As we settle into a new semester, this seems like an appropriate time to look ahead and share our plans for the coming year. But, first, let's take a quick look back at where we’ve just been. As many of you know, ITS made a special effort this past year to study our organizational structure and revisit everything we do and the services we provide through fresh eyes. Our goal had two components: first, assess how we are doing; and, second, look for ways to improve technology services and support. Your input through our campus surveys and many conversations with faculty and staff have shaped our organization and the delivery of technology services.

Beginning this summer, we transitioned into a new structure comprised of the following five service units:

Application Development - responsible for enterprise systems such as Banner and application integration.

Business Services - responsible for budgeting, contracts, licensing, invoicing, capital projects, and general administrative services.

Instructional Technology and Media Production - responsible for supporting faculty in teaching, learning, and research as well as audiovisual support in and out of the classroom.

Technology Help Services - responsible for the Help Desk, office and residence hall support, and computer labs.

Systems and Networks - responsible for the network, servers, telephones and cable TV.

Now, let's look ahead. This summer members of ITS management spent a productive and enjoyable two days on the campus of Wake Forest doing our strategic planning for the 2006-07 academic year. The goals we emerged with break out into four categories. We will be talking with you about the specific tactical goals in each category as this academic year unfolds.

Client Services and Customer Satisfaction. We plan to introduce new applications including the latest Mac and PC operating systems, Leopard and Vista. We’ve planned information sessions to share all the details of changes coming to your desktop.
Training and User Education. We will partner with the new Human Resource Manager for Learning and Development to institutionalize training on a variety of fronts including Banner, Reporting, Content Management System, etc.
Application Development and Integration. We plan to begin the process of integrating Banner with systems such Blackboard and OneCard.
Enhanced Security/Disaster Recovery/System Resilience. Our goals are to document and perform a full disaster recovery of all mission critical campus systems.

As we did last academic year, we will be out and about on campus in conversation with you, our clients. As we interact with you, a large part of our work will be to listen, learn, and continue to respond.

Mur Muchane

New Banner Team Leader – Alan Chester
Alan Chester has joined the Office of Admissions as the new IT Information Specialist. Alan is a Programmer\Systems Analyst with several years of experience with Banner, SQL, Web Programming and Reporting in the higher education sector.

Update Data Entry Standards
There has been a correction made to the flow charts found on the final two pages of the Data Entry Standard document. The chart now indicates that if the person is an active student, student worker or the parent of an active student BOTH address changes and other data changes (including name, ID, bio/demographic information) should be made by the Registrar.

New “Email Student” Feature Enabled for Faculty
Within Banner Self-Service on Shirley there is a feature "Email Student" that has been enabled. This feature IS NOT part of the pictorial class roster however, when a faculty member signs into Self-Service and look under Faculty Services, Detail Class List and selects one of their classes, it will display all the students in that class. To the right of each student's name, there is an envelope icon. If the envelope is clicked, an email addressed to that student will appear in a separate window.

Banner Training
We are finishing up the first round of Banner 7-101 training with the Mac users on October 5th and one more PC class mid-October. Finding Finance Data and Entering Invoices will be the next Banner 7 training offerings. Dates, times, and locations to be announced.

Managing Duplicate IDs For Non-person Entities
To eliminate duplicate records in the Banner database for vendors, corporations, and other entities a Banner Working Group has been established. This group includes representatives from Business Services, College Relations, Athletics, and ITS. The group has proposed moving to the use of the Employer Identification Number (EIN) also known as a Federal Tax Identification Number as the Banner ID. This is already being done for vendors. Some of questions that the group is looking into include:

· How will regional contacts be tracked, if there is just one ID per organization?

· With one ID per organization, who gets the receipts from donations and pledges?

· How will one find an EIN if the organization doesn’t readily supply it(e.g. Donors)

NOTE: If you are unsure whether or not an organization has an EIN here’s a tool used by the IRS to help you. If you can answer yes to any of the following questions, then you know the organization should have an EIN and you can request it from them.

Does the entity have employees?
Does the entity operate as a corporation or a partnership?
Does the entity file any of these tax returns: Employment, Excise, or Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms?
Does the entity withhold taxes on income, other than wages, paid to a non-resident alien?
Are they involved with any of the following types of organizations?
Trusts, except certain grantor-owned revocable trusts, IRAs, Exempt, Organization Business Income Tax Returns
Estates
Real estate mortgage investment conduits
Non-profit organizations
Farmers' cooperatives

Enterprise Reporting Tool – What’s the status?
In late May, we selected the reporting tool Argos to bring to campus for an internal evaluation. The goals of the evaluation were as follows:

· Determine if Argos meets the College’s needs

· Determine if Argos could run within the current ITS infrastructure

· Determine if users with varying degrees of technical skill could develop parameterized reports (Ad Hoc, formatted, and scheduled) using the tool

· Identify implementation risks, issues, and constraints.

