TAG Meeting Notes – 2013-09-04

5 09 2013

TAG Meeting September 4, 2013 2:00pm-2:50pm

Attendees:

Jeremy Brees, Tim Cannon, Paul Cutrufello, Kim Daniloski, Dave Dzurec, Tara Fay, Jim Franceschelli, Eugeniu Grigorescu, Andrew LaZella, Sandy Pesavento, Kristen Yarmey

1. Introductions

We introduced two new TAG members for this year: Dr. Andrew LaZella (Philosophy, CAS) and Jeremy Brees (Management and Marketing, KSOM). We’re still hoping to recruit an additional faculty representative from PCPS – please let us know if you have any suggestions!

2. Brief Reports

LMS Group (Tara)

The Learning Management System Working Group recommended at the end of Spring 2013 that we switch from Angel to Desire2Learn (see full report for details). TAG members Tara Fay (Biology), Sandy Pesavento (Education), and Teresa Conte (Nursing) all served on the LMS Group, along with fellow faculty members Maureen Carroll (Math) and Julie Nastasi (OT).

The University has since signed on with Desire2Learn. As VP for Planning and CIO Jerry DeSanto announced in July, Desire2Learn will be available for use in Spring 2014, and Angel will be available until June 1, 2014 (so D2L and Angel will run in parallel in Spring 2014).

Staff members in CTLE and ITDA have been working on an implementation plan. We’ve been asked not to share details yet, since the plan hasn’t been finalized, but the LMS Group will be presenting their plans to the Faculty Senate and Deans Conference in the very near future. We’ll post a conversion schedule here when there’s more information available.

Eugeniu noted that CTLE plans to do some pilot course conversions with several faculty members early on in the process – particularly faculty members whose Angel courses have a lot of specialized content.  (Tara has already volunteered to be one of the pilot participants.) There will be trainings and demonstrations available for faculty.  Let TAG know if you have questions or requests related to the LMS transition and we’ll pass them along to CTLE and ITDA.

Website Proposal Group (Dave)

Dave, Jeremy S., Kristen, and Katie met with Hal Baillie, Jerry DeSanto, Gerry Zaboski, and Vince Carilli in May to discuss the Website Maintenance Proposal that members of TAG drafted last year as a solution for the complex issue of maintaining and updating departmental websites. All parties generally agreed that maintaining departmental websites is a serious issue affecting recruitment of students and faculty, but unfortunately a new position (full time or part time) is not an option. TAG will table this issue unless we come up with other options to explore.

On a related note, during the switch to the new responsive design for the University website this summer, some departments were prepared for the conversion and had sized images uploaded in time, but others did not.

Acceptable Use Policy (Dave)

The Acceptable Use Policy drafts are moving forward and will go to the University Governance Council and the Faculty and Staff Senates this semester.

Identity Finder (Kristen)

At our April 2013 meeting, IT Services Director Jim Franceschelli and Information Security Director Adam Edwards brought a proposal for Identity Finder Automated Scans to TAG for faculty feedback. TAG shared two main concerns from faculty:

1) Decreased performance of computers during Identity Finder Scans — Adam had explained that the automated scans would be implemented with IT staff members first, so that he’d be able to smooth out the process before implementing with faculty. Jim noted that the staff rollout had gone smoothly and IT Services had not received any complaints about decreased performance. The *first* Identity Finder scan tends to take the longest, but subsequent scans are quick.

2) IRB data – concerns that Identity Finder scans of machines storing human research subject data or client files would breach subject confidentiality. We were working over the summer on preparing recommendations for faculty members who store IRB data on how to encrypt and password protect their data folders, such that the data would be protected from Identity Finder scans but (perhaps more importantly) also from external malicious attacks. Kristen will check in with Adam to find out the status of the recommendations.

All TAG members in attendance volunteered to serve as pilot participants for faculty implementation of Identity Finder prior to full rollout.

