ITS @ Belmont University

As part of the MyBelmont project, ITS has launched a new and improved web site on both WWW and my.belmont.edu.

The new web site on WWW is targeted to new and prospective students, staff and faculty. Much of the operational detail has been relocated to mybelmont. We have tried to consolidate technology support into a concise format. Icons have been added to make it easier to find information and we have added a suggestion box. Please let us know what you think and how we can continue to improve our web communications to the campus.
thanks
Randall (x5471)
http://www.belmont.edu/its
http://my.belmont.edu/mybelmont/administration/technology

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:51 AM | Permalink

MyBelmont or should I say, the new BIC, launches on Feb 1st, 2010 after an intense effort by many groups on campus. MyBelmont provides a campus community web site that has content just for Belmont. Our goal is to eventually move all Belmont community content from WWW to MyBelmont. WWW is the primary marketing site for the university for prospective students, staff and faculty and our frontdoor to the world. MyBelmont is a working operational site where many internal items can be published. MyBelmont launch is phase one of this transition with an update to the portal site of BIC after the spring term.

So, What's different?
1. Department's on campus have a place to publish for internal users
2. Users can use our campus CMS (content management system) to publish
3. More links to Belmont related sites such as Belmont YouTube and Belmont Vision
4. Links to Belmont Social Networks sites are all in one place
5. Consolidated links for students and for faculty and staff

So, What's next?
Well a whole bunch of stuff. We are working on the portal side of MyBelmont where
we offer an easier navigation system to Banner, Blackboard and email. Messages will be easier
to read. And we hope to give users more customization options.

Thanks go to Paul Chenoweth, Byron Marsh adn Bob Teeple along with the MyBelmont
technical team members, Jon Blankenship and Lougan Bishop.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 10:36 AM | Permalink

Over the summer ITS upgraded the campus network to 300mb. We now have 200mb dedicated to Resnet and student usage on campus. That compares to 21mb a year ago making the increase in bandwidth for residential students an almost 10 fold increase. For faculty and staff we increased our bandwidth almost 5 times to 100mb. Internet usage continues to grow and as the campus population grows we will keep adding bandwidth to keep ahead of the curve.

As part of the upgrades we purchased 200mb of bandwidth from NetTN which is the State of Tennessee Education Network. We are excited to be apart of NetTN network because it gives us the ability to greatly expand bandwidth in the future at an excellent price point as compared to the regular commodity internet. The upgrades were handled expertly by Network Services staff including manager, Randy Capps, network technician, Dave Elder and Resnet Technician, Andrew Kee.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:27 AM | Permalink

We are excited to announce the migration of Belmont’s e-mail system to Microsoft Exchange. This faculty/staff e-mail transition is expected to be complete by May 31, 2009. There are many advantages to this new system, including a simplified e-mail address, 20 times more storage, sophisticated remote access and better compatibility with mobile devices.

You will receive a follow-up to this e-mail with your new account name and password along with instructions for how to logon to the new address. Your new e-mail address will be: first.last@belmont.edu. Your former address will still be accessible and able to receive e-mail, and it will forward to your new address until August 2010. User Services will personally assist you with the transfer of your previous e-mail and calendar to the new mail system; or, if you want to complete the transfer yourself, step-by-step instructions will be provided.

A list of “Frequently Asked Questions” can be found by clicking here. Additionally, representatives from IT will be presenting this information at upcoming college meetings and at the university-wide staff meeting on Fri., April 17 at 1 p.m. in the Vince Gill Room.

We think you will find that this new system is a positive step for the university. Again, more details and instructions for set-up will follow in the next few days. If you have questions, contact your User Services representative or a member of Network Services.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 02:58 PM | Permalink

Over the summer Network Services moved all student email hosting to Google Mail. What this means is simply, email is hosted at Google, but student addresses and overall functionality stay the same. Why do this? Students get over 6gb of storage as compared to 20mb and an interface similar to gmail that is used by millions. Google also provides document storage and calendar for students, so its a big win for the students and a win for the university in offering a better product at a lower cost. Google offers educational instititutions free email hosting without advertisement for hundreds of schools around the world, Notable institutions such as University of Arizona and Northwestern University use Google for email hosting.

