Connections

A compilation of various projects currently underway at OIT

Student Technology Services

1) Revising and adapting our new Macintosh-Windows dual-boot computer lab in Soc-Psych 133 and preparing it for spring semester, including working to accommodate an undergraduate GIS course

2) Updating the Pratt Visualization Lab (VisLab) with updated software and system images

3) Laying the ground work for Froshlife ‘08, the sixth-annual Duke digital filmmaking contest that unites Duke’s first-year dorms in a spirited but friendly competition

4) Preparing to launch a campaign to raise student awareness of many new technology support services for Duke students, including expanded SWAT support, online storage and backup, and other services

5) Supporting Duke Digital Initiative (DDI) efforts in digital video and tablet PCs

6) Collaborating with A&S on a concurrent license server environment pilot for STATA and other costly applications.

The Learn IT @ Lunch seminar series showcases many technologies available at Duke, including DukeWiki, DukePASS, Elluminate, WebFiles, iTunes U and more. If you missed a live session you can still “attend” archived versions at Learn IT Online on iTunes U.

Upcoming sessions include ePrint, Blackboard and Viewsflash. Participation is open to all Duke students, faculty and staff. Registration is not required, but seating is on a first come, first-served basis. Information about the sessions can be found at http://www.oit.duke.edu/help/training/learn_it_lunch.html.

All sessions are held from 12:00 to12:30 PM and again from 12:30 to1:00 PM in the Collaboratory (room 101), Bryan Center, inside the Office of Student Activities and Facilities suite.

Remaining 2007 schedule

November 13
ePrint: Printing Made Easy at Duke

November 20
Blackboard: Overview

November 27
Creating an Online Survey with ViewsFlash

Anne Beckwith
Rhett Butler
Anthony Bynum
Rachel Franke
Tony Kosturi
Julian Lombardi
Constance Martin
Benjamin Massey
Christopher Meyer

Alenda Pereira
Cynthia Pollard
Ave Royster
Keith Savoy
Veronica Simmons
Brenda Snipes
Andrew Stasiuk
Barbara Wade
Gwendolyn Waller
Danny Williford
Kevin Witte

Thomas Adkins - 2007
Thomas (Rhett) Butler - 1999
Ann Collins - 1994
Kristie Crutchfield - 1999
Klara Jelinkova - 2006
Benjamin Kimmel - 2001

Marilyn Lombardi - 2005
Dwayne Marlowe - 2006
Alfreda Partridge - 1978
Thomas Peng - 2003
Bob Price - 2006

Barbara Puccio - 2006

Andrew Stasiuk - 2000
John Straffin - 1998
Annette Timberlake - 1983

Customer Service Awards
Mark Healy
Paula Batton
Richard Nichols

Operating Unit Award
Chris Hughes

Division Award
Michael Mercado
Arlene Thompson

It’s that time of year again for the annual OIT Pot-Luck-Feast. The Fun Club would like to invite you to join us during lunch to mingle with your co-workers on Friday November 9th from 11:30am - 1:30pm. This event will be held at 211 Telecom Building, 133 North Building and the East/West conference room at the ATC.

OIT will provide the turkey, ham, gravy and utensils for the event. OIT members have volunteered to bring side dishes, bread, desserts or soft drinks to the festivities.

Please remember to bring your item and place it in your respective break room by 10:30am tomorrow morning. If possible, please bring your item in a disposable dish.

If you have any questions, please see the designated building representative below:

ATC - Wendi Clark
North Bldg - Myra Hill-Rochelle
Telecom Bldg - Freda Partridge

We look forward to seeing everyone there!

Submitted by the OIT Fun Club

After over 37 years of dedicated service to Duke University, Barbara Wade will be retiring, effective November 30, 2007. As many of you know, Barbara is currently an analyst in the Technical Support - EDSS division of OIT providing desktop and device support to a wide range of our customers.

Barbara has enjoyed her time at Duke and has held a variety of positions in multiple areas of the campus. Departments include: Accounting, Physics, Perkins Library, the Placement Office, Benefits and Records, Telcom, the Office of Vice President for Information Technology, Academic Computing, and OIT. She has seen many changes in technology through the years and in fact used the first word processor on campus. The technology bug hit her mid-career, and she’s been providing technical support ever since. She is the only person to directly support four Duke presidents: Sanford, Brodie, Keohane and Brodhead.