Jim recommended that faculty members run their own Identity Finders scans ASAP due to the increase in malicious attacks on campus computers — IT Services can clean and return faculty desktops much more quickly if a recent Identity Finder scan has confirmed the absence of confidential or sensitive data.

Information Resources Advisory Council (Kristen)

IRAC will meet twice this academic year, in October and March. TAG normally sends two faculty representatives to IRAC meetings. Paul Cutrufello volunteered to continue serving on IRAC this year. Andrew LaZella volunteered to serve as the second representative depending on the schedule for IRAC meetings. Kristen will contact Robyn Dickinson for IRAC meeting dates.

3. Items for Discussion

University Website Changes (Kristen)

During the summer, there were several major changes to the University’s web presence. Kristen opened the floor for feedback or comments on these transitions:

  • Academic server (academic.scranton.edu) decommissioning — Kristen worked with Adam Edwards in Information Security to reach out to faculty members who still had content on academic. CTLE offered support for faculty who needed help moving their content, generally recommending that faculty members use existing templates in the University’s content management system (CMS). While the transition seemed to go smoothly, there is still a need for a place or host for faculty and student web development. At least one faculty member had needs that could not be fulfilled in the CMS.
  • Responsive redesign of www.scranton.edu — There are several reports of templates not quite making a smooth transition – e.g., Faculty/Staff pages like the History Department’s, dropdown links on the Provost’s website, etc.
  • m.scranton.edu takedown — The Library had issues with this, but TAG members hadn’t heard any other concerns. [Update 2014-02-12: Lori Nidoh in PR clarified that m.scranton.edu had not been taken down. Instead, automatic redirects had been implemented.]
  • my.scranton.edu (Luminis) upgrade — TAG members reported several ways in which the new interface unintuitive. Student schedules are difficult (for students) to find, as are the Faculty/Staff directory, class rosters, and course evaluations. However, TAG members agreed that by now most people have figured out where links are, so we don’t want to request changes to the Faculty Tab at this point.

WordPress (Kristen)

The University set up a local WordPress network in late 2011. It now hosts admissions blogs, the Library blog, and the History Department blog. IR staff members had indicated that they were working on developing guidelines for how the WordPress network could be used and creating a process through which sites on the network could be requested.

In the meantime, several faculty members have requested WordPress sites for other uses – internal collaboration, classroom use, etc.  To date, while internal collaboration requests have been accommodated, IR has denied requests for classroom use. Jim explained that IR is working on determining what level of support they can provide. For example, while supporting one faculty member’s WordPress site would not be time intensive, supporting 30-40 classroom sites would be an issue — whose job does this become? There are also other issues IR wants to consider before providing class-based WordPress support – e.g., archiving student work, providing access and security, etc.  IR’s preference would be to provide support for classroom blogs via Desire2Learn once we convert over from Angel. Kristen asked Eugeniu if one of the D2L faculty pilots could include a blogging feature so that faculty members can see what blogging features are or aren’t available in D2L.

IR staff members are meeting to discuss the WordPress service in a few weeks. Kristen asked if faculty members can participate in this conversation, and Jim said that he will let TAG know when faculty input is needed. TAG will expect to see drafted language on service levels for WordPress at our November meeting, in the hopes that the service may be available for use in Spring 2014.

TAG Senate Status (Dave)

Dave (as TAG’s Faculty Senate liaison) reported that Senate president Rebecca Mikesell would like to propose that TAG become a full Senate Committee, (possibly called the Technology Advisory Committee). The membership criteria would be the same as we discussed last year for TAG as a subcommittee of the Academic Support committee — that is, flexible membership aiming for representation from CAS, PCPS, KSOM, and the Library, with at least one faculty Senator, who will serve as TAG’s liaison to the Senate. Dave noted that if TAG is a full Senate committee, TAG’s Senate liaison will serve on the Senate Executive committee.

TAG members had no objections to the proposal, which will likely be brought up for a vote at the September 13 Senate meeting.

