Information Services

Dear Faculty Members,

Before you leave for the summer, please note the following important information regarding the transition from Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2.3!

1) Moodle support sessions for semester’s end/early summer are provided below. You can find the current schedule on the I.S. Blog and instructions on the KnowledgeBase. If you will be gone most of summer, we strongly urge you to attend a workshop or come to FITS during open lab hours before you leave, so that you can plan ahead for the transition. Backing up and restoring courses will take more of your time than previous Moodle upgrades have because of a new filing system in Moodle 2.3. Don’t wait until August!  

2) Courses from Spring 2009 and earlier are currently on http://moodlearchive.depauw.edu/ but will disappear on July 1. Please back up your courses by June 30 and contact FITS before that date for any help learning that process.

3) Non-academic Moodle courses (for example, a committee that uses a Moodle course to collect materials) will be created in Moodle 2.3 upon request only. Please fill out this form to have a course created.

Please let us know if you have any questions or need support by contacting fits@depauw.edu. We’re here to help make the transition as smooth as possible!

Donnie Sendelbach

Class of 2013

As you prepare for life after DePauw, it is important to know what will happen to your DePauw IT accounts upon graduation:

Google Apps (email, calendar, docs, etc.)

Your current DePauw Google account will be deleted on August 1, 2013. Once it is deleted, it is gone and you will not be able to retrieve any of your saved emails, calendar events, contacts, docs, or other information contained in that account.

To learn how you can use the Google Mail Fetcher to migrate your DePauw email into another mail account before the account is deleted, browse to https://support.google.com/mail/answer/21289?hl=en&from=21288&rd=1.

DePauw’s Alumni Office offers you the option of signing up for Email for Life.

Email for Life is a forwarding service available through the DePauw Gateway that provides you with a permanent DePauw identity for communicating within the DePauw community. Please browse to http://gateway.depauw.edu and click Register Now! to learn more. If you have questions, you may contact the Alumni Office at alumnioffice@depauw.edu or 765-658-4208.

Network

Your DePauw network account will expire on August 1, 2013. If you have information in your class (I: drive) or personal (P: drive) folders, be sure to back them up before this date.

e-Services

Your e-Services account will expire on May 31, 2014. To request a transcript after this day, you may browse to the transcript ordering portal on the Registrar’s website at http://www.depauw.edu/academics/academic-resources/advising/registrar/transcripts/.

Questions concerning your IT accounts may be directed to the HelpDesk at helpdesk@depauw.edu or 765-658-4294.

Questions concerning the DePauw Gateway may be directed to the Alumni Office at alumnioffice@depauw.edu or 765-658-4208.

Wishing you success with your future endeavors!

Best,

Lynda S. LaRoche
Information Services, HelpDesk and User Support Director
helpdesk@depauw.edu or 765-658-4294

From Carol L. Smith, CIO

As you know, we are preparing to upgrade to Moodle 2 this summer. Since Moodle 2 is a bit different from our current Moodle, FITS has been working closely with faculty members and staff over the past several months to pilot-test the new version and offer demos and orientation sessions to help everyone prepare for the upgrade.

Many more details will be shared by email from the FITS folks, but the following provides a general timeline of the transition and outlines basic things you can do to prepare for using Moodle 2 next fall. Read the rest of this entry »

From Carol L. Smith, CIO:

On February 25, DePauw will invite students to participate in the EDUCAUSE ECAR Annual Survey  for Students and IT.

The survey explores technology ownership, use patterns, and perceptions of technology among undergraduate students and gathers information from students at nearly 200 institutions. Now in the tenth year of the study, ECAR creates an annual report about student technology trends based on the data collected and publishes the findings on  the EDUCAUSE website (here).

As a participating institution, DePauw will receive de-identified data files containing our students’ responses and an aggregate-level summary that compares DePauw students’ responses with those at similar institutions. This information will be extremely helpful for us in planning for pedagogical integration of technology and providing appropriate technologies and support services for our students. If the opportunity arises, please feel free to encourage your students to participate in the survey!

Survey Timeline:

An email inviting students to participate will be sent on February 25, and the the survey will be open for them from February 25 until March 11, 2013.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Carol Smith – CIO (clsmith@depauw.edu), Mikah Pritchard – FITS Instructional Technologist (mikahpritchard@depauw.edu), or Kayla Birt – Assessment Specialist (kaylabirt@depauw.edu).

Linkback to this article: http://tinyurl.com/depauwecarstudy

From David Diedriech, Technical Trainer:

The spring semester is almost upon us. As we prepare for longer days and warmer weather (I hope!), I want to make you aware of the workshops being offered this spring. As always, if you have any questions, or would like more information about any of the workshops, please let me know.

A complete list and description of the workshops can be found on the IT Training web page, and you can reserve a spot in any of the workshops by completing the Spring RSVP form.

Thanks,
Dave

Please join your friends and colleagues as we celebrate GIS Day on Wednesday, November 14, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. in the Julian Atrium.

