Author: Ciesa Design

MSU has signed a hosting and licensing agreement with the Zoom cloud-based web conferencing platform. This agreement was the culmination of a partnership between several colleges on campus and IT Services.

MSU users can log in to Zoom at msu.zoom.us using their MSU NetID and password. (Read step-by-step log in instructions.) Read Full Article →

To enhance teaching and learning at Michigan State University, IT Services holds an annual awards program funded by AT&T to both recognize and encourage best practices in the use of instructional technology.

The AT&T Faculty-Staff Instructional Technology Awards program recognizes outstanding contributions to the use and development of information technology for teaching and learning in credit-bearing courses at MSU. Read Full Article →

The MSU Attendance System, currently available as wall-mounted card swipes in 12 lecture-style rooms, will be retired upon completion of the spring semester 2014.

Historical attendance data will be available on an as-needed basis for one year past the system retirement date.

MSU IT Services consulted with the Undergraduate Assistant and Associate Deans Group, the Learning Systems Advisory Group, the University Classroom Committee, and other academic groups prior to making this decision. Read Full Article →

IT Services has received clearance to test Microsoft Office 365 internally, within their organization. Following this test, pilots with interested innovators will begin to evaluate Office 365 as an option for MSU departments and colleges to use for email, calendaring , and other services.

IT Services is building a team dedicated to the implementation of Office 365 and is now working directly with Microsoft consultants on the current CampusAD and authentication structure at Michigan State University in preparation of rolling Office 365 out to campus. Read Full Article →

Starting on December 20, 2013, courses that are two years old, development courses that have been inactive for two years, and groups that have been inactive for six months in MSU’s ANGEL system will be deleted.

Associated content and records for these courses will also be deleted.

The ANGEL User Support Team is sending specific messages out to affected course and group administrators listing the courses and groups scheduled for deletion. Read Full Article →

IT Services will offer two days of no-cost workshops on research and instructional technology on December 17 and 18. These seminars are also open to graduate assistants (teaching and research).

The workshops are designed to support faculty, academic staff, and graduate assistants in their teaching and research roles by providing seminars led by experts in online learning, and instruction in the use of a variety of software tools. Read Full Article →

IT Services launched the OAuth 2.0 protocol as another authentication option for MSU developers, units, departments, and colleges.

OAuth provides secure authorization to certain details or attributes of a user without the application needing to receive the user’s password.

Additionally, OAuth doesn’t require client software to be installed for an application to use it and is programming language agnostic. Read Full Article →

IT Services created an Action Plan to inform the MSU community of the strategic direction IT Services is taking in the 2013-2014 academic year.

This plan was prompted by Michigan State University’s Bolder by Design strategic framework.

The Action Plan explains the specific actions and milestones IT Services is committed to achieving in order to make a difference to the MSU community over the next year. Read Full Article →

IT Services is warning computer users about a particularly vicious kind of malware, called CryptoLocker.

CryptoLocker encrypts or freezes large parts of a Windows PC’s hard drive, then asks the user to pay to regain access.

Once CryptoLocker installs itself, it contacts a remotely operated server run by criminals, called a command-and-control server. Read Full Article →

IT Services launched a “sandbox” of the newest version of Desire2Learn (D2L) at next.d2l.msu.edu for immediate play and experimentation before the full upgrade in December.

This sandbox is only for trying out and previewing, not for live teaching. All content remaining in the sandbox will be lost in the next upgrade. Read Full Article →