4. New Business

Jim gave us some quick updates on changes that will affect or interest faculty:

  • Desktop computer logins — by the end of 2013, logins for desktop computers will change to the user’s R number and my.scranton password – so users will not have to remember a separate desktop password. This is part of the continued implementation of Active Directory authentication.
  • Google Chrome browser — IR will begin providing Google Chrome to University computers via KBOX. There are still some details to be worked out on this – Jim will let us know when it will happen and what will happen for users who already have Chrome installed.
  • Office 365 — We converted to Office 365 from Live@Edu over the summer. We’ve already benefited from increased email storage space and access to “lite” cloud versions of Office software. We will see a few new features later this fall, including Lync instant messaging and SharePoint collaboration software.

Kristen and Dave will meet with Jerry DeSanto, Robyn Dickinson, Lorraine Mancuso, and Jim on September 25 for a full “road map” discussion of what’s coming this year from IR for faculty.

The meeting adjourned at 2:50pm – TAG will reconvene on Wednesday, October 2 at 2:00pm in LSC591 (CTLE Conference Room).


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Categories : Angel and Desire2Learn, Announcements, CMS and University Website, Minutes, Website Proposal

Reminder: Academic Server non-public as of June 15

5 06 2013

Just a reminder that the academic server (academic.scranton.edu) will not be accessible from off-campus beginning June 15, in preparation for the long-awaited decommissioning, scheduled for August.

TAG and IR have sent out multiple email reminders to all faculty members who still have accounts or folders on the server, and the CTLE TechCons have been busy helping several faculty members move their web content to the CMS before the decommissioning. If you haven’t talked with any of us yet and need assistance moving content off of academic, please let TAG know ASAP!

Many thanks to Adam Edwards, Scott Finlon, Connie Wisdo, John Culkin, and Robyn Dickinson in IR and Aileen McHale and the TechCons in the CTLE for all the assistance and coordination!


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Academic webserver to be decommissioned

8 04 2013

Robyn Dickinson sent out the note below in regards to the academic webserver on Monday. If you have active webpages or content on the server that you need access to, please remove it and/or contact TAG immediately. We will do our best to help you find a new home for your data. Since the server has been a target for malicious attacks, your data is already at risk! If you do not do anything, you will lose access to anything stored on that server. If you have any questions, please contact your tag representative or email tag-members@royallists.scranton.edu.

Thanks for your prompt attention!

Previously, you received a notice from our division that we had planned to decommission the public facing server academic.scranton.edu in the summer of 2012. In the past, this server housed web pages for the University’s academic departments, related organizations, and individual faculty. Academic administration and department pages have now been converted into the University’s web content management system (CMS). What remains are primarily individual faculty web pages and a few other organizations; we have identified each of you as still having active web pages residing on this server.
Recent vulnerability scans of this server have identified multiple weaknesses in the operating system. Due to these vulnerabilities, this server has become the target for attacks from foreign countries seeking to access our enterprise computer systems. I am writing to alert you that we will now be taking steps to remove public facing access to this server as of June 15, 2013. This means that after June 15, you will only be able to access the web pages that remain on this server from within our own network on campus. On August 15, 2013 the server will be retired and you will no longer be able to access any of its content.

Faculty members should watch for additional information about this transition coming from the Faculty Technology Advisory Committee (TAG) and can send questions to TAG-members@scranton.edu If you would like assistance moving your web pages into the University’s web Content Management System (CMS), please contact Aileen McHale from the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence (CTLE) at aileen.mchale@scranton.edu. Training for staff and faculty on how to use the web CMS is also available through IT Services by contacting Jack Williams, our IT Training Specialist, at jack.williams@scranton.edu to sign up for a class.

