UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Information Services

Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Online Training Opens Oct. 4

Information services provides annual online cybersecurity awareness training for staff and faculty. This year’s course includes 20 minutes of video, covering five core topics. Why is raising cybersecurity awareness so important to our campus? Even with the most advanced security technologies such as firewalls and anti-virus tools, what cyber attackers ultimately count on is human error. In this course you will be introduced to the social engineering methods that attackers use to fool you into providing unauthorized access. By taking a few simple steps and avoiding certain actions you can help prevent cyber attacks and data theft.

The course, “Cybersecurity Core Training 2019”, will be live and accessible from the  ‘Custom Course Menu‘ in Moodle  starting October 4. Current staff and faculty will be auto-enrolled. The target date for completion is November 1. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this training, please contact the Technology Help Desk (x7000, help@up.edu).

Participants Wanted: Annotate the Web With Your Students

The academic technology services & innovation office is seeking faculty participants to pilot digital annotation software for teaching and learning. ATSI will be partnering with Hypothesis, a non-profit and open-source tool allowing any webpage to be collaboratively annotated, commented on, and discussed. Initial research suggests that the social reading this technology allows can improve comprehension, foster deeper engagement, and encourage students to consider multiple perspectives. Ask your students to mark up a recent scientific article, comment on the latest news, or collaboratively a analyze a social media post – there are many interesting potential use-cases.

This brief video gives an introduction to the power of open digital annotation.

Participants in the pilots will be able to use Hypothesis within Moodle, so that private groups are automatically created for students in each course. Training, consultation, and instructional design resources from the experts are also available as part of the pilot program.

If you would like to learn more about participating in the pilot or about open annotation, please contact Ben Kahn at kahn@up.edu.

Attention WordPress Users: Recurring Maintenance Window and New User Group

WordPress is a great way for UP community members to create sites. We use it for class blogs, event sites, professional pages, and so on. It’s also the most popular system for creating a website in the world. In fact, according to the latest estimates over 33% of all websites on the entire internet are running WordPress. This popularity also means WordPress is a prime target for hacking and malware. With that in mind, Academic Technology Services and Innovation has decided to rethink our efforts toward keeping WordPress sites up to date with the latest security and bug fixes.

Going forward, our plan is to reserve morning hours of the first and third Fridays of each month for maintenance. That means the next window is AM hours on Friday, September 20. While we will always do our best to keep downtime to a minimum, it’s possible that UP WordPress sites will be inaccessible for part of the maintenance periods.

It’s important to Academic Technology Services and Innovation that our plans for WordPress work for those of you who are blogging, publishing, reading, and creating. If you would like to give feedback, get notified when WordPress will be unavailable, or learn more about using WordPress, please join our new listserve group.

Thanks for your understanding as we work to keep our campus computing resources and data secure. Questions or concerns? Please contact atsi@up.edu.

Information Services: Moodle Downtime on August 14

Moodle will be down on the evening of Wednesday, August 14 (8 p.m.) until 8 a.m. on Thursday, August 15, for an annual system update. Information service will be updating to Moodle version 3.6. The new version includes improvements to performance, privacy, and security, as well as a modern course dashboard.

For real-time updates or to subscribe to email alerts for UP systems status and outages please visit our System Status page.

Any questions or concerns? Please contact atsi@up.edu.

 

 

Information Services: WordPress Downtime and New Editing Experience

UP WordPress (sites.up.edu) will be down for maintenance on Wednesday, July 31, from 8 a.m. to approximately 3 p.m. The system will be updated to the newest version of WordPress for improved performance, security, and reliability. During the downtime, some back end systems will also be improved and updated.

With the new version of WordPress comes a new and updated content creation experience. The traditional “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” text editor has been replaced with a new block-based page building editor. This gives you, as a WordPress content creator, more flexibility and control over the look and layout of your site than ever before. For further info please see this excellent primer video on Lynda.com.

If you are a site admin and feel you or your site contributors are not ready to move to the new editor, the “Classic” editor can be restored for you on a site-by-site basis. Please fill out the form below with the full URL of the site to request the Classic editor.

For any questions, concerns, or to request training on using the new editor, please contact atsi@up.edu.

 

 

 

Changes to WiFi: UPStaff Certificate Update

On Wednesday, July 31, information services will update the certificate used for authentication and encryption on the UPStaff WiFi network at 7 a.m. Upon connecting to UPStaff after 7 a.m., devices may prompt users to accept the “ise3.campus.up.edu” and/or “ise4.campus.up.edu” certificates. Users will need to accept the certificates to complete the trust relationship between the device and the network.

Please contact the UP Help Desk at help@up.edu or x7000 if you have questions.

 

Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) Coming This Summer

Due to a dramatic rise in the scope and sophistication of phishing attacks targeting UP staff, information services will be deploying Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for specific services on campus. The enrollment process should take about 5 minutes and it will significantly enhance the security of your account and personal information.

MFA combines two or more independent credentials to gain access to a system. These credentials include something you know (username/password) and something you have (token/smart phone/office phone).  The goal of MFA is to create a multilayered approach that makes it difficult for any unauthorized individual to gain access to a system.  If one factor is compromised, such as your password, the attacker will still need the other factor to gain access.

MFA will be deployed to staff this summer, with specific departments served week-to-week as we roll out MFA. Further communications will come from Curt Pederson, CIO, detailing installation and setup instructions.

Windows Update Change: Monthly Automatic Restarts Starting July 23

To enhance the security of university computers and the campus network, information services is modifying how Windows updates are being applied to Windows desktops.

Starting this month, we are requiring that updates be installed by the fourth Tuesday of the month, after which the patches will be installed automatically, and your computer restarted if those updates require it. Users will receive popup reminders to apply updates during the week before automatic updates are scheduled to be applied.

Best practices for this change would be to:

  • Install the updates yourself when notified.
  • Log out, but do not turn off your computer when not in use.
  • Save your work frequently.

Please note:  Updates will force a restart of your computer. A restart will cause any unsaved files to be lost.

More information is available on the UP Tech Support Portal Knowledge Base article, which includes screenshots and additional details, here. You may also contact the Help Desk at x7000 or help@up.edu.

Please Request Software for Classrooms, Labs by March 22

Information Services will be updating the computer lab & classroom builds for Fall 2019 in early April.  If you need new or updated software for the classrooms and labs for Fall 2019 term please click on this link and fill out the online survey. This message is intended for staff and faculty responsible for requesting software for labs and classrooms. Please remind your faculty members and any new faculty who may be coming for 2019 fall semester to fully represent your departments’ needs.

Alternately, copy and paste the link below into your browser to fill out the online survey. https://uportland.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5sAK57IvV3S4nvn

The software build and deployment process requires significant lead time; therefore, information services must receive your submitted software requests no later than Friday, March 22 if the software is to appear on the computer classroom/lab software build for the fall 2019 semester.

Information services is committed to providing the best computing experience for UP students. We look forward to your requests so that we can best serve our community.

Please contact the UP Help Desk with any questions at help@up.edu or by calling x7000 M-F 7:30 am – 5 p.m.

Information Services: Subscribe to System Outage Alerts

Information Services invites all campus users to subscribe to our new service for system outage alerts. With the release of our new Tech Support Portal, users can check system status at any time by selecting the ‘Tech Support’ app at https://myapps.up.edu or via PilotsUP. Once you enter the tech support portal, click on ‘System Status’ to view the status of our technology systems. If you would like to receive an email alert for specific system outages, please follow the instructions outlined in this help sheet. Users can also report system outages to our technology help desk.
If you need assistance or have any suggestions for additional service listings, please contact the help desk at help@up.edu or x7000.