If you would like to learn more about the move to Google email hosting go to the FAQ page.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:20 AM | Permalink

Everyone on campus who uses ATT Cellphones can now get a discount. Students can get up to 10% off of a new plan. Faculty and Staff can get up to 15% for a new or current plan. For more information go to the computer discounts page on the ITS web site for links to the new plans. You can order new service or equipment for your personal cell phone plans on the web sites.

http://www.belmont.edu/its/buy/index.html

If you have any questions please call the campus ATT representative.
Jason Suerstedt
University Sales Executive
Colleges and Universities
Mobile: (615) 618-1951
Fax: (615) 221-3874
John.Suerstedt@att.com

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 04:17 PM | Permalink

If you can believe it--- campus email continues to grow as well as the amount of email spam we screen out. In October the campus received about 6.5 million emails. Of that total 5.25 million email spams were screened from our email system for about 81% hit rate for spam. This is the first pass before we screen our email through our Barracuda firewalls which nets another 10% of spam.

List of Faculty Staff email by day
==========================
DATE SPAM TOTAL %SPAM
---------- -------- -------- -------
2007-10-01 59069 80152 73.70%
2007-10-02 52104 71724 72.65%
2007-10-03 63314 79480 79.66%
2007-10-04 72630 88957 81.65%
2007-10-05 66580 81226 81.97%
2007-10-06 60534 67992 89.03%
2007-10-07 54670 64353 84.95%
2007-10-08 56368 77073 73.14%
2007-10-09 57463 79795 72.01%
2007-10-10 81687 99549 82.06%
2007-10-11 97822 112928 86.62%
2007-10-12 98029 112776 86.92%
2007-10-13 77643 85183 91.15%
2007-10-14 52244 58973 88.59%
2007-10-15 67976 82790 82.11%
2007-10-16 73611 91498 80.45%
2007-10-17 86041 101871 84.46%
2007-10-18 84771 100831 84.07%
2007-10-19 89866 105010 85.58%
2007-10-20 67794 74335 91.20%
2007-10-21 65210 72930 89.41%
2007-10-22 84986 100710 84.39%
2007-10-23 89027 106753 83.40%
2007-10-24 69071 84681 81.57%
2007-10-25 68062 84692 80.36%
2007-10-26 68423 84820 80.67%
2007-10-27 56796 62365 91.07%
2007-10-28 55024 60832 90.45%
2007-10-29 73774 89344 82.57%
2007-10-30 79510 95364 83.38%
2007-10-31 73581 89722 82.01%
---------- -------- -------- -------
total 2203680 2648709 83.20%

List of Student POP email by each day in October
=====================================
DATE SPAM TOTAL %SPAM
---------- -------- -------- -------
2007-10-01 100172 132544 75.58%
2007-10-02 100041 132219 75.66%
2007-10-03 112267 140134 80.11%
2007-10-04 115923 144454 80.25%
2007-10-05 109255 138286 79.01%
2007-10-06 94053 108734 86.50%
2007-10-07 83812 102636 81.66%
2007-10-08 89471 123200 72.62%
2007-10-09 101114 134317 75.28%
2007-10-10 104359 129660 80.49%
2007-10-11 111032 134888 82.31%
2007-10-12 111300 131671 84.53%
2007-10-13 100632 115138 87.40%
2007-10-14 86097 103028 83.57%
2007-10-15 110733 138929 79.70%
2007-10-16 106805 138426 77.16%
2007-10-17 105637 134066 78.79%
2007-10-18 95915 123669 77.56%
2007-10-19 101626 129036 78.76%
2007-10-20 81368 96478 84.34%
2007-10-21 78514 97008 80.94%
2007-10-22 103049 130309 79.08%
2007-10-23 101120 130207 77.66%
2007-10-24 79019 105537 74.87%
2007-10-25 87637 115423 75.93%
2007-10-26 87972 111661 78.78%
2007-10-27 84493 97578 86.59%
2007-10-28 77130 94298 81.79%
2007-10-29 101461 134136 75.64%
2007-10-30 105147 133379 78.83%
2007-10-31 93382 121066 77.13%
---------- -------- -------- -------
total 3020536 3802115 79.44%

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 02:17 PM | Permalink

In the very near future you will no longer need to ask customers for their full SSN/TIN in order to identify their Banner record.

As of 11-26-07 new Banner person and non person records will be assigned a "B Number" as ID. We are referring to this new ID as the BUid. On 12-26-07 all remaining Banner records identified by SSN in the ID field will be converted to BUids. SSN will still be stored in the appropriate SSN/SIN/TIN field, but SSN will not be assigned as ID.

