Archive for the 'ITD News' Category

Hi All,

This is just a reminder that the ITD User Forum is on again on Tuesday 5th August 2008 between 12-1pm at the Paul Barrett Lecture Theatre - we would love to see you there!

Hi,

The ITD User Forum is on again. Come along and find out what is new and exciting in ITD at UNE.

Where: Paul Barrett Lecture Theatre

When: Tuesday, 5th August 2008  12- 1 pm

We look forward to seeing you there!

  

Unfortunately the LMS Forum planned for Monday 16th June has been postponed due to a scheduling clash.

We’ll keep you updated.

Another email scam (asking you to “verify your details”) has come into UNE email inbox overnight. Please ignore any emails with the subject line URGENT: VERIFY YOUR UNE WEBMAIL and do not respond with your login details.

Please contact the Service Desk (02 67735000, servicedesk@une.edu.au) if you have any questions about this email or any other suspicious email you receive.

Here’s your chance to ask questions and get the latest information on UNE’s new Learning Management Systems.

This year saw the introduction of two new learning management systems at UNE. A number of unforseen issues caused problems for some staff and students early in the semester.

ITD and TLC would like to invite you to a staff/student forum to discuss issues around the new learning management systems. The forum will look at what happened, where we are up to and what to expect in the immediate future. There will be a chance for staff and students to ask questions.

When: 1-2pm Monday 16th June

Where: Oorala Lecture Theatre

If you have anything you would like to see addressed at the forum why not post a comment to this blog.

UNE’s Business Intelligence (BI) project continues to produce valuable insights.

UNEs BI project is all about giving UNE staff access to timely, accurate and consistant information. The BI project, now in its second year  is providing new capabilities for data analysis.

Have you ever wondered how many prospective students are using UNE’s courses and units catalogue for example? In the past 30 days more than 230,000 unique searches have been made for subjects as diverse as ceramics, dance and astronomy. Education (closely followed by law) was the most searched for subject with new courses such as criminology sparking strong interest.

Technical project manager Rob Hale (pictured) is heading up the BI project. ‘We’re keen to provide flexible and accurate information that meets the needs of the university community. We’ve got staff trying out the systems, performing their own data analysis and printing reports from their own desktop.’ says Mr. Hale.

From 1 March ITD will take over responsibility for video conferencing at UNE. The aim is to ensure that UNE’s video conferencing infrastructure remains state-of-the-art.

Hans Schaefer has been working with video conferencing for more than 15 years. In that time he’s seen some remarkable changes. ‘Video conferencing is constantly changing. We have good networks worldwide now so the cost has come down enormously. It’s becoming increasingly flexible with video conferencing facilities installed in three lecture theatres and around 20 desktop videoconferencing units around UNE’ says Hans.

As a result of UNE’s rural location, the university has been quick to see the benefits of video conferencing. As a result UNE continues to be at the forefront of video conferencing technology. The university’s decision to have a dedicated sub-network for video conferencing has eliminated the need for a firewall and made connecting to UNE’s video conferencing system simple and reliable.

Video conferencing is already revolutionising teaching and learning at UNE. Today will see the first link up of students in the Joint Medical Program with lecturers at The University of Newcastle. Students using net meeting are also able to access UNE staff using video conferencing.

UNE’s principal IT Officer, Gordon Smith sees ITD’s  involvement in video conferencing as a natural extension of its role in providing communications infrastructure. ‘ITD provides and maintains data infrastructure and telephone infrastructure. Now we’re extending that role to include the provision of video communications infrastructure’ Gordon Smith.

Hans sees lots of new video conferencing developments just around the corner. “We have to keep our eyes open and talk to people about what they really want”. Hans made the move from TLC to ITD on the 1^st March this year.

UNE’s BI (Business Intelligence) team will benefit from a 4-day course in Sydney.

Creating a well functioning data warehouse relies on a good understanding of dimensional modelling. UNE’s BI team (Rob Hale, James Cooper and Norm Boessler) will spend this week in Sydney getting the latest tips on dimensional modelling to create an efficient data warehouse.

Daniel Gooch will oversee a major re-think of IT at UNE which aims to streamline the provision of IT services and promote innovation.

This year has bee a big one for reflecting on how UNE manages the provision of IT services. An IT sub-plan was prepared earlier in the year and an external review into IT at UNE was carried out by consultant Mike Rebbechi. Daniel Gooch, IT project manager will now look at the organisation of IT services throughout UNE and how some of the recommendations from these reviews might become a reality.

Daniel sees one of his main goals as changing the way in which the UNE community engages with IT “We should really be focusing on how to get more out of IT - it’s really something that should be enabling us to work more efficiently and be more creative.”

The external review into IT at UNE concluded that the provision of IT services at UNE was highly devolved and recommended a comprehensive audit of IT service provision and IT governance. Daniel Gooch explains “Having a devolved IT structure is not a problem but we do need to make sure that we are all working together and that services are being efficently provided to the university community.”

One idea that will be explored is a process driven approach to IT provision. “At the moment we really organise IT around the different business units which doesn’t allow for information sharing or smooth management of the various processes that are our core business.”

Daniel is also keen to identify areas in which UNE can excel by supporting innovation in IT. Through the provision of increased support for innovation UNE will seek to enhance its reputation for smart use of IT technology in teaching and learning.

Daniel will spend the next few months considering the various recommendations and translating them into concrete outcomes for UNE. You can view the progress of this project and get involved by visiting www.une.edu.au/it-services/strategy

UNE’s new anti-virus scanning device had a busy day yesterday (December 10^th) with more than 2500 infected emails identified and blocked– and that’s just an average day at the office. 

UNE was targeted by 22 unique viruses, worms and other internet nasties yesterday with more than 2500 infected emails and attachments identified and blocked from the UNE network. But that’s all in a days work for the new anti-virus scanner installed earlier this year as part of the UNE network upgrade.

The most frequently blocked virus, with 1900 identified instances, was a Trojan downloader virus. These small viruses will secretly download and run other viruses and files. They are often used by online advertisers to push adware/spyware to users.

Also blocked yesterday were 658 instances of the worm Bagz.E. This family of worms will send itself to email addresses gathered from the infected computer. It will also try to turn off anti-virus applications and allow other viruses to gain access to the computer.

The new anti-virus scanner is one of twelve filters that incoming emails pass through before being delivered to UNE users.