October 2015

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Division of Information Technology
P.O. Box 6888
Radford, VA 24142
Phone: (540) 831-5173
Fax: (540) 831-6217
Email: cio@radford.edu

Division of Information Technology
Radford University

NEW: Brightspace (D2L) Pulse mobile app

The Pulse app, provided by D2L, is a way for students to receive real-time activity updates from their D2L courses.

Some of the features include:

• Notifications pushed directly when news items are posted
• Snapshot of what/when assignment(s), reading(s) and test(s) are due or what is on the horizon
• Add personal milestones and/or activities.
• View grades

The app is available for free from Google Play and Apple Store. For more information, please see the ITOneStop article called D2L Brightspace Pulse App (Students).

Classroom assistance with mobile devices and other technologies

Many faculty have expressed a desire to make use of student laptops or other mobile devices in the classroom. The Division of Information Technology is here to help.

We can assist with planning and schedule a technician to attend your class and provide assistance to students.

If you would like assistance, please contact the Technology Assistance Center at (540) 831-7500 or visit www.radford.edu/onestop. We recommend you make the request at least one week in advance to insure we can schedule the appropriate staff.

Computer lab and software availability

In order to provide students with access to university licensed software in more locations, DoIT has installed a common set of software in all computer labs, minimizing the need for students to visit a specific departmental lab.

If you find that a specific software package is not installed in a campus computer lab, please contact the Technology Assistance Center (540) 831-7500 or visit www.radford.edu/onestop to submit a support request.

As assignment and project deadlines are looming, students are to be reminded that the Young Hall computer lab is open from 2 p.m. Sunday through midnight on Friday and Saturday from noon until midnight. In order to maximize the number of Young Hall weekend hours, the Walker Hall computer labs are now closed Saturday and Sunday.

The Young Hall 123 computer lab includes 36 dual boot iMac computers that have both Windows and Mac OS installed. These computers include the same software that is available in Walker Hall and other computer labs on campus.

The phishing scourge

Two of the largest data security disclosures (Target, the Office of Personnel Management) resulted from phished credentials.

Someone in each of these organizations clicked on a "phish" email, and then a valid corporate password was used to leverage access to internal data. This relatively simple security technique resulted in credit card forgery, personal data loss and even fingerprint data exposure for millions of individuals.

A phish is an email that tries to collect personal information from an addressee. Phishing emails are usually forged, and often contain a web URL pointing to a bogus replica site that collects the personal information the hacker is attempting to harvest (e.g. a password, a bank account number, a social security number).

The email text contains some kind of threat: a warning that the user's account is about to expire or a request for information the user must supply. There are still some phishing emails that don't contain a URL, but ask the user to reply to the email right away. These are easier to spot as fake.

Phishing email can be seasonal; there are floods of phish at the beginning of school years, when students are not used to their accounts or are familiar with the school network. Criminals target holidays, especially Christmas, to collect credit card information, and send bogus Amazon (or shipper) emails to trap users who may be doing online shopping.

Phishing emails are becoming more sophisticated, and they're often directed at mobile users who read email with their phones and without the tools that would make it possible to analyze the sender information. One way to identify whether an email is legitimate is to view the header detail; the "reply-to" address may differ from the sender's, or the X-Originating-IP may not be part of the domain the sender is supposed to be from. But the best reaction to any email asking for personal or account information is to assume it's fake and to obtain verification of the sender's identity in another form.

The Radford Technology Assistance Center — (540) 831-7500 — is a good place to start when you get a suspicious email. They can assist you in validating if the message is legitimate. If the Division of Information Technology is made aware of a compromised password, your account will be locked, and you'll be contacted by the IT Security Office. In all cases, phish emails should be reported (itsecurity@radford.edu), so IT can block the originator and prevent some users from disclosing their information.

If you get phish at your home email address, you can report these to the FTC at the following site: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/#crnt&panel1-1.

D2L minor version upgrade

D2L was upgraded Sept. 25 to version 10.5.2. Details of some of the new enhancements and bug fixes are below:

Enhancements:

Copy Components: D2L now uses a service instead of a synchronous web request when copying components from a previous semester or another course. This will help alleviate timeouts when copying courses that have large amounts of content. In addition, you can now click on the "view history" link to check the status when copying your content.

Recovering News Items is now available. If you accidentally delete a news item, you have the ability to recover by clicking on the "Restore" button under "More Actions" in the News area. For detailed instructions please visit the ITOneStop article titled D2L News – Delete and Restore News Items (Faculty/Staff).

Fixes:

Quizzes: Students can now see quiz scores immediately after completion.

For a complete listing of bug fixes in version 10.5.2 visit Brightspace by D2L community.

Technology training offered

Academic Technologies is offering the following training opportunities to support Radford University faculty and staff in the months of October and November.

Visit the CITL Training and Development System to view the current schedule of classes and enroll in a session. To learn more or request a one-on-one, group or custom technology training, contact the Academic Technologies Office at acadcomp@radford.edu or 831-7521. You can also check the new ITOneStop Solutions Library for a variety of online tutorials, Quick Reference Guides, "how-to" videos and articles to assist you with campus technologies.

Meet the DoIT Staff

Allison MacFarlan Maier
Information Security Officer


How long have you been employed in the Division of Information Technology at Radford University? One month

Family: Husband Tom, a biologist with the USACE in Pittsburgh

Hometown: Currently Wexford, Pennsylvania, but I'm originally from New York

Education: B.A., Connecticut College; MSIT, Carnegie Mellon

Interests/Hobbies: Meteorology, drawing and painting.

Favorite vacation destination: Switzerland. I don't go there often.

Favorite part of your job: Deciphering the puzzles (risks, architecture and process).