Do not reply to the message, do not click on the link in the body and do not provide your email and/or account information.

If you have already clicked on the links in the body of the message or have already responded to this email, please change your password immediately.

Be wary of unsolicited email that asks for personal information, or tries to convince you to click on a web link to update personal information.听 These are often phishing emails.

How can you tell if an email is a phishing attempt?

• It asks you for your password or directs you to a webform asking for your password
• The subject line is in all caps
• There is a call for immediate action 鈥� 鈥渄ownload this now鈥� or 鈥渃onfirm you email identity now鈥� or 鈥渃lick on the link below鈥�
• There are spelling or grammatical errors in the email

Please visit our for more tips on protecting yourself online.

Do not reply to the message, do not click on the link in the body and do not provide your email and/or account information.

If you have already clicked on the links in the body of the message or have already responded to this email, please change your password immediately.

Be wary of unsolicited email that asks for personal information, or tries to convince you to click on a web link to update personal information.听 These are often phishing emails.

How can you tell if an email is a phishing attempt?

• It asks you for your password or directs you to a webform asking for your password
• The subject line is in all caps
• There is a call for immediate action 鈥� 鈥渄ownload this now鈥� or 鈥渃onfirm you email identity now鈥� or 鈥渃lick on the link below鈥�
• There are spelling or grammatical errors in the email

Please visit our for more tips on protecting yourself online.

The age of driverless vehicles is quickly moving from futuristic dream to present-day reality. This month鈥檚 Spotlight is all about autonomous vehicles and making smarter cars.

What is an autonomous vehicle?

Automation levels

There are five different levels of driving automation. At Level 1, the vehicle assists with some functions. This could be a car system that issues warnings or brakes a little for you when too close to another vehicle. At the other extreme is Level 5 (鈥渟teering wheel optional鈥�). No human intervention is required for driving 鈥� for example, a robotic taxi.

Today鈥檚 Spotlight focuses on Level 5 鈥� autonomous vehicles that are capable of navigating the environment without human input. These are also known as self-driving, driverless or robotic cars.

Navigating without a human

Autonomous vehicles detect their surroundings in several different ways including, radar, laser light, motion sensors, GPS and computer vision. Control systems analyze sensory data to 鈥渟ee鈥� other cars and distinguish obstacles on the road. This enables driverless cars to make sense of their current environment. company to test a prototype of an autonomous vehicle.

What makes self-driving cars feasible now?

Several advances in technology make self-driving cars a current reality.

Machine learning
Autonomous vehicles use machine-learning algorithms to create models that detect obstacles and make predictions. The goal is systems that perceive and act from data. For example, self-driving cars learn to avoid other cars by analyzing video frames from an onboard camera.

Internet of Things
The Internet of Things connects everyday objects through embedded computer devices and the Internet. In the case of self driving cars, it has been described as a that is dynamic and continuously being updated. For example, smart cars can register and share real-time traffic alerts.

Cloud computing
Using the cloud, smart cars can access data and communicate with each other to avoid accidents, download maps, get up-to-day traffic information and determine the best route to get somewhere.

Data availability & analysis
There is more and more data at our disposal both in quantity and variety. Data storage is also becoming more affordable. Computational processing is getting cheaper and more powerful. This makes it possible to analyze complex data quickly and accurately.

杏吧原创鈥檚 Research Computing Cloud
At 杏吧原创, researchers who need high performance computing resources have access to the Research Computing and Development Cloud.

The Good and the Bad

Driverless car technology can be scary but it鈥檚 hard to deny the benefits. Here is a quick overview of some of the potential pros and cons.

Pros

Fewer accidents
are due to human error. Compared to the behaviours we exhibit behind the wheel (speeding, distracted driving, disobeying laws) a computer is the ideal motorist. For example, autonomous vehicles use a complicated algorithm to determine safe stopping and driving distance. Decisions are not subject to mental state as is the case with humans!

Greener
A steadier speed would mean less fuel consumption. It is likely a car sharing model would evolve which would mean fewer cars on the road and less traffic congestion.

Accessibility
Driverless cars could offer more freedom to some populations (e.g., elderly and persons with disabilities) who may not be able to drive.

