Non-Profit OrgU.S. Postage
PAIDLowell, MA
Permit No. 69
The Office of Information TechnologyUniversity of Massachusetts LowellLowell, MA 01854
Rich Zera.................CIO, Information TechnologyEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2654
Cher Hugus.............Assistant to CIOEmail: [email protected].: 4745
Juanita McKenzie…Office AssistantEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2654
Nancy Fowler .........Director, Technology &Communication Services Email:[email protected].: 4755
Bob Coppenrath…Help Desk ManagerEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2686Ken Boisvert…Systems AnalystEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 3604Dan Ferry…Desktop Support TechnicianEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4763Jose Guerrero…Help Desk Support Email: [email protected] Tel.: 4768Megan Hadley...Student Technical WriterEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2736Eric Kelly…Desktop Support TechnicianEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2677Adele Lichtenberg…Senior Systems AnalystEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4753Sarah Shutt…Help Desk SupportEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4357Ron Heckman…Help Desk SupportEmail: [email protected]
Mike Lucas .............Director, InstructionalTechnology SupportEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4681
Andy Alfano…System ManagerEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4657Dave Hadley…Media TechnicianEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2505Bill Suppa…Syst Analyst Network Comp Eng.Email: [email protected] Tel.: 4664David Tennyson…Technical SupportEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4655
Steve Drescher.......Director, Network and Voice ServicesEmail: [email protected].: 2680
Bill Anyon…Voice Services TechnicianEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2665Marcie Byrd…Network Security MgrEmail:[email protected] Tel.: 2680Brian Carr…Network Operations SpecialistEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2680Mary Coppenrath…Clerical ServicesEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4101Mary Ferraro…Clerical ServicesEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4101Tony Kolodziej…Security SpecialistEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4761Chris McGee…Network Support SpecialistEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2680John Ouellette…Mgr of Network &Security OperEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2680Marc Place…Network AnalystEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2680Linda Shepard…Administrative Assistant IEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4101
Lori Dembowitz…Director, IT Project ManagementEmail: [email protected] Tel.:2684
Rich Conley…Project Manager e*mpac/iSiSEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4794Doreen Bray…Senior Functional AnalystEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4777Norma Clark…PS Functional AnalystEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4764Doreen Nicastro…Resource 25 Project ManagerEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 2736Dan Bedard…Document Imaging Project ManagerEmail: [email protected]
Jim Packard ............Director, Enterprise System ServicesEmail: [email protected].: 2668
Steve Athanas…Enterprise Systems Engineer Sr.Email: [email protected] Tel.: 4767Nicole Clarke…Enterprise System AnalystEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4754Nick Siakotos…Server AdministratorEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 3626Kevin Smith…Enterprise System AnalystEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4769Martha Sullivan…Enterprise System AnalystEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 4756Ron Vaillancourt…Operations Center ManagerEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 3610Doug Yencho… Server AdministratorEmail: [email protected] Tel.: 3607
Office of Information Technology
Articles written by Megan Hadley. Article content provided by InformationTechnology Staff.
Fall 2010
From the CIO…It’s hard to believe that I have just completed my first year at
UMass Lowell. Let me begin by thanking the faculty, staff and students of UML for not only the warm welcome, but also thetremendous support you have all shown for some important initialchanges in IT. I also cannot stress strongly enough the positivesupport, creativity, and hard work of the Department ofInformation Technology staff for their superbefforts. The accomplishments of the past yearare really a compliment to the IT staff andour great users.
To quote Winston Churchill, “This is notthe end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of thebeginning.” Through your support, we haveaccomplished a lot, but what’s coming up in the future is really the leveraging of ourinitial steps to reach for loftier goals.
In the past year, together we formed a University-wide strategicplanning group and developed a long-range IT Strategic Plan 2020 document to help guide our future directions. Next, we’ll beestablishing some advisory committees to help us understand yourneeds and bounce around ideas on ways to build the infrastructureand support we all desire.
Since our primary goal is to serve our students in their acade-mic pursuits, and with the strong support of Academic Affairs and our faculty, we have achieved 100% Technology-EnhancedClassrooms (aka “smart” classrooms), and with a new agreementwith Echo 360, our ten-fold increase of full lecture-capture classrooms from 6 to 60 is the largest number of such rooms inNew England.
We have completed a bi-directional network backbone whichhelps ensure any single point of failure on the backbone will notbring down the campus network. We have also established a sec-ond Internet path, with enhanced Internet 2 capabilities, to ensureour connectivity to the outside world is robust and redundant.Some of our oldest cabling has been replaced, and wireless hasbeen expanded. Most recently, we completed a study of cellulartelephone signals and the many weak points on campus, and arebeginning to work with the cellular carriers to improve signals.
Student Affairs has created a new position to provide addition-al support directly for students, particularly but not exclusivelyour resident student population.
We are in the process of prioritizing and will soon be orderinghundreds of new microcomputers for many of our student labsacross campus, and are in the planning stages for a long-range Life Cycle Replenishment program for all University-ownedmicrocomputers based on a Total Cost of Ownership model.