For more information on finding records in Banner during and after the conversion please visit the BUid Training link located here. General project information is available on our public web site here.

Thank you for your careful attention to this new Banner information.

Posted by Kelly Moreland Jones at 11:54 AM | Permalink

User Services is nearing the end of our Microsoft Office and Outlook migration. If you have not been converted and wish to be moved to the new version of Office and Outlook before Christmas break please respond to this email and we will schedule you as quickly as possible. Please note several departments have been scheduled for the upgrades after finals are completed. If you are unsure of your upgrade status please contact your office manager for your upgrade schedule.
Thanks
Millicent Jolly
Director of User Services

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 03:25 PM | Permalink

Re: Construction preparations

Over the next three weeks Telecommunications and Network staff will be making several required changes to the campus network in preparation for

construction of the new residence hall behind Hail Hall. Essentially, fiber and copper connections to the east and south campus have to be rerouted affecting

services to residential and academic buildings. If you have a current open request, or scheduled project such as an office move, please give me a call so that resources

can be scheduled. Non-essential projects if they have not been scheduled will be delayed until after October 15th.

If you have an immediate need you can always call me at 460-5471. To report a telephone problem or request Telecommunications services

please call or email Gary Hunter at 460-6059 or for Network problems call Randy Capps at 460-5448. For voicemail or cable TV issues please call Jim Early at 460-6498.

I appreciate your patience and understanding during a very busy and exciting time for Technology Services staff.

As a reminder please check ITS web sites including our blog for information on current projects.

thanks

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 10:27 AM | Permalink

Technology Services staff had a great time this Saturday getting all the new students up and running. While the weather was very hot the move in went very smoothly. It seems that every year students are more technological and able to get online faster with less assistance from IT. This year students had to reprogram their TVs for the new BTV network on campus to receive all 80 channels. Students and families continue to bring more technology and simply more devices that plug in. We found more large LCD TVs as well as more laptops including a growing Apple Macbook population. This year we had 22 families purchase laptops from Dell and Apple Computer which they picked up on Saturday. Thanks go the Technology Services staff including Gary Hunter, Jim Early, Randy Capps, Dave Elder and Andrew Kee for a job well done on Saturday.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 09:02 AM | Permalink

The campus has installed a new cable TV system in partnership with Campus Televideo. Campus Televideo,based in Connecticut is one of the largest college campus cable TV providers with over 130 campuses across the country. They provider cable TV services at ETSU, Auburn and University Alabama to name a few examples.
.

The system system provides a number of major improvements for the campus including support for digital transmission resulting in improved picture quality on 80 channels. BTV has several new cable channels of content including more college sports channels and university oriented programming for residential students. BTV includes a Belmont branded cable TV guide on channel 3. We also now support DVD playback on four Belmont channels including the campus radio station, campus information channel, MPAC and Curb Events Center.

Jim Early, PBX Systems Manager, worked closely with CTV technicians in the installation and setup of the new cable TV system. We believe we can provide a better cable TV experience for students and the campus at large, while improving support and cost of delivery. If you are interested in providing DVD content for the Belmont Information Channel. please contact Randall Reynolds, Director of Technology Services.

To see the current channel lineup, select here.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 10:03 AM | Permalink

Just a few days following the release of blogs for Belmont student groups in Brazil, Cambodia, and Africa the response from visitors and those leaving comments has been amazing! The Africa Studies Abroad team, lead by Dr. Darrell Gwaltney, hit the ground running yesterday. The initial post from South Africa already has 23 comments...an amazing statistic for a new blog!

Several efforts to promote these blogs this year seem to be having a positive impact:

• Inputing a list of email addresses from interested parties in advance of the trip
• Adding RSS feeds to the Campus Community Home page
• Adding Facebook Flyers to the Belmont network in www.facebook.com
• Updating the Belmont Blogs lists on all official Belmont University blogs to include these summer blogs
• Adding a description/landing page on the www.belmont.edu site under Special Promotions.
• Adding Belmont News stories as the trips progress

Posted by admin at 09:50 AM | Permalink

Three groups of Belmont faculty and students are journaling their experiences this summer using Belmont Blogs. Dr. Sharon Dowdy and a team of nursing students are in Cambodia now and have just begun posting on Mission to Cambodia. Tomorrow morning (May 13), Dr. Darrell Gwaltney and 20 students (plus a couple of faculty members) departs for South Africa and Botswana on a study abroad project that includes connections with AIDS education organizations. Dr. Gwaltney plans to use this trip as a launching point for a School of Religion blog, Community Matters. This year's Sports Evangelism team, lead by Betty Wiseman, departs for Brazil on Monday (May 14) and will use a blog for the fourth consecutive year. Tony Howell, assistant volleyball coach, will be blogging the experiences of the Brazil Sports Evangelism team as they compete internationally and minister in the Rio region via The Rio Journal 2007.

