Update on Angel and LMS Work Group

2 04 2012

An important update on the Learning Management System search, courtesy of LMS Work Group leader Connie Wisdo:

The LMS Evaluation Working group members have been actively testing Desire2Learn, Moodlerooms and Blackboard Learn over the past few weeks.   On Monday, March 26th, an event significant to our group occurred.  You may have read that Blackboard, Inc. has acquired Moodlerooms, and even more significant, has announced “indefinite” support for the ANGEL LMS.

You may read more at http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases/Strategy-Update.aspx?cmpid=HB_EOSS_032612

CTLE and ITDA conducted conference calls with the sales reps from both Moodlerooms and Blackboard last week.  During these calls, we were assured first, that Moodlerooms would remain a viable LMS, would operate independently, and would honor any sales quotes that had already been provided to potential customers.  We were also assured that ANGEL would be supported past 2014, and would not remain stagnant during the next few years.

From Blackboard’s “Open Letter to the Education Community” (found at http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/News-Center/Press-Releases/Strategy-Update/Open-Letter.aspx) come these quotes:

1.       “Blackboard is becoming a multiple learning platform company that supports both commercially developed software as well as open source solutions.”

2.       “… at the behest of ANGEL clients that continue to find this product the best fit for their needs, we will extend our maintenance and support indefinitely. We will evaluate this decision on an ongoing basis and provide sufficient notice of any future change to plans for support. We will also continue to build ANGEL features into future releases of Blackboard Learn 9.1 and into the Moodlerooms joule product. Both represent positive future destinations for ANGEL clients who wish to upgrade to a newer product line.”

Obviously these two moves by Blackboard give our group reason to pause and think.   However, organizations such as Educause suggest that institutions of Higher Education should review their Learning Management Systems once every five years, to be sure the LMS is still adequately matching the needs/context of their teaching and learning efforts.  We have been using ANGEL for approximately 5 years, so our evaluation is still a worthwhile effort.

After considering the above, and consulting with the VP for Planning/CIO, our plan is to carry on with the evaluation of the three finalist products through mid-April.  Our group is scheduled to meet April 19th, and at that time we’ll discuss the findings and observations of our group members regarding these three products.  However, since we are now not being forced to move away from ANGEL, I will ask the group to consider the possibility of the University staying with ANGEL, for at least two more years, to (1) see how the Blackboard strategy pans out, and (2) to see if any of the newer LMS products (such as Canvas by Instructure) evolve to a point where they could be considered as possible replacements at that time .  If we decide to stay with ANGEL for two more years, we can relook at the LMS market next year at this time.  It should be noted that an AJCU LMS working group is starting negotiations with Instructure and other LMS vendors to try to obtain more affordable, consortium pricing.  It will likely take a year to settle these negotiations.

As always, I welcome your input.  If you have any comments or concerns, please let me know.

 


Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: , , , , ,
Categories : Angel and Desire2Learn, Announcements

LMS Group Update

12 03 2012

An update on the Learning Management System search, courtesy of LMS Work Group leader Connie Wisdo:

In February, the three chosen LMS vendor finalists presented their products to the University Community.  Roughly 30 people in total attended each vendor’s presentations.  Of the 30, about a dozen faculty members consistently attended all three demonstrations, and engaged in meaningful Q & A with the vendors.  CAS, PCPS, KSOM and WML faculty were represented.  Members/leaders of the Faculty Technology Advisory Group, and 4 of the 6 faculty from the LMS Evaluation Working Group were among them.  A handful of students also made up the audience, mostly CTLE Tech Cons.

The vendors covered the 15 most important features identified by our faculty in the survey conducted last December/January , and attendees completed evaluation sheets which were based on those 15 features.  Preliminary analysis of the evaluations indicated that Blackboard and Desire2Learn had comparable ratings and both were rated higher than Moodlerooms.  On a scale of 1 to 5, Blackboard’s average rating overall was 4.71 and Desire2Learn’s overall average was 4.64.  Moodlerooms’ overall average was 3.71.  (However, it should be noted that technical skill deficiencies of the Moodlerooms presenter hampered the overall demonstration, and her technical support dialed-in to the demo through Webex, rather than being here in person.  We believe this may have had a negative impact on the ratings for Moodlerooms.)