Continued on page 4
http://www.uml.edu/it
UMass Lowell is once againleading the way in higher educa-tion instructional technology!
Echo 360 is an automated lecture capture program whichallows for a faculty member’scourse to be recorded and postedonline along with any other mate-rials the instructor chooses toinclude in the lesson. As part of amovement to continue to enhanceclassroom technology, UMassLowell has been chosen by Echo360 to join together and createthe Lighthouse Project, which significantly aids in the expansionof lecture capture environmentswithin the University. As the titleof the project suggests, UMassLowell will become a lighthouse:the university will be a guidinglight to other establishments onthe impact lecture capture has onstudents in higher education at anenterprise level.
UMass Lowell was specificallychosen for this project because of a deep relationship with Echo360 and experience with lecturecapture. UMass Lowell was Echo360’s third customer and hasstayed connected to the companysince the relationship began.Since that time, the university hashad great success implementingthe lecture capture technology ona small scale. With this project,
however, UMass Lowell has theopportunity to implement it onan enterprise wide scale.
Until recently, only a selectnumber of rooms were equippedwith lecture capture. Before theLighthouse Project, six class-rooms were outfitted with thislecture capture technology. Fromthe collaboration with Echo 360,that number will increase ten-fold,with 60 rooms that will be fullyequipped with lecture capture systems. This total includesO’Leary 222, a space used forboth classes and special events.
The reason it is possible to sodrastically increase the number oflecture capture classrooms is allbecause of the Lighthouse Project.Because of the collaboration,UMass Lowell is able to receivediscounted prices on a slidingscale for the lecture equipment,allowing the university to pur-chase a volume of equipment thatotherwise could not be afforded.
In exchange for this, Echo360 will also benefit. UMassLowell will be releasing jointpress releases with the companyregarding their product. Thispress release will explain the startof this Lighthouse Project, andwill be distributed to higher education media, trade outlets,and other universities. Also, from
Lighthouse Project makesUMass Lowell a guiding light
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IT Auditing take adeeper look intoUMass Lowell’sdecentralized ITDepartments
Recently, many offices were partof a campus wide decentralized ITauditing process. While the idea ofan audit sounds daunting, theseaudits were not meant to scare orpunish people they were meant tohelp the decentralized IT depart-ments with understanding how theycould provide a better and moresecure service.
First it is important to under-stand what exactly a decentralizedIT department is. For decentralizedoffices, the servers and applicationsare all within that department out-side of the centralized IT offices.There is also a hybrid that existsbetween centralized and decentral-ized, where only the applications aremanaged independently.
In this IT auditing process, thegoal is to assure that, in these decen-tralized IT areas, confidentiality isprotected, there is integrity in thedata, and the systems are availableto be used. Other audits of this sorthave already happened in otherUMass campuses. Before the audit-ing process could begin, the decen-tralized IT areas needed to identifythemselves. Then, they attended apresentation describing the logicbehind the IT audits.
High Education institutions, asof late, have become a particular tar-get for cyberhacking and internetcrime because they are not protectedas securely as other establishments,such as banks, have become overthe years. Because of the nature ofuniversities and colleges, the sys-tems tend to be more open, andthere is often a lack of resources toprotect the information. A frighten-ing example of the vulnerability ofhigher education establishmentscomes from an incident back in2008 at UMass Amherst. The uni-versity experienced a breech in oneof their decentralized IT areas, andthousands of social security num-bers were compromised. The factthis issue originated from a decen-tralized area was quite concerning,because in a school this size, there is a vast number of decentralized IT areas.
Immediately in the auditingprocess, it was clear that mostdepartments had the basic configu-ration issues under control, such as
using strong passwords on the sys-tems. However, decentralized officeshad trouble in the more complicatedareas.
Overall, one of the main issueswith the decentralized offices wasthe fact there was a lack of datainventory. The big problem withkeeping up with the data inventoryis that the managers of those officescould forget about any sensitive dataon their systems. This is an incredi-ble security issue because therecould be a breach of sensitive data,and the managers may hardly noticebecause they were not even aware inthe first place the data was there.
Another inventory issue thatwas discovered in the auditingprocess was improper disposal ofold systems. The severity of thisproblem was discovered when theauditing crew decided to go dump-ster diving. In one of the UMassLowell dumpsters, they discoveredmultiple university-owned comput-ers with the hard dives still in tack.They took the computers out of thedumpster and checked out the harddrives, and upon doing so foundsensitive information still saved onit, such as credit card information.They were able to identify whatdepartment the computer belongedto. However, they were lucky no onewith ill intentions discovered thecomputers first and were able to usethe personal information they dis-covered. This is just an example ofthe improper disposal of computersand other technology found on thiscampus.
Rogue wireless devices areanother problem that affects morethan just the offices using them.Anyone using wireless on UMassLowell must be using a UML wire-less network, such as uml-admin.However, many people are bringingin their own wireless devices. Notonly are these wireless devicesincredibly insecure, they also dimin-ish network capacity, slowing downthe internet for everyone else.