I appreciate your attention to this matter,


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TAG Meeting 2013-04-03

3 04 2013

TAG met for our third and final Spring 2013 meeting this morning, and it was a meaty one. Here’s what’s going on:

1. TAG Leadership for 2013-2014

Continuing the discussion from our March meeting, we’ve officially agreed to move to a rotating, 2-year-term, 2-co-chair leadership model for 2013-2014. Jeremy and Kristen nominated Dave (currently a Faculty Senator) to take over for Jeremy as co-chair in 2013-2014 and serve as TAG’s liaison to the Faculty Senate. We held a not-quite-strictly-parliamentarian vote among the faculty TAG members present, which passed with no audible or visible dissent, so Dave will start his 2-year term in Fall 2013… or more likely Summer 2013. Kristen will stay on for 2013-2014 and then rotate off, to be replaced by a new co-chair in 2014-2015.

2. Identity Finder Automated Scans

Jim brought Adam Edwards, our new Information Security Officer, with him to the meeting to talk about an Information Security Office/IT Client Services Identity Finder Proposal on Automating Scans. For those just joining us, Identity Finder software scans your computer for sensitive, unsecured Personally Identifiable Information (PII). It’s been installed on faculty computers since 2011 (Windows only – Mac and Linux users can skip this part). To date, the scans have been encouraged but entirely voluntary and entirely user-initiated.

The Information Security Office and IT Client Services are jointly proposing implementation of weekly, automated, required Identity Finder scans (see the proposal for details). Adam explained the rationale — if IR knows where sensitive data is stored on campus, it’s easier to protect that vulnerable data and avoid embarrassing FERPA violations. It’s also easier and faster to fix and return malware-infected machines if IR knows whether or not the machine had any sensitive data on it. Here’s how the proposed scans would work:

  • Every Friday at 12:30pm (or the next time your work machine was turned on), Identity Finder would automatically begin a scan.
  • Scans would be limited to only certain types of sensitive data – e.g., Social Security numbers, drivers’ license numbers, credit card numbers, and birth dates.
  • The Information Security Office would receive reports on the scan results. Adam would see the number of hits, and a masked view of the PII found, but he would NOT be able to see the file or the full PII picked up in the scan.
  • If a computer frequently had many hits identified, Adam would reach out to that user to help them better manage their sensitive data (so that the Information Security Office’s efforts would be focused on the largest sets of the most vulnerable data).

Adam has been testing with a small group. This Friday he’ll be rolling out the automated scans to all PIR staff members for another 2-3 weeks of testing. Adam noted that they are working on finding the most effective and efficient ways to scope the scans to minimize scan time.

TAG members mentioned a few concerns:

  • Scan length and performance effects — Kristen and Kim had run test scans on their machines that took much longer than expected (Kristen’s was 7 hours and 45 minutes, with a noticeable impact on performance).  Jim said that the subsequent scans are much faster, since you can set Identity Finder to ignore locations with many false positives – his scan takes about 3 hours. With respect to performance, Identity Finder does have a throttling capacity, such that it is not supposed to impact other applications. Adam explained that continued testing with PIR will help him make the scans faster and less noticeable.
  • Scheduling — Kevin and Katie noted that many faculty members (and their computers) are not on campus on Friday afternoons, especially if a scan needed multiple hours. We discussed a few options – for example, scheduling for Tuesday or Thursdays during the 11:30-1pm time slot, having an option to skip a scan if your machine had already been scanned within the past week, being able to pause a scan, doing monthly instead of weekly scans, pinging computers to automatically turn on and scan in the middle of the night, warning everyone to run their first scan overnight, etc.

To help resolve some of these issues and identify other areas of concern for faculty, TAG members volunteered to serve as test subjects for automated scans. Adam said that he’d like to work through the PIR staff first but will then reach out to TAG members for additional testing and scoping.

We invite our fellow faculty to contact us with other concerns or questions.  If you’d like to try Identity Finder, it should already be installed on your (Windows) machine, and you can find a Quick Guide for getting started at http://www.scranton.edu/pir/its/identityFinder.shtml.

