Tag Archives: Mont Alto

How do I… submit an Event Registration Form?

The campus Event Registration form has undergone some big transformations over the past year.  We’ve tried to improve the level of detail in the form, while at the same time streamlining the form-filling for time spent and ease of use.  The feedback that we’ve received from those of you who use the form has been invaluable.  Thank you for your patience and contributions to the process!

Representatives from all support departments on campus meet as the Facilities Committee every Tuesday morning at 8 am.  At that time, the committee discusses newly submitted Event Registration forms for feasibility and logistics.  The form has become the primary tool for groups to describe their events to the committee for support.  The committee requests that the form be submitted no less than six weeks prior to the first day of the event in order to best overcome any logistical challenges that may arise.  Also, the person filling in and submitting the form should be someone from the campus, and a faculty or staff member – not a student.

Let’s take a look at the form itself.  I’ve created some images that will allow us to look at it step-by-step so that we can clarify its use.  First, to access the form, go to the Penn State Mont Alto home page:  www.ma.psu.edu.  Click on “Faculty & Staff,” then find the “Event Registration Form” link and click on it.

 Below is what the top of the Event Registration form looks like.  Note the links at the top of the page.  Policy information is there, as well as a listing of fees that events may incur, and templates for room layouts for the MPR.  Every field that has a red asterisk is a required answer in order to submit the form.  The difference between Event Sponsor and Group Contact is that if an outside group comes in to do an event, the sponsor would be the campus person who acts as liaison and the group contact is the non-PSU contact for the group.  For most campus events, the Event Sponsor and the Group Contact are the same person.

 When you reach the point at which you need to fill in date and time, simply clicking in the field brings up a calendar and slide controls for time selection.  Once you’ve entered information for the first day of your event, you can click “Expand Dates” link to add more dates:

Please share as much about your event as you can in the comments section.  Great details to include here may be whether you’re requesting a tech support person or custodial services for your event, temporary computer accounts, menu requests, etc.  The more information our support staff has as the event is planned, the more likely that we’ll be able to overcome any logistical challenges that arise.

 When you select each location that you’ll need for your event, the appropriate contact person for reserving the space should appear on the right side of the screen with telephone number.  Please reserve each space before submitting the form.  Likewise, when you select an item of equipment, a line will appear at the bottom of the Equipment section that allows you to specify quantity and location.  If you need to request an LCD projector in two different locations for example (see below), just click LCD projector twice so that you can list a different location for each one.

The Logistics section of this form pulls together some relatively unrelated, but important, information for the committee.  If minors will be present for this event, it is imperative that you choose that option so that the campus can be sure to comply to all the requirements of PSU Policy AD-39. 

 The Housing and Food Services section is auto-filled with NO answers to save you time: many events don’t involve meals or food.  If you answer yes to any of the meals or snacks, please take a moment to use the text fields to the right of the option to state where that setup will be needed.  When you’re done, click the “Submit Form” button.

 The following image is what you should see when you submit the completed form.  After you double-check your information, you can either click the “Edit Again” button to change your information, or click the “Form is Correct” button to continue with the submission process.

 This image will pop up to remind you to agree to the policy terms at the bottom of the next page:

 Until you click the “Accept Agreements” button at the bottom of the next page, your form is NOT YET submitted.  We’ve listed everything so that you have access to the entire policy.  When you’re ready, click the “Accept Agreements” button.

Congratulations!  If you see this image, you’ve successfully submitted the Event Registration Form.  Note the three email addresses listed – one copy goes to the Facilities Committee, one to the Event Sponsor, and one to the Group Contact.

If the committee has any questions upon review of your form, we’ll send a message asking for clarification.  You’ll receive confirmation when your event is approved.  Thank you for helping us provide your event with good support.  Don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions.

Media Commons: are you taking advantage of it?

We’re a small campus, but we have great services available to us through University Park by virtue of the fact that we are part of the Penn State system.  Some examples of these resources  are computing resources, library resources, and instructional design resources.