The student labs have also beenchecked as part of this auditingprocess. The issue found with theselabs is that they do not authenticatethrough the active directory, whichmeans when students use a comput-er in a lab, they sign in as a guest.For example, a student uses a com-puter lab and works on a documentthat is shared on a flash drive. If thatflash drive is infected with a virus, itwill then spread it to the computer,and the student may go on theirway totally unaware of the virus.While IT security can go and takecare of the virus, the user could be
Beware of phishing It has become a rampant problem on campus: faculty and staff mem-
bers are being plagued by waves of phishing e-mails. These e-mails areoften made to look legitimate, and ask users for sensitive information. More commonly, the e-mails are meant to look as if they are coming fromthe IT department and are asking for passwords. Faculty and staff mustremember that UMass Lowell will never ask you for your password orany other personal information.
Despite several email alerts sent from the IT Security Office this sum-mer and fall, this is still a problem on campus. The problem is that whenan individual replies to a phishing e-mail, it can affect the entire universitycommunity. Some people have responded to a phishing email and provid-ing their email password and other information to an external entity, whowas presumably posing as a member of UML IT. As a result, those individ-ual faculty/staff email accounts were taken over by this external individualand used to send many thousands of spam e-mails around the world. MajorInternet Service Providers have no choice in such cases but to block ALLemail coming from the offending domain (in this case, anything comingout of uml.edu). Therefore, members of the UMass Lowell community maysee some of their email being rejected by Yahoo, MSN, Gmail and others.
Of course, UML IT has taken steps to try to minimize the damage byblocking further spam being sent from the offending accounts, and is tryingto negotiate with the ISP’s to convince them that we have handled the situa-tion and they should “un-block” us. Depending on the ISP, some of themrespond quickly, while others maintain that it will take 48 – 72 hours forthe “blacklisting” to expire. In regards to other phishing e-mails, IT spamfilters can usually block the bulk of any phishing e-mails, but they still slip through.
Because of this, it is crucial that faculty and staff members be critical of any e-mails they receive. If it asks for ANY personal information, be suspicious of that e-mail and, most importantly, DO NOT RESPOND.It is most likely not a legitimate e-mail. Not only does it affect the entireUniversity community, but it also puts that individual at a great risk of having their sensitive, personal information compromised and exploited.
If there are any questions about the legitimacy of an e-mail, call the HelpCenter at x4357. Otherwise, always be aware of the presence of phishing e-mails and be very careful what kind of information you send out online.
The UMass DocumentImaging project, which allowselectronic files to be createdthrough scanning paper docu-ments has come to fruition. This University of Massachusettsproject, which UMass Lowell isparticipating in, is also beingimplemented in UMass Bostonand Dartmouth. The system hasbeen installed in the Office ofGraduate Admissions as the pilot.They will be using the software toscan documents that new gradapplicants submit for the Spring2011 semester. In addition to theautomated flow of documentsfrom Graduate Admissions toGraduate Program Coordinatorsreviewing the applications, theDocument Imaging system makeslinking these documents to student records in Peoplesoft efficient and secure.
Another facet of this project isthe imaging of historical records.By law, UMass Lowell is requiredto keep certain documents andfiles archived for so many years.
With the high number of studentsand faculty/staff members UMassLowell has had over the years,these records have accumulatedenough to fill four trailers. Byusing document imaging to createelectronic versions of these docu-ments, those departments will nolonger need to preserve papercopies. The IPI building on EastCampus has been prepared to bethe site of this scanning, with thesystems soon to be installed andthe historical files moved in.
While, like any new system,this may take some time for theusers to adjust to, the benefitssurely outweigh any adjustmentperiod. For one, as this projectgets fully underway and as iteventually expands to moredepartments, it will start to savemore and more space. Instead ofneeding to retain rooms and eventrailers full of paper records, allthe files will be convenientlystored online. Many of these digi-tal files will be attached to theindividual’s PeopleSoft account,
so looking for a specific file thathas been scanned in is as easy asjust looking up an ID number.Using the Office of GraduateAdmissions as an example, whena Graduate Program Office needsto view paperwork an applicantsubmits, such as a letter of recom-mendation or a writing sample,the authorized reviewer will haveaccess to see it all online insteadof needing the documents deliv-ered to them.
This project is also anotherway UMass Lowell is trying to go“green.” Since documents will bestored online, any of the files canbe securely shared and distributedto multiple people without need-ing to make copies, and docu-ments will be kept organized andsecure. This workflow-enabledsystem is believed to help meetone of the primary goals of thisproject, which is to drive efficien-cies in administrative processing.
Document Imaging Pilot
The new year brings a new,improved e-mail messaging envi-ronment for Faculty and staffmembers. Exchange 2010 is com-ing, which will bring better per-formance, larger mailboxes, and anew user interface to web-basedemail.
Due to a complete redesign ofthe Exchange architecture, manyusers will notice significantimprovements loading messages,searching, and overall networkconnectivity to the servers. All ofour users will enjoy a 3 GB mail-box, an increase from 500 MBquota that is currently in place.While users should continue tomanage their mailbox carefully,the increase is a welcomed fea-ture. The upgrade to Exchange2010 will support Outlook2003/2007 and Outlook 2010(when available to the campus).