The LMS Evaluation Working Group met this past week to review the evaluation results and the comments provided by attendees.  Members were in general agreement with the overall evaluation ratings, but obviously want to reserve final judgment until we’ve had the opportunity to work in the test sandboxes being provided by each vendor.  Two of the three sandboxes (D2L and Moodlerooms) have already been set up, and we expect Blackboard will have its sandbox available for our group next week.

The group members will conduct their testing  over the next 6 weeks, using rubrics based upon the group’s original list of required LMS features, and will meet in mid-April to compare results.    If you should have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

As a reminder, there are six faculty representatives on the LMS Work Group – Maureen Carroll (math), TAG member Teresa Conte (nursing), Tara Fay (biology),  Julie Nastasi (OT), Wesley Wang (economics/finance), and Keith Yurgosky (communications, part time).

Many thanks to Connie and the rest of the Work Group for arranging the demonstrations and giving us the opportunity to see the products!


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , ,
Categories : Angel and Desire2Learn, Announcements

TAG Meeting Notes 3/6/12

8 03 2012

TAG held its second Spring 2012 meeting on Tuesday.

Online Course Evaluations:

  • We started the meeting with a discussion about online course evaluations.  Jerry Muir, as a representative from the Course Evaluation Committee, led the discussion.
  • The Course Evaluation Committee is concerned about decreasing response rates for the evaluations. In the last two semesters, the overall response rate was below 60%.
  • Response rates were higher (~80%) when students had to complete evaluations in order to see their final grades. But this policy had some serious problems – e.g., students were sometimes completing the evaluations after taking their final exam, or they would rush through the evaluations just to see their grades.
  • The Course Evaluation Committee is looking for ideas to improve response rates for online evaluations. One idea under discussion is to ask faculty to grant students 15 minutes of class time during the last week of class to complete the online evaluations in class. Students could use mobile devices like laptops, tablets, or smartphones – although smartphones wouldn’t really facilitate comments, which many faculty find to be the most valuable part of the evaluation.
  • S.P. suggested that course evaluations could be tied into the Passport system for KSOM students. Sandy and Teresa agreed that the Passport system under development in PCPS might be useful in the same way.
  • Dave pointed out that the current structure of the online evaluations doesn’t necessarily fit for online courses (e.g., there are questions about “classroom management”).  There should either be separate evaluation forms for online vs. traditional classes, or the questions should be standardized to meet both situations.

Standing Committees:

IRAC

  • IRAC (the Information Resources Advisory Council) met on February 16 and discussed the idea of a service catalog that would outline what services IR provides and set expectations for both the providers and the recipients of those services.  This is still under development and will be brought back to IRAC in the fall.

Learning Management System (LMS) Work Group

  • The LMS Work Group brought three vendors (Desire2Learn, MoodleRooms, and Blackboard) to campus for demonstrations. The demos were open to the University community.
  • Attendees at the demonstrations were invited to complete evaluation forms. The average evaluation scores for Blackboard and Desire2Learn were relatively close, while MoodleRooms’ score was further behind.
  • The next step is to obtain sandbox versions of each system for demonstration and experimentation.  CTLE has asked some of the faculty participants in the LMS Work Group for sample course content to use for the sandboxes.
  • S.P. mentioned that DelTech, the vendor that hosts the KSOM and PCPS online-only programs, is moving from Angel to Moodle (that is, their own customized version of Moodle, not MoodleRooms). Instructors who teach both online and in-person versions of a course would have to navigate two different LMSes.

Information Management Advisory Committee (IMAC)

  • TAG does not have a sitting representative on IMAC, but Jeremy and Kristen have been invited to recent meetings since there are new policies under development that would affect faculty.
  • At a February 13 meeting, IR introduced two new policies under development: a Privacy & Confidentiality Statement and the Employee Separation Procedures document.
  • The “Privacy & Confidentiality Statement” is still in rough draft form. It is intended to describe how staff members in the Planning & Information Resources division will handle electronic information, in compliance with the Information Classification Policy and other information management standards. IR asked for feedback from IMAC members and will release the next draft of the Statement for wider review.
  • The “Employee Separation Procedures: Information Resources” document outlines the divisional procedures that IR staff will follow when an employee (faculty or staff) member separates from the University.  The procedures address the departing employee’s access to information resources, including hardware, email, Royal Drive data storage, etc.   TAG briefly discussed the idea of having a checklist of technology items (for example, data transfer, email forwarding) that faculty should prepare for or be aware of prior to a separation. Sandy and Kristen will ask Anne Marie if and how a technology checklist could be incorporated into the Academic Affairs separation procedures.