Please take a few minutes to read these blogs during the next several days...and be sure to add a supportive comment (or two). Commenting is simple as filling out a short form and hitting the Submit button. These team members appreciate the fact that family and friends are watching and comments are greatly appreciated when traveling far from the comforts of home.

Posted by admin at 06:57 AM | Permalink

Over the last several years data security concerns have grown with increasing use of the Internet. Once data is stored on a computer it can be shared and transmitted anywhere in the world. Critical data that identifies an individual such as Social Security Number of Driver's license are a particular concern for data security. There has been several responses to privacy issues with data from the federal government in the passing of legistration such as Hippa and Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB). Belmont has adopted a strong stance and will continue to adhere to high standards to safeguard data.

If you would like to learn more about Belmont's data security efforts you visit our information security web site. Over the next few months ITS will continue to monitor the plan to ensure the highest confidence in data security on campus.

If you have any questions about data security at Belmont please give me a call or email.

Randall Reynolds
Director of Technology Services
Information Security Plan Coordinator

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 10:12 AM | Permalink

Two new short-term blogs are online now that feature Belmont students: A team of Physical Therapy students blogged their Mission to Guatemala over spring break. The Guatemala team did a great job of providing stories and images of their service with the Shalom Foundation.

The March Madness 2007 blog features a collection of stories, news releases, and images from Belmont's basketball teams. Belmont's men will find out who their first round, NCAA tournament opponent will be during Sunday's selection party. The Belmont women's team is currently playing at the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament in Dothan, Alabama.

Go BRUINS!

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at 06:09 PM | Permalink

To: All Faculty and Staff

Re: Conversion to Outlook from Netscape

The current version of Netscape in use on campus along with Netscape calendar and browser is no longer supported by the manufacturer resulting in end-of-life for the product. While Netscape continues to work for most users on campus, we will start to adopt Outlook as the new email and calendar standard over the next year. Outlook is the dominate standard for email and calendar in the marketplace with about 70% usage, making it the obvious candidate for a new campus email and calendar standard for both PC and Apple users.

Many new staff and faculty who come to Belmont come with experience with Outlook and Internet Explorer. With this change to Outlook access to email through BIC and the web will not be affected. However, Netscape calendar users will need to migrate to Outlook calendar over the next year as a result. Network Services will be contacting the 100 users on the old Netscape calendar in preparation to move to Outlook calendar.

There are many advantages in this change including improved access to email and calendar from the web from home or while traveling. Support for PDAs will be greatly improved with full integration of calendar and address book. Students will not be affected by this change and they will continue to use BIC or any email client they desire to manage their email needs.

Starting this summer with the PC rollover Outlook will be installed and over the next year User Services will convert department PCs to Outlook email on a planned schedule. After June 2008 Netscape will no longer be supported. Over the next several weeks more information about training programs and assistance to convert your email to Netscape will be made available to you. For more information go to www.belmont.edu/its/outlook.

If you have any questions please give us a call.
ITS Leadership Team

Millicent Jolly, Director of User Services

Jill Freeman, Director of Administrative Computing and Instructional Technology

Randall Reynolds, Director of Technology Services

cc. Steve Lasley, VP Finance and Operations

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:39 AM | Permalink

If you are seeing more spam in your in-box you are not alone. Over the last year email spam has literally doubled. More troubling is the rise of something called "image spam" where the spam message is embedded in an image which spam filters do not see. We will continue to monitor the situation and apply the best technology that we can find. We have found great success with Barracuda spam applicance that scans and rates each email to see if it needs to filtered as spam. If you would like to learn more about the rising problem with spam email on the internet you can read this December article on the problem. select here to read.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:32 AM | Permalink