One service that combines all three of those categories is the Media Commons, located in the campus Library.  Have you heard of Media Commons?  Have you used the studios?  When Media Commons first came to Mont Alto years ago, it was called Digital Commons.

Media Commons on our campus is comprised of a recording studio and three editing studios, outfitted with great equipment like professional-grade video camera and lights, a green screen, broadcast-quality microphones, and Apple iMac computers with numerous media-editing applications installed.  There are telephones installed in the editing studios that dial directly to the Media Commons Help Desk, where a Media Commons professional can connect remotely to the computer and help troubleshoot issues that arise.

What uses does Media Commons have?  Students are encouraged to use this equipment for audio and video projects.  Faculty and staff, likewise, have opportunity to generate media as creative as they can imagine.  Our campus has a number of different classes in different disciplines that rely heavily on the Media Commons technologies for semester projects.  Our PT384 class has been requiring a semester video project for many years – when Digital Commons arrived here, it was a great fit for what the students need to do.  Click here to see the case study for this class use of Media Commons, complete with a sample student video and an interview of Renee Borromeo:  http://mediacommons.psu.edu/pt384.

What if you don’t know how to use the equipment or even how the studios might benefit you in your efforts?  You’re in a good place to ask.  Nick Smerker, a Traveling Media Consultant from the University Park Media Commons team, visits the Mont Alto campus regularly to assist faculty, staff, and students with current projects and to plan future ones.  He’ll be here on January 7, and he has availability to meet with you!

If you’re interested in meeting with Nick on January 7, or another date, please email mediacommons@psu.edu.  It’s not too late to consider incorporating these technologies into your Spring semester.

In other Media Commons news, we’re bringing a Penn State specific technology to campus soon…  It’s called a One Button Studio, and we’ll be posting more information as we have it.  Here’s a link, in case you’re curious:

http://mediacommons.psu.edu/onebutton

Lab News

Many thanks to the helpful staff of the Academic Support Center: they’re partnering with ITS to extend the hours of availability for the General Studies 101A Computer Lab and Collaboration Space! New hours for  standard academic weeks are as follows:
8:30 am – 7:00 pm, Monday through Thursday
8:30 am – 4:00 pm, Friday

Students who need to use public computers during hours not listed here can use the Library, which has also partnered with ITS to extend hours of availability for students.  Regular hours for the Library are as follows:
8:00 am – 10:00 pm, Monday through Friday
4:00 pm – 10:00 pm, Saturday
Noon – 10:00 pm, Sunday

We will be extending lab hours at the end of the semester to accommodate student computing needs for finishing projects and papers.

Other lab news is VERY exciting!  We are piloting a new program introduced by CLM (Cooperative Lab Management at University Park – the group that manages lab computers here).  This program is called LabChat and is currently available on all lab and public computers supported by Mont Alto campus ITS.  Users who are logged into lab and public computers can now click on a shortcut on the desktop that will open a chat window.  Lab consultants are available through LabChat to answer basic questions about computer and software use.  In the case that a question is asked that requires help from our local department, the consultants will immediately contact us for support.  LabChat adds one more resource for assistance for our campus computing community.  Try it and let us know what you think!

 

Online Training Opportunities

Are there computer applications that you’d like to better utilize?  Penn State partnered with Lynda.com to deliver free online training opportunities to all Penn State students, faculty, and staff.  Content ranges from digital imaging (Adobe Photoshop) to office productivity (Microsoft Office) to web building (Dreamweaver), and so much more.

If you click on the Lynda logo below, the link will take you to the Penn State login page for Penn State.  Use your Access Account credentials to log in (the same user name and password you use for Webmail, ANGEL, eLion, etc).

Some of the features that enhance the learning experience through Lynda include the ability to bookmark your lesson and return to a specific point, certificates of completion upon finishing courses, and a history that allows you to track your progress through lessons.

Enjoy!

 

Oh no, the printer!

