All ITS Blogs

The New Media Lab has been busy providing video production support and video expertise to the Wesleyan administrative and academic community this fall.  On the schedule, 4 podcasts including the Wasch Center, Wesleyan Writing, East Asian Studies and Center for the Humanities vidcast productions.  In addition to the regular weekly lecture programming there are many university spotlight videos, student and alumni activity highlight videos, and conference and event video programs being produced every day.

The New Media Lab Video Team also has a team of student producers assisting the full-time staff with production, editing and special effect artistry.  Visit the www.Wesleyan.edu/ITS/video website for more information on the services offered or view some sample videos below.

ITS has instituted self-serve password reset capability should you forget your password or become locked out during the annual password reset.

The link to the application is on the Single Sign On page below the box asking for username and password.

Clicking on this link will bring you to the following:

In order to be able to use self-serve reset, you must have 1 of 2 things set up:

1. WesID.  Your WesID has a unique identifier which, when used in conjunction with the last 4 digits of your Social Security Number, will identify you to the system and allow you to set a new password.

2. An alternate email in the system.  Everyone has the ability to have an alternate email (not @wesleyan.edu) on file with the University for emergency notification purposes.  That address can be used to send you a link available for a limited time to reset your password. To verify or establish an alternate email address:

Students:

Student Portfolio -> Enrollment Status -> Enrollment Checklist & Addresses
Once inside the application it can be updated on the Address Information page.

Faculty and Staff :

Employee Portfolio -> Personal Information -> Personal Profile.
Secondary Email is under the Primary Campus,  Home, Pay Statement Address and Directory Print Selections section

GLS Students:

Personal > Self-Service – Personal Data

**Remember that resetting your password will require you to change your password for all wireless access and mobile devices.  

This morning, there was a problem with the Time and Time Off reporting app that resulted in users intermittently being unable to access it.  This was sporadic and many were able to access it by trying multiple times.  ITS located the problem and resolved the issue by approximately 10:30 am. There was no data loss from this.

This morning, there was a problem with the Time and Time Off reporting app that resulted in users intermittently being unable to access it.  This was sporadic and many were able to access it by trying multiple times.  ITS located the problem and resolved the issue by approximately 10:30 am. There was no data loss from this.

There were systems issues overnight October 12 that resulted in Exchange email and Pharos being interrupted.  These services were unavailable from 2:30-7:30 am.  Exchange email was unavailable during that window.  Mail delivered during that time was queued and delivered when services resumed at 7:30.  Senders may have received a delayed delivery notification.  This only affected those users on our Exchange system – most faculty and staff.

Printing was also offline during this window.

All services are back up and running.

There will be no on campus postal metering or delivery of USPS mail to campus on Monday, October 14th, in observance of the Columbus Day holiday. Normal campus mail delivery and pickup will run as usual.

Thank you,
Allen Alonzo

Date: Saturday, October 19

Times: 7am-11am

Systems Impacted and Type of Impact:

There will be intermittent outages.  None of these systems will be down for the duration of the window, however they could be interrupted more than once. As such, we recommend users not connect to these services during the window:

EPortfolio
PeopleSoft CS
PeopleSoft HR
Numerical Analyses servers – rintintin/chloe
FlexStorage
TSM backup

Communication during the window will be on Facebook, Twitter and via email.  For any issues after the window, please call Public Safety who will notify the ITS on call person.

Additionally, beginning Sunday, October 20, ITS will be undergoing a security assessment from Pervasive Solutions that will include testing of our systems.  While we don’t expect this to have an adverse effect on systems, ITS will be monitoring and in close communication with the company so that we can respond quickly if a service becomes unavailable.

Via the WesLive blog.

This page shows you how to embed video from YouTube, Google, Vimeo, Flickr, or a generic Flash (.flv) or Quicktime (.mov) file hosted on an external server.

Via the WesLive blog.

1. Click on “New Post.”
2. Type a title and start writing your content in the box below. Use the toolbar buttons to style your text as you would in a word processor.
   
3. To create a link, select the text that you want to be the “link text” and then click the linked chain button, type in the URL and then click Insert.
    
4. To create a new paragraph simply press Enter/Return.
5. To insert an image, position your cursor where you’d like the image to go, then take the following steps:
   • click the star icon next to “Add Media”
     
   • browse for your image and select it
     
   • click “Upload”
   • type a caption (recommended); title is optional
     
   • choose an image size
   • if the image will be a link, type the URL or click “File URL” for a link to the full-sized original
   • choose your alignment for the image
   • click “Insert into Post”
     
6. Your image will then be inserted where you last placed your cursor.
7. Remember to save your work by clicking “Save Draft”
   
8. Preview your post by clicking “View post” after the browser reloads; the post will not be available from the blog homepage yet
9. In this example we made the image a link, so you can click on it to view the original
   
10. Click “Edit” to return to the Post editor
11. WordPress automatically creates the full URL based on your title text; if you want you can modify this
    
12. Tag your post by typing keywords separated by commas in the Post Tags section
    
13. Click “Publish” to make your post live on the blog
14. When your post is published the URL will be the “human friendly version”
    
15. Log out when you are done editing
    

Requesting a WordPress Site

Faculty and staff members may request an individual WordPress site for use in conjunction with their work. To request a site, go to the Tools and Links bucket in your Faculty or Employee Portfolio, and select Blog & Wiki Request. Once you agree to the usage policies for the Web 2.0 tools such as the blogs, your request will be submitted and you will be notified by an email when your site is ready to go.

Faculty and staff members may also request group sites. Group sites can be used for courses, research, conferences, and collaborative projects. To request a group site please contact the appropriate person.

Policy Guidance
General use of Web 2.0 tools including blogs and wikis is addressed by the Computer Usage Policy. The following amendment addresses issues related to these tools.

• Faculty and staff members may request a blog or wiki for use in conjunction with their work. The requestor will be the owner of the blog and assumes responsibilities as defined by the computer usage policies. Student blogs and wikis will be supported at a later time.
• Faculty and staff members may also request group blogs or wikis. Group blogs can be used in courses, research, department websites, and collaborative projects.
• Faculty and staff members may request additional Wesleyan computer accounts for collaborators from other institutions for participation in Web 2.0 activities, and their use will be covered by the computer usage policies.
• Anonymous postings to blogs and wikis are not permitted. Owners of blogs and wikis may not reconfigure the system to allow anonymous postings.
• Comments are an integral part of Web 2.0. All comments will be run through a SPAM engine. An individual making a comment is required to provide a valid email address before entering comments. The blog owner is responsible to review each comment before posting it to the blog for others to see. The blog owner reserves the right not to publish individual comments. The blog owner may opt to require Wesleyan password authentication before comments can be submitted.
• Blogs created by Wesleyan-provided software will be listed on a web page and be available for RSS syndication.
• Wesleyan does not guarantee that it will provide ancillary software, such as databases and script languages, that authors may wish to use in their blogs or wikis.