Those of you who have worked closely with Barbara know that her friendly nature, dedication, cooperative spirit and warm smile will be what we miss the most. Please join me in expressing our gratitude for the service Barbara has provided to Duke and OIT, and wishing her all the best in her retirement.

submitted by John Cook

OIT’s Student Technology Services unit has been providing short training sessions on a number of OIT technology services as part of our training mission this semester. Given the broad and extended usage of dCal for scheduling and calendaring within and outside OIT, you may be interested in this week’s overview of the dCal service:

Topic: Maintaining an Electronic Calendar with dCal
Date: Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Times: 12:00-12:30 p.m. & 12:30-1:00 p.m.

No pre-registration is required to attend this session. For more information about OIT’s Learn IT @ Lunch series, go to:
http://www.oit.duke.edu/help/training/learn_it_lunch.html

Upcoming sessions include an overview of Blackboard, ePrint and ViewsFlash.

If you cannot attend in person, this session will be recorded and made available online within a few days of the session here.

submitted by Kevin Davis

According to Duke OIT reports, the Duke University email system has been hit with an explosion of spam emails. Spam is unsolicited or undesired bulk electronic messages

A year ago Duke OIT email filters were blocking 1.4 million spam messages a day. In October, the filters blocked over one million spam messages an hour.

Klara Jelinkova, Director of OIT Computing Systems, noted that there was a particularly large jump in spam messages between September and October. In September, Duke was receiving 13 million spam messages per day. This number shot up to 24 million messages per day in October.

The OIT Computing Systems group continues to work on repelling even more spam, even as the volume of keeps going up. The group is constantly retuning the filters to catch new threats. These threats include a new kind of spam that could be even more annoying than the old-fashioned kind. An audio MP3 version of the spam has started to spread rapidly. The spam is designed to evade anti-spam filters, which have recently gotten wise to image spam and attachment spam.

Another problem MP3 spam presents is that it chews up more bandwidth just trying to get to its destination. This was a significant problem when image and PDF spam peaked, and now MP3 spam is arriving as even bigger files than image spam.

All email sent to duke.edu addresses go through the Duke OIT email filtering gateway. The OIT Computing systems group is the first line of defense at duke against a never-ending flood of unsolicited e-mails.

OIT will be participating in a pilot program beginning November 5, 2007 to test a new self-service web site that will provide faculty and staff across Duke with on-demand access to view or update certain personal information. The pilot is slated to continue through January, with the broader institutional roll-out slated to occur in early February.

*Features of the Site*
The site will offer more flexibility to access and update your personal information, making your information available electronically when and where you need it. Using your NetID and password to access the secured site, you will be able to:
* View current and past pay statements
* Change your home address
* Update your work address (physical location)
* Access your health care or dependent care reimbursement account information
* View your retirement plan balance
* Review benefit participation
* Explore professional development opportunities and search for jobs at Duke
* Set up or change bank accounts for direct deposit
* Change Federal and North Carolina tax withholdings

Allowing faculty and staff direct access to view and update their information will also streamline administrative processes and reduce the potential for errors from multiple points of data entry. This project is therefore a priority initiative for OIT.

  Going Green
The self-service web site will also support Duke’s sustainability efforts by allowing staff to view their direct deposit statements online, and eliminate the need to receive a paper direct deposit statement. Each OIT staff member will receive one printed pay statement in November – bi-weekly employees on November 9th and monthly employees on November 21st. All future pay statements after these two will be available only online for the duration of the pilot, so that we can fully test the technology and process for this option and support Duke’s sustainability efforts. You will receive further updates as our pay dates draw nearer regarding the related functionality. If you have questions or concerns with this plan, please email OIT HR at oit-hr@duke.edu or contact Janice Jordan at 681-8017 to discuss alternate arrangements.

*Your Role*
You will find detailed information about the new web site, including several information sessions for pilot participants, at
www.hr.duke.edu/selfservice. As part of the pilot, please use the self-service site for any of the features listed above. You will also receive email notification each pay period when your new pay statement is available online.

Thank you for your support and participation in this pilot.