Perhaps the most significantimprovement will be the new andimproved look to Outlook WebAccess. For example, messagescan be grouped, displayed, and
sorted by topic of conversation,which allows you to see the entiremessage thread. This is called“conversation” view. Users willalso notice they have access to aset of predefined filters to quicklysearch the contents in folders.Like its full-featured Outlookclient, the web-based version willallow for users to view shared cal-endars giving the ability to checkschedules and availability of users.Lastly, the same look and feel willbe the same across multiple
browsers such as InternetExplorer, Safari, Firefox andChrome. How cool is that?
The current implementationschedule calls for an email “black-out” during the last week ofDecember. Over two-thousandaccounts and twelve million emailmessages will be migrated duringthis time. Our Go Live date willbe during the first week ofJanuary 2011. Stay tuned for more announcements!
Faculty/Staff E-mail is getting a facelift
ICC UpgradesContinue
Though UMass Lowell hasbeen in possession of the Inn &Conference Center for only just overa year, the technological upgradesand renovations have yet to cease,all to better the space available.Extensive A/V work is still beingperformed in the grand ballroom.In the two sections of the grandballrooms, two sets of screens andprojectors are being installed. Thisequipment, however, is differentfrom average A/V equipment. It isbeing installed with a motorizedprojection lift, so that, when not inuse, it will retract and disappear upinto the ceiling, creating a verystreamline appearance. There willalso be a sleek touch pad controlsystem in place to control thescreens and projectors. Through thecontrol panel, users can controlwhat is being projected onto thescreens, and whether they will project the same images, such aswhen the ballroom is opened up, or whether they will show differentimages, such as in a case where theballroom is divided. The grand ball-room is not the only function spacegetting an upgrade; the TsongasRoom in the ICC is also undergoingsome enhancements. This profes-sional conference room is going tobe fully-equipped with high-endvideo conference software.
All of these enhancements aremeant to encourage those withinUMass Lowell to host internal func-tions at the ICC, giving them thebest and more user-friendly A/Vequipment to work with. Also,these upgrades are attractive sell-ing points for those outside UMassLowell looking to rent the space forevents, which will bring move revenue into this university.
2 IT Interface�
unknowingly spreading the viruselsewhere. If the system was authen-ticating through the active directoryand students had to log in to accesscomputers in the labs, IT may evenbe able to identify where the viruscame from and help that individualget rid of it.
Now that the auditing processhas been completed, the next step isto begin working toward differentgoals. The biggest goal moving for-ward is to improve and enhancecommunications. There will be a lotof work with the IT security officeto create written procedures that themanagers of these decentralizedoffices must follow. If all theprocesses and responsibilities aremore clearly organized, formalizedand documented, the decentralizedareas will be well-informed of whatthey must do. Subsequently, all ITareas should be managed profession-ally, meaning managers must find anIT resource to assist them with theirtechnical responsibilities, or becomemore educated in IT themselves.
The goal of these audits has notbeen to centralize everyone into IT.
Certainly, some areas, such asresearch, really do need to remaindecentralized so they can do theirown work properly. However, man-agers have fewer technical responsi-bilities if they centralize with IT. Inthe end, it will be up to the man-agers in one way or another to makesure to fulfill their responsibilities.
In the world of HigherEducation, there is no perfect modelfor how to run a university, especial-ly on the technological side. Still,with technology and computersplaying such an immense role in thefunctionality of higher educationbusinesses, it is crucial to stay ontop of everything while paying par-ticular attention in protecting thepersonal information of the stu-dents, staff, and faculty membersand always assure all technologicalinformation is appropriately secure.Once the goals of this auditingprocess have been achieved, ITresponsibilities will be more stream-lined for the decentralized offices,ultimately increasing efficiency andsecurity.
IT Newsletter 10.10_Math News 02.06 10/20/10 8:04 PM Page 3
UMass Lowell, Echo 360 will getthe idea of how lecture captureequipment can be deployed in alarge-scale environment. Inessence, UMass Lowell willbecome an example of lecturecapture for all to see.
In addition to the 60 lecturecapture classrooms , there are also50 licenses available for personalcapture. Personal capture wouldallow an instructor to recordinformation from a personal com-puter, including laptops. This willallow for faculty to transmit infor-mation to students for a courseoutside of the actual classroom,enhancing the learning experiencewith supplemental information.
On top of that, there will alsobe a mobile lecture capture unitfor use in different locations. For example, if there is an eventtaking place in the CRC or inAlumni Hall, the portable cart can be brought over to capturethe event.
From the Lighthouse Projectcomes a wonderful researchopportunity that some facultymembers may be interested in.There are five grants available tofaculty members who would liketo conduct research regarding theEcho 360 lecture capture andwhat impact it has on studentlearning.
As part of this collaboration,there is added technical supportto assist with the installation of allthese new systems. With the extra
support, these systems are able tobe installed at a faster pace thanthey could possibly be without.