Previous Action Items

Incidental Use Policy

  • Jeremy and Kristen presented a draft of the Incidental Use Policy to Faculty Senate on February 10, with Robyn Dickinson and Tony Maszeroski representing IR.  Robyn and Tony will take the input from the Faculty Senate discussion (mostly clarifications in the policy language) into consideration for the next draft of the policy.

Academic Technology Plan

  • At the February 10 Faculty Senate meeting, Hal reported that the Academic Technology Plan was essentially dead in the water since there is no budget to support it.
  • TAG members agreed that the Plan should drive a technology budget, rather than the reverse. [The same conclusion was agreed upon at the Deans’ Group half-day retreat last spring.] A plan is needed to establish goals and vision, which in turn are needed in order for progress to be assessed.
  • Jeremy and Kristen will work with Anne Marie to figure out next steps for writing and implementing a Plan.

New Business

Leahy Hall and classroom technology

  • Our discussion of the Academic Technology Plan led into a discussion about the new PCPS building to be constructed on the Leahy Hall site.
  • TAG would like there to be a consistent faculty voice on classroom technology issues during new construction or renovation. TAG had some input into classroom mediation decisions in the Loyola Science Center, but not on a consistent, continued basis.
  • Sandy and Teresa will explore this idea with Deb Pellegrino as planning for the new building begins.  Dave has been already providing classroom technology input on the St. Thomas renovations.

Networking computers and desktop sharing

  • TAG received a complaint from a faculty member about the difficulties involved in setting up desktop sharing between a faculty computer (on the faculty virtual network) and lab classroom computers (on the student network).  IR had suggested that RoyalDrive be used instead, but that solution did not meet the faculty member’s needs.  A temporary solution has been worked out by placing the lab computers on the faculty network.  The faculty member initially requested the service in September 2011, and the temporary solution is being put in place this week.
  • We did not arrive at an action step on this complaint during the TAG meeting.

Having run out of time (as usual!), we adjourned. The next TAG meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 12, from 10:00am-11:15am in WML305.


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Angel and Desire2Learn, Announcements, Classroom Mediation, Network and Infrastructure, Online courses, TAG Administrative

TAG Meeting Notes 2/9/12

13 02 2012

TAG held its first Spring 2012 meeting last Thursday.

Standing Committees:

IRAC

  • IRAC (the Information Resources Advisory Council) is meeting this Thursday and will be discussing the service catalog.

Learning Management System (LMS) Work Group

  • The LMS Work Group has chosen three vendors – Blackboard, MoodleRooms, and Desire2Learn – to bring to campus for demonstrations.
  • The three candidates have been asked to focus their demonstrations based on the Work Group’s list of top desired features, which included feedback from the faculty survey distributed by CTLE in December and January.  The faculty’s top desired features were mobile access and grading.
  • All faculty are invited and encouraged to attend the demonstrations. If you attend, you’ll receive a list of the top desired features so that you can mark it with your comments and concerns.
  • The group aims to choose a vendor by the end of the semester. Next fall, faculty will be able to choose whether they’d like to try the new LMS or stick with Angel – the two systems will be run in parallel for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Mobile Apps Work Group

  • The Mobile Apps work group met on Wednesday, February 8.
  • New mobile development will be in the form of mobile web pages – accessible either via the University’s mobile app or directly through a user’s mobile browser.
  • The February 8 meeting focused on identifying the top priorities for mobile development.  Mobile access to the Learning Management System (LMS) and Banner data were ranked highly by most of the work group.
  • Public Relations will be sending out a survey to users and non-users of the University app to get feedback on what users want to see in the app.
  • Full minutes will be posted when they’re are available: 2012-02-08-Mobile Apps Working Group Minutes

Luminis Work Group

  • This spring, an upgrade is planned for Luminis, the software behind the my.scranton portal.
  • Kristen and Anne Marie met with Joe Casabona from IR to provide faculty/staff feedback on the my.scranton portal.

Previous Action Items

Incidental Use Policy

  • TAG continues to work with IR to provide faculty feedback on new drafts of the Incidental Use Policy.
  • Jeremy explained that the policy clarifies the responsibilities of faculty, staff, and students when it comes to technology use. It does not add new restrictions to faculty technology use.
  • Jeremy and Kristen will bring this draft of the policy to Faculty Senate on 2/10/12 for discussion and further faculty input.
  • This policy is one part of a multiple-policy Information Security compliance program.   The Code of Responsible Computing will essentially be broken up into smaller, more adaptable policies.
  • The next part of the compliance program will be the Privacy & Confidentiality Statement, to be discussed at the February 13 IMAC meeting. IR has invited TAG to provide feedback on this proposed policy as well.

