By Claudia Lynch, Benchmarks Online Editor
Believe it or not, Spring Break is just around the corner! The following information should help you plan your activities if you need/want to access campus computing facilities over the break.
By Amber Bryant, Senior Marketing Specialist, CLEAR
Mark your calendars! CLEAR has some great events planned for this spring.
By Scott Windham, ITSS Network Engineer, and Brenda K. Ritz, Videoconference Manager, UNT CLEAR
Technology as easy to use as putting on your favorite pair of old Blue Jeans. That’s right! Did you know that CLEAR and UNT System ITSS have partnered together to provide users across campus a great and easy way to further collaborate with your colleagues across the globe? Through this joint partnership we have access to the Blue Jeans Network.
By Dr. Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, Director - Academic Computing Technical Services
You may have heard the rumors that UNT faculty and staff were going to soon enjoy the same Microsoft perks and privileges with their Exchange accounts that our students have been benefitting from with their EagleConnect accounts. The rumors are, indeed, true and many of these features have already been implemented and are ready for the UNT faculty and staff community! You will be hearing soon from your network manager about OneDrive for Business file storage and management which will allow you to save, share, and collaborate on files. This article focuses on the Microsoft Office for Home Use privileges you can install and utilize now via Office 365.
By Amber Bryant, Senior Marketing Specialist, CLEAR
Mark your calendars and make sure and register for these upcoming events! CLEAR has some great events planned for this spring.
By Dr. Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, Director - Academic Computing Technical Services
Last month I showed faculty and staff how to take advantage of their five free copies of Microsoft Office and/or purchase (for a nominal fee) older versions of the Office Suite with a DVD copy. This month I will explore setting up home use of Adobe products on faculty and staff machines. For those of you who have not updated your Adobe products for awhile, the era of getting a big package of DVDs of the company's software for a one-time really high price (even the educational discount was pretty steep)is long gone. Adobe's most popular products (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Acrobat Pro) are now bundled in the "creative cloud" and users download the products and then lease them on a monthly or yearly basis. The Creative Cloud Suite contains almost 20 useful and powerful Adobe apps.
By Nassos Galiopoulos, Manager – Enterprise Collaboration Services (ITSS)
Information Technology Shared Services has compiled some useful Office 365 training resources available online for employees to easily access. Migrating to Office 365 is becoming increasingly popular because of the features and benefits it offers through a collection of tools, applications and services. Therefore, helping you get more work done, anytime, and anywhere using a variety of computing devices.
By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Senior Director of Academic Computing and User Services and Deputy Chief Information Officer for University Information Technology
In October of 2014, we announced that University Information Technology and UNT System IT Shared Services had embarked on a project to enhance wireless network (WiFi) access in key UNT buildings. We can report that Phases 1 and 2 of that project as described in the October article have been completed and Phase 3 of the project is on track to be completed this Spring on schedule. By the time the project is finished, the number of wireless access points on campus will have grown from about a total of 600 to over 2000 on the UNT Denton campuses..
By Claudia Lynch, Benchmarks Online Editor
The EDUCAUSE Annual conference is scheduled for October 27–30, 2015 in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Online. You can gear up for the conference by viewing some of the free EDUCAUSE Live! webinars.
By JoAnn Luksich, Data Manager, Academic Computing and User Services
To make accommodations for the new University-wide commencement, the original final exam schedule for this semester was changed. The Spring 2015 final exam ‘week’ now includes May 9th, the Saturday before final week, and then the following week, May 11th– 15th.
By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Senior Director of Academic Computing and User Services and Deputy Chief Information Officer for University Information Technology
This Spring we've seen some major changes in personnel in the ACUS HPC Services team. HPC Services Manager, Scott Yockel, left UNT in January for a position at Harvard University. In February, Ali Siavosh-Haghighi accepted a position at the NYU Medical Center in New York City. This left two vacancies on the HPC team while at the same time, we were dealing with a major issue in March with our Lustre high-performance storage subsystem (/storage/scratch.).
By Claudia Lynch, Benchmarks Online Editor
All good things must come to an end, as the saying goes, and that includes my employment at the University of North Texas. I started here on May 23, 1979 and the first issue of Benchmarks was published in January, 1980 (it wasn't online back then, I wasn't married, and UNT was called North Texas State University or NTSU). Time marches on!
By Claudia Lynch, Benchmarks Online Editor
Summer is here, at least as far as the UNT schedule of classes is concerned. Summer 2015 consists of seven sessions and not all campus facilities are open during all the sessions.*
By Dr. Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, Director - Academic Computing Technical Services
UIT ACUS provides computer classroom spaces at the Discovery Park in DP-B140 (48 PC's), DP-B142 (48 PC's), DP-D212 (24 PC's) and DP-D215 (currently 35 iMacs). The computers in these classrooms will be updated with new machines during the summer of 2015.
By Dr. Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, Director - Academic Computing Technical Services
UNT Information Technology (UIT) held a customer service summit for all levels of IT personnel on May 1 in the Gateway Center. The event was also supported by the Center for Learning Enhancement, Assessment and Redesign (CLEAR) and Information Technology System Services (ITSS) provided significant discussion leadership. Over 60 IT staff attended the event which focused on providing and "owning" customer service support especially in regard to UNT faculty needs.
By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Senior Director of Academic Computing and User Services and Deputy Chief Information Officer for University Information Technology
With the successful completion of the Spring semester we can all look forward to various activities this summer. Faculty members may have the opportunity to travel and pursue research or other academic activities. If you fall into this category and will need to have access to research software while you are off campus, Academic Computing and User Services may be able to help.
By Sam Gist, Instructional Consultant, CLEAR
Every year CLEAR (Center for Learning Enhancement, Assessment, and Redesign) awards select UNT faculty for designing/teaching outstanding online courses. We are once again extending the opportunity to acknowledge exceptional online pedagogy.
By Mike McKay, Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Curriculum, UNT College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Philip Baczewski, Senior Director of Academic Computing and User Services and Deputy Chief Information Officer for University Information Technology
On April 20, 2015, UNT went live with our first campus-wide software tool for academic advisors and student support staff. Based on Salesforce CRM, this new platform brings together data from three systems (PeopleSoft, Tracking, and SAM) to provide a more comprehensive view of a student record while allowing advising and student support offices to share information about their individual meetings with students.
By Claudia Lynch, Benchmarks Online Guest Editor
The EDUCAUSE Annual conference is scheduled for October 27–30, 2015 in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Online. Check out the key dates and the lineup of "General Session Thought Leaders."
By Dr. Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, Director - Academic Computing Technical Services
Classroom and Testing Desktop Services (CTDS), a part of UIT's Academic Computing and User Services (ACUS) is in the process of completing a variety of projects this summer which will result in greater education technology opportunities for faculty in the fall. Some of these are new initiatives while others are significant upgrades to existing services.
