IT updates for 11 December 2020

Hello Students, Faculty, and Staff of Malone University!

This update contains miscellaneous updates for spring semester. Highlights include:

• Laptop loaner program
• Equipment checkout updated
• Updates to classrooms and computer labs for spring
• Staff and faculty self-service vehicle registration on Xpress
• FREE MONEY!

Laptop loaner program

Through a generous equipment donation from Smucker, Malone is now able to offer a limited number of long term loans of laptops for students who do not have access to their own equipment. These long-term loans differ from a normal equipment checkout in that they are for the full academic year and are renwable over the student's entire tenure on campus. 

If the equipment fails or needs replacing, it can be swapped out for a new unit for free. More details about the program and the ability to apply are available on the Student Development web page here. Please note that approval for the program as well as a $50 deposit is required before getting one of these laptops. The deposit is returned to the student once the equipment is returned to the Help Desk.

Equipment checkout updated

There have been a few upgrades to the IT Help Desk checkout equipment. We updated our iPad checkouts to new 5th generation ipad minis. These have replaced our old minis and will be fully charged, updated, and sanitized for every reservation. These can be used for video recording and editing and are leveraged by our education students for TPA videos as well as CVPA recording projects.

Equipment available for checkout from the IT Help Desk in Haviland Hall includes:

• iPads. 
• Camcorders and tripods.stands
• audio recorders and microphones
• data projectors
• and more. All available at your request.

You can view a complete list of checkout equipment and how to reserve that equipment in FAQ77.

Updates to classrooms and computer labs for spring

We will be bringing two additional classrooms online in Spring 2021:

• FH24 (near the Human Resources office in Founders) has been reactivated for Spring
• JC201 (South side of Johnson Center on second floor near the stairway closest to the fountain) will be a 49 person tablet armchair room.

If you have not been to the Johnson Center, there have been a few changes to the second floor:

• The Mac lab (JC207) and overflow Mac lab (JC205) received new iMac hardware this fall.
• The edit suites in JC207A and JC207B also were updated. 
• A new office suite has taken over the old Mac lab space. More announcements around that will come from elsewhere!

Computer labs and classrooms will continue to be socially distanced in the Spring.

Staff and faculty self-service vehicle registration on Xpress

Students have been able to self-register their vehicles on Malone Xpress for years. We have modified the Vehicle Registration Tool so that faculty and staff can now use it. This includes the ability to request a new or replacement vehicle permit. 

You can access the tool on the faculty, staff, or campus life tabs of Malone Xpress! If you request a new or replacement permit, it will show up in the campus mail to your office mailbox on campus!

FREE MONEY!

FREE MONEY! Do we have your attention? Several HUNDRED of you are leaving money that is available to you from the CARES Act in the spring untapped. This message applies to any students who were enrolled at Malone in Spring of 2020.

Log into Malone Xpress and see if you have this message at the top of the screen:

If you see this message, you may be eligible to receive money from the CARES act. Fill out the survey  and we will process your response and let you know! 

Seeing students now and looking ahead to next semester!

Hello Faculty:

This post is mostly for you. In this update:

• Meet and Zoom Stats
• Zoom recording deletion procedural change
• Seeing your students for Spring Semester

Google Meet and Zoom Stats

By the numbers:

• 1,036 unique users have used a Google Meet in the last thirty days. 773 unique users in the last seven days.
  
  
  
  
  
• There have been 2,960 unique zoom meeting in the month of November (through 20 Novermber).
  
  
  
  
  
• In the past seven days, windows has been used to access our meetings 43% of the time while Mac, iOS, and iPadOS have been used a combined 46% of the time. Your students are using a mobile device to connect roughly 17% of the time; that's one out of six connections.
  
  
  
  
  
• The #1 user of zoom's name (since August) rhymes with Ban Mawson with 9,568 minutes. Number two's rhymes with Jebenezer Bolivera with 8,787 minutes.

Zoom Recording Deletion Procedural Change

As noted in an email I sent out earlier in the week, we will begin automatically deleting Zoom Meeting recordings older than one month.

