In a recent survey by the Campus Computing Project, 30 percent of the respondents identified data and network security as the single most important information technology issue facing their institutions. These survey results come as no big surprise in light of the highly publicized security breaches at dozens of higher educations institutions and companies like LexixNexus and the Choice Point data services.

What is ITS Doing on the Security Front?
Shoring up the defenses against unauthorized access to campus computing resources is a continuous process and high priority for ITS. We recently completed several large projects that target enhanced security. Our approach is multi-pronged, spanning user education, best practices for desktop and centralized computing management, an arsenal of defensive tools on the network, anti-virus and operating patch management procedures among other initiatives.

Last summer we converted campus databases from using social security numbers as identifiers. An audit of Banner user accounts and permission classifications is currently underway. As part of this process, accounts identified as no longer in use have been disabled and will be removed. We have recently implemented strong passwords in Banner, passwords consisting of at least six characters that are a combination of letters, numbers and symbols.

We also recently completed the rollout of three secure options for accessing campus computing resources from off campus. These remote access options provide for secure access to email, network file storage (Louise) and Banner.

On the user education front, clients are reminded on a regular basis to protect confidential data on campus servers. It is the responsibility of every campus computer user to become knowledgeable on who has access to data stored on desktop, departmental or central servers. Reviewing file permissions each semester is a good and recommended practice.

Proposed Policy for Computer and Data Security
Over the course of Spring semester, we plan to begin a series of conversations with the Academic Computing Committee (ACC), the Joint Committee on Information Technology (JCIT), and the Principal Executive Staff (PES) on a Computer and Data Security policy for Davidson. The policy will set forth the mechanism by which data stored on College-owned computing systems and utilized by College employees and students is secured and protected.

Success in this area will ultimately depend on each of us acting in a way that protects the information resources of the College.

Mur Muchane

Below please find information on a range of NITLE programs open for registration and participation. Please note also the calls for interest included here. We post such calls to gauge interest and to identify faculty and staff who may wish to help shape programming or projects in those areas.

The contact information for questions is: Alex.Wirth-Cauchon@NITLE.org or 734 661 2312.

Extreme Makeover: Collegiate Edition—Understanding, Defining and Managing Accessibility to Technology at Your College or University, March 23 – 24, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York
Collaborative and Technology-Assisted Approaches to Teaching Arabic, March 24 – 26, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana
Student Music Composition Contest: Submissions Due
ARTStor Workshop, April 13, The University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia
History Collaboration: Call for Interest, For historians at NITLE participating colleges who teach about the American South
Virtual Latin Tutor: Call for Interest

Extreme Makeover: Collegiate Edition—Understanding, Defining and Managing Accessibility to Technology at Your College or University
Thursday, March 23 (9:30 a.m.) ­– Friday, March 24 (1:00 p.m.)
Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York

For instructional technologists and/or other administrators at NITLE participating colleges responsible for developing and administering accessibility plans for student and faculty spaces

Local and regional experts will discuss the topic of accessibility to technology and the legal, ethical, and practical requirements that Universities and Colleges face when creating technology spaces. What impact does accessibility have on lab spaces? What devices are most practical and most effective in meeting law or standards? Are there ADA standards and what are our legal requirements? These questions and more will be answered in this important set of sessions on a matter we all face in the technology field. By hearing from legal experts, colleagues, and advocates for the disabled, both instructional technologists and other college administrators can learn and act upon our accessibility issues in the collegiate setting.

This event is one of a set funded by the last round of grants issued by the Center for Educational Technology.

Registration deadline
Open to first 20 MANE respondents and first five respondents from NITLE participating colleges outside the MANE region. NITLE will cover the full costs of event participation including travel, lodging and meals.

Register online

http://pages.slc.edu/~support/conference/

More details

http://nitle.org/index.php/nitle/opportunities/anticipate/extreme_
makeover_collegiate_edition_understanding_defining_and_
managing_accessibility_to_technology_at_your_college_or_university

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Collaborative and Technology-Assisted Approaches to Teaching Arabic
Friday, March 24 (4 p.m.) – Sunday, March 26 (lunch)
DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana

For faculty, chief academic officers, and other staff members at NITLE participating colleges who are interested in introducing curricular offerings—or enhancing their institutions’ current offerings—in the Arabic language and developing collaborative approaches to teaching Arabic. Teams composed of a faculty member and an academic officer are encouraged.