With this project, one of thebiggest goals is to make sure thefaculty is aware of the lecture capture technology around them.At present, there are many facultymembers who teach in classroomsequipped with Echo 360 lecturecapture who do not take advan-tage of the system at their dispos-al. Most often, this is just simplybecause they are not aware of it ordo not fully understand it.However, the number of coursesbeing captured has alreadyincreased 100%. It is estimatedthere will be another significantjump as more faculty membersbecome aware and utilize thetechnology. While more and morefaculty members are utilizing thetechnology, the hope is to get allinstructors who teach in lecturecapture equipped rooms to use it.Surveys submitted by studentshave shown positive reactions tolecture capture, saying that it hasaided in their understanding ofthe course material. If more pro-fessors choose to utilize it, thatmeans more students can benefit.To garner attention and awarenessfrom faculty members, trainingsessions are being hosted toexplain what lecture capture isand how beneficial it is to the stu-dents. From this, the hope is thatlecture capture recordings will beused in more and more classes,
and subsequently readily avail-able to significantly more stu-dents.
The Lighthouse Project willleave the university highlyranked in Lecture Capture com-
pared to other schools. With 60fully-equipped rooms, UMassLowell will have the most lecturecapture classrooms in all collegesin New England and fairly close tohaving the most in all colleges inthe Northeast.
As an innovative campus,UMass Lowell is continually look-ing for ways to enhance the edu-cational experience of studentsusing cutting-edge technology.These lecture capture systems are
a huge part of the additions beingmade to upgrade and modernizeclassroom technology. As every-one begins to take full advantageof the technological environmentswithin classrooms, time will showthat both the instructors and thestudents will benefit greatly.UMass Lowell will truly become a guiding light in cutting edgeinstructional technology.
For more on requestingLecture Capture, which rooms areequipped with the technology,and any other information, visithttp://gse.uml.edu/echo360portal/.
IT Interface 5
NVivo, the most widely usedqualitative research tool, is nowavailable for faculty, staff mem-bers, and students. It has beenavailable on a limited license forsome time at UMass Lowell, but itis only quite recently that is hasbeen made available campus-widefor everyone, thanks to AcademicAffairs.
NVivo is a qualitative dataanalysis tool. Other data analysistools have been available on cam-pus, but those programs havefocused on quantitative data,which uses statistical programsfor analysis, such as SPSS.However, because of the unstruc-tured nature of qualitativeresearch, it cannot be translatedinto numbers and is not based onvariables as most mathematical orscientific research may be.Because of this reason, statisticalprograms are not as effective foranalyzing qualitative data. NVivois able to look at qualitative datain a way that creates an in depthanalysis by organizing the datainputted and examining relation-ships within the information.Because of the unstructurednature of research from the socialsciences, NVivo is the perfect pro-gram for interpreting data fromthose fields.
Since students do, in fact,have access to this program, theywill be able to take advantage ofNVivo for different aspects oftheir education. For example,NVivo could be useful for stu-dents working on a thesis, work-ing on research they plan to pre-sent, or even be an extra aid forstudents when working on aresearch project for class.
While NVivo 8 is currentlythe most recent version on themarket, NVivo 9 will be availablein the coming months. To keepthe programs available up tospeed, the newest version will bemade available to UMass Lowellcome the spring semester. At thattime, training seminars will beconducted to educate those inter-ested in the features of the newversion.
For those who decide to takeadvantage of what the programhas to offer, they will notice anincrease in the efficiency of howthey process their research. It willincrease the efficiency and thelevel of sophistication of the dataanalyzed. Having NVivo on cam-pus brings the most robust toolfor constructing social sciencedata to UMass Lowell. BecauseNVivo is an international playerin qualitative methodology, hav-ing the campus-wide license willcontinue to build UMass Lowell’scutting edge reputation as a leaderin research.
If students, faculty, or staffmembers would like to take acopy of NVivo out on loan, theycan either stop by the HelpCenter on North Campus or theCenters for Women and Work onSouth Campus. When there, beready to present a UMass LowellID to receive a copy of the pro-gram. If anyone has questions orgeneral troubleshooting withNVivo, they can call the Centersfor Women and Work. To installcopies of NVivo in a computerlab, contact the Help Center orthe Centers for Women andWork.
NVivo Site-License Acquired
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3 IT Interface�
We have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by outsourc-ing student e-mail to “the cloud”, and are finalizing a majorupgrade of faculty and staff e-mail to Exchange 2010. We havealso initiated an aggressive program of “virtualizing” many centralservers as part of a cost-avoidance program for the future.
I invite you to read through this edition of the IT Interfacenewsletter to view articles on some other steps we are taking.These, and dozens of other initiatives, are part of our building a“shared vision” of where UML needs to head in the future. Yourunderstanding and support as we initiate changes and workthrough any growing pains is greatly appreciated.
Rich Zera
From the CIO…Continued from page 1
In June 2010, The Email Services team successfully migrated over thirty thousandstudent e-mail accounts to “the cloud” as part of the UMass Lowell Live@edu pro-gram hosted by Microsoft. Although student e-mail addresses are still managed by the UML Email Services team, the mailboxes are hosted offsite at a secureMicrosoft data center. Perhaps the most visible new service of the UMass LowellLive@edu program is called Outlook Live—a fully enriched e-mail client that closely resembles the desktop version of Outlook.
