• June 17, 2008

Manhattan Tornado Update on K-State TV, Web

by Traci Taylor, Educational Communications Center
published June 17, 2008

"Tornado Update 6/16/08" aired live Monday night as a follow-up to K-State TV's first update program last week June 12. This latest update will replay on K-State TV (cable channel 8) throughout this week at 9 a.m., 7 p.m., and 10 p.m. daily. Both "Tornado Update" shows will be available shortly on the Web at K-State Tornado News.

Exclusive aerial footage of the June 11 tornado damage in Manhattan was featured, as well as information from city and county officials, and other city agency representatives. Guests for the program included Gary Fees, City of Manhattan; Pat Collins, Riley County Emergency Services; Terry Seirer-Becker, Disaster Services from Pawnee Mental Health; Teresa Bardwell, Salvation Army; Joel Brinker, tree removal expert; and a regional disaster specialist from an insurance provider. Ron Frank, K-State Research and Extension and Red Cross Disaster volunteer, moderated the program which provides important information about what is currently happening following last week's tornado.

This program is produced for the community by the Educational Communications Center. Visit www.k-state.tv for more information about replay dates and times.

Kansas Regents Network/TELENET 2 receives equipment grant

by Sue White, Kansas Regents Network (TELENET 2)
published June 17, 2008

The Kansas Regents Network (TELENET 2) received a $25,214 grant from the Kan-ed Equipment and Technology Grant Program 2008 for video conferencing equipment and infrastructure upgrades.

The intent is to progress to High Definition Audio-Video (HD-AV) teleconferencing by initially equipping the two major origination/teaching sites at K-State in Manhattan and Salina with an HD-AV system this year. The implementation of HD-AV will provide greater quality to current academic endeavors and increase the potential for continuance of academic cooperation that would benefit K-State and the state of Kansas.

In addition to in-state distance education via TELENET 2 video conferencing, K-State does multi-institutional academic course work that would be enhanced by HD-AV capabilities. Also, conferencing services will be enhanced to other educational institutions, state agencies, non-profit organizations, and other clients. For more information, call 785-532-5995.

June 18-19 K-State Online 8.0 training sessions rescheduled

by Molly Small, Office of Mediated Education
published June 17, 2008

Time restrictions due to the tornado last week have made it necessary to reschedule the K-State Online pre-release training sessions set for Wednesday, June 18, and Thursday, June 19. See the new dates and times below. All sessions take place in the Hemisphere Room (501) in Hale Library. Registration for the new sessions is at www.k-state.edu/infotech/training/registration.html

Instructor Session A
Student Groups, Attendance, Roster and Course Homepage

  • Tue, June 24, 2: 30-3:30 p.m.
  • Wed, June 25, 9:30-10:30 a.m.

Instructor Session B
Message Board, Streaming Flash Video, File Dropbox and Chat Room

  • Wed, June 25, 2:30-3:30 p.m.
  • Thu, June 26, 9:30-10:30 a.m.

Student Session
My Assignments, Student Gradebook, Modules, File Dropbox, Streaming Flash Video, and Student Groups

  • Tues., June 24, noon-1 p.m. Pizza will be served during the student session as an incentive to attend and offer feedback.

Registration is required, and be sure to select the date and time desired. Once a class is full, others can still attend and watch but will not have a laptop available to use. Those attending faculty/staff sessions should have prior experience as a primary instructor in K-State Online. Training sessions will be repeated in August after the release of the new K-State Online version. More details will be announced in July regarding future training sessions.

June 12 eTips "Microsoft Office Tips" moving to July

by Cathy Rodriguez, Information Technology Assistance Center
published June 17, 2008

The eTips session on "Microsoft Office Tips" set for June 12 is being rescheduled in July. The new date and time will be announced when the event is finalized.

See the eTips registration page for details. Registration is required at least 24 hours in advance to allow time to add you to the session and ensure your workstation is configured properly for accessing the session.

Security tip of the week

K-Staters receive IRS phishing scams

by Harvard Townsend, IT security
published June 17, 2008

Last week, many K-Staters received an e-mail scam purporting to be from the Internal Revenue Service. This is yet another in a long line of phishing scams posing as legitimate e-mail from the IRS but trying to trick you into divulging personal, financial, or account information, or get you to click on a link that installs malicious software on your computer. This most recent scam attempted the latter.

While this e-mail had many typical indicators of a scam, the simple way to determine it's bogus is that the IRS will never initiate communication with taxpayers via e-mail, especially one that asks for personal information, passwords, or financial information. If you get an e-mail appearing to be from the IRS, do not reply to it, open any attachments, or click on any links embedded in the message. Simply delete it.

The IRS has a helpful website describing how to report and identify phishing, e-mail scams, and bogus IRS websites. It includes instructions on how to report phishing scams by forwarding the message with full headers to phishing@irs.gov if you want to report the scam before deleting it.

Like so many other scams, this one has an air of legitimacy but is easily identified as a scam when you take the time to investigate. If you have any doubt about the legitimacy of an e-mail you receive, ask your IT support person or the IT Help Desk.

K-State Online

How to add attendance feature to course?

by Cathy Rodriguez, Information Technology Assistance Center
published June 17, 2008

I have already created my course, but now I would like to use the attendance feature. Is there a way to add this feature now?

Yes. Do the following to install the Attendance component:

  1. On the Course Tools page under Course Management, click the Components link.
  2. Click the Attendance check box and then click Done.

How to add one navigation list to multiple webpages?

by Janelle Corkill, Computing and Telecommunications Services,
and Betsy Edwards, Information Technology Assistance Center
published June 17, 2008

Is it possible to use webpage includes with the K-State templates, to add specific sidebar navigation on multiple webpages?

Yes. Many web authors use server-side includes to easily add navigation and data that can be 1) updated in one place, and 2) automatically included on many webpages.

Here's how: In your main website directory, it is recommended that you make an /include directory that contains a sidebar.html file which has the left-sidebar navigation you want to add. That file can include the entire sidebar code or just the page-links list as it fits your content.

On the central K-State server, then, you'd include it on your webpage with code that looks like this:

 <!--#include file="/main_directory/include/sidebar.html"--> 

When you're using the K-State template selector, Step 2 has a default "Store left navigation in a separate file". That will create the /include directory and sidebar.html file for you, and it will also add the above code to your template. See the templates Advanced features for more about server-side includes and other options.

Spotlight

CatPack webpage updated, now includes Mac software

by Betsy Edwards, Information Technology Assistance Center
published June 17, 2008 photo of CatPack DVD
The K-State CatPack software suite
is on DVD and free to all K-Staters.
photo by Fred Darkow

The CatPack webpage, which lists free software available to K-State students and employees, was updated Monday to

  • List the latest software available to K-Staters
  • Include a Mac software section
  • Link directly to downloads, documents, and websites

The CatPack itself was recently changed from CD to DVD format, and a new DVD version is released on the third Wednesday of each month. The software suite is available at the IT Help Desk, the Union Computer Store, and Computing and Telecommunications Services.

This latest version is for computer operating systems of Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, and Macintosh 10.4 or 10.5. For details, documentation, and downloads, see the www.k-state.edu/infotech/catpack site.