Announcement – Page 133

IT Help Desk: New Location, New Hours

Help Desk Map Over the summer, the Help Desk relocated to the Hughes Trigg Student Center while Fondren Library is under renovation. They are conveniently located on the main floor, right next to the M Lounge.

Semester Hours:

Monday through Friday 8:00AM until 8:00 PM
Saturday 9:00AM-5:00PM
Sunday 12:00pm-6:00pm

Contact Information:

Phones: 214-768-4357
Email: help@smu.edu
Online Support Portal: help.smu.edu
Walk up support in Hughes Trigg

We have hired a great group of students who will be assisting our full time staff in providing support during our open hours. The STAR students will also continue working on a variety of projects including web publishing, graphic design and assisting faculty with instructional projects. We look forward to a great semester in our new location!

LyndaCampus Coming Soon

The Office of Information Technology is pleased to announce the expansion of our online training solution. We will no longer require a checkout license for lynda.com training as we have purchased lyndaCampus. lyndaCampus provides academic institutions with unlimited, organization-wide access to the entire lynda.com library of instructional videos. With over 2,000 self-paced training classes, practice files and environments, the SMU community will have the ability to access topics including: the entire suite of Microsoft and Adobe products, website development, business skills, design skills, audio and video tools, creative inspirations, and much more.

All of the courses are taught by expert instructors and have fully searchable transcripts. Additional benefits include:

For Faculty

Assign tutorials to students utilizing LMS integration
Map content to syllabi
Embrace the flipped classroom model
Pursue professional development

For Staff

Keep pace with technology
Support the daily workflow
Create playlists for employees or colleagues
Get immediate, just-in-time answers to questions

For Students

Explore hundreds of topics in multimedia, design, web development, and social media
Perform independent study
Expand a resume and prepare for the workforce
Build presentation, time management, and research skills
Get immediate answers to technology questions

Features

Shareable course playlists to support individualized learning
Mobile device access
Searchable course transcripts for quick answers
Bookmarks for favorite sections and easy reference
Downloadable courses and exercise files that reinforce retention
Certificates of completion may be produced and uploaded to your LinkedIn profile
New courses added every week
Privacy and security—FERPA, COPPA, and TRUSTe compliant

We are finalizing the subscription setup to allow the SMU community to use their SMU account and password to access the tutorials. We will make the service available during the month of September and notify campus as soon as it is ready.

Eduroam Available Throughout Campus

Eduroam logo If you will be traveling to other universities this year, be sure to check out eduroam. The eduroam wireless network is available at SMU as well as thousands of educational institutions around the world. SMU participates as both a service provider (for users on-campus) and as an identity provider (for users off-campus). Basically, you can use your SMU credentials to connect to the eduroam network on other campuses and visitors can use their educational credentials to connect to the wireless network at SMU.

There is more information available on the wireless service page at smu.edu/wifi

eduroam maps!

You may be interested to see a map of institutions worldwide that participate in eduroam and offer the eduroam wireless service on their campuses. Note that it may take a while to load the large amount of data on these websites.

eduroam US Institution Map (map)
eduroam US Institutions List (searchable list)
Where can I eduroam? (map)

How can I use eduroam?

Simply find the eduroam wireless network with your wireless device. For the username, use your SMU email name (i.e., user@smu.edu), and the same password you would use to sign in to Webmail or my.SMU. You may be prompted to trust the wireless network certificate, which is safe to accept.

Once you’ve joined your device to the eduroam wireless network, you’ll find that your device should automatically connect to the eduroam wireless network here at SMU as well as at other participating institutions without being prompted again for credentials.

Chrome Ends Support for Java and Silverlight

This month, certain plug-ins will cease functioning in the Google Chrome web browser. This is a decision Google made in its development roadmap over a year ago. As Google phased out the plug-ins, there has been some workarounds, but even those workarounds will cease to function. We are aware Google Chrome is a popular browser on campus and SMU has been in conversations with the vendors of the university’s affected web applications. The suggestions based on those conversations are below.

AdminImages.SMU (Java) – The software vendor is working on replacement; use Internet Explorer (for linking) or Firefox for now.
Inside.SMU – Microsoft has offered no correction plans. Internet Explorer is the best method to work with Inside.SMU.
TeamDynamix (Silverlight) – Working with vendor. Use Firefox for now.

While plugins like Java and Silverlight are two of the more popular plug-ins losing support, the change is not limited to them. Below is a sample list of some of the plugins that are affected by this change to Google Chrome:

Java
Silverlight
Acrobat Reader (prior to Adobe Reader X)
Quicktime
Shockwave
Windows Media Player

All web pages that use plug-ins like these will cease functioning in Chrome in September of 2015. Chrome users will see the following messages when viewing web pages using these plugins:

Chrome-Unsupported-Plug-in

For those wanting more information on Google’s decision, below are links to extended discussions on the matter.

Jonathan Bull Joins IT Help Desk Team

The name Jonathan Bull may sound familiar. Jonathan has been part of the Help Desk student team for the past four years. After his completing his Religious Studies degree in May, Jonathan’s time as a student worker was over. We hated to say goodbye to this wonderful student. Luckily, he felt the same.

Jonathan had once considered attending SMU as Music Performance Major. He had played Bassoon in both middle and high school. Upon his acceptance to SMU, he found Religious Studies to be his path. To prepare for his transition away from SMU, Jonathan spent the winter break working as a server at a local steakhouse. Being a shy introvert, he found the experience a bit strange. Yet, providing great customer service in that high paced environment was very similar to working at the Help Desk.

In August, Jonathan accepted a full time position as part of our Help Desk team. He is excited to continue to provide support to the campus. When asked about the new position, Jonathan commented, “To help so many people in so many different ways – the job is never boring.” With the hundreds of tickets Jonathan processed in the past couple of weeks, he is definitely not in danger of getting bored anytime soon.

In his free time, Jonathan enjoys playing with his Xbox One and spending time with his fiance.