Outlook Live offers an amazing 10 GB of e-mail storage, which is 100 timesgreater than the previous storage quota (100 MB) when student mailboxes werehosted on UML servers. The new user interface is a much improved version of OutlookWeb Access (OWA) and is based upon Microsoft’s new flag ship product calledExchange 2010. Now, the user experience is consistent across many browsers likeFirefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari, running on Macs, Linux, and
PC-based computers. Students may appreciate a new feature called “e-mail redirec-tion” where their email is redirected, or forwarded, to an alternate e-mail account oftheir choice, without losing the original sender’s name.
UMass Lowell is committed to providing a first class electronic messaging systemthat meets the expanding needs of our students. The student’s e-mail address isextremely important since it is where important communication regarding theirclasses, billing, university events, emergencies, etc. will be sent. Additionally, instructors use this address as the primary point of contact to reach students.
In addition to all the great new services offered by Outlook Live, the universitysaved over 1.5M dollars over a five year period by outsourcing email to Microsoft. This included cost savings due to software and hardware required for servers, storage, and licenses, as well as recurring maintenance costs.
To find answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Outlook Live andmany other services offered via UMass Lowell Live@edu, students may visithttp://mail.student.uml.edu or http://help.outlook.com.
Outlook Live is Alive and Well
Fall 2010 Opening at the Help Center
The start of the semester isalways a hectic time at the HelpCenter. Most students and facultyare returning for the new schoolyear after three-months awayfrom UMass Lowell. For many, e-mail and iSiS accounts have not been checked in some time,and those passwords have eitherexpired or been forgotten. Inaddition to password issues, stu-dents, faculty, and staff also havemany other technology relatedissues they must resolve at thestart of a new year.
To address this influx of calls to the Help Center and helpmanage the queue, four RobertHalf Technology contractors werehired. These employees werehired from the beginning ofAugust to the middle ofSeptember and joined the threefull-time employees already onphone support.
In addition to the four RobertHalf Technology contractors toaddress phone support issues,another Robert Half Technologyemployee was brought in fordesktop support, joining the threefull-time employees on desktopsupport. Between phone anddesktop support, the total numberof full time employees was 11,more than doubling the existingnumber of full time employees atthe Help Center.
Even with the additional support, the Help Center has stillbeen very busy over the pastseven weeks. In the month ofAugust, because of the all-timehigh enrollment, as well as thenew student e-mail system, theHelp Center received 10,188phone calls. In the first half ofSeptember with the start of thesemester, an incredible 5,269phone calls were additionallyreceived at the Help Center. For a short seven-week period, theHelp Center received an astound-ing total of 15,457 calls.
It was the addition of theRobert Half employees that madeit possible to manage all thosephone calls. Even with their assis-tance, things were still hectic forthose seven weeks at the HelpCenter. Many of those phone callswere not easily resolved by phonesupport in just a couple minutes.
Those employees on phone sup-port try to do as much as they canto resolve each technical issueover the phone before turning itover to desktop support. Toresolve many of the computerissues over the phone requirestime to troubleshoot and walk thecallers through many steps. Evenwhen dealing with passwordissues, phone support would walkcallers through the reset processand make sure their new pass-words were working properly.
It is also important to under-stand that questions to the HelpCenter come through in moreways than just phone calls. Those15,457 calls do not include anyquestions coming through e-mail,voicemail, or walk-ups. All ofthese kept the Help Center work-ing nonstop to support all return-ing faculty, staff and students forthe opening of the Fall 2010semester.
UMass Lowell is a technologi-cal campus, and support is neces-sary to assure that faculty, staffand students can take full advan-tage of that technology. The addi-tion of the Robert Half employeesfor that seven-week period wasdesigned to help with the call vol-ume, and make sure that theUniversity community was prop-erly taken care of. This was justpart of the Help Center’s commit-ment and ongoing effort toimprove the service they provideto the University, and they willcontinue to do so as lessonslearned from the call volumeallow the Help Center to forecastand strategically plan according,allowing them to provide the ser-vice the campus communityrequires.
Lighthouse Project makesUMass Lowell a guiding light
Process for DNS and Firewallrequest changes
As part of the IT audits and security changes, the IT depart-ment has reworked their firewall and DNS policy. Now, requests tomake changes to a firewall and assignments of new DNS, or IPaddresses, will be approved twice a week.
The purpose of this change is to formalize the process of authorization. When a request comes in for a firewall change or anIP address distribution, it will first be documented. Then, twice aweek all the documented requests will go through an approvalprocess and, if approved, subsequently be implemented
The calls regarding firewall changes and IP address requestswill still be made through the Help Center. This approval process is meant to create standardization and better security. Emergencysituations will be handled as exceptions to this rule, but non-emergency requests will be processed in a standardized order toassure everything is documented and recorded appropriately.