Participants from affiliated colleges and universities will meet to discuss their shared interests in beginning to teach or enhancing curricular offerings in Arabic. During this meeting, interested faculty, staff and administrators will consider current offerings at participating colleges as well as in higher education more generally, and learn about some of the technological tools available to assist in the learning and instruction of the language.

A follow up discussion will be held to consider what solutions might be most useful on each campus, and the degree to which technology assisted collaboration may be useful in implementing them.

Sponsored by Al-Musharaka, a NITLE collaboration advancing teaching and curricular development in Arab, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies

Registration deadline
Friday, February 24

Registration process

Interested faculty should submit their names to their campus liaison. Liaisons should forward names and e-mail addresses of approved participants to Alex Wirth-Cauchon at alex.wirth-cauchon@nitle.org. NITLE will cover the full costs of event participation including travel, lodging and meals.

More details

Contact Michael Toler, meeting leader

Relevant links

http://almusharaka.nitle.org

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Student Music Composition Contest: Submissions Due

Student composers enrolled at NITLE-participating colleges and universities are invited to submit scores for the fifth annual Student Composition Contest. Undergraduate composers at participating colleges benefit from the opportunity to have their work evaluated. Winning compositions will be performed professionally at the Music Technology Workshop & New Music Festival in June 2006.

This opportunity is offered by the Orpheus Alliance, a NITLE collaboration advancing teaching, performance and composition in music. Contact Patricia Gray for more information.

Sponsored by the Orpheus Alliance, a NITLE collaboration advancing teaching, performance and composition in music

Submissions due
March 10, 2006

For more information about eligibility, guidelines, deadlines, and formats for submission, please visit http://www.colleges.org/techcenter/music/contest.html.

Relevant links

http://orpheusalliance.nitle.org

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ARTStor Workshop

Thursday, April 13 (afternoon), introductory workshop
The University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia

For faculty, librarians, technologists, and other staff members from NITLE participating colleges who are interested in using ARTstor in teaching or other campus work and who are new or relatively new to using ARTstor. This workshop is especially appropriate for those whose institutions have subscribed to ARTstor.

Friday, April 14 (morning), advanced workshop
The University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia

For faculty, librarians, technologists, and other staff members from NITLE participating colleges who are already experienced at using ARTstor but want to learn in more detail how to use its advanced tools. This workshop is especially appropriate for those whose institutions have subscribed to ARTstor.

In the introductory workshop on April 13, participants are introduced to the basics of ARTstor's functionality so that they can begin using it. The workshop, which begins with an overview of the ways in which liberal arts colleges are using ARTstor institutionally, covers the nature of ARTstor, ARTstor's users, and its basic functions. It includes a hands-on demonstration of the ARTstor Digital Library Charter Collection and familiarizes participants with the tools to use the images actively for educational and scholarly activities. Participants will explore the three levels of usage—unregistered user, registered user, and instructor—and will create image groups as a registered user. The presenter will also demonstrate the use of the Offline Image Viewer 2.5, an ARTstor classroom presentation tool. Participants will work hands-on with basic features of the offline image viewer.

In the workshop for advanced users on April 14, participants who are already using the basic features of ARTstor will have the opportunity to work with advanced features and tools such as the Offline Image Viewer and the Personal Collection Tool.

Registration deadline
Monday, March 13

Registration process

Interested faculty should submit their names to their campus liaison. Liaisons should forward names and e-mail addresses of approved participants to Alex Wirth-Cauchon at alex.wirth-cauchon@nitle.org. NITLE will cover the full costs of event participation including travel, lodging and meals.

More details

Contact Bret Olsen, workshop leader, bret.olsen@nitle.org

Relevant links

www.artstor.org

http://codex.nitle.org

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History Collaboration: Call for Interest

For historians at NITLE participating colleges who teach about the American South

NITLE has entered into discussions with colleagues at the University of Virginia's Center for Digital History regarding possible participation in a project that involves students in the collaborative development of resources for the study of southern American History.

The project operates in two dimensions:

1) students are involved in researching and developing entries for a database of events in southern history

2) the entries are geo-referenced so that maps can be created showing the distribution of certain types of events across space and time

Students use this map interface as a means of accessing the entire collection of database entries, using patterns suggested by the maps as a starting point for research projects that explore trends in southern history.

To explore the database and the maps and access the detailed syllabus, please see http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/SHD/

To express interest in participation

Contact Nancy Millichap, nancy.millichap@nitle.org

Pending substantial interest, NITLE will hold a meeting in Spring 2006 to explore possible involvement with this project.