Academic Technology Plan

  • Anne Marie reported that other priorities have prevented progress on the Academic Technology Plan.
  • She will work with Hal on identifying the direction and goals of the plan, which are amorphous at this point.

Faculty Directory

  • We revisited the question of listing more than one department for a single faculty member in Banner.  This problem is not going away, since new faculty in Women’s Studies will be joint appointments.
  • Anne Marie reported that this issue seems to be dead in the water – there doesn’t seem to be a viable solution for adding another field to Banner.  It’s surprisingly difficult to create a new field in Banner, and when Banner is upgraded to a new version, custom fields aren’t carried through.  The field also would need to be maintained.
  •  We will revisit this conversation with HR in the future.
  • A short term solution may be a faculty photo directory that Anne Marie is working on with Maria Landis.  The directory will include portraits of all faculty members as well as their department listings, etc.

Computerized Testing

  • The new Learning Management System (LMS) may be able to provide a secure testing environment for computerized testing.  Eugeniu is looking at this.

Email Transition

  • January’s email transition seemed to go smoothly for most faculty members.  Most of the faculty have successfully migrated – only a few outliers (who requested later migration dates) remain.  Many thanks to the IT Services staff for quickly answering lots of questions from Kristen and other faculty members.
  • Training courses are still available for faculty who want assistance getting used to the new Live@Edu environment.  Next Thursday’s IT Forum will include tips and training for Office web apps and SkyDrive.
  • Eugeniu recommended using OneNote, synced to SkyDrive, for notetaking.
  • SkyDrive storage space can be used for pretty much anything, but any institutional documents that contain Personally Identifiable Information (PII) must be stored on Royal Drive.

Social Media Guidelines

  • At a recent meeting of the Committee on University Image and Promotion (CUIP), Public Relations distributed a new draft of the Social Media Guidelines, now integrated into the University Web Guidelines.   TAG gave feedback on an earlier draft of the Social Media Guidelines, much of which is incorporated into the new version.
  • Kristen will post the new guidelines for review by TAG members and other faculty.

New Incidents

  • Faculty should be careful to log out of Live@Edu and close their browser at the end of a session. Dave pointed out that if you don’t log out of Live@Edu on a shared computer, another user can access your account simply by going to Hotmail (also owned by Microsoft).

New Business

TAG policy workflow

  • The Incidental Use policy so far has been a good case study for how IR and TAG can work together on policy issues to address faculty needs and concerns.  We got to give feedback on the policy language and will present the draft language to Faculty Senate before the policy starts to go through the full governance process.
  • We’re working on solidifying this process with IR and the Faculty Senate Academic Support committee.

Content Management System

  • The transition from Tiger to the CMS server went smoothly.
  • So far about ten faculty members have approached the CTLE and developed a CMS website.  The process isn’t ideal – e.g., instead of creating a new page a user had to copy an existing page, etc.

Outage Notifications

  • Jeremy suggested that there should be a feed or web page detailing for each enterprise service 1) when the next scheduled downtime is and 2) what the status is of any unplanned outages.
  • Jim said there used to be a page like this, but it was hard to maintain.  It can be done, but where should it rank on the priority list?
  • We will keep this in mind and try to figure out how high a priority it would be for faculty.

Footprints

  • Footprints is working well as an internal tool for IR. Not many users are creating their own tickets, but it helps to track issues internally.
  • The knowledge base hasn’t been used much yet, and it’s somewhat hard to find.  We discussed the idea of posting a direct link to the knowledge base from the portal, after the Luminis upgrade.

Having run out of time, we adjourned. The next TAG meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 6, from 10:00am-11:15am in WML305.

————

Updated 4/24/2012 with a link to the 02/08/2012 Mobile Apps Group meeting minutes


Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Announcements, TAG Administrative

Choose the New Angel: Vendor Demos

2 02 2012

This month, three Learning Management System (LMS) vendors will be coming to campus to demo their products: Desire2Learn, MoodleRooms, and Blackboard.  Thanks to the LMS Work Group, we’re all invited to sit in on the demos.