3. Academic Server Decommissioning

An official memo from IR will be coming out in the next few days announcing a timeline for the decommissioning of the academic server (academic.scranton.edu), which has been in the works since mid-2011.  The server has been heavily targeted by attacks, so due to security concerns, academic.scranton.edu will no longer be *public-facing* beginning June 15. Internal access (via a campus IP address) will still be available until August 31 in case users need more time to move content. Adam explained that a firm deadline was needed in order to mitigate the major risk of a supposedly retired server still being public-facing.

Adam would like to work with people who still have public content on the server to migrate to either the CMS or another campus server.  (Content was supposed to have been migrated to the Content Management System (CMS), but there is still some active content there that was not migrated for one reason or another – some of it could not be accommodated within the CMS’s available functionality.) He has already met with the CTLE and the Library about moving the development pages for the Academic Integrity Tutorial. TAG will help reach out to faculty members who still have either individual content or organizational content on academic to determine what needs to be migrated where, and what level of support, assistance, or training is required. Adam will send Kristen information about the remaining directories and a list of faculty usernames connected to content on academic. After the official IR memo comes out, TAG will follow up that communication with those faculty members. (Faculty members who had individual pages on academic were contacted back in 2011 about moving their content, so hopefully most of this migration work is already completed.)

This discussion brought up some broader concerns about web development resources on campus. Tim described some of the difficulties he had finding a home for the Sheep Brain Dissection Guide. Eugeniu mentioned that some faculty members who had migrated their content from academic to the CMS reported that the Google ranking of their page had gone down in search results. The local WordPress server (sites.scranton.edu) might be a new option for student and faculty web development, but the extent of this service is still being discussed. We didn’t come up with any answers on this, but as always faculty members may contact TAG with other concerns, questions, or suggestions regarding web development on campus.


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TAG Summer Synopsis

29 08 2012

Welcome back, all! In case you didn’t spend your summer break thinking about campus technology, here’s a quick recap of what’s been going on over the past few months and what we’ll be talking about in fall semester.

What Happened:

  • Campus wireless upgrade. We’re seeing huge improvements in connection speed and strength – thank you, Network Infrastructure!
  • Classroom upgrades. Over the summer, IT Services remediated all of Brennan’s teaching spaces. Other classrooms were upgraded as well – including CLP223, 224, 225, JOH 150, 152, MGH 017, 209, 336, 402, and 406.
  • Lecture Capture. Lecture capture capability has been installed in LSC133 and LSC333. TAG members Jeremy Sepinsky and Tara Fay are doing pilot projects this fall to test out the new technology before extending it to other classrooms. Nursing and Counseling departments are next on the list.
  • Mobile access to Angel. We now have a license for Blackboard Mobile Learn for Angel, so you can download the free app for use on your iPhone, iPad, Android, or Blackberry device.
  • R-ID authentication. Instructor stations and computer labs now require your R number as your user name. Your password is the same.
  • Virtual desktops. 203 computers in Brennan and Library computer labs are now thin client machines.  At these terminals, students access virtual desktops and save files to SkyDrive.

What’s Coming:

  • Standard user accounts. As Windows 7 is rolled out for new faculty computers, our roles will change from administrative to standard user accounts. This is a security measure to try to prevent users from downloading and installing malicious software. By default, standard users can’t install or delete applications. This would be a major issue for many faculty members, but IR has been working on a solution for faculty, using Viewfinity privilege management software. The plan so far: when you need to install an application, you’re prompted to enter a brief description/justification, and then your permissions are temporarily elevated so that you can install what you need. Commonly used software is whitelisted to speed things up. I’ve been piloting it this summer from a faculty perspective, with good results. Mac and Linux users will not be affected. More details on this later.
  • Code of Responsible Computing. This policy is up for review. As a representative from TAG and the Faculty Senate, Dave Dzurec has bravely agreed to co-chair the effort. We’ll post updates here.
  • The academic server is scheduled for final retirement this year. Several faculty members still have web content on the server – so CTLE (probably with some help from TAG) will be reaching out to those folks this semester to help them move any content they want to keep.
  • Luminis upgrade. An update to the my.scranton portal is currently scheduled for December 2012. TAG is contributing suggestions for the new faculty tab – let me know if you’re interested in giving ideas or feedback.
  • Software licensing for virtualized environments.  The idea is that faculty, staff, and students could log into their virtual desktop from any computer and access the specialized software they need (SPSS, etc). Unfortunately, this is really expensive. IR is looking into it.
  • Royal Card. The system will get a full upgrade this year. This won’t have much effect on faculty from what we can tell.