Safely multitask
Human passengers can use commute time for things other than driving such as, reading, working, talking or even sleeping.

Boost to economy
Driverless tech could

Cons

Job loss
The need for fewer professional drivers (e.g., taxi and truck drivers) would impact the economy and unemployment rate.

Expensive
Owning a self-driving car will likely be quite expensive. There will also be a substantial cost associated with building infrastructure and roads that are friendly to autonomous vehicles.

Technology can fail
There is always the potential for unexpected glitches when it comes to tech and programming. Even if it seems flawless at first, an update with faulty code could cause errors that lead to accidents. Environmental factors (e.g., heavy rain, snow) can affect the onboard instruments that gather data to analyze driving conditions.

Ethical issues
Who is at fault in the event of an accident 鈥� the manufacturer of the vehicle, the software developer? There has already been one case where a Or who dies when the car is forced into a no-win situation? For example, should a self-driving car swerve into traffic, possibly killing its passengers and others, in order to avoid hitting a child who runs out onto the road?

Privacy and security
Just about every computing device can be hacked. This includes systems in driverless cars. Information could be accessed and exploited. Imagine if someone remotely accessed and took control of a driverless vehicle.

Autonomous Vehicle Research at 杏吧原创

杏吧原创 University is actively involved in autonomous vehicle technology, with over 125 researchers from four faculties and 13 university departments, schools and institutes engaged in research.

Research areas include: autonomous operations, data processing and management, sensor network technologies, wireless connectivity, cybersecurity, software engineering, and road and vehicle safety. Find out more at 杏吧原创鈥檚 Autonomous Vehicles website.

Recently, 杏吧原创 students held a demonstration of the technology behind connected and autonomous vehicles. Organized by Professor Richard Yu, the event demonstrated the university鈥檚 contribution in the R&D of autonomous vehicles (view full story). This past Fall, Professor Yu was awarded $974,000 from the Canadian Safety and Security Program to help enhance the cybersecurity of autonomous vehicles.

5 Things we Thought you Should

1. Online training with
Looking to upgrade or polish your skills? All 杏吧原创 staff have ongoing, free access to . This website is a great learning resource with instructional videos in areas from software and programming, to business skills. For more information, visit Learning and Development.

2. Hardware Services recycles
Did you know that in 2017, the folks in Hardware Services recycled 16,505 kg of hardware? That鈥檚 the equivalent of 11 average sized cars! Recycled items included display devices, desktop and laptop computers, computer peripherals, and printers.This recycling program provides environmentally friendly and secure disposal of E-Waste free of charge. Campus community members can drop off their e-waste at 1251 Herzberg, between 9.00 am 鈥� 3.30pm.

3. Athletics website gets a makeover
Web Services collaborated with the folks in Athletics to get their up and running. The site is built on the new 杏吧原创 Framework which allows for more design choices and customization while still being both accessible and mobile-friendly. See the new site in action at and while you are there!

4. The 杏吧原创 Marketplace is live
After an extensive pilot, the Marketplace is now live and open to all Faculty and Staff to buy and sell their goods. You will find a link to the Marketplace in the lefthand navigation menu of the intranet dashboard or go directly to:

5. Free antivirus software available for all faculty and staff
Antivirus software from Trend Micro is available for free to all faculty and staff for home use. Licenses are good for one year, after which time they expire. This year鈥檚 download is now available at:

We have just released our . This report highlights some of our achievements in key areas, including:

• Supporting research
  Providing computing resources, support and expertise to 杏吧原创 researchers

• Delivering excellent service
  Providing the best possible service to all our customers in the 杏吧原创 community

• Providing opportunities for collaboration and communication
  Facilitating ways for members of the university to share information and ideas

• Protecting university assets
  Working to ensure that our networks, data and applications are protected and secure

• Teaching and learning
  Providing our instructors and students with relevant and up-to-date technology in support of classroom and learning goals

• The way we work
  Continuously improving our processes and services

We are proud of what we have achieved in the past year听and the many collaborations we have across campus.听Please have a look at the full 听辞苍濒颈苍别.