Cascade Server (Belmont WWW) was updated on Friday, January 5th, to release 4.8. from 4.3. Cascade provides a web based interface that users on campus can use to update their web pages. The campus adopted Cascade this summer and users have found it an easy way to keep web pages updated. The new release provides a number of important user features as well as more protection of web pages. As part of our ongoing relationship with Hannon Hill, Cascade will periodically be updated with new features to continue to improve Belmont's web site for everyone. If you have any questions about web management on campus please contact Paul Chenoweth or Randall Reynolds for more information.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 02:19 PM | Permalink

We continue to expand wireless services on campus with the addition of our first residence hall ,Thrailkill, on the wifi network. Access to the internet using a wirless laptop has become a defacto standard. Over the last several years Belmont has implemented wireless or WIFI in all major academic buildings on campus. Students have asked for WIFI access and we are using Thrailkill as our first major test of wifi in student dorm rooms. We strongly recommend students use either the wired port or wireless and not at the same time. With the WIFI service students will be able to easily connect to the Internet without being connected to the wall. If you have questions about use of the service please contact Network Services or the Resnet Helpline at x6214.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 09:47 AM | Permalink

Every month Belmont receives about 4 million emails. Of that total about 90% is spam. Below are some stats that might be of interest for October. After the first scan our Barracuda Spam filter picks up an additional 20% of the email as Spam. And after all of that the email is delivered to your mailbox. Whew!!!!

Students email and %SPAM

DATE SPAM TOTAL %SPAM
---------- -------- -------- -------
2006-10-01 38226 56329 67.86%
2006-10-02 40354 66331 60.84%
2006-10-03 45788 86762 52.77%
2006-10-04 48822 82610 59.10%
2006-10-05 44846 84223 53.25%
2006-10-06 47531 79934 59.46%
2006-10-07 59724 80580 74.12%
2006-10-08 57276 79808 71.77%
2006-10-09 54715 92746 58.99%
2006-10-10 62493 95087 65.72%
2006-10-11 56560 95688 59.11%
2006-10-12 60574 97844 61.91%
2006-10-13 59811 95629 62.54%
2006-10-14 64506 87398 73.81%
2006-10-15 62120 89667 69.28%
2006-10-16 60952 107113 56.90%
2006-10-17 74182 116258 63.81%
2006-10-18 61771 105743 58.42%
2006-10-19 66826 113039 59.12%
2006-10-20 67876 107146 63.35%
2006-10-21 72933 98719 73.88%
2006-10-22 64782 86653 74.76%
2006-10-23 61250 101802 60.17%
2006-10-24 54481 99939 54.51%
2006-10-25 73984 116193 63.67%
2006-10-26 65713 112249 58.54%
2006-10-27 63564 108479 58.60%
2006-10-28 67870 95651 70.96%
2006-10-29 87294 113473 76.93%
2006-10-30 59550 105171 56.62%
2006-10-31 66506 107113 62.09%
---------- -------- -------- -------
total 1872880 2965377 63.16%

FACULTY and STAFF email and %SPAM

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 09:01 AM | Permalink

Last Friday Mediasite was installed in the College of Health Sciences. About 10 faculty and staff participated in a 1/2 day training session on the product. Mediasite is video capture computer that publishes lectures to the web. Initially, Mediasite will be used to capture student work and publish to the web for grading as well as an electronic record for the student. Two Mediasite recorders were purchased allowing two classes to be recorded at the same time. Mediasite was purchased through a Memorial Foundation grant. About 1000 hours of instruction can be recorded and saved to Mediasite.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:31 AM | Permalink

Belmont family and friends,

In just a few minutes, the new www.belmont.edu web site will be online. This launch of the new site and our new content management system represent a huge first step in a process. Don't panic if everything isn't working properly immediately. We are confident in the direction and the tools available to deliver a site that represents Belmont well. To see the new site, you may need to restart your desktop.

We would like to ask your help (and your patience) for the next few days as we work through issues in the conversion process. Please navigate to your department site and click through the links...if you find a broken link or a missing image/picture, please identify the URL of the page and let Adrian Constant know of the problem (preferably via email). Search features and question/response links should be fully functional soon, we are addressing those crucial functions first.

Paul:)

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 04:09 PM | Permalink

We have launched a new ITS web site to communicate important web projects in process for the campus. Paul Chenoweth, Campus Web master, will use the site to update users on progress of the Hannon Hill CMS conversion and for future project management and user training. If you want to peek at the site, go to this link at http://forum.belmont.edu/webmaster.

