• Aug. 5, 2008

K-State Online unavailable during Aug. 8-11 upgrade

by Molly Small, Office of Mediated Education
published Aug. 5, 2008

K-State Online will be unavailable during the scheduled upgrade to version 8.0 beginning 10 p.m. Friday, Aug. 8, until 8 a.m. Monday, Aug. 11. Service will be restored sooner, if possible.

For a complete list of new features, improvements and updates, see What's New in K-State Online 8.0. You may also download a PDF of the information for printing and easy distribution to other interested faculty.

Course owners will not need to complete any additional steps following the upgrade. Courses will appear as before, but will include the version 8.0 improvements.

Faculty/staff: Accessibility workshops in August-September

by Rebecca Gould, Information Technology Assistance Center
published Aug. 5, 2008

A Course Accessibility workshop focusing on how to make mediated content accessible will be 9:30-10:30 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 14, in the Hemisphere Room (Hale 501). The workshop will be repeated 2-3 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, in Hale 501 and on Sept. 30 at K-State Salina. Topics covered include:

  • Course Accessibility Standards Policy
  • Common ways to make course content accessible, specifically:
    1. Creating accessible PowerPoint presentations
    2. Converting text images into text files
    3. Adding real text to PDFs
    4. Tagging PDFs
    5. Adding styles to Word documents
    6. Creating transcripts
    7. Purchasing accessible third-party software

Resources available throughout campus will be discussed. To register for the workshop, see the IT training site.

Axio Quarterly newsletter's August issue online

by Scott Finkeldei, Office of Mediated Education
published Aug. 5, 2008

The latest issue of Axio Quarterly is available at axiolearning.org/thecommunity/newsletter.php. This issue shares new features of the Axio 4.0 release, the new streaming Flash video feature, tips and tricks, and the upcoming Axio conference.

Security tip of the week

Airports a major threat to laptops

by Harvard Townsend, IT security
published Aug. 5, 2008

According to recent studies, about 16,000 laptop computers are lost or stolen in airports in the United States and Europe EVERY WEEK. That translates into nearly 900,000 per year and, according to the studies conducted by the Ponemon Institute on behalf of Dell, about 60 percent of the laptops are never recovered or reclaimed.

The Ponemon Institute first released results about U.S. airports in late June, reporting that more than 12,000 laptops per week are lost or stolen at major and medium-sized U.S. airports. Similarly, the study released last week indicated that nearly 4,000 laptops disappear each week from airports in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa — with the highest numbers reported missing at London Heathrow (900), Amsterdam Schiphol (750), and Paris-Charles de Gaulle (733).

One might be suspicious of these studies since they were commissioned by Dell and announced at the same time they introduced new asset and data protection services. However, even if they are exaggerated, the statistics still underscore the importance of knowing how to protect your laptop computer and the data it holds while traveling, especially during this time of the year when so many are taking vacations.

K-State Online

How to open Wimba archived sessions to students?

by Cathy Rodriguez, Information Technology Assistance Center
published Aug. 5, 2008

I archived a Wimba session. How can I make this archive available to my students?

  1. On the Course Tools page under the Course Content section, click the Manage Files link.
  2. On the toolbar, click the New Item button, and then from the Select a new Item type to create list, select the Wimba Archive Link.
  3. In the Link Text box, type the name of your archive as it will appear to students.
  4. Choose the archive you want to make available.
  5. Click the Create button, and then publish the archive.

How to have better Wimba sessions?

by Rebecca Gould, Betsy Edwards, Information Technology Assistance Center
published Aug. 5, 2008

How can I improve my Wimba experience?

Use a headphone set with a microphone. That will filter out extraneous background noise in your environment and also allow you to verbally communicate with a Wimba instructor instead of being limited to text messaging. Watch this newsletter for an upcoming article on selecting a headphone for Wimba use.

Spotlight

A new, "Cuil" way to search the Internet

by Rebecca Gould, Information Technology Assistance Center
published Aug. 5, 2008

Searching for a newer way to find information on the Web? Check out Cuil (pronounced "cool"), an Irish word for knowledge. Cuil is a new search engine that indexes the entire Internet in the search process and bases findings on content and relevance. The process is a more analytical way to search the Web rather than basing results on popularity visits. Cuil claims to search "more pages on the Web than anyone else -- three times as many as Google and 10 times as many as Microsoft".

Take some time to explore the site, check out the features, and note it is very much a work-in-progress.

Try it out at www.cuil.com. Read more about Cuil on its Welcome to Cuil page.