If you use Angel, please make time to scope out these new options.  While TAG has representatives on the LMS Group, these demos are the main opportunity for the faculty at large to weigh in on what system the University switches to when our Angel contract expires (2013).

Here’s the invitation from Connie Wisdo, who’s heading the LMS Work Group:

In January, the LMS Evaluation Working Group reviewed 8 vendor responses received in response to the Request for Information document sent out in December. We used the review to narrow our search down to 3 vendor finalists.  They are all scheduled to present their products to the University Community this month.

Desire2Learn will be here February 14th and 15th:

February 14 – 2 demos: 11:30 a.m. -1:00 p.m. and 1:30 – 3:00 p.m. — Location:  Brennan Hall Auditorium (228)

February 15 – 1 demo: 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. — Location:  Brennan Hall Auditorium (228)

MoodleRooms will be here February 23rd and 24th:

February 23 – 2 demos: 11:30 a.m. -1:00 p.m. and 1:30 – 3:00 p.m. — Location:  Brennan Hall Auditorium (228)

February 24 – 1 demo: 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. — Location:  Brennan Hall Auditorium (228)

Blackboard will be here February 28th and 29th:

February 28 – 2 demos: 11:30 a.m. -1:00 p.m. and 1:30 – 3:00 p.m. — Location:  Brennan Hall Board Room (500)

February 29 – 1 demo: 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. — Location:  Brennan Hall Board Room (500)

Taking into consideration the results of our recent faculty LMS survey, we’ve identified the top desired features as:

1.  Mobile connectivity / application / use

2.  eMail or messaging (with some type of RSS or “push” technology)

3. Assessments

-Creation (ability to incorporate different question types)

-Import of questions, question banks or assessments from other courses (ability to upload questions from Word )

– Grading options (Easiness of grading)

4.  Dropbox (include creation and grading)

5. Discussion forums

-Viewing options (flexibility)

-Grading options

6.  Rubrics (include creation)

-Flexibility (ability to incorporate different question types)

7. Gradebook

-Intuitiveness

-Student view (publishing grades for Student View)

-Flexibility of grading scales

-Export to Banner

8. Start of Semester Procedures (SOSP)

-Rolling over courses/content

-Announcement and notifications

9. Student tracking/reporting tools

10. Gradebook – Easy interaction with Excel for import/export

11. Course Content items – Folders, pages, links, conventional files, audio/video files

12. Assessments – Assessment security

13. Browser compatibility – IE, FF

14.  Course content migration from ANGEL to new LMS

15. Orientation/Online help for faculty and students

16. Course export capability

The vendors will be directed to cover all 16 of the above, as a minimum, in their demos.  Any additional features can be demonstrated by the vendors, as time allows and/or based on audience questions.

If there are students in the audience, the vendors will be asked to begin the demo with a 15-minute overview of the “student view”.

Rating sheets will be provided to all who attend the demos, so that we can obtain feedback from both faculty and students.

Separate meetings between the vendors and our technical staff will also be conducted while the vendors are on site so that we may ask them questions and/or see demonstrations regarding integration of their software with key enterprise applications, such as Banner and Live@edu.

You are cordially invited to attend these demonstrations.  Notice of the demos will also be posted on my.scranton in the near future.


Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: , , ,
Categories : Angel and Desire2Learn, Announcements

Reminder: Angel-LMS Feedback Needed

4 01 2012

Apologies for all the posting this week, but the Learning Management System (LMS) Work Group asked us to remind faculty to provide feedback on your priorities for the replacement for Angel.

Please take a look at the survey link below and submit your feedback.  The committee needs responses by January 10th at the latest.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PWTW2ZM


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , ,
Categories : Angel and Desire2Learn, Announcements

Faculty Feedback Needed!

16 12 2011

The Learning Management System (LMS) Work Group, the team that’s reviewing options for replacing Angel,  is looking for feedback from all faculty members.  They’ve put together a list of evaluation criteria and need your input on which they should treat as the highest priorities when reviewing products.

Please take a look at the survey link below and submit your feedback.  The committee needs responses by January 10th at the latest, so we’ll remind you one more time after the holidays.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PWTW2ZM

If you have questions about the LMS search, let us know or talk with one of the faculty representatives serving on the work group: Maureen Carroll (math), Teresa Conte (nursing), Tara Fay (biology),  Julie Nastasi (OT), Wesley Wang (economics/finance), and Keith Yurgosky (communications, part time).


Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: , , ,
Categories : Angel and Desire2Learn

TAG Meeting Notes 12/1/11

2 12 2011

[Updated 12/08/11 with links to additional information]

TAG met yesterday to catch up on all our initiatives. Here’s the latest:

  • The Learning Management System (LMS) Work Group has formed and will begin meetings this week.
  • The Mobile Apps work group met at the beginning of November. Meeting minutes are available (PDF). The meeting was mostly dedicated to getting everyone caught up on the existing mobile app and mobile website.  The minutes indicate that any new mobile development will occur within the existing University app (made by Straxis), but this point seemed undecided during the meeting itself. Kristen is seeking clarification from group leader Connie Wisdo on this question.

Sandy Pesavento (education) has withdrawn from the group due to time conflicts, but Andy Berger (physics) has volunteered to serve as a faculty representative along with Ben Bishop and Kristen Yarmey.

  • The Novel Pedagogy Group has received funding from the College of Arts and Sciences to design a mediated classroom that will accommodate the new pedagogies they are exploring. The group is working with Jim and OIT to mediate the room, which is intended to be a model of what the University could do should it prove effective.
  • Members of TAG met with IR in early November to discuss the results of last summer’s TechQual survey. Kristen will post the results and highlights of the discussion on this site under a separate title.  We’ve been asked not to share the results, but we did post a summary of the discussion.
  • IR invited TAG to provide feedback on a rough draft of a new Incidental Use Policy during last month’s IMAC meeting. Jeremy will post specifics about the policy on the TAG site under a separate title.
  • IR is in the process of hiring a new manager to coordinate the work of the Office of Instructional Technology.
  • Progress is being made on the Academic Technology Plan. Anne Marie interviewed several faculty members and administrators to get a sense of what the Plan should include.
  • Faculty directory. At our last meeting TAG discussed the faculty directory’s inability to list more than one department affiliation for a single faculty member. Anne Marie discussed this concern in a Banner meeting earlier this week.  There are several similar issues with Banner not being able to describe employee designations (e.g., emeritus, program director, department chair…).  It seems like the University needs to have a larger conversation about data storage and sharing – Banner wasn’t really designed to handle all of these designations. Anne Marie will look into how other universities handle data sharing.
  • Computerized testing. Teresa spoke with colleagues at Villanova University and found out that they use Par software to conduct secure, controlled online testing.  The downside to Par is that it doesn’t integrate with Villanova’s LMS (Blackboard). Jim will look into Par to see what options we might be able to provide for computerized testing on campus.
  • Security Awareness Training. The email announcement for IR’s security awareness training program went out early by accident. All faculty are encouraged to complete the training program – it’s  a series of short videos, totaling around 60 minutes.  The idea is to expand a general user’s knowledge and understanding of security issues.  See Jeremy’s post from 11/14/11 for details.
  • We talked briefly about the Oracle outage on 11/10 and the wireless outage on 11/16. IR has an incident policy now that indicates how and what information about outages should be disseminated.  During the Oracle outage, information was displayed on my.scranton showing alternate ways for users to access Angel and email. RoyalDrive was not included, but this has been fixed.  Jim is meeting with the rest of the IR team this week to figure out what happened during the 11/16 outage. His goal is for IR to be able to send out early notifications when something is happening.
  • The email transition is a go! The email team itself transitioned this week. Students will be transitioned at the end of December after exams. We discussed the best time to convert faculty, and the best option seems to be January.  We’ll transition in batches, by department. Notifications with more details will be sent out on paper and via email, but here’s essentially what will happen:
    1. You will get email notification in advance, and a final email notice the day of the transition. If your department’s migration is happening at a time that will not work for you, you should contact IR right away to reschedule.2. Your email account will move to Live @ EDU during the night.  Server email will be migrated automatically.

    3. When you log in to my.scranton the next day, you’ll see a new tab with instructions for accessing your new account through the web portal, and instructions for migrating local mail [with Transend Migrator].  You will also need to update your mobile devices and any other email clients (Gmail, MacMail) with new POP3 information.

    4. Your email address will be firstname.lastname@scranton.edu. You will still receive email sent to your existing email (lastnamef2@scranton.edu), but you can’t send out email from that address, so you will need to update it in email listservs, etc.

    5. Training will be available that week to help you get started.  We asked Jim if short screencapture tutorials could be made available as well.

    6. Calendars won’t be migrated until later in the spring.

    7. Office 2010 will be pushed out around the same time.


Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Email, TAG Administrative

Next Entries »