Daily Archives: February 21, 2014

Use Activity Streams to create a quick filter in UCS

By Ryan Johnson, technology training coordinator

For most of us, the inbox is a busy place. Some messages you need to respond to right away, and others you might want to save to read at a later time. This second category includes newsletters you subscribe to, announcements from your favorite store, and others. They’re not spam messages, but you may consider them less important than others.

UCS lets you create an Activity Stream to keep track of those messages while moving them out of your inbox. To try this feature, select Mail, click the Action gear icon next to the Folders heading to the left, pick Activity Stream, and then click the Enable checkbox in the Activity Stream dialog box.

activity streamYou can fine-tune the filters to get more precise. Even using the default settings eliminates a lot of clutter from your inbox. But creating new rules is as easy as dragging and dropping a message from the inbox to the Activity Stream. You’ll be prompted to send future messages with the same sender or subject to the Activity stream.

Learn about this and other UCS Tips and Tricks in my session next week by registering in Techsmart. You can attend in-person or online over Adobe Connect.

University Collaboration Suite (UCS): Tips and Tricks
Description: This session will cover feature advanced topics in UCS including:

  • Using the Search Feature
  • Organizing Your Inbox
  • Using Templates

Also we will cover quick tips/tricks including:

  • Scheduling Email Delivery
  • Creating Quick Filters
  • Creating Sub-Folders
  • Advanced Email Options

Date: February 26, 2014 2:30 PM

Location: 1 Paterno or over Adobe Connect

LHR News: Feb. 24

2013-2014 SRDP Process

The time has come to begin to prepare for the Staff Review and Development process for the review period of April 2013 – March 2014. All reviews must be completed by April 30, 2014; however, the deadline for submitting the final SRDP document and rating to Libraries Human Resources is May 9, 2014. The SRDP form, as well as various links to SRDP help tools, can be found online on OHR’s Staff Review and Development Plan page, at http://bit.ly/1ffx012. This year’s timelines and other resources that may be helpful can be found on the LHR site, at bitly.com/1dtKLma. Employees should consult their supervisors regarding specific deadlines for completing each step of the SRDP process.

This will be the last time the current SRDP process will be used. The new performance management program is being piloted and once the pilot has been completed, final adjustments will be made to the process and it will be introduced later this year.

SRDP training calendar

New Staff: Tips for How to Prepare for your First Performance Review at Penn State
Thursday, February 27: 9:30a.m. – 10:45a.m.
Friday, March 14: 3:00p.m.– 4:15p.m.

Current Staff: Tips for Energizing your Approach to the Annual Staff Review and Development Process
Friday, March 14: 9:30a.m.– 10:45a.m.
Wednesday, March 19: 3:45p.m.– 5:00p.m.

Supervisors: Tips for Making the Annual Review Process as Effective as Possible
Wed., February 26: 9:30a.m.– 11:00a.m.
Friday, March 14: 1:00p.m.– 2:30p.m.
Tuesday, March 18: 3:00p.m.– 4:30p.m.

Reporting Child Abuse Training

Penn State’s Reporting Child Abuse Training is an annual requirement for all Penn State employees, tracked on a calendar year basis. If you completed the training in 2013, you will need to complete it again in 2014, and you will receive an email reminder soon. The Pre-Test component of the training has been eliminated. The on-line training program and the Post-Test are the same as last year.

Below are instructions to access the training portal. It is suggested that you print a copy of your completion certificate for your records. Note that you’ll want to print the completion certificate for the whole program, and not just the Post-Test.

Employees and anyone with an active Penn State Access Account (WebAccess) should access the training through psuohrlearning.skillport.com.
Volunteers and individuals who do not have an Access Account should register for an account and access the training through ohr.psu.edu/learning/online/volunteers/.

Please note that in order for records to show that you have successfully completed the Reporting Child Abuse training, you must complete both of the following steps:

  1. Complete the Course Content
  2. Pass the post-test with a score of 80% or better

If you believe that you have successfully completed the training, you may want to review the information in the “My Progress” tab in Skillport to be sure all steps have been completed. Once all both requirements are achieved, you can Print Your Certificate. Please contact the Penn State IT Service Desk (ITservicedesk@psu.edu or 814-865-4357) if you have technical questions about the training or printing your certificate.

