnesota, making it available to students, faculty, and staff who already have a University Google account--except accounts affiliated with the Health Care Components (HCC. In doing so, the U of M became one of only 22 universities worldwide that brought Google+ to campus on the launch date.

Google+ enables users to connect with colleagues at the University and beyond. One of the most anticipated features is the Google+ "Hangout," which enables up to 10 people to have a video chat together.

Google+ will enhance collaboration on campus in many ways:

• Students can share their thoughts with a project group, friends, or family circle; have a Hangout with up to nine classmates for meetings or study sessions; and keep up with connections from a mobile device.
• Faculty can host virtual office hours in Hangouts; share information with their class circles; and share published articles with those that might be interested.
• Staff can use Hangouts to meet with a distributed team; share information with a project circle; and keep in touch with colleagues, students, and faculty.

"We hope that by deploying tools like this for the University, people will discover new ways to collaborate and innovate," said Ann Hill Duin, OIT's interim vice president and chief information officer. "I personally look forward to using the multi-point video conferencing feature to collaborate with colleagues systemwide."

For more information about what you can do with Google+ and how to get started, visit the Google Apps for the University support site at www.oit.umn.edu/google.

Please note that Google+ will not be available at this time to those in the Google Apps for Health Care Component (HCC) sub-domain.

Posted 11:13 AM | Permalink

Join us for World Usability Day, Designing for Social Change, on Thursday, November 10 in 402 Walter Library.

The event kicks off at 9:45 a.m. with Beth Fraser, director of governmental affairs for the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State. She will review her case study on organized testing of the usability of absentee ballots in the State of Minnesota. We will see how this study increased the likelihood of the successful submission of votes by absentee citizens, including soldiers serving overseas.

The afternoon presentation begins at 1:00 p.m. with Matt Diamanti, senior director of UX for the Mayo Clinic. He will delve into how a designer's worldview affects how effectively he or she serves the needs of users, with a specific focus on healthcare and the Mayo Clinic.

For the evening portion, the Minnesota chapter of the Usability Professionals Association has arranged for a presentation by Thomas J. Smith, lecturer for the University of Minnesota School of Kinesiology. He will speak about the importance of usability and learning environment design in student learning outcomes at 7:00 p.m. in 330 Science Teaching and Student Services. A buffet dinner is included and will be served prior to the meeting at 6:00 p.m.

These events are free and open to the public. No reservation is required.

Schedule of Events

Posted 9:38 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 training courses.

November Technology Training Opportunities

Collaborating with Web-Based Tools
Nov 1, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Moodle 2.0: Creating Basic Course Websites
Nov 2, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Excel 2010: Managing and Analyzing Data
Nov 2, 4, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

Moodle 2.0: Grades
Nov 3, 1:00 PM-4:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Web Development: Dreamweaver CS5 Basics
Nov 3, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Macintosh/Windows

Mobile-Friendly Webpages
Nov 4, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Google Docs Overview
Nov 4, 2:00 PM-3:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Seminar

Google Calendar: Effectively Managing your Calendar for Executive Assistants
Nov 8, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Moodle 2.0: What's Different from Moodle 1.9?
Nov 8, 1:30 PM-2:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Seminar

Web Accessibility Issues and Techniques
Nov 8, 1:30 PM-3:00 PM
Walter Library 210
Seminar

Google Apps: Collaborating in the University Environment - Hands-on
Nov 9, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Macintosh/Windows

Web Development: Essentials - XHTML
Nov 10, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Gmail and Google Calendar - Learning Byte
Nov 10, 1:30 PM-2:00 PM
Nov 10, 2:15 PM-2:45 PM
Nov 10, 3:00 PM-3:30 PM
Nov 10, 3:45 PM-4:15 PM
Tech Stop, 1st Floor Coffman Memorial Union
Seminar

Visio 2010: Creating Process Maps
Nov 10, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

Moodle 2.0: Creating Basic Course Websites
Nov 15, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

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

Excel 2010: Managing and Analyzing Data
Nov 15, 17, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

Moodle 2.0: Assignments and Quizzes
Nov 16, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Macintosh/Windows

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

Moodle 2.0: Collaboration
Nov 17, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

Geographic Information Systems: Analyzing Data and Creating Maps
Nov 18, 8:30 AM-4:30 PM
Wilson Library S30C
Windows

Web Development: Essentials - XHTML
Nov 29, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Walter Library 210
Macintosh/Windows

UMContent: Contributor Basics
Nov 29, 1:30 PM-4:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Macintosh/Windows

Relational Database Design Basics
Nov 29, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Seminar

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

Access 2007/2010: Basic Database Development
Nov 30, Dec, 1,2, 9:30 AM-12:00 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

Excel 2007/2010: Spreadsheet Basics
Nov 30, Dec 2, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM
Humphrey Center 50a
Windows

Posted 9:12 AM | Permalink

Garfield Bowen, director in the Office of Information Technology (OIT) Project Management Office (PMO), recently was elected 2013 president of the Minnesota Chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI-MN). He was elected to a three-year term that begins in January 2012 as President-Elect and COO, and continues through 2014 as Past President.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) is the world's leading not-for-profit membership association for the project management profession, with more than half a million members and credential holders in more than 185 countries. The Minnesota chapter is one of the largest chapters of PMI with approximately 3,300 members. The vision of PMI-MN is to provide value to members and the community through opportunities for career development and to advocate the advancement of the project management profession and its disciplines.

In addition, the U of M PMO website now is listed on the Educause website, which features PMO sites from universities across the country. This website, www.educause.edu/wiki/PMO+Web+Sites, is used to help others manage projects and PMOs within their organizations.