Wishing you the best in 2018!

In this special edition of Spotlight on IT, we focus not on a trend, but on the great work done in our IT department.

We have just released our , a look back at our busy year supporting IT at 杏吧原创 University. This report highlights some of our achievements in key areas, including:

Engaging with researchers
Providing support, expertise and resources to research computing

Supporting teaching and learning
Helping in creative and constructive ways to integrate technology into the classroom and administrative processes

Providing opportunities for collaboration
Facilitating ways for members of the 杏吧原创 community to work together and share ideas

Protecting university assets
Working to ensure that our networks, applications and information are kept secure

Delivering excellent service
Providing the best possible service to our customers across campus

Resilience
Overcoming obstacles and challenges to achieve new heights

We are proud of what we have achieved in the past year and the many collaborations we have across campus. Please have a look at the full

Wishing you the best in 2017!

This special edition of Spotlight on IT focuses not on a trend, but on the great work done in our IT department to prepare for the new academic year.

In addition to the services below, we have also published a听听to help students become familiar with the IT services they will come in contact with during their time at 杏吧原创. For a complete list of services, students are encouraged to check out听, a transition guide provided by the Office of the Vice-President (Students and Enrolment).

Service Desk

Last September Stats
It鈥檚 no surprise that September is our busiest time of the year, as is the case for many departments on campus. You could say that our staff have been preparing themselves mentally for the influx of requests. Last September the ITS Service Desk created 3496 tickets with 48% of the requests coming in via email.听 They had a 60% first call resolution rate and our satisfaction survey results reported a 97% satisfaction rate.

Service Desk Bookcamp
Our student Service Desk employees are integral to our service offering as they enable us to听provide听support outside of university business hours 鈥撎� till 10:30 pm Mon-Thurs, till 10 pm Friday, and from 12-8 pm weekends. 听To prepare them for the types of requests they will receive, 16 students attended a three day 鈥榖ootcamp鈥� with听presentation from subject matter experts from across ITS covering everything from passwords to wireless.

Residence Move-In Support
This weekend thousands of students will be moving into residence.听 Housing and Residence Life Services have听streamlined their processes听to ensure a smooth transition for students, and a number of service departments from across campus will be there to help, including our own ITS staff.听 We鈥檒l be there to support students with onsite network (wired and wireless) setup, account access, software access, and hardware support.

Classroom Support

Wireless Screen-Sharing
Following successful pilots in Tory 446/7 and Southam 306, wireless screen-sharing unshackles instructors from the podium, allowing them to roam their lecture room, while transmitting the video of their iPad to the classroom projector. With听Instructional Media Services (IMS)听assuming technical support, another dozen classrooms in Tory are being targeted for updating this fall.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) provides students with the option to access course-specific software directly from their laptops, which are often used in class with guidance from the instructor.听 VDI was introduced at 杏吧原创听in 2014听and there are now almost 100 classrooms that are VDI-ready. In these classrooms, Wi-Fi capacity is specially engineered to allow every student to open a VDI connection

Free MS Office for Students
Microsoft is offering听students in select educational institutions, including 杏吧原创 University, the MS Office software suite, at no charge while they are at 杏吧原创.听 For information on how to download the software, visit our听MS Office page.

Systems

cuLearn Upgrade
杏吧原创鈥檚 Learning Management System, CuLearn,听will be getting its annual upgrade on Sept 3, going from Moodle version 2.8.7 to version 3.1.1, with听improvements to the gradebook and the overall system performance.听Planning for the upgrade generally utilizes the听, from the Initiation phase to the Closure Phase. Schedules and test plans are developed and actioned upon for respective areas of responsibility by both the听听and ITS. An upgrade of the LMS roughly takes about three months to complete (start to finish).

Windows 10 Deployed to Student Labs
Over 1000 campus lab computers听were updated over the summer with the latest image which includes 64-bit Windows 10 Enterprise, along with roughly听. To ensure software students need for their class work was included, the image was built with feedback from faculty and Computing Support Units (CSUs) across campus.