What’s Stalled:

  • Academic Technology Plan. Sigh. That said, TAG is still looking for faculty input on future technology needs. What kind of teaching spaces do we want? What technology funding is most important? We’re hoping to get more conversations started on these topics this year.

 

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*Thanks to Jim Franceschelli, Lorraine Mancuso, Jerry DeSanto, and Robyn Dickinson for talking us through this year’s road map.

**IR staff, please let me know if I got anything wrong. Thank you!


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Connecting to the Academic Webserver

29 07 2011

IR has shared with us these instructions (PDF) for faculty and staff who need to update pages on the new academic server (not the CMS).

As always, if you have questions or run into any trouble, please let us know!

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Update (8/1/11): Instructions were revised – the link now takes you to the corrected PDF. Thanks to Tim Cannon for catching the errors!


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Follow-up on Faculty Webserver (Tiger) move

21 06 2011

If you have an account on the old webserver, Tiger, you should have just gotten this message from Connie Wisdo:

There is an attached file (here) with instructions for faculty to get their own website on the CMS. We highly encourage faculty who wish to maintain campus-based webpage to look at these instructions and consider building their own web page in the CMS this summer. The transitional webserver will NOT be a permanent space. Late this summer, TAG will be posting some more detailed instructions, as well as demo webpages, showing what is possible for faculty within the CMS. More details to follow.

Dear Faculty Members,

In case you missed the notices in Royal News, my.scranton, and Bboard, I wanted to share the following information, because you have a non-empty Web directory on the Tiger (academic.scranton.edu) server.
The Web server which is known as both “Tiger” and academic.scranton.edu will be officially retired on July 28, 2011, due to its operating system’s end-of-life. (Nearly all of the official web pages/sites of our academic departments and programs that were previously housed on the academic server (Tiger) have been migrated to the Web Content Management System (CMS).)
A transitional Web server is being set up for departments, clubs, and faculty/staff that have not yet migrated their Web sites to the CMS. Individuals (Faculty/Staff) who wish their web directories moved to the transitional server must send an email request to me (Connie Wisdo (wisdoc1@scranton.edu)) by July 1, 2011. In your email request, please specify the URL of the home/index page of the site(s) you need moved.
You also have the option of moving your Web site(s) to the CMS. Attached is a document containing more details. If you would like to move your site to the CMS, please contact the CTLE, as directed in the attachment, and they can provide assistance to you.
If you have your site moved to the transitional server, you will have SFTP access to your site on the new server, on July 29th, using your my.scranton username and password. Instructions will be sent to faculty in a few weeks, and will also be posted to the TAG Web site. Your Web site address (URL) will not change when it is moved to the new server. URLs will still begin with “http://academic.scranton.edu/”

Note: both the old academic server and the new transitional server will be unavailable for any updates to any Web sites from July 27th to July 29th. Web sites will be accessible on a read-only basis during this time.

If you have any questions, please contact me. For those of you who already sent me an email requesting your site be moved, and have received a reply, there is no need to contact me again.


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Tiger Retiring

5 06 2011

The following was posted to Bboard on July 3rd. Thanks to Stacey Muir for bringing this to our attention.