We are very excited about all the web changes happening this summer and everyone will see a new look starting in August. Hannon Hill provides a great web development environment for the campus supporting many new features while moving the campus to XML. XML is a technical term that defines a standard for how data is shared on the Internet. To learn more about XML check out the followling links, http://www.w3schools.com or http://www.hannonhill.com

For more infomation about web projects on campus contact Paul.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 02:04 PM | Permalink

To: Staff and Faculty

Over the last year we have made several changes to the network to improve campus network security. Starting this Thursday,June 29th, we will implement a network security feature that will log off your office computer after 30 minutes of inactivity (not touching your keyboard or mouse for 30 minutes). Any work that you have open or sessions will be not be affected. Many users on campus already use a password to lock their screen/desktop, and this feature is similar and not to be compared to an initial power-on where all your applications have to be restarted. While not every computer has been modified to implement this feature it is our goal to have network logout security implemented in the near future for all faculty and staff office PC systems.

This is a critical security policy change to better protect your data as well as your access to campus resources. As always, we recommend you log out your computer when you leave your office as well as turn off your computer over weekends or extended periods when your computer is not being used. It is critical that you do not share your passwords or post them where others may easily gain access to your computer.

I appreciate your understanding and cooperation in this important network security policy change.
Randall Reynolds

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 01:53 PM | Permalink

The new laptop model for freshman this fall is the IBM R60 Celeron M 420 Ghz (1.6ghz speed). The laptop is configured with 1 gb ram, 60 gb disk, 14.1 XGA, wireless, CD-RW/DVD, XP Pro and 3 year warranty with accident protection. Microsoft Office 2003 Academic can be purchased from the University bookstore for a cost of $89. The total cost for the laptop is $1250 including Tennessee sales tax. To learn more about the program please visit the ITS web site at www.belmont.edu/its.

The program is available to all freshman, transfer, and new graduate students enrolled for Fall 2006. To participate please fill out an agreement form at here and fax to 615-460-5685 or send by mail to Randall Reynolds by July 14th. This is the fourth year for the program, and we had 52 families participate last year. If you are not interested in participating check out our computer purchasing programs (IBM, Dell and Apple) available to you on the ITS web site. For more information please contact Randall Reynolds at 615-460-5471.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 10:07 AM | Permalink

On the recommendation of the Flywheel Web Team Hannon Hill of Atlanta has been chosen as the campus CMS tool. CMS or Content Management System is a software application used to manage web content including images. Hannon Hill's Cascade Server is a full featured software package used by other universities including Duke, Carnegie Mellon and Gardner Webb among others. We are very excited about this new relationship and believe that Belmont's web site will be even better in the future.

Some of the features that Cascade Servers offers the campus include greater ability to enter content online and upload images. Users will have a full word processor without having to learn Dreamweaver or other web content programming language. Cascade server is fully ADA compliant allowing Belmont's web site to be more accessible to a wider audience. Other features include improved navigation and ability to manage multiple templates across the campus.

If you would like more information about Hannon Hill you can visit their web site at www.hannonhill.com. This project will begin in May and continue through the summer.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 02:07 PM | Permalink

Several ITS staff played a pivitol supporting role in Monday night's CMT broadcast and in the weeks prior to the event. Staff began meeting with CMT and Curb staff several months ago and over the last several weeks met weekly with CMT planners to ensure a great night. To prepare for CMT we ran and built a new fiber network specifically to support broadcast to another venue in downtown Nashville in parternship with CMT and Bellsouth.

ITS installed over 60 new telephones in Beaman and Vince Gill to support the large CMT support staff as well as visiting press. In addition, all of the telephones had to be programmed to support calling groups, voicemail and specific ringtones. We installed new cable TV outlets so that CMT staff could monitor the broadcast.

Finally, we worked to ensure that CMT staff had access to wireless data and VPN circuits. Several staff need to be thanked for working with CMT since their move-in last Tuesday and over the weekend. Specifically, Randy Capps, Gary Hunter, and Jim Early are to be congratulated for a job well done and for contributing to a big night for country music and Belmont. For future events the work that was performed for CMT will enhance our ability to provide the necessary logistics to make these types of events possible.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 10:35 AM | Permalink

ITS's Web Developer, Paul Chenoweth, is in Honduras to return Monday Jan 9th. While in Honduras with several Belmont students( including his son and Belmont student, Matt) Paul has been assisting with various technical issues, shooting video, and coordinating service projects. Paul and the Belmont group have posted several interesting stories to Forum. To read the updates, go to Reporting from Honduras.