“What IS the process for letting ITS know when I’m having printing problems?”

I’m so glad you asked!

Many of the printers that we install around campus have hyper-early warnings about low toner: hyper-early as in 40% remaining.  When we use cartridges that produce 36,000 pages, that means that we start receiving warnings when there are approximately 14,400 pages left in the cartridge.  Granted, not all our toner cartridges yield so many pages, but there’s still usually a good deal of printing in the life of cartridges when we receive our initial warnings.  If this is the alert you’re seeing, please disregard it.

If you see the quality of printing diminish, though, please call us immediately.  We do not want the hard work that you do to be impeded by something like an empty toner cartridge.  We’ll do everything within our power to remedy the issue right away.

Likewise, if there is a mechanical problem of any kind with the printer, please call us immediately.  We do not want the hard work that you do to be impeded by something like a printer jam.  We’ll do everything within our power to remedy the issue right away.

We have a regular paper route scheduled for our student workers throughout the week to ensure that student-use printers always have sufficiently full paper drawers.  Our students will preemptively deal with printer problems when they are visiting each printer.

If your printers don’t appear when you log into your University-issued computer, try logging out, making sure that your computer is connected to the network, making sure that your wireless switch is in the OFF position, and then logging in again.  If printers are still not available, give us a call.  We can assist in troubleshooting this issue.

Requests for new printers should be directed to the Help Desk.  Just send an email with your request to helpdesk@ma.psu.edu.

Please don’t forget that we recycle used toner and ink cartridges – even cartridges from off-campus printers.  The points that we gain in sending those cartridges for recycling are then transformed into AV equipment that can be used by our students.

Our Help Desk telephone number is 717-749-6300.  If you’re on campus, just dial extension 6300.  As always, it’s our pleasure to assist you with your IT needs.  Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Collaboration – to build better collaboration!

Our department collaborated extensively with many people this summer to deliver our students better spaces in which to work in our dated public computer lab in General Studies 101A. We consulted with Media Commons from University Park, imagineered with EFS to customize furniture, planned and troubleshot with our Physical Plant on campus to do the hard work that needed to be done, and put our ITS heads together to compose the best possible combination of function, practicality, and aesthetics.

Until the renovation, this lab was configured as it had been for many years. Twenty-eight student workstations filled the room in four rows of tables. We provided a scanner, a signature station, a black laser printer, and a color laser printer in this space for student use. Collaboration happened in this room, but only awkwardly. Thanks to Nick Smerker for taking pre-construction shots of the lab in use, last spring:

Problems in the room ranged from issues with running cabling from the walls down the rows of desks to poor lighting to minimal space for movement to old paint and carpet and furniture. Students used the space, but primarily as a place to do the bare essentials of computing.

We set out with several goals in mind. First, we didn’t want to lose any more workstations than possible for the room. It has only been rarely that the lab fills to capacity, but during those busy parts of the year, we can’t spare any seats. We managed to use twenty-six regular desktop computers, with seating for six laptop users – an improvement of four computers in the space. Second, we wanted to provide more effective spaces where collaboration can happen. The two collaboration tables that we imagineered each allow for two public computers with smart podium monitors to work alongside three individual laptops – when the large digital displays are turned on, all you have to do is click the “Share” button on your cable for your screen to show on the TV. The standing computer stations allow for students to use the computers to print jobs quickly without the hassle of settling into seats. Our department can adjust the station heights as we see fit, and two of them are exactly in the prescribed range for chair-bound users to use. Also, we desired to deliver a warmer, more welcoming environment – one that aligns with the beauty of the campus. Finally, we did what we could to conserve both energy resources and money. Those tables that line the walls of the new room are cycled-down from a classroom computer lab.

The feedback that we’ve received since opening the lab has been overwhelmingly positive. Students who returned this fall from previous semesters are astounded at the difference. Students who arrived for their first semester a few weeks ago have made themselves at home in the space. Use of the room seems to have increased, and if we have the opportunity to add more good collaboration spaces in other areas of the campus, we’ll seriously consider it. What do you think?