The outcomes of the evaluation are as follows:

· Argos in not the product for the College

· Our existing data warehouse should be updated to improve accessibility to data, improve quality and consistency of reports, and reduce operational maintenance.

Given the outcomes of the evaluation, we will not abandon the reporting tool search instead we will move forward in two phases. The first phase will focus on updating the data warehouse to establish a solid foundation from which to report regardless of the tool chosen. The second phase will focus on the reporting tool selection.

Administrative Data Security Policy
There are several federal regulations that mandate that colleges and universities make every effort to protect administrative data. The Data Protection Act 1998 alone makes it an obligation for colleges and universities to adopt a framework which provides suitable standards of security for all personal data. This year ITS will lead the effort to establish a policy that provides a framework for best operational practices in the Administrative Offices and will ensure that the institution complies with relevant legislation.

To begin development of this policy a work group is being established to serve in an advisory capacity to ITS. Current members include Wanda Underwood (Assistant Registrar), Linda Erickson (Office of Admission and Financial Aid, George Campbell (Institutional Research), Kenitra Smith (Director or Application Development).

Over the summer, we experienced some issues with voice mail that you may want to know more about. To summarize, the issues were:

· Some of our voice mail users who also subscribe to unified messaging experienced delivery issues with voice mail messages left by other Davidson users.

· Some of our users were unable to reach the Help Desk, even though the Help Desk was open.

· Some of our users had corrupted voice mail boxes that had to be re-created.

We want to assure you that we have worked to address all of these problems in one way or another. In general, the root cause was from the same piece of network hardware, now replaced by our vendor. The symptom that so many people noticed happened to be the voice mail issues; however, the actual cause of the problem turned out to be a piece of faulty equipment. In addition to replacing that equipment, we have also taken steps to improve the resilience and failover of all of our core network equipment.

We are finalizing a reconfiguration of the call direction for the Help Desk. The reconfiguration reduces the dependency of that system on network links being operational—an important consideration if the issue someone is trying to report is with the network itself.

Microsoft is preparing the next version of Office for Windows. We are anticipating that Office 2007 (formerly known as Office 12) will be released early in the new year, although Microsoft has not yet announced an official date.

If you would like a preview of what's to come, visit Microsoft's web site and view a demo of the new user interface. It's quite different and very exciting. You may need to install a Flash plug-in to run the demo. Just follow the on-screen instructions.

ITS recommends that you refrain from installing the beta version of Office 2007 on your office computer. The latest beta version is very stable, but may cause unanticipated problems with your system.

Mary Jones is our new Director of Operations and Administrative Services. She oversees ITS business operations including budget coordination, capital project administration, financial analysis and reporting, software licensing, lease and contract management, purchasing, and office management.

Mary is not new to Davidson. She served as WDAV's Administrative Manager prior to joining the ITS staff.

Nikol Dishman is our new Analyst/Technical Lead on the ITS Help Desk. Nikol comes to us from the law firm of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice where she worked for the last eight years. For seven of those years, Nikol staffed their Help Desk. In her new role, Nikol will serve alongside Selah Bunzey and Julie Memrick.

Nikol has a BA in Communications, is a Certified Help Desk 2000 Professional, and is working on A+ certification. She has traveled extensively overseas and has worked in both Japan and Turkey.

We are pleased to have such personable, experienced professionals in ITS.

Apple, Dell, and other laptop manufacturers voluntarily recalled millions of batteries last month. Because these batteries may overheat and cause a fire, they will be replaced at no-charge to their customers.

Learn more about the recall, determine if your battery has been recalled, and how to request a replacement.

Apple

Dell

In addition, Toshiba America today announced a voluntary exchange program for Sony-made batteries in select Dynabook and Satellite models sold in the United States between March and May of 2006. This does not affect any College-owned machines, but if you use a Toshiba Dynabook or Satellite at home, you may wish to contact Toshiba support at (800) 457-7777 to determine if your machine is part of the recall.

If you are backing up your computer with the Maxtor OneTouch drive, you should check at least once a month to ensure your backups are taking place.

To check if your backups are running on a Dell with Windows XP: click Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Scheduled Tasks. Locate your Weekly Backup task and ensure the “Last Run Time” date listed is no later than 3 weeks ago. If your system indicates a date older than 3 weeks ago, please email the Help Desk and request that someone check your backups.

The Mac backup is an exact duplicate of the user's home directory, so verifying is just a matter of checking that the contents of the backup drive match the contents of the backup source (i.e. the home directory). You can also open SilverKeeper and look at the Status tab for a summary of the date and outcome of the backup attempt.