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Virtual Latin Tutor: Call for Interest

Sunoikisis, a NITLE collaboration advancing teaching, curricular development and scholarship in Classical Studies, is exploring the development of a Virtual Latin Tutor. Latin tutors at individual campuses would collaborate to staff the Virtual Tutor.

Tutors would commit to log in to AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) for certain, set hours. During this time, they would make themselves available to answer questions from students of Latin at their own or other NITLE-participating colleges and universities. Sunoikisis would provide a wiki for longer text discussions so that students could post longer passages and both student and tutor could edit them. Faculty at participating institutions would be responsible for distributing the AIM username and wiki URL to their students.

Departments already paying for tutors of Latin or exploring their options in this area may be especially interested in exploring the development of this collaborative program.

To express interest in participation

Contact Rebecca Davis, rebecca.davis@nitle.org

Relevant links

http://sunoikisis.nitle.org

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Alex Wirth-Cauchon, Ph.D.
Participant Relations
NITLE: National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education
535 W. William
Suite 302
Ann Arbor, MI 48103

E-mail: alex.wirth-cauchon@nitle.org

voice: 734-661-2312
fax: 734-761-3939
mobile: 734-678-0183

aim:alexatnitle
http://www.nitle.org

ITS offers three methods to faculty and staff for getting to your important information from off-campus. That information can be your email using the Outlook full client, files on Louise, or confidential information on Banner or another server. All of these methods provide secure access for your connection. Note: Entourage does not need any special configuration to access the email server from off-campus.

Methods for secure remote access:

RPC over HTTP - Remote Procedure Calls over HyperText Transfer Protocol - allows use of the full Outlook client.
WebDAV - Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning - provides access to files on Louise.
VPN - Virtual Private Network - gives you access like you were on campus.

Hewlett Packard (HP) Printers
Under the terms of our printer service agreement with OfficeMax, Davidson College is eligible to receive one Preventive Maintenance Inspection per networked printer per year at no charge. This free service applies to networked HP printers purchased through ITS.

To request the inspection, complete the OfficeMax Printer Service form. The username is DAVIDSON (or any combination of capital and/or lower case letters). The password is COLLEGE. Click on "Order Service" and request an "annual preventive maintenance inspection" in the problem field. Click on the Save button to submit your request.

Konica Printers

If you purchased a Konica printer from Carolina Office Systems, preventive maintenance is part of their routine service. Their technicians will clean and inspect systems on service calls as part of their routine procedures. If preventive maintenance is needed at other times, a message will display in the window on the printer. Call Carolina Office Systems to request maintenance. Refer to the sticker on the printer for the phone number and other necessary information.

If you notice that a system, network, or telephone service is down, you may wonder if you should report the problem. Below, we have provided information about times you might expect service to be down due to regular maintenance. We have also highlighted some Web pages that report maintenance schedules and server status. Hopefully this will help you decide if you should report a service outage.

Does the service problem occur during a time when regular maintenance is scheduled for the service? System, Network and Telephones/Voice mail devices may periodically be rebooted between 5:00 and 8:00 AM without notification. Voice mail maintenance is routinely performed the first Friday of each month between 7:00 am and 8:00 AM.

Is there a posting on the web about the outage you are seeing? Check the Downtime and Outages Web page to see if there is a scheduled maintenance outside of the normal maintenance window.

If the time is outside of a maintenance window and no special announcement about the service being down has been made, please check the Server Status web page to see if the service is active, inactive or under repair. Any service without a green check mark is known to be problematic and is being addressed by ITS staff.

These web pages will help you determine if you should report a problem to the Help Desk. Please also know that ITS uses a number of different monitoring systems to determine if there are problems with services and, if there are, selected staff members are notified.

Recently, a major security flaw was discovered in Firefox 1.5. This flaw allows malicious persons to gain control of Mac OS X or Linux computers running Firefox 1.5 and run code at their discretion. This flaw is fixed in version 1.5.0.1.

If you are using Firefox, please verify that you are running version 1.5.0.1. You can download the latest version from www.mozilla.com, or by opening Firefox and selection Help | Check for Upgrades. Mozilla rates this flaw as critical. If you have not already upgraded your copy of Firefox, please do so ASAP. While ITS does not support this application, the threat is serious enough that we wanted anyone who uses this software to be aware of the problem.

You may wish to forward a caller directly to another faculty or staff member's voice mail.