Save the date: LFO forensic on April 2

An LFO forensic on Fulbright Scholarships with presenter Sylvester O. Osagie is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on April 2 in Foster Aud. and MediaSite Live

Bio for presenter: Sylvester Osagie is director of campus engagement in the University Office of Global Programs at Penn State. As director he works with Penn State’s Commonwealth Campuses to develop strategies for international engagement. He is also the University’s Fulbright Representative. Osagie was assistant professor of labor and employment relations at Penn State Altoona for 15 years prior to assuming his current position. His current research interest is environmental management and his recent publications are on the same topic. He received a Fulbright-Hays award to Ghana in 2003. Osagie holds a doctorate degree in organizational behavior from Cornell University.

Presentation topic: The Fulbright Scholar Program including the Fulbright-Hays Program was established in 1946 following the 2nd World War by US Senator J. William Fulbright to foster better international and cultural relations through educational exchange. The program sends U.S. academics and professionals to institutions in other regions of the world and also invites scholars and professionals from these regions to the US. The Fulbright program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES).

Office composting is everywhere

Office Composting in Pattee/Paterno
Every building
Everywhere
Everyone

You may have noticed the new recycling stations that have recently appeared in Pattee and Paterno. This marks the beginning of the change to Office Composting (formerly No Can Do) in our buildings. Over the next few weeks, you will see announcements and more information abut this change. Al Matyasovsky gave a presentation last week in Foster Auditorium, providing an overview of the program. If you missed it, you can view the presentation online at bit.ly/1gioDhB.

Stump Al!

​There are still spots available for the Discovery Day session, “Stump Al”. Join us during lunch, from 11:45 AM to 12:45 PM to learn the newest recycling guidelines. Feel free to bring your toughest recyclables and questions! Sign up in TechSmart, at http://bit.ly/1hadhgm.

PALCI DDA (Demand Driven Acquisitions) Ebook Project

By Barbara Coopey and Bob Alan

Because of licensing restrictions, most electronic books (ebooks) are not sharable through interlibrary loan. As the number of ebooks in libraries continues to grow, consortia like PALCI (Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc.) express concern about books not being available beyond local users. The PALCI ebooks task force has been working since 2012 with vendors on developing a way to create a collection of consortially-owned ebooks available to participating libraries. The PALCI DDA (Demand Driven Acquisitions) Ebook Project began February 17, 2014.

Thirty-two PALCI libraries are participating in the project with each contributing to a pool of money. In working with vendors, we found that they preferred to divide the participating libraries into two groups with sixteen libraries using EBSCO and the others using ebrary (Penn State is in this group). Both groups have around the same amount of money in the vendor deposit account and the DDA publisher profiles are very similar. Twenty publishers are in the profiles, including university presses such as Oxford University Press and Princeton University Press, plus others like RAND, McGraw-Hill, and Sage.

The DDA is a purchase model plan, meaning a purchase will be triggered after the initial ten minute view, or if a page is copied, downloaded, or printed. There are no short-term loans. There is a special PALCI “library” of books within ebrary which is targeted by LionSearch. These books will not be in The CAT as they are not owned by Penn State but by PALCI, so the only way to access them is through LionSearch. We continue to work with the E-ZBorrow vendor on making these ebooks discoverable and accessible in E-ZBorrow, but as for now they are not. The project is managed by YBP which helps in avoiding title duplication and ensures that one of our users will not trigger a purchase if we already have the ebook. In order to have a sufficient number of PALCI ebrary books in the pool at the start of the pilot, the vendor loaded some back files in addition to weekly loads of new imprints.

This PALCI DDA project is preserving the interlibrary loan “sharing” concept by combining funds to create a pool of consortially-owned books to which many users from different libraries will continue to have access.

Diversity 2.0 with ARL’s Mark Puente

The public is invited to “Diversity 2.0: The New Imperative for Diversity and Inclusion in Academic Libraries,” by Mark Puente, on Monday, February 24, 1:30-2:30 p.m., in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, Penn State University Park. The program will also be streamed on MediaSite Live.

Mark Puente is the director of diversity and leadership programs at the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The presentation is part of the Dean’s Diversity Forum, an annual event hosted by Barbara I. Dewey, dean of University Libraries and Scholarly Communications.

For more information or if you anticipate needing accessibility accommodations or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact Amber Hatch at alt16@psu.edu or 814-865-8869.