If you do not have a Maxtor OneTouch drive, please email your request to the Help Desk. This option is available to both Mac and Windows XP users. If your computer's operating system is Windows 2000 and if it has a Davidson College property tag over 4000 you will need to upgrade to Windows XP prior to the installation of your Maxtor drive. You will need to submit both a Maxtor drive request and a Windows XP upgrade. Please use davidson\username when prompted.

With CharMeck 311, the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg county's new 24/7 "one-stop shop" for information, you get quicker answers to your questions. Whether it's a question about your water or tax bill, a need to schedule garbage pickup, or a desire to reserve a picnic area at a local park, 311 is the number to call.

Callers to 311 may also get directory assistance to city and county offices, schedules of meetings for city and county government, and information about various city and county services. Specialists trained in tax and utility issues will be on-hand to assist callers. Complex calls beyond the scope of 311 and those requiring extensive research and investigation will be connected directly to the relevant department.

311 reduces the burden of calls going to 911. You can request an officer for a non life-threatening emergency such as noise complaints, graffiti, truancy, loitering, or even to report that your driveway is blocked.

All communities within Mecklenburg county that receive a service provided by the county or City of Charlotte may call 311 regarding that service or to obtain information about other city/county services.

You can access 311 outside of Charlotte and Mecklenburg county by calling 704-336-7600.

311 can be accessed via a cell phone if your cellular company carrier has programmed the 311 number to its towers. If not, you can call (704) 336-7600 on your cell phone and be connected to the 311 call center.

To reach this service from campus, simply dial 8-311.

File sharing seems to be a great way to get any music or video you want without paying for it. But whether you know it or not you already are paying for it. File sharing across the Internet takes up bandwidth on our connection to the Internet, so we have to pay for a connection that is about twice the size that we would need without file sharing. That eats up a little tuition.

When a file sharing application gets out of control and requires that we find out what went wrong on the network, that takes away time that we could otherwise use to improve network services. When we get a notification from a media company that someone on campus is sharing a file out to the Internet, we spend time finding whose computer the file was shared from. When we find out, we temporarily suspend the network connection for that computer to make sure that the sharing stops. We do this to protect campus network participants from being sued by media companies. The Dean of Students, VP of Academic Affairs, or the staff member’s supervisor talks with the person involved to make sure he or she knows the college's policy on file sharing. And finally we require a form to be filled out to make sure that file sharing has stopped. All this causes us to lose otherwise productive time and subtracts from the quality of services provided by the staff involved.

Occasionally when some new twist on file sharing occurs, we meet with Deans and Vice Presidents and sometimes lawyers to ensure that we are following both the law of the land and the spirit of life on campus. Again this subtracts from their time in trying to make the college function as smoothly as it can. Although you might not notice it now or even while you are at Davidson, it is the fine grit that slowly wears away the gears that run the college. When your parents see another bump in tuition or when you graduate and are asked to give to the college, remember that you are paying a little bit of that for something that you thought was free.

Because we respond quickly to requests by media companies to stop sharing their content, we believe that the likelihood that any individual on campus will be sued is very low. If it ever happens though, that individual will, in effect, foot the entire bill for everyone’s dine and dash habits.

Beginning in October, ITS will make Dreamweaver 7 and Adobe Acrobat 7 available to faculty and staff for both the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Please watch the top level ITS Web page under “News and Events” for the official announcement on how to request these software products.

Adobe has recently announced the addition of Acrobat Professional 8 to their software line but has not made the product available for use. When Acrobat Professional 8 is officially released, individuals using version 7 will have the option to upgrade.

Beginning in July 2006, a new plan is in place to improve and streamline the budgeting and replacement of computers on campus to ensure that campus computers are replaced on a regular cycle. The goals of the new plan are to:

Assure that all faculty and staff members that use computing resources have a computer of sufficient capabilities to fulfill responsibilities;
Assure that appropriate computing resources are available in shared computing facilities (classrooms, labs, etc.);
Simplify departmental budgeting and planning for new computers;
Acquire computers at lower cost through consolidated ordering and reduced administrative overhead.
From this month forward, ITS will begin proactively contacting individuals and/or designated department representatives to discuss and make arrangements for computer replacements. The entire replacement process will continue to be handled in the normal consultative manner.

The standard replacement cycle for desktop computers is four years. Some

computers will be replaced on a three-year replacement cycle. These accelerated replacements have been identified and approved by the head of the department or division. Networked printers will be replaced every six years. Replacements will be based on the original purchase date of the equipment. ITS will contact individuals or designated department representatives when equipment is eligible for replacement. At that time, individuals will be able to choose from the standard configuration available or describe a special need.