Next Edition

We will resume our regular format next month with a spotlight on IT security, just in time for Cyber Security Awareness Month

This month鈥檚 spotlight is on Social Media.

Social Media Usage

• Canadians spend an average of on social media
• In Canada, there are approximately . There are 2.31 billion active social media users in the world.
• 杏吧原创 took to Social Media for it鈥檚 CU75 campaign. With close to a million impressions on Facebook and Twitter, it is clear that .
• There are two social media events happening at 杏吧原创 next month. 听On June 1^st Mike Reynolds (OVPSE), Chris Cline (DUC), and Web Services are hosting a talk on .听On June 2^nd and 3^rd Melanie Coulson (FPA) is offering a social media training.

Social Media Networks

• is the leading social media network with 1.59 billion active users.
• In 2012 for $1 billion two years after it launched.
• has 30.3 K followers and has sent out more than 13 K tweets.
• Social media brings in .18% of all traffic to the ITS website. The top social referrer: Twitter at 77% of all social media traffic.

The IT Behind Social Media

• Many popular social networks have started out as .
• to rank and personalize News Feed stories, filter offensive content, highlight popular/trending topics, and rank search results.
• Twitter recently to show tweets that are sorted based on relevancy, rather than only chronology, at the top of your timeline. They鈥檒l also soon be .
• People for the fun of it, for forced shares, for forced followers, and for information. was in the news this week for a hacking that took place in 2012. Here are on how you can keep your account safe.

Social Media in the Classroom: A Student鈥檚 Perspective

Social Media can be an effective tool in the classroom for engaging students in course material and encouraging collaboration amongst students and instructors.

This month, Madison Pearce, a co-op student with Web Services, shares her experiences using听social media in the classroom and offers a few suggestions to faculty members looking to implement social media in their teaching plans.听

5 Things We Thought You Should Know

1. Stats: In April, of the 1,978 tickets opened, 56% of tickets were resolved at first contact by the ITS Service Desk. Check out more stats like this in our latest
2. CANHEIT: This year 杏吧原创 will be well represented at the Canadian Higher Education Information Technology (CANHEIT) conference with .
3. CCMS Update: Web Services have been working to continuously improve the CCMS and are now on of the new template. This point upgrade includes new thumbnail images, text editing enhancements, and bug fixes.
4. Research at 杏吧原创: Wondering what that The 1,600-square-foot, two-storey solar-powered house is perched on a low hill at the north end of 杏吧原创鈥檚 campus? It鈥檚 杏吧原创鈥檚 new.
5. Mark your calendars:听 on Friday, June 17.

Like what you see?听听

If you have an idea on how we can improve,听.

In support of the event which took place here at 杏吧原创 on March 29, and the first anniversary of the , this month鈥檚 theme is a 鈥榖ig鈥� one.

Capturing Big Data

• has been created in the past two years than in the entire previous history of the human race.
• Google processes over about . 听This is over听3.5 billion searches per day and听1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide.
• have been sent this year, as of this second. 听 146 of those, as of this second.
• This听February ITS backed up 482 TB of data. Last February it was 270 TB of data. That鈥檚 a 78% increase in just one year.

Analyzing听Big Data

• use data to inform Ottawa citizens of key local issues and trends – from basic needs and standard of living to economy and employment to health and wellness.
• Over the next 5 years in North American there will be .
• The Computing Support Unit in the School of Computer Science听recently听to support big data learning and research.
• Each month ITS managers meet for ‘Ops Review’听where they review and discuss campus IT data and trends on everything from wireless, to campus card door swipes to website traffic.

Collaborating Around听Big Data

• took place on March 29th in the River Building. This is an annual听conference that celebrates the听latest developments听in data science and听analytics research within听the 杏吧原创 community and in Canada.
• On听April 19 a group of over听40 杏吧原创 researchers gathered in Dunton Tower for a听day-long听听hosted by the Institute for Data Science.
• 53 faculty members are participating in the new collaborative听data program in the and there are more than 130 researchers at 杏吧原创 are working on projects involving big data
• CCS’s Research Computing Services brings together faculty members in need of similar advanced computing resources.