Posted 10:42 AM | Permalink

A story featuring the U's Active Learning Classrooms appears in the Thursday, Oct. 13 issue of The Minnesota Daily, and highlights the Office of Information Technology's (OIT) research in that area. http://www.mndaily.com/2011/10/13/active-learning-classes-garner-attention.

Posted 12:37 PM | Permalink

Faculty, instructors and course designers can sign-up for one-on-one or small group 30-minute appointments for tutoring at the Coffman Union Tech Stop.

Posted 5:14 PM | Permalink

Jamil Jabr, manager of Office of Information Technology (OIT) computing facilities, was presented with an award at this year's Access Achievement Awards celebration, held on October 10. University of Minnesota Disability Services holds this event annually. The awards recognize University faculty and staff who support and advance accessibility at the University. The recipients go above and beyond the expected to bring the University closer to being fully accessible for everyone.

Jamil and his team were recognized for their work with Disabilities Services to ensure that OIT computing facilities provide access for students with disabilities. Thanks to Jamil and his team, as well as a strong partnership with Disabilities Services, students with disabilities have access to the JAWS screen reader, ZoomText screen magnifier, and Kurzweil scan and read systems on all computers designated for general student use in OIT computing facilities. These applications enable students with disabilities to do their course work and collaborate with their peers.

The software provided in computer labs can be expensive, so it is necessary to make the OIT budget go further. Jamil and his team accomplish this by leveraging software licensing management (SLM) technology. OIT strives to provide software to all students in the same way, whenever possible. With SLM technology, OIT can install software to all of our computers, but by managing the number of concurrent users at any given time, we can legally reduce the number of licenses we need to purchase. For example, if we own 20 licenses for the JAWS screen reader, we can install it to 100's of machines, but only 20 people can use it concurrently. The 21st person will wait in a queue and get access to the software as soon as one of the 20 people using it log off. The number of licenses purchased is based on average use that is monitored by the SLM system.

Our thanks to Jamil and his staff for their creative solutions, integrity, and hard work!

Posted 9:36 AM | Permalink

Do you have an idea for a mobile app? Are you willing to see your idea through and actually launch a new app? The University of Minnesota App Challenge is your opportunity to do just that, and have the opportunity to win big prizes.

How it works
If you have an idea for an app, we want to hear it.

Pitch your idea to us, and we will select five apps to compete in the challenge. If yours is one of the five chosen, you will receive guidance and financial help to bring your app from concept to reality. Don't have the programing skills? Gather a team! Have the vision and the skills? Give it a go yourself!

Remember, all you need is an idea. We'll help you take care of the rest.

Win!
The winning team will receive funding to attend a major industry conference such as Apple's World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) or Google I/O.

Kickoff event
We'll help get you started. Join us from 5:00-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 18, in 101 Walter Library. We'll provide free pizza, describe what we expect from your apps, and share tips on how to effectively pitch your idea. Coordinate campus students can attend via UMConnect.

More details can be found on our Mobile App Challenge website.

Posted 4:18 PM | Permalink

NetFiles is an online file storage tool that provides 5 GB of storage to all current students, staff, and faculty. This enables you to securely store and share files on a University server that has been approved for storing private and protected data. Learn more about NetFiles by attending a 20-minute Learning Byte session at the Tech Stop or by viewing a series of short videos online.

Posted 11:04 AM | Permalink

Business Intelligence (BI) enables improved, evidence-based decision making by collecting, analyzing, and leveraging data. The Office of Planning and Analysis (OPA) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) are engaged in an initiative that will advance BI at the University of Minnesota through improved processes, tools, and collaboration.

BI can provide decision makers at all levels of the University with relevant, accurate, and consistent data, as well as the tools and skills to analyze them. Examples of ways in which BI can be useful include: monitoring and predicting enrollment to inform course scheduling and support, and analyzing unit spending by category or item to enable more effective resource allocation.

The University is using Oracle's Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) toolset, which we are branding "UM Analytics," to support a continuum of analytical needs. With UM Analytics, users will be able to create standard reports, ad hoc reports, alerts and analysis, forecasting and predictive modeling. UM Analytics is scheduled to launch in early 2012, after the completion of a three-month pilot focusing on financial content. The financial pilot began in mid-September with volunteer participants from a number of different employee groups, business roles, colleges, campuses, and departments.

In the coming months, we will share stories from staff and faculty at the University who have used BI principles to improve their decision making. In addition, town hall meetings will be held to share information with the University community and to provide a forum for discussion and feedback about BI. To stay up-to-date with all BI information and activities, please join the listserv at BI-IMPLEMENTATION-request@LISTS.UMN.EDU.

If you have any questions about the BI initiative at the University, please send them in an email to opa@umn.edu.

Posted 12:37 PM | Permalink

President Eric W. Kaler was inaugurated as the 16th President of the University of Minnesota on Thursday, Sept. 22. In addition to the live audience in Ted Mann Concert Hall, 2,643 unique viewers watched the inauguration in a live broadcast using UMN Live Stream.

President Kaler's inauguration speech is available online. In addition, video of the inaugural ceremony in its entirety is available for viewing. A shorter summary of the speech can be read at "Fulfilling a Promise."

Posted 12:24 PM | Permalink

Please join us for the next University Video Users Community (UVUC) quarterly meeting on Friday, October 28 from 9 - 11 a.m. in 402 Walter Library. The agenda will include a media management update and demo as well as a HD video conferencing update. Please RSVP for this event here. If you are unable to attend in person, please join us online at umconnect.umn.edu/uvuc.

Posted 10:17 AM | Permalink