How do I… Use Identity Finder to deal with PII?

First, what is PII? Some of you know the answer to this question – it’s the personally-identifying information that may allow an identity thief to steal your digital identity. Social security numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and even some other digital data can count as PII. The University has been on a mission for years to eradicate PII on University computers. There is a risk involved in having it: if you have PII on your hard drive and your computer becomes compromised with a virus, that digital information is no longer secure on your system. It may be in the hands of the wrong people. When campus computers are found to be compromised, and then PII is discovered on those computers, the University (specifically, our campus) is legally required to spend whatever money it takes to inform people whose PII may have been exposed that their identities may be at risk. Even if your own social security number is found on your own assigned (compromised) computer, the campus is required to inform you.

There is a great tool that we have use of to discover and remediate PII. Identity Finder is installed on all faculty and staff computers on our campus. That software was recently updated, and now it’s even more sensitive to potential PII data than before. It is imperative that everyone regularly scan their systems to find what PII may be there, and then clean it. The software isn’t perfect – it will find data that are relatively meaningless and that represent false positives. Identity Finder can be trained through use to disregard those files that contain what you know for sure to be false PII. Let’s take a look…

First, go to your Windows button and select “All Programs.” There, you’ll find Identity Finder in the Identity Finder group of shortcuts. Select it.

If you’ve never created a profile for Identity finder before, the software will prompt you to create a password. This is important! You need this profile to train IDFinder not to find false positives. Did you create a profile before? Enter the password. If you can’t remember it, go here for instructions.

When the Identiy Finder Search Wizard appears, click the button labeled “Start Search Now.” You can start this in the morning, then allow it to work in the background all day while you perform other tasks on your system.

This is what the window looks like while the search is being performed:

Okay. The search is done. It’s time for you to do your part. The first time that you do a PII search, IDFinder may find a large quantity of files. In fact, because Identity Finder was recently upgraded, we’re certain that you’ll have more results than you may be used to. It’s okay. You can designate false positives so that the software no longer lists those files in subsequent searches. Look at the image that follows… I can see that the number on the right is obviously not PII by the context of the file. So, I put a check mark in the box next to the file (on the left), then go to the menu at the top and select “Ignore” -> “This Item Location.” I personally like to look down through the results, then put a checkmark next to ALL files that have false positives so that I can IGNORE them all at once.

What if it’s real PII? What if I look at the content of the file in the preview pane on the right and see that it’s a real social security number? There are two options. First, in some kinds of files like Microsoft Office Word documents, “Scrub” is an option. It cleans the PII information only out of the file and preserves the rest of the file to be used normally. Some files cannot be scrubbed, though. In these cases, the appropriate action to choose is “Shred.” This choice destroys the file with PII and makes a note in the log that it was dealt with in this manner. Using IDFinder to perform these actions is really important so that a record of how it was remediated is preserved.

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If you can’t remember your previous password, you can delete your profile and start over. This represents increased work for you – if you delete your profile, you lose the logs of files that you previously marked as false positives. The software will find those files again. Nonetheless, it’s important to use the profile for the next time, so if you can’t remember your password, follow these steps. When the password screen appears, click “Skip” and log in with a guest profile.

Go to your “Settings” button on the “Configuration” tab. Click “Settings.”

The Profile option in the Settings window is what you’re looking for. It’s the first in the list. Select “Profile,” then click the “Delete” button on the right, next to “Delete Profile.” Click through the prompts to finish the process, then close IDFinder. Launch the software again, and you’ll be prompted to create a new password for your new profile. Please try to remember this – it’s what allows you to train IDFinder.

This work may not be the best Friday fun, but it is of utmost importance. Thank you for taking the time to do it. As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact us at the ITS Helpdesk at 717-749-6300, or helpdesk@ma.psu.edu.

iClicker, iClicker, iClicker!