GIS Day is an annual, worldwide event for users of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to inform people about how geography makes a difference in our everyday lives. DePauw’s open house-style GIS Day event will showcase GIS projects and concepts via posters, displays, and activities by DePauw students, faculty members, and staff members. Just a handful of the many GIS projects that will be showcased at this year’s event are:

• Coal-Powered Cancer: An Exploration of Mountaintop Removal in West Virginia
  Brittany Slate (2013) and Michael Osborn (2013)
• Daily Life in the Colonial South
  Dr. John Schlotterbeck (History)
• DePauw Dig 175
  Dr. Rebecca Schindler (Classical Studies), Dr. Pedar Foss (Classical Studies), Kat Raymond-Judy (2015), and Danica Andersen (2015)
• Effects of Agricultural Runoff on Water Quality in the Big Walnut Creek Watershed
  Dr. Jeanette Pope (Geosciences), Carly Dutkiewicz (2014), Caitlin Handy (2015), Ali Pistoia (2013), Greg Screws (2013), and Reilly Taylor (2013)
• Indiana Local Government Redistricting
  Kelsey Kauffman (University Studies) and Richard Walsh (2015)

Also featured will be student Google Earth projects from Dr. Scott Wilkerson’s “Introduction to GIS Using Google Earth” 2012 Winter Term course and student GIS projects from Dr. Tim Cope’s Fall 2012 “Introduction to GIS” class.

Faculty members, please announce this event in your classes to invite students that may be interested in attending. Students that attend the event and successfully complete DePauw’s GIS Quest will be eligible to win a handheld GPS unit. Also, if you are interested in identifying your students that attend GIS Day for credit/other purposes, please let me know and inform your students to fill in the course/professor fields on the registration form. I will email you a list of your participating students after the event.

Come visit with friends, enjoy some refreshments, and learn about GIS! Hope to see you there!!!

Cheers,
Beth

M. Beth Wilkerson
GIS Specialist

From Carol L. Smith, CIO

The FITS team is beginning a project to research and plan for the next Moodle system update, which we are planning for the coming summer. DePauw currently is using Moodle version 1.9 LAE (Liberal Arts Edition). Over the past year, Moodle.org has released several new versions of Moodle, most recently Moodle 2.3 that became available last June.

Version 2.3 offers a number of enhancements that will be useful to faculty and staff members using the system, including improvements to file management and course pages, drag and drop capability, a new activity chooser, and new navigation. In addition, Moodle 2.3 has a more modern look and feel that provides a more familiar interface for students and others who use the system. (If you are interested, the Moodle 2.3 release notes are available at http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle_2.3_release_notes.)

At this point, we are targeting June-July 2013 for upgrading to Moodle 2.3. Since the new version is somewhat different from our current one, FITS will be working closely with faculty members and staff over the next several months to fully research, pilot and help everyone prepare for the upgrade.

Mikah Pritchard, who is leading the upgrade project, will provide more details about the overall process and solicit for persons who would like to participate in the review project in the next few days. We welcome both faculty and staff to participate in this endeavor. If you would like to be part of the review process, please feel free to respond directly to Mikah and let her know. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. Best, Carol.

From Carol L. Smith, CIO

Welcome back as we begin the new academic year! I wanted to take a moment to provide some quick tips and updates about key IT projects that are underway or will be coming up soon.

If you have any questions about these (or any other IT-related projects), please don’t hesitate to contact me at clsmith@depauw.edu.

Cheers,

–Carol.

Topics in the following include:

1. Keeping in touch with IT at DePauw
2. Helping students get logged in to Moodle, P: or I: drives, printers, etc.
3. Wireless network expansion in University-owned student living units is complete
4. Overview of the Student Laptop Program & known shipping delays for some students
5. Voicemail system replacement timeline and setting up Google Voice voicemail
   Read the rest of this entry »

From Donnie Sendelbach, Director of Instructional and Learning Services and Director of the Information Technology Associates Program

FITS events are now posted on the IS Workshop and Event Calendar at http://goo.gl/eQb7l. Offerings include workshops in image editing for the web, blogging, and creating surveys along with Google and Moodle workshops. Please RSVP for events that you plan to attend at http://goo.gl/pVwtf.

In addition to the RSVP listings, a webinar on VoiceThread, a platform for collaborative slide/audio sharing, will be held Thurs., Feb. 16, 3:00-4:00 p.m. in ROW Instruction Room A. Refreshments will be served.

Best wishes for the start of a new semester. Hope it goes from good to great!

From Adam Hughes, Director of Administrative Information Systems

Twenty years ago today, Nelson Greenwell walked through the DePauw gates (at least figuratively) for the first time as an employee of the University.  Nelson has seen many changes on campus and in IT over the years, and he’s had a hand in making a lot of those changes happen. Currently, Nelson is a member of the Application Services development team and will play a key role in the implementation of our new advancement content management system.