ITS has pioneered the support of online forums (or "BLOGS") as a better and easier way to communicate on the Web. Several forums are now used on campus including FYI, Staff Affairs and Belmont News to update the campus on important items of interest. If you are interested in setting up a forum for your school please contact Bill Hobbs in UMAC.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:49 AM | Permalink

Belmont's Human Resources department is excited about today's launch of the jobs.belmont.edu web site. The new site, hosted by PeopleAdmin, will allow prospective employees to search for openings and to apply for jobs online. Tools available on the site allow a prospect to track their application without having to telephone HR or the hiring manager. Administrative tools allow hiring managers quicker contact, tracking, and reporting of applicant information.

During the transition period from the current posting process to the new online process, job listings for faculty can still be found on the current Human Resources web site.

Training for faculty and staff hiring mangers will begin soon. Additional information on training opportunities can be found here.

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at 02:41 PM | Permalink

On Friday, December 2nd, ITS implemented a refresh of Belmont's Web Site front page. The refresh of the site was approved by the University Marketing team and implemented by ITS. Changes include a new link to Adult and Graduate programs as well as some slight formatting changes. A major revamp of the complete web site is planned for next summer. Changes are continously made to Belmont's main web site by ITS and we continue to look for better tools such as Sitemason to expand what we can do with the site. If you are interested in learning more about Belmont's web site contact Adrian Constant and Paul Chenoweth. The refresh was implemented by Paul Chenoweth, our Campus Web Master.-- So kudos Paul for a job well done. To view the site go to www.belmont.edu.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 03:01 PM | Permalink

Over 1390 students participated in online homecoming elections this month, making this the largest turnout for any online election in Belmont's history. The project represented a cooperative effort between ITS, SGA, and the Office of Student Affairs. The online ballot included images of each candidate for Homecoming Queen and Homecoming King plus a brief outline of each candidate's activities, and interests.

Access to the actual ballot was limited to students and required each student to log into their BIC account. Each student was allowed one-time access to the actual ballot. Each student's access was recorded electronically in one location while their candidate selections were recorded in a separate location. This system allowed for the privacy of each vote while allowing the system to confirm only one vote per student.

Amy Coles, Director of Student Activities, said, "The number of students participating in this election confirms what we have thought, that students are ready to accept online elections".

The development tools used for this project came from SiteMason, Inc. a Nashville-based company that Belmont's web team selected as a partner for form-based, web application processing.

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at 05:05 PM | Permalink

Belmont has added a second Internet pipe increasing our total overall bandwith from 21mb to 42mb. Over the summer we worked with Bellsouth to restructure our bandwith needs so that our costs would stay within our current budget. We increased our Internet bandwith from 15mb to 21mb in August, and now we have effectively doubled that speed. While you may not notice an increase in speed to your favorite Internet site this is a significant change for the campus. With the addition of the new pipe Network Services is relocating RESNET to a dedicated pipe effectively creating a separate network just for Housing students. This change provides a number of enhancements for the campus, including increased security for everyone and the ability to set different firewall parameters for staff and faculty and for RESNET. While security will always be our top priority in managing Internet Services we plan to offer more flexibility for RESNET in opening up Internet services for our students.

Beginning in the fall of 1993, Belmont's first Internet pipe was a 56kb line from the State of Tennessee TBR network. Several years ago Belmont moved to Bellsouth and installed a fiber-based DS3 with a very large capacity for providing bandwith to the campus. Compared to today's 42mb capacity that is an increase of 750 times in capacity over the original 56kb line. The increase in bandwith to 42mb will enhance our ability to keep up with the growth of the Belmont campus as well as reliance on the Internet for critical business needs such as remote hosted applications with the Federal Government and other Belmont partners.

The upgrade was ccordinated by Network Services, which is managed by Randy Capps. The upgrade was accomplished without any network downtime to the campus, so Kudos to all of Network Services staff (Randy Capps, Dave Elder and Matt Garner) for a well done job!

