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 aÌýÌýto help students become familiar with the IT services they will come in contact with during their time at ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´. For a complete list of services, students are encouraged to check outÌý, a transition guide provided by the Office of the Vice-President (Students and Enrolment).

Service Desk

Last September Stats
It’s 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.Ìý 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 toÌýprovideÌýsupport outside of university business hours –Ìý till 10:30 pm Mon-Thurs, till 10 pm Friday, and from 12-8 pm weekends. ÌýTo prepare them for the types of requests they will receive, 16 students attended a three day ‘bootcamp’ withÌýpresentation 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.Ìý Housing and Residence Life Services haveÌýstreamlined their processesÌýto 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.Ìý We’ll 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. WithÌýInstructional Media Services (IMS)Ìýassuming 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.Ìý VDI was introduced at ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´Ìýin 2014Ìýand 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 offeringÌýstudents in select educational institutions, including ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, the MS Office software suite, at no charge while they are at ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´.Ìý For information on how to download the software, visit ourÌýMS Office page.

Systems

cuLearn Upgrade
ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s Learning Management System, CuLearn,Ìýwill be getting its annual upgrade on Sept 3, going from Moodle version 2.8.7 to version 3.1.1, withÌýimprovements to the gradebook and the overall system performance.ÌýPlanning for the upgrade generally utilizes theÌý, from the Initiation phase to the Closure Phase. Schedules and test plans are developed and actioned upon for respective areas of responsibility by both theÌýÌýand 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 computersÌýwere updated over the summer with the latest image which includes 64-bit Windows 10 Enterprise, along with roughlyÌý. 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’s 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.
• ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ took to Social Media for it’s CU75 campaign. With close to a million impressions on Facebook and Twitter, it is clear that .
• There are two social media events happening at ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ next month. ÌýOn June 1^st Mike Reynolds (OVPSE), Chris Cline (DUC), and Web Services are hosting a talk on .ÌýOn 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’ll 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’s 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 usingÌýsocial media in the classroom and offers a few suggestions to faculty members looking to implement social media in their teaching plans.Ìý

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 ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ 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 ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´: Wondering what that The 1,600-square-foot, two-storey solar-powered house is perched on a low hill at the north end of ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s campus? It’s ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s new.
5. Mark your calendars:Ìý on Friday, June 17.

Like what you see?ÌýÌý

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

In support of the event which took place here at ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ on March 29, and the first anniversary of the , this month’s theme is a ‘big’ 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 . ÌýThis is overÌý3.5 billion searches per day andÌý1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide.
• have been sent this year, as of this second. Ìý 146 of those, as of this second.
• ThisÌýFebruary ITS backed up 482 TB of data. Last February it was 270 TB of data. That’s a 78% increase in just one year.

AnalyzingÌýBig 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 ScienceÌýrecentlyÌýto support big data learning and research.
• Each month ITS managers meet for ‘Ops Review’Ìýwhere they review and discuss campus IT data and trends on everything from wireless, to campus card door swipes to website traffic.

Collaborating AroundÌýBig Data

• took place on March 29th in the River Building. This is an annualÌýconference that celebrates theÌýlatest developmentsÌýin data science andÌýanalytics research withinÌýthe ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ community and in Canada.
• OnÌýApril 19 a group of overÌý40 ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ researchers gathered in Dunton Tower for aÌýday-longÌýÌýhosted by the Institute for Data Science.
• 53 faculty members are participating in the new collaborativeÌýdata program in the and there are more than 130 researchers at ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ 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.

“WeÌýhelp faculty and students who are working on projects with advanced research computing needs. Ìý These projects generally involve big data, largeÌýcomputational 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:ÌýWe have threeÌýpeople celebrating service anniversaries in May. ÌýCongratulations to Pierre Morissette (15 years), Kelly Callan (10 years), and Blake Henderson (1 year).
2. Campus Card Opens Doors and So Much More:ÌýIn March, the Campus Card was used to open doors 864,654 times.ÌýIt was used nearly 300,000 times as a debit card to pay for meals, laundry, printing, vending, and books.Ìý.
3. Direct-Inward-Dial phone numbers: This month personal DID numbers (example 613-520-4567) to ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s phone number (613-520-2600 ext. 4567).Ìý This change wasÌýdone in order to be consistent in representing ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ to the outside community.
4. Latest CCMS Upgrade:Ìý Web Services recently upgraded the latest template to . ÌýThe upgrade includes a new responsive newsletter theme.
5. This Month’s IT Security Tip:ÌýBanks 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.Ìý .

Like what you see?ÌýÌý

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

Each editon we spotlight a different trend or topic in the information technology world. The newsletter will be available on our website and via subscription to our Spotlight mailing list.

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