Beginning Monday, 23 November 2020: We will start deleting older content to make space for active and recent recordings. We reserve the right to automatically delete recordings that are older than one month from the system without notice. Recordings older than a month will be deleted. 

What should I do?

You should download any recordings that you want to retain and upload them either to Google Drive or to your Moodle course. If uploading to Moodle, please follow Wiley guidelines for doing so. Remember to copy it to your master course if you are planning to reuse a recording in a future semester or to your current course if you want to continue to share it with your current students as reference material. 

What is getting deleted

206 recordings will be deleted when we run the cleanup process on Monday. That is all recordings dated 23 October and older.

Help!

Please contact the IT Help Desk if you need assistance in migrating and downloading content you want to retain. We can be reached via email at helpdesk@malone.edu , via the web at http://www.malone.edu/helpdesk or by phone at 330.471.8428.

Seeing your students for Spring Semester

With the new Phiz on Malone XPress, you can see a pictorial directory of the students who have enrolled in your spring courses RIGHT NOW! 

1. Click on the Phiz in the Quicklinks:
   
2. In the Phiz click "My groups" and then choose which class you want to see!
   
   
   
   
   
3. Once you have chosen a group, you can send them an email or create a PDF directory.
   
   
   
   
   
4. More complete instructions which include how to make your own groups can be found in FAQ241

Remember that enrollments can change daily so check back closer to the semester to see a more complete listing of your students.

Classroom Technology Updates for 13 November 2020

Hello Faculty & Staff:

In this update:

• Owl installation COMPLETE
• Google Meet now has breakout rooms, polling, and Q&A features.
• Fixing display settings [in the classroom]
• Sharing streaming content, e.g., Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney, etc., in Zoom or Meet.

Owl installation COMPLETE!

All of the Owl cameras have been installed in the classrooms. We have observed some quietness in the volume in some spaces. Please make sure that you go into your Google Meet or Zoom settings and make sure that the correct microphone and speakers are selected (both should be Owl).

Let us know if you encounter any issues with the tech. Several of the Owls came in with outdated firmware. Firmware is the software for the hardware. Firmware is the Owl's operating instructions/system. We are working to get all of the Owls up to the latest firmware release.

Google Meet now has breakout rooms, attendance, polling, and Q&A features

We know that many of you are Zoom fans, but we encourage you to take a look at the additional features are now available Google Meet. These include:

1. Automatically distribute recordings to your guest list when used in conjunction with calendar invitations.
2. Automatic Attendance. You will now get a spreadsheet emailed to you that contains who signed into the meeting and when they arrived and left the meeting.
3. Breakout Rooms. While meeting you pick how many breakout rooms you want and Meet will automatically and evenly divide your class into each room. You can reassign people to different rooms and then activate them. The presenter can enter and exit each room and students can come back to the common meeting to ask you questions.
4. Q&A. Once activated by the presenter, people can post questions in the Q&A feature. Once a question is posted, others in the class can vote it up by clicking the "thumbs up" icon. You can sort and respond to questions by the time they were posted or by their popularity (how many thumbs/upvotes received). 
5. Polling. Just like students can ask questions in the Q&A, you can poll your students using the polling feature. 
6. Direct Jamboard integration. Jamboard is a shareable whiteboard. You can use the Chromebooks in each classroom to write on a shared jamboard.
7. Custom backgrounds or blurring your background.
   
   
8. In addition to the spreadsheet of attendees, you will get information after the meeting containing a records of the Q&A activity, a transcript of the chat messages, and the results of any polls.
9. Streaming a meeting. Google meet allows up to 250 live participants in a meeting, but you can stream to up to an additional 100,000 view-only participants as long as they are signed in with their malone.edu account. This feature could be used to do an "all campus" meeting.

These are all included in the advanced features license. This license is automatically granted to all faculty and instructors. If you are not teaching and want access to these features, please let the IT help Desk know and we will activate a license for you.

Here are some resources for learning how to use Google Meet:

• Getting started with Google Meet including transitioning from Zoom and other tools
• More information on the newly added collaboration features
• Contact the IT Help Desk with questions about how you might utilize these features in your classroom or event.