Supporting Researchers on Campus

This month I sat down with Sylvain Pitre, Manager of Research Computing here in ITS to talk about what him and his team, Andrew and Blake, offer to researchers and the exciting new Research Computing Cluster they are working on.

“We听help faculty and students who are working on projects with advanced research computing needs. 听 These projects generally involve big data, large听computational power or modelling that cannot be handled by standard computing infrastructure.

We work with these faculty members to understand their research computing needs and provide the support or computing resources they require.”

5 Things We Thought You Should Know

1. Congratulations:听We have three听people celebrating service anniversaries in May. 听Congratulations to Pierre Morissette (15 years), Kelly Callan (10 years), and Blake Henderson (1 year).
2. Campus Card Opens Doors and So Much More:听In March, the Campus Card was used to open doors 864,654 times.听It was used nearly 300,000 times as a debit card to pay for meals, laundry, printing, vending, and books.听.
3. Direct-Inward-Dial phone numbers: This month personal DID numbers (example 613-520-4567) to 杏吧原创鈥檚 phone number (613-520-2600 ext. 4567).听 This change was听done in order to be consistent in representing 杏吧原创 to the outside community.
4. Latest CCMS Upgrade:听 Web Services recently upgraded the latest template to . 听The upgrade includes a new responsive newsletter theme.
5. This Month’s IT Security Tip:听Banks use comprehensive safeguards to protect the integrity and security of your information and financial transactions. If you choose to bank online you need to do the same.听 .

Like what you see?听听

If you have an idea on how we can improve,听.

What is it that your team does?

The three of us, Andrew, Blake and I, help faculty and students who are working on projects with advanced research computing needs. 听 These projects generally involve big data, large听computational power or modelling that cannot be handled by standard computing infrastructure.

We work with these faculty members to understand their research computing needs and provide the support or computing resources they require.

There are so many new opportunities in big data, particularly for the non-technical departments. At 听researchers听from Public Policy and Administration, History, Journalism and Health Sciences spoke to developments, needs and opportunities for Big Data in their departments.

Our services are听available to any researcher, in any department, who is in need of high computing resources.

What kind of support do you provide?

We offer a number of different support services depending on the individuals needs.

Code

We鈥檝e assisted with the porting, optimization and running of code and applications.

For example, a researcher from the Economics department is using big data to conduct time series analysis. We helped him by looking at the code he was running and tweaked it to run faster.听 This helped him to focus more on his research and less on the necessary, but often time intensive, computing processes behind analyzing the research.

Another researcher in Biology is looking at genetics of adaptations.听 He and his student were working with some Open Source code and needed help writing code around it in order to reduce run time.听 What would have taken six months on a laptop now takes three days using a cluster.听 Because they need to re-run the code on a regular basis, they can now get the results they need to do their analysis faster.

Grant Proposals

We鈥檝e helped faculty with grant proposals by contributing sections that describe the interplay between their research and advanced research computing听resources. Granting agencies, like , want to know what resources the university provides and they will then often match it.听 We help researchers with the details in describing the resources and big data tools that 杏吧原创 provides.

Workshops

In addition, we host and offer a number of workshops on working with big data. We recently hosted . This workshop focused on business analytics to discover insights to: recruitment, enrolment, financial aid, institutional research, student experience, student retention, res life, diversity, facilities, campus safety, and more

Classroom Support

We鈥檙e also providing the DATA-5000 class (in the ) support with access to 杏吧原创鈥檚 Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) and IBM Cognos Business Intelligence software.

This is an interesting program in that it brings together students from science, engineering, arts, social science, public affairs and Sprott.听 They sign up for a masters degree in one of these departments and then they add a specialization in data science.听听 This year the program had 40 students (double than last year) 鈥� 20 from the technical programs, 20 from the non-technical.

What kind of computing resources do you offer to researchers?

Right now we offer access to open and commercial software through the VCL. 听Software packages available include IBM Cognos Business Intelligence, IBM SPSS Statistics, MathWorks鈥� Matlab, Stata/SE 13, MPICH and Hadoop.

These services are available at no cost to researchers in all faculties at 杏吧原创.

