Information Services

Contributed by Emily Riggs, ITAP Communication Consultant

October is National Cyber Security Awareness month. In past years, DePauw University chose to spend the last week in October to educate students and faculty about cyber security. This year, the Student Technology Support team at DePauw decided to start the fun a little earlier and offered many opportunities and activities to raise awareness of the issues throughout the month. Cyber Security Awareness Month is a great opportunity to educate students, faculty and staff on many topics related to cyber security, including virus scanning, protection of digital data, prevention of stolen identities through the internet, and education about simple computer maintenance. The increase in awareness and education of these issues is not only of great benefit to individuals; it also helps create a safer technological environment for everyone on campus.

Throughout the month of October, the Student Technology Support team introduced four Cyber Security villains to the DePauw Community. Students, faculty and staff were invited to aid our local superheros, The CyberCats, in bringing these villains to justice and restoring technological peace back to campus. Radio PSAs, posters and emails announced the villains’ pictures and the crimes they committed, along with links to websites, each with a short quiz on a particular cyber security issue. Answering the questions correctly not only helped stop the cyber villains, it registered participants in a drawing for their choice of an Amazon or iTunes giftcard. In addition, a video contest was offered inviting students to submit 30-second  videos to be used later as public service announcements, with a Panasonic USB digital video camcorder prize as incentive.

Cyber Security Awareness month provides an annual reminder of the need to engage year-round in safe practices to protect ourselves and the campus community from constantly changing technology threats. Building this foundation of knowledge helps reduce the load on DePauw’s technology support resources, which in turn allows them to serve the DePauw community more efficiently. It also creates a safer environment for students and the university community, as well as protect important documents and the information that is stored on any given computer. For more information on Cyber Security issues and to learn what you can do to help prevent them, refer to the healthy computing section on DePauw University’s HelpDesk website.

Mara Mote '11

And, the winners are…

Mara Mote, a junior in ITAP, won the CSAW Video Contest’s Judges Choice Award with her 30-second public service announcement on identity theft.  View Mara’s winning entry, as well as the other PSA contest entries on phishing, viruses and data backup here.  The online quiz winners - determined by a random drawing of all participants who’d answered the questions correctly - won their choice of an Amazon or iTunes giftcard. The winners are Zakary Phillips ‘11 (Identity Theft), Stephanie Wood ‘11 (Viruses), Kevin Bunge ‘10 (Laptop Theft), and Amber Goode ‘03 (Data Backup). Congratulations and thanks to all participants for helping us promote awareness of cyber security issues this year!

Daylight Saving Time ends this Sunday, November 1st at 2:00 am and returns to Standard Time.

Remember to turn your clocks back one hour!

Also - Check your computer’s time zone:

Instructions about how to set the Time Zone in Windows and MacOS are available at www.depauw.edu/it/helpdesk/daylightsaving.asp.

From Donnie Sendelbach, Director of Instructional and Learning Services

Flu season is upon us and it is important to think ahead about what you might need to do in the event of absence that impacts your instruction — whether it is the absence of a student, multiple students, and/or even you, the professor!

FITS has developed a set of Absence Preparedness resources to help faculty members to think through preparations prior to and during a major absence situation. These include a series of recommended techniques you can use to keep a class going as well as links to various related University policies and resources.

Check out the site for the full details. But in the meantime, here is a quick checklist to get you started toward making sure that you’re ready:

• As much as you can, plan ahead for absences. Having a strategy in place to communicate with students how to navigate course requirements and responsibilities if they are sick will pay dividends for your students’ learning if a wave of absences occurs. When classes begin after Fall Break, you may find that this is an optimum time to review current course information and provide students with directions if they are absent for an extended period of time.

• Try out new methods or technologies in advance. Even for the best of us, trying to learn new software during a flu epidemic or getting a student to learn new software while she or he is out sick may not yield desired results. The key is planning ahead.

• Take small steps when implementing new techniques. While you might currently consider learning one new technology within your current comfort level, attempting to learn a completely new technology with a large learning curve in a short time also will not yield desired results. FITS advises taking small steps over time when learning new technologies. In the event of major absences, rethinking the technologies you already know may be the best strategy for you.
• Apply technology to serve a pedagogical purpose, not simply for the sake of using technology. The uses of technology described on the site are good practices to have in place for absences in general: student athletes on the road, you at an out-of-town conference, a student with a family emergency, etc. They are just good pedagogical practices.

• Note the limitations of your obligation to help students who have been sick. In some instances, the student might be better advised to take an incomplete or drop a class. Please consult policies on class attendance and absences and incomplete grades from the Student Handbook.

If you have any questions,

Contact Donnie Sendelbach, Director of Instructional and Learning Services ( donniesendelbach at depauw.edu) or any FITS member for assistance in thinking through strategies for your classes.

Faculty Instructional Technology Support (FITS) (www.depauw.edu/univ/fits)
provides consulting & technical support for faculty who wish to explore & develop uses of instructional technology in their teaching.

Contributed by Emily Riggs, ITAP Communication Consultant

This is the second year that a Hewlett-Packard Tablet PC has been available as an option in DePauw’s student laptop program, and nearly 90 First-Year students purchased one this fall. Those students and the sophomores who bought a Tablet PC last year are finding an assortment of programs and functions that they can utilize for the writable screen on their laptops.

Tablet PCs are valuable tools for all majors and departments at DePauw in a variety of ways. For example, with the program PDF Annotator you can use the pen to highlight key quotes and take written notes in the margins of a PDF article right on the screen. With note-taking software such as DyKnow and OneNote handwritten notes can be easily accessed through handwriting recognition technology and converted into text for easier reading. Despite a student’s major or interest, the Tablet PC can make any reading, writing, or lab assignment easier through the writable screen.

To view the impact Tablet PCs have in classrooms at DePauw University, take a look at the following clip: Teaching with Tablets. For more information about the Tablet PCs log onto: http://www.depauw.edu/univ/fits/TabletPCs/index.asp.

To show students some useful tips and suggestions of what you can do with a Tablet, Michael Gough, Instructional Technologist and Coordinator of Student Technology Support, recently led a workshop on Tablet PCs.  Topics he addressed included functions of the pen tool in software such as OneNote, DyKnow, Windows Journal, PDF Annotator, and MS Office Word documents and presentations. This first workshop was a basic tutorial of the variety of functions and programs of Tablet PCs. Depending upon interest, Gough can schedule more workshops in the future that will focus on more advanced techniques and specific programs.

If you are interested in a workshop, but do not yet own a Tablet PC, do not fear. A few Tablet PCs are available for participants to use during a workshop. For more information about Tablet PCs or future workshops, contact Michael Gough at  michaelgough at depauw.edu. If you are interested in purchasing a Tablet PC through the DePauw laptop program, you can find that information on the DePauw Laptop website.