Fix Display Settings Icons on desktop

One of the largest sources of Help button presses is when the three outputs/screens are not set up the way a faculty/instructor expects when [s]he comes into the classroom. To help address this problem, we have added three icons to the desktop of each classroom computer which will automatically configure the screens to the three most common configurations.

1. "Extended Display" - Three separate displays - both monitors and the projector behave as independent monitors.
2. "Duplicate Right Display" - Right/Second screen mirrored/duplicated to projector.
3. "Duplicate Left Display" - Left/Primary screen mirrored/duplicated to projector.

Sharing streaming content, e.g., Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney, etc., in Zoom or Meet

Please note that if you are planning to share copyrighted material that is being streamed via a service, you may have trouble including that on a screen share in both Meet and Zoom. The reason is that many of these services have copy protection which prevents their content from being shared via another service.

We recommend that you test sharing of potentially protected content in your synchronous platform prior to class. Be sure to talk to your department's library liaison if you want your students to see a particular online video as a class. They have access to additional streaming resources that can make it available to all your students. 

Several platforms have a "watch party" feature that allows subscribers to their services to watch the same content synchronously, but not all of your students will have accounts so care must be taken not to exclude those students. 

IT Updates! Phiz. POs, Classrooms, and Mac Labs!

Hello Everyone:

In this update:

• Students, faculty, and staff: New Phiz Campus Directory inside of Malone Xpress
• Staff and faculty: Automated Purchase Order system rollout.
• The Owls are coming. Classroom cameras are changing
• Upgraded Apple/Mac Computer lab JC207 and JC205

New Phiz! (Campus Directory) inside of Malone Xpress

We are pleased to announce that the "Phiz" our campus directory has recently been updated by Levi Muriuki and our Jenzabar summer intern Corvay Chapman. Here are some highlights of the new system:

• Everyone: Mobile friendly so it is more useable when on a smartphone or other mobile device
• Everyone: Improved search. Search results update dynamically while typing.
• Faculty: Improved group interface allows faculty to see their automatically generated course lists (think photo directory so you can learn all your students' names and faces) for any current or future term classes. Previously you had to wait until the class was "in term" (a couple days before class started) before you could see the group.
• Improved information security measures
• Improved look and feel - It now matches the rest of the Malone Xpress platform.

Pleasse check it out on Malone Xpress and give us feedback! There is a link to a feedback form at the top of the Phiz page.

Automated Purchase Order [PO] system rollout

We have been working on an automated method for creating and approving purchase orders for quite some time. Here are some highlights of the new system:

• Automatic PO numbering - you no longer need to call the business office for a number
• Automatic approval routing depending on the account numbers selected in the system and total amount of the PO.
• Choose invoice or CC as the payment type.
• Project mapping if the purchase is part of a larger project or capital request.
• Automatic GL balance lookups for accounts which you have been set up to see in Malone Xpress.
• Soft-encumbrance: This looks at the balance in GL and subtracts any other purchase order amounts which are active in the PO system so you don't accidentally spend the same money twice!
• Check the status of your existing PO's using a saved query.
• The person who originated the PO request will receive an email with a PDF copy of the PO that can be sent to the vendor when the request is approved.
• Once approved, invoices related to the PO can be attached and will automatically be routed for payment when you/they are ready.

We are ready to begin rolling this out to departments one at a time. Please reach out to the IT Help Desk if you are interested in being an early adopter.

The Owls are coming. Classroom cameras will be changing

The Owl cameras are the classroom cameras we originally ordered for the classrooms. They should all arrive sometime in the month of October and will be immediately deployed to classrooms. The Owl cameras will be placed closer to the center of each room since they can "see" 360 degrees. These units have the ability to focus and show whomever is talking through the use of directional microphones. 