Additional Computing Resources

There are currently a number of specialized computing resources on campus – , Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Computing Cluster, 听, 听and .

We offer computing resources for researchers who do not require or are not eligible to use these specialized services.

For researchers working with big data requiring national level support, is a great resource.听 To be able to use these resources, researchers much submit a proposal (with which we鈥檙e happy to help), but the reality is that researchers are getting on average 64% of their requested resources.听 This leaves some researchers who are in the middle 鈥� needing more than a laptop but not as much as Compute Canada offers 鈥� to fend for themselves.

Our goal is not to discourage researchers from using Compute Canada, but to offer something in between.听 Which is why we鈥檙e creating a Research Computing Cluster.

Tell me more about the Research Computing Cluster.

We鈥檙e working on opening a new research computing cluster here in ITS in late spring 2016. 听It鈥檚 funded by the Faculty of Science, Faculty of Engineering and Design and ITS and the goal is to support researchers from across campus.

There are so many new opportunities in big data for the non-technical departments, for example, mining social media data in Journalism.听 This computing cluster will be available to any researcher who is in need of high computing resources.

It will be an OpenStack-based cloud solution with 160 IBM Power8 compute cores, 192 Intel, Xeon compute cores for a total of 1.8TB storage (128GB per node) and 60 TB all-flash storage (SSD).听 A modern laptop might have 4 cores.听 There are 352 total in the cluster.

What do you see in the future for research computing?

We plan to continue to grow our client base and offer services to researchers who would are looking for compute and storage resources on campus. We want to be the first point of contact for any researcher on campus looking for these services and find them what they need, on or off-campus.

Working close with researchers and discussing their requirements helps us determine services that are not currently within our scope but that could be opportunities in the future.

For more information about the services that Sylvain and his team provide, visit the .

This month鈥檚 Spotlight is on mobile.

Mobile Trends

Mobile is undoubtedly on the rise.

• According to , 56% of time Canadians spend online is spent on a smartphone or tablet.
• In 2015, Mobile traffic to 杏吧原创.ca was up 192% compared to the previous year while desktop traffic to the site was down 22%.
• Last month 1 in 10 people viewed 杏吧原创.ca on their mobile devices.

Google loves mobile.

• As of April 21st, 2015, Google started heavily favouring websites that have mobile-friendly versions. This means mobile sites can rank higher in search results and will听be labeled as mobile-friendly if their content is optimized for viewing on a mobile device.
• In January, 53% of traffic to the ITS website came from Google.

More than just websites.

• In February, 56% of email opens occured on mobile, 25% on desktop and 19% in a webmail client.
• In 2016, only 17% of marketers design email templates to look good on multiple devices by using responsive email design or employ device detection coding.
• The e-newsletter we sent out was built using Web Services new responsive email design and will be made available to all CCMS clients

杏吧原创鈥檚 Mobile Websites

Speaking of Web Services, this month Web Services began rolling out their biggest CCMS upgrade in three years.

鈥淥ur focus when designing the new template was on mobile accessibility.鈥� said Danny Brown, Manager of Web Services.

Not only does the AODA compliant website work beautifully on various platforms, it also delivers a number of features of which web maintainers can take advantage. Read more about the new template at .

5 Things We Thought You Should Know

1. Stats. In February the busiest computer lab on campus was on the 3rd floor of the Library with 5,290 logins to 76 computers. Check out more stats like this in our latest .
2. How to Train your Clutter: You may have noticed a new Clutter folder in your Exchange email, but did you know that ?
3. Congratulations: High fives to the Outgoing Exchange project team for being awarded the Service Excellence Award for Innovation. Artur Oldak celebrated his 10 year service anniversary in March and Dave Brown will be celebrating 15 years in April.
4. Conference: The (Canadian Higher Ed IT) conference is in Edmonton this year from June 20 鈥� 22. The presentation submission deadline has been extended to March 31.
5. Beware Malware: Last month for a Malware incident which resulted in four computers being locked down. Incidents like this serve as a reminder to be wary of unsolicited email and to never open attachments from senders you do not recognize.

Like what you see?听

If you have an idea on how we can improve, .