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Ask anyone who has a smartphone, and they will probablyreply that their phones are part oftheir work lives. Smart phonekeeps users connected to theworld; they feed users their e-mailmessages instantly, allow themaccess to the web at any momentin time, often offer so many differ-ent useful apps, as well as storingall of a users contacts, messages,and even personal pictures. Whilethese phones are used for bothbusiness and personal life, for somany these phones are critical tofunction both professionally andsocially. Because of this, thesephones need to stay safe and protected.
One easy but effective way ofprotecting a phone from unwant-ed viewers is to password-protectthe phone. If there is not a pass-word to protect a phone, thismeans that if anyone ever gets ahold of someone’s phone, theyhave access to an array of infor-mation, especially with smartphones. With so many phonesprogrammed to receive e-mail, ifsomeone comes across a lost orunattended smart phone, theyhave access to the user’s e-mail,and any personal informationwithin those e-mails. Also, some-one can easily look around atbrowsing history and applications.If a user happens to do any onlinebanking through an application orwebsite and the password is savedon the phone, someone can getinto those programs and manipu-late those accounts. For that mat-ter, with the new phones, like theDroid which has a GPS in it,someone could track where auser’s friends and family are located through applications likeLatitude. If a phone is missing,the hardware itself can bereplaced but the information
within the lost phone is stillaccessible to anyone who comesacross it.
While scenarios like those arefrightening, there is a very simpleway to prevent that occurrence:put a password on the phone. Inmost phones today, there will bean option to secure or password-protect them. Many phones willhave users create a passwordusing numbers and/or letters thatmust be entered every time some-one attempts to use the phone.Other phones, such as the Droid,also have the option to set anunlock pattern. For an unlockpattern, users create their ownpattern by connecting a series ofdots on a grid. If they choose torequire a pattern, users must drawout the pattern to unlock theirphone. Using either a password ora pattern will help tremendouslyto secure a smart phone.
Another good way to protecta smart phone is to, if possible,install an anti-virus application. If a user downloads a lot of apps,it may be wise to find a good anti-virus program to prevent aphone from becoming infected.Malicious applications are not terribly common; however, theydo still exist. That being said,everyone must always use discre-tion when downloading apps for a phone. Users can always look atthe reviews for different applica-tions to see what others have saidabout it. If others have had prob-lems with an application, especial-ly if it is malicious, they do nothesitate to write an angry reviewabout it. And just like on a regu-lar computer, viruses can worktheir way into a phone throughattachments or files, often from e-mails. Remember to only openfiles from a known and trustedsender. And if anything does notfeel quite right about an e-mail,play it safe and do not downloadthe attachment until there is away to confirm it is safe.
It is also critical to maintainup-to-date software on a phone.Often when companies noticethat there is a problem with theirphones, security issues included,they will send out a systemupdate to patch the problem.Overall, updates tend to improvephone performance as a wholeanyway. For users to keep their
phones running smoothly, theyneed to keep up with systemupdates. Usually, a phone willalert the user when an update isavailable, but it is never a bad ideato check manually through thephone’s settings every once and a while.
There are some other smallthings users can do to preventproblems. One is to disable cer-tain features when they are not inuse, such as GPS, Wi-Fi, orBluetooth. Not only will it savebattery life on a smart phone, butit is just a good safety measure toprotect the phone. Also, as far asWi-Fi goes, try not to joinunknown networks. For one, it isnot good practice to use a net-work you do not have permissionto use, and secondly, the user hasno way of knowing just how safeor unsafe that network is. Try toonly use Wi-Fi through knownnetworks, such as a uml-wirelessnetwork or a user’s personal one.Also, try to avoid keeping person-al, sensitive data on a phone, suchas social security or credit cardnumbers, unless they have astrong encryption program.
Finally, if users are ever dis-posing of any smart phones, theyshould clear out all the informa-tion stored in their phones. It willbe even easier for someone to gettheir hands on a phone a user hasgotten rid of, and it is likely theprevious user would not even beaware someone else can accesstheir data. To prevent any unfor-tunate circumstances that canarise out of that, reset the phoneback to factory settings, whichwill completely wipe the phoneout of any information that hasbeen put on it.
A smart phone is more thanjust a phone; it is a computer, andit holds part of the user’s life with-in it. Just as someone would pro-tect a computer, a phone alsoneeds to be protected. And whilethe consequences for having anunprotected phone have thepotential to be devastating, thesteps to secure a mobile device are simple.
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Microsoft UpgradesSince the time Microsoft Office 2003 (MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel,
etc) came onto the market, two more versions of Office have beenreleased, 2007 and 2010. Despite this, there still are many employees at UMass Lowell still using the now seven-year-old version of office. To remedy this fact, an upgrade campaign for Microsoft Office is currently underway. The goal of this program is to upgrade the entire campus to Microsoft Office Professional 2007, or MS Office Professional2008 for Macs, and eventually 2010 once it is released to the UMassLowell Campus.
As part of this process, all new computers that have been ordered for faculty and staff members have MS Office Professional 2007 fullyinstalled along with Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7. Also, copies of Office 2007 installation CD’s are available at the HelpCenter for faculty/staff members to borrow to install on their existingcomputers.