Upgraded Apple/Mac Computer lab JC207 and JC205

New iMacs have been installed in the JC207 Mac lab. Overflow workstations in JC205 next door have also been updated. The lab is now 4K video editing capable. Let the IT Help Desk know if you have questions or are looking for a particular software package to be installed. Remember that you can log into the lab availability portlet on Malone Xpress:

to see whether a lab has available computers as well as what software is installed on each workstation. Remember that the lab availability tool only works if you are on campus.

Hyflex Classroom Update 21 August

Using Powerpoint with multiple screens

Remember that each hyflex classrooms has been equipped with a second monitor AND the computer's desktop settings are in extended mode. This means that there are three screens:

• Left (Primary)
• Center (Secondary) meant to be a place you can put your remote participants' video
• Right (Projector)

Triple screens means that Powerpoint might need a a setting change. For instructions on how to choose a different monitor for your presentation, how to duplicate or extend your desktop, and more information on how the monitors are set up, click FAQ393

If you want or need to change settings for displays, the keyboard shortcut is the "Windows Key"+P. The two modes that are recommended in the classroom are:

1. "Extend" where both monitors and the projector behave as three separate screens and
2. "Duplicate" where the second (center) and projector screens mirror each other. The primary (left) screen will still be separate.
3. Remember to leave the room set up for "Extend"'ed mode for the next instructor!

Remember that if you have trouble, you can hit the "Help" button on the black panel on the classroom wall!

Check your classroom and let us know if you have questions about the tech!

The Registrar's office has published the locations for each of your classrooms in Xpress. To see whether your classroom is Hyflex equipped (as well as its current installation status), you can check this spreadsheet (sign in with a malone.edu account required). Let us know right away if you have questions about your particular classroom[s].

Classroom cleaning instructions

Each tote has a QR code which can be scanned with a smart phone to get instructions for cleaning the rooms. Once scanned, your smartphone will go to this web page:

https://helpdesk.malone.edu/helpdesk/WebObjects/Helpdesk.woa/wa/FaqActions/view?faqId=391

which contains both typed out as well as video instructions for how to disinfect the classroom at the end of each session. 

Per the earlier email from Kris Vincent, remember to reutrn all the supplies to the tote when you are finished. Housekeeping will be checking and replenishing the supplies in the tote.

How to get a spreadsheet of your student email addresses

You can retreive a list of email addresses and other information about the students enrolled in your courses from several different locations:

1. Malone Xpress --> "Faculty" tab --> "Faculty Courses" page (on left hand bar) --> "Faculty Course Control" --> "Go directly to" --> "Class list"
2. From the Phiz (see below)
3. From the "Participants" list in Moodle Online Learning.

Each of these options will allow you to download an XLS or CSV file of your students.

Chromebooks and Jamboard

Each classroom is equipped with a Chromebook and stylus in case you want to use Google Jamboard as a whiteboard replacement. You can also use the Chromebook to draw in the Zoom whiteboard. 

We recommend you experiment with this tech prior to employing it in the classroom. If you do use the Chromebooks, please keep the following in mind:

1. Remember to plug the chromebook back in when you are done. You can plug it into power using the USB-C port on either side of the unit.
2. If you have an iPad or other personal tablet/device, you can certainly download Google Jamboard app on them (iOS or Android) and use it instead of the chromebook.
3. Remember to disinfect the chromebook in the same manner as the rest of the room.
4. The stylus is loose in most classrooms. Chromebooks in Regula and some of Timken classrooms have a storage slot for the stlyus on the right side under the keyboard (see pic). let us know if the stylus is missing or lost by sending an email to helpdesk@malone.edu 
   

How to set up a recurring zoom meeting and invite your students

Instructions for setting up a recurring meeting and then also copying that meeting into Google Calendar are in FAQ394

How to set up a recurring Google Meet meeting and invite your students

Instructions for setting up a recurring Google Meet Meeting can be found in FAQ395

Premade class picture directories on the Phiz!

Remember that you can log into Malone Xpress and retrieve a picture directory for each of your class rosters from the Phiz. Follow the instructions found in FAQ241 https://helpdesk.malone.edu/helpdesk/WebObjects/Helpdesk.woa/wa/FaqActions/view?faqId=241

to learn how to access your already-made class groups or to create your own groups.