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Fall 2007 The IT Help Desk The IT Help Desk, ext. 1965, room 1710 in Des Plaines or at helpdesk@oakton.edu, is an employee's first stop for all questions and issues regarding computer support at Oakton. The goal is to provide staff with a single point of contact within the College. The Help Desk strives to ensure that all contacts are handled promptly, courteously, and are resolved immediately or referred to the proper IT personnel. As always, if you are having issues within a computer lab the first person to contact should be the lab coordinator. Need a computer delivered to a classroom? In an attempt to create a one stop shop for ordering equipment for a classroom, IMS is now the department that delivers computers as well as other Instructional Media equipment on both campuses. (This is one of the many quick fix solutions that came out of conversation day.)   Information about IMS service requests can be found online at http://www.oakton.edu/resource/ims/servicerequests.htm or you can reach IMS in Des Plaines at ext. 1995 or at RHC (Skokie) at ext. 1431. (Note: This is a change in procedure from previous terms for users at Des Plaines; please do not call the 2600 labs to request a computer delivery.) Migrations, Updates and More! This news is for our true techie readers: This summer IT started on reorganizing the Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) of our Storage Area Network (SAN), which will lead to an expansion of space available on Home and Share, as well as freeing up space for future projects. This started with the migration of Oakton employees "home" directory (the H: drive if you are on campus). In addition, we completed the rollover of all printing services to NDPS, and an upgrade in our Directory services. For a great majority of our users these transitions were transparent, and the upgrades proceeded with only a few minor problems. This upcoming year will see IT working on Netware to Windows Server conversion, additional LUN reorganization, Server Virtualization, and Network Switch upgrades. IT is also testing a possible migration of our server environment for our Banner application systems to a Red Hat Enterprise 4 environment running on HP Proliant DL380 G5 servers. Web Support With Oakton's online classes now accounting for more than 13% of college credit hours, and many faculty using WebCT, our course management system, to supplement their traditional classes the support needs for online instructional technology have increased tremendously.  As well, we have seen the demand for more and more information on our public site and the need to better harness and expand our web services components. Given the tremendous growth in these two key areas IT reorganized internally to help meet the demand. Dann Foster is now able to fully concentrate his knowledge and expertise on Instructional Technology by continuing his expert supporting of WebCT, assisting faculty with incorporating new technologies into their curricula, and overseeing the Help Desk as Manager of User Support Services. Julia Gray will continue in her role at RHC, and add responsibility for the web, along with a new (somewhat clumsy) title of Manager of Web and RHC Technology Services. Banner Finance On July 1, 2007, the new Banner Finance module went into production.  This module provides many new capabilities for the College's accounting, purchasing, accounts payable, and budgeting departments.  The Banner Finance module replaces an unsupported legacy software package called JSchool that served the College well, but JSchool recently went through several ownership changes, and its future support is very questionable. Like Banner Student, Banner Finance has many web-based self service capabilities, which will be made available to the college community in the near future.  The web-based self service functionality is particularly strong in the budget query, budget transfer, and document approval areas.  Banner Finance also has extensive budget management, monitoring, and control capabilities. Since both Banner Student and Banner Finance are from the same software vendor, there is also close integration between the two products. Banner HR/Payroll On January 1, 2008, the new Banner HR/Payroll system will go into operation.  As with Banner Finance, the Banner HR/Payroll system will replace the old JSchool system.  Banner HR/Payroll also has many new web-based self service capabilities which will permit faculty, staff, and other employees to directly monitor their paychecks, leave balances, and other benefits.  With the implementation of Banner HR/Payroll, the College will for the first time have a fully-integrated suite of Banner ERP software to support its administrative missions. Bluetooth Pen Pad In response to faculty and staff interest, the college has purchased several Bluetooth Pen Pads. These pads come with a stylus for writing on the pad and therefore (through a Bluetooth wireless link and PC software) on your computer screen and projected image. You have control over all software via a virtual mouse and keyboard and can even annotate and draw over applications. If you are interested in being a beta tester for using a Pen Pad, contact the Help Desk to arrange to pick  up the pen pad, stylus and Bluetooth adapter from the Help Desk.  When you pick up the Pen Pad, please let the Help Desk know what room(s) you plan to trial it in, so we can be sure to have the appropriate software installed. All you have to do is protect the three parts and occasionally put in new batteries, and keep the Help Desk informed of any problems or issues you have with the Pen Pad.  Training on how to use the Pen Pad will be arranged individually after pickup. Lab Updates As part of our replacement cycle, we have updated room 1104, 1833, 2209, 2633, 2629, 2635 in Des Plaines and rooms P132, P232 and P237 at the Ray Hartstein Campus (Skokie) with new computers. The Board of Trustees approved the purchase of Dell Optiplex 745 with Core 2 duo E6600 (2.4GHz) processors at their June Board Meeting. Oakton has changed from a four-year to a five year replacement cycle, starting with this fiscal year. The computer labs are also the first rooms to be part of our migration to Office 2007, and have both Office 2007 and Office 2003 available as we transfer from one set of applications to another. Another major updates in our labs is the move to the new CS3 products, including Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere and After Effects (note that some of these applications have limited distribution in specialized computer labs). Monitor Replacement Cycle As you may or may not know, monitors are currently on a 6 year replacement cycle at Oakton. Due to the "green" benefits, we are exclusively purchasing LCD monitors going forward, but the energy savings (estimated at ~$41/year) compared to the massive environmental impact of prematurely disposing of leaded glass CRT monitors does not make premature replacement a "green" idea. To this point, we have put LCD monitors in computer labs almost exclusively, and targeted them specifically at labs that either had the largest public exposure (Open use computer labs) or had limited space.   For offices, we have put LCD's on the desks of people doing cashiering (either Oakton or Alliance) because the Banner cashiering functions require significantly more real estate. We also placed LCD monitors in adjunct faculty offices because of the very limited desk space and the desire to be able to use the desks even when the faculty was not using the computer.   While we will eventually have LCD monitors for all Oakton computer users, our priority is first completing our academic areas, which will be complete with the 2008-2009 fiscal year purchase; completion of all monitors to LCD will be done by fiscal year 2012.   IT Workshops Please register for all IT workshops through the Center for Professional Development's online registration. Date Course/Workshop Days Time Campus Room Facilitator 9/6/07 Dreamweaver Intro Thursday 1:30-3:00 Des Plaines 1837 Dann Foster 9/26/07 Intro to Luminis Calendar Wednesday 1:30-3:00 Des Plaines 1837 Dann Foster 9/27/07 Intro to Luminis Calendar Thursday 1:30-3:00 RHC P234 Julia Gray 10/9/07 Intro to Luminis Calendar and Groups Tuesday 1:30-3:30 Des Plaines 1837 Dann Foster 10/23/07 Working with PDFs Tuesday 1:30-3:00 Des Plaines 1836 Jessica Lee 11/29/07 DreamWeaver Intro, with Templates Thursday 1:00-3:00 Des Plaines 1837 Dann Foster 12/5/07 DreamWeaver Intro, with Templates Wednesday 1:00-3:00 RHC 1837 Julia Gray 12/6/07 Seamonkey Composer Thursday 1:30-3:00 Des Plaines 1837 Dann Foster 12/14/07 This Old Homepage Friday 1:30-3:00 Des Plaines 1837 Dann Foster   Past news available at newprojectarchive.htm

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