As soon as Office 2010 is deployed to the Help Center, the same willapply to that version. Faculty/Staff members will be able to receive it onloan from the Help Center, and everyone who has not upgraded theirsystem will continually be encouraged to upgrade until everyone oncampus has either Office 2007 or 2010. Also, once 2010 is available,new computers will be equipped with that version.
Help CenterOffice has been renovated!
After a summer of con-struction, the Help Center isfinally returning to its homeoffice in Olsen 107. While many people may nothave realized it, the HelpCenter temporarily relocatedduring the summer to allowfor construction to be done inroom 107. Now that the HelpCenter is back in the newlyrenovated office, they are upand ready to provide students,faculty, and staff membersbetter consolidated services.
Now, every key playerinvolved with the HelpCenter will be centralized inone room, rather than spreadout through different officeson one floor. This will help tomaximize communicationbetween those on phone sup-port with desktop techniciansand with those supporting theIT web site and PS Security.Also, with the setup we arenow able to expand supportwhen needed such as whenthe campus opens in the falland spring.
While most people mayknow the Help Center asbeing the place to go to forpassword resets, in realitythey are responsible for somuch more. The Help Centeris there for all technologyrelated support issues. Inaddition to support, campus-wide software licenses are alsoavailable. That means thatfaculty and staff members canstop by to borrow copies ofWindows 7, Microsoft OfficeProfessional, SPSS,Mathematica, and NVIVO.Those behind running theHelp Center are also behindthe deployment of new com-puter systems, as well.
Protecting Phones is Smart
For the latest IT informationvisit us at http://www.uml.edu/it
IT Interface 7
In this edition of the IT Interface Newsletter, we would like to welcomethree recently-hired employees to the IT department.
Nick Siakatos-Nick has joined IT as an Enterprise SystemsAdministrator, supporting mission-critical applications and serverssupported by Enterprise Systems Services. He is a graduate of UMassLowell, and has been a presence in the IT department since 2004.
Dan Ferry is the new desktop support technician working forInformation Technology. Dan supports all hardware and softwaretickets called into the Help Center. He is a graduate of UMass Lowelland has been working as a desktop technician for the past 6 years.
Dan Bedard is the project manager for the Document Imaging project. He is a certified project management professional, and joinsus with extensive experience working on software implementation.
Comings and Goings—Fall 2010
Some computer users atUMass Lowell may not be usingthe best or fastest internet con-nections available to them. It is alltoo often an occurrence that oncampus users are just connectingto the first open network connec-tion they see, when there are bet-ter options available to them.Subsequently, by connecting tothe most easily accessible connec-tion, they get a slower and moreinsecure connection. With thesefew tips, students, faculty andstaff members can learn how toget the best internet connectionpossible on campus
When it is possible, it is certainly more advantageous forusers to plug into the wall jack.When students, faculty, and staffmembers use wireless, they gothrough an access point. Thataccess point is allotted so muchbandwidth. This bandwidth mustbe shared by every computer try-ing to access that access point.However, when a user at UMassLowell connects to the wall usingan Ethernet cord, they have adedicated connection, and areguaranteed so much bandwidth,meaning that it is a considerablyfaster internet connection. Usingwireless will almost always beslower just because so many peo-ple are trying to get a connectionfrom the same access point, wherethose plugging to the wall gettheir own connection, and a fasterconnection.
That being said, sometimes itis not always possible or conve-nient to plug into the wall. Whena student, faculty, or staff memberdoes choose to use wireless, it isimportant that they connect tothe appropriate wireless network;for students it is uml-student, andfor faculty/staff members it isuml-admin. However, it is actual-ly very common that users are notconnecting to these networks.Instead, they are connecting tothe open, unsecured networks.With uml-student and uml-admin, users need to configuretheir computer or laptop to thatwireless network, and then theymust also enter in their creden-tials to verify they are in fact astudent or faculty/staff member.Many are logging into uml-
wireless instead, which does notrequire configuration or a user-name and password. The problemis that this network is intended asa guest network, and thereforehas limited capabilities; a usercannot do much more than justsurf the web. This means thatthings like instant messaging andfile transfer will not work whenconnected to the uml-wirelessnetwork. A similar situation ispresent in the residence halls,with students connecting theirlaptops to uml-gameconsole, awireless network designed forvideo game consoles. Studentstapping into this network fromtheir computers may not fullyunderstand how much this slowsdown their internet connection,however, because game consolesnaturally require less bandwidththan a computer does.
The other issue with connect-ing to networks like uml-wirelessand uml-game console is thatthey are not secure networks. Any information sent using thosenetworks has the potential to becaught and viewed by an outsider.The two secure networks, uml-student for students anduml-admin for faculty/staff members, encrypt the data so no one can breach the data.
By simply connecting to theinternet through using the walljacks, or just configuring a com-puter to access the proper wire-less networks, everyone at UMassLowell can assure a faster and asafer network connection.
Tips for a Faster and MoreSecure Connection
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