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:56 AM | Permalink

This Fall 49 families took advantage of the IBM laptop program. The program is now available to all new students including transfers and graduate students. The Laptop program is available to students during the summer and provides a way to finance a laptop through your student account. For more information about the laptop program please go to http://www.belmont.edu/its and select the IBM Thinkpad link on the left side of the page. While this year's program is over you can still purchase an IBM or Dell computer by using the links to these buying programs on the ITS web site.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 02:11 PM | Permalink

On Friday, July 8th, Network Services will be upgrading the Windows Network on campus starting at 5pm. We are excited about the new upgrade for the campus because of the move to domain logins and additional services we can provide in the future. We expect all access to email and Internet to not be affected during the changeover. We expect the changeover to be completed by 6pm.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 11:53 AM | Permalink

From the steps of the Belmont Mansion to the foot of the Tower you can now access the campus network through Wifi. If you are in the mood to lie under the giant oaks or sit and meditate in one of the gazebos, please do so, but if not you can get online on the quad and check your email, instant message a friend or even do some homework (ouch). Now classes can meet outside and use the internet if needed. Students who carry their laptops can get online outside, enjoy the beauty of the quad, and write that great novel!

Perhaps, I am overstating the obvious, but everyone needs to know if you want to get online on Belmont's campus we provide access just about everywhere on campus either through a wired connection or through a Wifi connection. So, students get out of those dorm rooms, take your laptop, find a cozy tree and get online!

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 07:33 AM | Permalink

Network Services has selected and implemented Barracuda network applicance to help stop spam on campus. Nationally about 90% of all email is spam. Barracuda works at the network level and screens email for known spam, as well as uses different techniques to detect spam. We currently block between 10-15,000 spam a day on campus. Barracuda has already made a difference for some users on campus and we are excited that we can greatly reduce the headache of spam for users on campus, including our students.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:37 AM | Permalink

As part of the conversion of our long distance services from BTI to Bellsouth, the replacement calling cards have arrived for those that travel and use the University's LD service. I need from all departments that currently have personnel using calling cards to please email me with the names of those people that need calling cards, and what ORG code each persons cc number should be assigned to. I will then assign the codes and send them out to the departments. The old calling cards will be turned off on December 16, if not before. As it will take me several days to get the cards assigned and sent out to the campus, the sooner I receive responses, the greater the likelihood that I can get the cards into the correct hands before the BTI cards are turned off.

This does NOT affect the regular authorization codes for dialing long distance. None of those will be affected by the switchover to Bellsouth. This is only for those that travel and currently use our LD services while traveling. (jim early)

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Belmont has chosen to assign our long distance telecommunications to Bellsouth Corporation under a 3 year contract. While replacing ITC Deltacom, our current provider, we hope to transition long distance service sometime around December 1st this year. ITC Deltacom purchased BTI this year, who we used as our provider for the last five years. Belmont is consolidating telecom services with Bellsouth to ensure the highest quality of telecommunications and network services for the campus. Our cost per minute will be reduced from 4.6 cents to 3.35 cents per minute.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:42 AM | Permalink

Wireless data support is now available on the 2nd through 4th floors of the Fidility building. Also, MPAC is also now wireless. All students must have an email account before connected their laptop to the campus network. If you have any questions about getting wireless service please contact Randall Reynolds at 460-5471.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 09:40 AM | Permalink

Student will soon have direct access to the self-service site for the National Student Clearinghouse via the Services link on BIC.

Currently, this feature is being tested on BIC2 and is accessible to students only. Clicking on the National Student Clearinghouse link will bring up the window message on the left. One click on the Go to Clearing House button from that window will take the student via secure mode, directly into their National Student Clearinghouse account. Students may obtain certificates of enrollment in PDF form as well as view other loan information from that site.
This project is a coordinated effort between ITS and the Office of the Registrar. Launch of this feature is expected on October 15, 2004.

UPDATE 15 OCT 2004: ClearingHouse access is now available to Students only, via the Services Link, once logged into BIC.

Posted by Paul Chenoweth at 06:49 AM | Permalink

Wireless Internet is now available in the Wilson Building and Courtyard. Over the next week we plan to have wireless extended to the lower floor of MPAC as well.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 08:52 AM | Permalink

On Monday, August 16th, a new more secure email server was installed for students. The new server provides more security for student email as well enforcements of email quotas. There are approximately 7000 accounts on the students email server. Kudos to Dave Elder for making this happen.

Posted by Randall Reynolds at 03:51 PM | Permalink