Academic Web Server (Tiger) Being Retired
PLEASE NOTIFY FACULTY IN YOUR DEPARTMENT:

The Web server which is known as both “Tiger” and academic.scranton.edu will be officially retired on July 28, 2011, due to its operating system’s end-of-life. Nearly all of the official web pages/sites of our academic departments and programs that previously were housed on the academic server (Tiger) have been migrated to the Web Content Management System (CMS). A transitional Web server is being set up for departments, clubs, and individuals that have not yet migrated their Web sites to the CMS.

• The web directories of departments, organizations and clubs that fall into this category (i.e. not in the CMS) will be moved to the transitional server.
• Individuals (Faculty/Staff) who wish their web directories moved to the transitional server must send an email request to Connie Wisdo (wisdoc1@scranton.edu) by July 1, 2011. In your email request, please specify the URL of the home/index page of the site(s) you need moved.
• If your department has some pages in the CMS, and others remaining on the academic server, please send an email to Connie Wisdo (wisdoc1@scranton.edu) by July 1, 2011 specifying the URLs of the pages you need moved, or better yet, move them to the CMS!


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The Straight Dope on Faculty Websites

8 11 2010

Update: This explanation has been superseded by “Faculty Websites: Know Your Options,” posted on 10/24/11.

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There’s been a lot of confusion and concern about faculty websites lately.  With a generous tip of the hat to TAG’s friends in Public Relations and the CTLE, here’s what faculty need to know about creating personal websites (note: this post does not apply to departmental websites).

Faculty are NOT required to use the CMS for their personal websites.  There are actually three different options for faculty members.

1. Use the CMS.

  • You can CHOOSE to use the CMS for your personal website.
  • Using the CMS, you’ll have two templates to work from.  There’s the “Basic” template, which is simple and (let’s be honest!) pretty ugly, and there’s the “Advanced” which is prettier and more customizable.  Note that neither template is branded with  University of Scranton colors or logos.
  • PR has promised to send along more information on how faculty can request space on the CMS server for a personal website.  I’ll update this post when I hear back from them.
  • Should you choose to use the CMS, YOU are in control of your content.  PR doesn’t have any control over what you post.  All that is expected is that you follow the University’s Code of Responsible Computing.

2. Use the academic server.

  • If  you want to put your personal website on the academic server, stop by the CTLE  (either make an appointment or walk in during lab hours) and check in with one of the TechCons.
  • A TechCon will set up space for you on the academic server.
  • Once you coordinate your log in with the TechCons, you have the freedom to upload any HTML files you like. So if you want, you can design your own website with a WSIWYG editor (like Dreamweaver or Expression, etc) and have it look however you like.
  • If you want help building your website, you can choose to have the TechCons help you.  They have several templates that they work off of (see a few examples here).  They’ll do a prototype to get you started, and you can maintain it from there.
  • If you want a LOT of help on your website, the TechCons can also help you update the content when you need to.
  • You may hear about changes happening on the academic server.  The academic server is in an environment that’s no longer supported, so it is going to be replaced sometime in Spring 2011.  This won’t have any noticeable effect on your website – your files will just be migrated to the new server.  At some point, IR and/or PR will probably encourage everyone with files on the academic server to review their content and delete any outdated files.  This is just a request and a chance to get rid of old web pages- anything you do not choose to delete will be migrated over.

3. Go “rogue.”

  • You can always feel free to use a third party service to create your own, externally hosted website.  Some popular, free, and relatively easy-to-use web hosting tools include Google Sites and WordPress.  I’m a fan of Sharon Meagher’s Philosophy and the City website, which she built and hosted with Network Solutions, a service that charges a small monthly fee.

Hopefully this will help resolve some questions about faculty websites.  If you have other concerns about either faculty websites or the CMS, be sure to attend the Provost’s Brown Bag on November 11th at 11:45am. The whole session will be dedicated to discussing CMS issues and will be co-hosted by TAG’s very own fearless leader, Jeremy Sepinsky.


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