For Faculty / Staff Phones

While the caller is on the line, press the Transfer (or TRANS) button. This will place the caller on hold.
Dial x2579
When the system answers press * 8.
Enter the extension or voice mailbox number (generally the same) of the party for whom the message is intended.
Press Transfer (or CONN) a second time, and hang up. The caller will be transferred to the person's mailbox.
If you work in an enviroment where multiple extensions ring on more then one phone and you have answered one of these calls:

While the caller is on the line, press the Transfer (or TRANS) button. This will place the caller on hold.
Dial the extension; since it is busy, voice mail will answer. Call waiting may give unpredictable results.
Press Transfer (or CONN) a second time, and hang up. The caller will be transferred to the person's mailbox.
For Student Phones
Note: Not all models will work the same.

While the caller is on the line, press the flash button or hook switch to transfer.
Dial x2579
When the system answers press * 8.
Enter the extension or voice mailbox number (generally the same) of the party for whom the message is intended.
Press flash a second time, and hang up. The caller will be transferred to the person's mailbox.

ITS has put processes into place to protect your data including passwords, permissions, anti-virus software, and firewalls. Much of the protection is configured into the computer setup, but by far the most important area to focus on in securing computer data is the people that touch the computers.

Being careful with passwords is extremely important but password security cannot be configured into the computer setup. Because of this, all users need to be aware and watchful. One security vulnerability occurs when someone appears to need legitimate information, but in fact, uses the information for malicious purposes. This is called the "social engineering scenario."

In this scenario, someone trying to gain unauthorized access to our systems or network will contact one or more people and ply them for information. In the beginning the questions may be for names and phone numbers and enough information to sound knowledgeable and legitimate. Then they may use information gained to pose as an insider and ask more pointed questions. So, when you are confronted with someone who appears legitimate and gives a very convincing story and asks for your password, consider that you might be facing a trap to compromise security. Many people fall prey and never even realize it. Know who you are dealing with and verify they are legitimate before revealing confidential and protected information.

ITS is pleased to announce wide-scale availability for the newest revision of Mac OS X, version 10.4.5 -- also known as Tiger. This newest version of the operating system offers several news tools, including Widgets and the new Spotlight search tool, as well as the usual crop of speed and stability enhancements.

This upgrade is not currently required, but is highly recommended for all users. To upgrade, your machine must be at least a PowerMac G4 running at 450MHz or faster. You should have a minimum of 512MB of RAM, and at least a 20GB hard disk. Not sure if your system meets the specifications required? Call Brian Little at x2429 and he can help you find out.

If you're ready to upgrade, service is on a first-come, first-served basis. Request the upgrade by completing this form, and someone will contact you to schedule your install. If you have questions, please contact Brian Little, and he'll be happy to help.

Davidson's virtual private network (VPN) service is now available to Macintosh users. This service allows computers that are not physically wired to the Davidson campus network to be treated as if they were, with full access to all network resources -- email, file servers, etc. In this way, off-campus computers can function as full members of the College network.

To use the VPN connection software, you must have a Power Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.2 or better (10.3 or better is recommended). To request the connection software, please complete this form. ITS will send you a service agreement to be signed and returned. After the agreement is on file, you will receive instructions for downloading and installing the software -- a simple six-step process.

Once the VPN software is installed and your computer is connected to the Internet, three clicks will tie you into the Davidson network and open up your computer's access to our network resources!

As always, if you have any questions about this service, please contact Brian Little.

Public Labs

If you need to compute over spring break, then you're probably wondering what the ITS public lab hours will be.

The Student Computing Center and the Tomlinson 3rd Floor Lab will be open 24/7. As usual, you will need your CatCard to gain entrance to the labs.
The ITS lab in the Library will be open according to the Library schedule.
The Knobloch Campus Center 4th floor facilities will be open according to the Union's schedule.
The Windows Computer Classroom (CHA 3130) will be closed from Friday, Feb. 24-Saturday, March 4. It will reopen on Sunday, March 5 from 1:00pm-1:00am.

Please note that student staffing will be inconsistent, so if you find that the printers need supplies or there are other problems with the lab or the equipment, please call x2900 and report the situation to the ITS Help Desk.
The ResNet Office

The ResNet office will be closed from Friday, Feb. 24-Saturday, March 4 for spring break. During this time, ResNet email and voicemail will be checked by ITS professional staff, but only emergencies will be dealt with. If you have an emergency, please make that clear in your message and state the nature of the emergency. It will reopen Sunday, March 5 at 7:00PM.

Have a safe and fun spring break!