Standard replacement: By default an individual will be offered the option to replace her/his current computer with the newest version of that system (i.e., Dell laptop replaced with the current Dell laptop model or Mac desktop replaced with the current Mac desktop model). If the standard replacement computer meets current needs, the employee will be asked to confirm and suggest a convenient timeframe for delivery of the new computer. ITS will contact the individual to schedule delivery of the new computer and pickup of the current system. This replacement is automatic and does not need prior approval.

If the current standard replacement option does not meet an individual’s current needs or the employee wants to make a change (i.e., replace a Dell with a Mac or replace a desktop with a laptop), she/he may request a computer consultation. (See Changes, New or Special Needs below.)

Changes, New or Special needs: New computing needs may arise for a computer or printer (an additional staff member, replace equipment before its standard replacement cycle, or change from previous model). These special needs must be identified and funded during the annual budget approval process or approved by a Vice President.

Preparation and Delivery: ITS inventories computers and printers, affixes a Davidson College property tag, and installs the standard software suite. ITS staff will contact individuals or coordinate with departmental IT specialists to schedule a mutually-convenient time to deliver new equipment. ITS will set up the new equipment and assist with data transfer.

Out with the Old, in with the New: When a new computer or printer is delivered, the old one will be collected. If you have a departmental need for the older equipment, please discuss the need during the initial conversation with ITS (see Tier II below). Note: with the exception of new needs, one old computer must be returned to ITS for every new computer delivered.

Tier II: Computers and printers are valuable college resources. Older equipment serves a useful purpose for second tier functions, such as student or part-time workers. If you have a departmental need for older equipment, please discuss the need with ITS.

Downloading and sharing copyrighted materials (video, music, books, etc.) without permission from the copyright owner is against the law. United States copyright laws provide, among other things, that the owner of a copyrighted work has the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work and distribute copies of such work to others. Therefore, any person other than the copyright owner who copies, uploads, downloads, swaps or engages in similar activities with respect to a copyrighted work without the express written permission of the copyright owner is committing a federal crime.

Davidson College receives notices of claimed copyright infringement related to students downloading and sharing video and music via peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent, KaZaA, eDonkey, LimeWire, etc. The College is obligated to respond to complaints of illegal activities or inappropriate use of the campus network. The consequences of copyright violation are serious and policies and procedures have been adopted (see link below) to ensure that Davidson College remains in compliance

Should you need assistance removing a peer-to-peer application from your computer, please contact the ITS ResNet office (email resnet@davidson.edu or phone x2900, option 2,1).

http://www2.davidson.edu/its/pubkb/doc_view.aspx?id=865&sub_id=80&cat_id=21

ResNet has Moved The ResNet office has moved out of Belk and into the Tomlinson Residence Hall. You'll find the office on the second floor of the building in what used to be the television lounge. ResNet is now holding normal office hours, Sunday-Thursday, 7:00-11:00 PM.

This is a much roomier location and so we can serve many more students at one time. Many thanks to Leslie Marsicano who generously offered this space to us.


Support for Off-Campus Students
Students who are living in off-campus, college-owned housing can still have access to many on-campus resources.

You can access Louise, the server where you can store up to 100 MB of files.

You can have access to the full Outlook client. Mac users, if you have setup Entourage correctly, then you already have access to a full email client.

For support with your telephone, please fill out an on-line form. This will create a Help Desk case and will forward it to the proper staff person in ITS.

And, for support with your computer, please contact the ResNet Office. This year, we have installed two lab computers in the ResNet office, so you can work on papers, check your email, etc. while you wait.


Laptop Lounge Since the ResNet Office moved to Tomlinson over the summer, we have found a new use for the vacated office in the Student Computing Center in Belk. It is now a "Laptop Lounge." This is a quiet space where you and your laptop can get some work done.

Just plug in a network cable to your computer, log into Clean Access, and you're ready to work. There is no more need to unplug the network cables from the lab computers! (By the way, please don't unplug cables from lab computers. Often cables don't get plugged back in correctly and then the computer doesn't work for the next student who tries to use it.) We hope you enjoy this new facility.

Please do your part in helping to keep the Laptop Lounge clean! Everyone loves a clean work area!


Lab Computers in Knox, Irwin, and Akers Over the summer, ITS installed lab computers in the lobbies of the Knox, Irwin, and Akers residence halls. While there are no printers in these locations, we hope that you will enjoy having access to lab computers where many of you live.

Knox and Irwin offer two Dell computers in each lobby; Akers offers one Dell and one Macintosh.

Many thanks to our friends in the Residence Life Office, particularly Leslie Marsicano, for providing some of the funding for this project!