Brian Young will be visiting us on September 12 to help us better understand iClicker and whether / how to use them in the classroom!

We’ll be meeting for a workshop in MAC122 from 9 am to 11 am. At 11, we’ll reconvene in one of the Garden Rooms in the Mill Cafe where we can have more informal discussion in a brown bag lunch session. From 12 pm to 1 pm, Brian will be meeting with individual faculty one-on-one in short meetings to answer lingering questions.

Don’t forget – we have two sets of 40 student clicker remotes (in each set) that we can lend out for a week at a time to faculty who want to experiment with the technology in current classes this fall.

Please RSVP with me (stacigrimes@psu.edu) for each of these sessions. We need to assess probable attendance to make sure we’re accommodating everyone. See you on the 12th!

Mid-August Update

We’re working hard to bring projects to completion!

Our UCIF classroom renovation in General Studies 207 is done. If you have any questions at all about use of technology podiums in classrooms where you’re scheduled to instruct, please contact me directly (stacigrimes@psu.edu, 717-749-6193) to set up a little orientation. We’ll set a 15 minute appointment when the room is available to run through all the functionality of the podium so that you’re comfortable using it in class. As always, if you experience a technical problem in any of your classrooms, please let us know immediately by calling or emailing the ITS Helpdesk (717-749-6300, helpdesk@ma.psu.edu). We can’t fix problems that we don’t know exist.

Another improvement project that we are working on this summer is in collaboration with the Library. The presentation space in the downstairs of the Library will now have a permanently mounted projector, in-ceiling speakers, and both desktop computer and laptop computer connections. This setup includes a small podium and will be very similar to the technology that we installed into the Heritage Room of the Mill Cafe.

You may be surprised at the drastic changes in the General Studies 101A main computer lab. We aren’t quite finished in that space yet. When we are done, your students will have two collaboration spaces to use, as well as standing computer stations for quick printing, another wheelchair accessible computer, and a multitude of public computers with standard lab software. The whole room has undergone a facelift, and the aesthetic changes are remarkable. Our goal is that all our hard work will yield a comfortable and welcoming space in which students can accomplish effective progress in their out of classroom learning experiences. Stop by when the semester begins and take a peek in! We’ll post photos when it’s done of the project in-progress. We thank the fine folks of the Physical Plant for their hard work in helping us assemble this room.

We were able to obtain a great discount from Dell by recycling old printers that we were no longer using. We’ve purchased and placed 8 new laserjet printers for public use in labs, classrooms, and other areas around campus!

Mont Alto Campus’ wireless network has been upgraded this summer with all new equipment, and with an additional 32 access points to increase broadcast range and accessiblity. Coverage is better than it ever has been. Let us know if you need help using your devices with the network.

iClickers are here! I have negotiated a loan from the manufacturer of iClickers for the duration of the fall semester. The ITS Department is receiving two sets of 40 i-Clickers each that will have an instructor remote and a receiver. If you’re interested in testing the technology, you’ll be able to sign out a set to use in your classes for a few days. Try to take advantage of these sets this fall – we’ll be returning them in December. There are already iClicker users on campus, and some students will be purchasing iClickers with their books to use this semester. Here’s a Penn State Adobe Connect info session on the use of the technology: https://meeting.psu.edu/clickers_record/ We do have Instructional Designer support for faculty who choose to use them, and can schedule individual meetings with that person, as well as workshop sessions.

Sci-Tech progress is coming along nicely. Our department is currently re-assembling classrooms. Sci-Tech 313 is going to have brand new computer desks at the beginning of the week next week. If you have office space in Sci-Tech and would like to request assistance with your technology setup, please contact us at the Help Desk to arrange an appointment with one of our staff.

New laptops and desktops have been disbursed this summer. If you are one of the faculty and staff who is due to receive a replacement, but you haven’t yet transferred into it, please call to make an appointment with us.

We hope that the remainder of your summer is relaxing and safe and fun. Here’s to a great kick-off of another exciting, productive semester. See you soon!