NUMBER 139
SUNY Oneonta
October 2012
News Feeds and Known Issues from IT Services and the TLTC
ITS has established an RSS Feed that members of the campus community can subscribe
to for regular updates on technology services. Information about outages in services,
planned upgrades to services and other important ITS information will be posted to this
feed. To subscribe to this feed point your favorite RSS Feed reader/aggregator to the
following web address:
http://aristotle.oneonta.edu/wordpress/itsnews/feed/
In addition, the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center has also established an RSS
Feed that you can subscribe to at the link below. This feed will provide periodic updates
on events and innovation projects the TLTC is currently involved with:
http://aristotle.oneonta.edu/wordpress/tltcnews/feed/
For information about how you can configure your Outlook email to pick up these feeds
see:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/add-an-rss-feed-HA010159539.aspx
The ITS website also provides updates on Known Issues if you suspect something is up
or want to see what‟s planned for the near future.
Learning Analytics – you’ll be hearing more about this.
One of the things that make us human is the ability to collect information and use it to
explain our experiences and make predictions about the future. This was probably one
of the crucial traits that got us where we are today.
The digital revolution that started in the 1960s began to generate truly mammoth
quantities of data by the 1990s. At that time, too, computer hardware reached a crossing
point of massive processing capacity and low unit-cost. The result was a new extension
of an old idea; process data in quantities far, far beyond the ability of ordinary humans to
handle and begin to draw conclusions, formulate decisions and make predictions based
on it.
At first the process was used in two separate areas: marketers who were analyzing
consumer behavior and intelligence services who were analyzing political and military
traffic. But in the early 2000s these merged as the asymmetric warfare we know as “the
Global War on Terror” fused them conceptually into a single enterprise. The idea was
that any question could in theory be answered and very good predictions could be made
by analyzing the totality of available information, looking for patterns, relationships and
trends in ways that are now mostly classified or at least extremely proprietary.
Data Analytics, or Big Data as it is sometimes referred to, is now an integral part of our
lives, but oddly is something most people are only dimly aware of. It not only is probably
more valuable than military strength, it is a fundamental component of how we are
marketed (and marketed to), the news that is presented, the political campaigns that are
run, the governmental decisions that are made, and maybe most importantly, how all of
these seemingly different arenas are linked together. This is because Big Data is really
the provenance of only about six or seven companies which work closely with the
corporate and governmental worlds, and everybody is using mostly the same Huge Pile
of Data.
It then occurred to someone that perhaps the same general principle could be applied to
education. If enough detail could be known about students, the courses they took, the
interests they pursued, the products they owned, the grades they got, the social
relationships they had, what their families were like, their leisure activities, and what
kinds of outcomes they experienced in school – why, then maybe a process could be
worked out to predict success or failure and intercede decisively and early. It can also
be used to deeply personalize the educational experience, and, in theory at least, vastly
increase the level of success for a given student.
This is what Learning Analytics is, in 500 words or fewer.
There‟s lots more, of course, and we will undoubtedly be hearing more about it as we go
along. The TLTC‟s Jim Greenberg is working with the SUNY FACT2 Task Group on the
Learning Analytics topic.
There‟s an excellent paper from EDUCAUSE that goes into more detail on this topic. It‟s
available at http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELIB1203.pdf.
IBM also has a lot to say about Learning Analytics, and a very good set of resources on
their take can be found at http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/education/.
Networking / Telecom assists in electric meter project
Facilities, Maintenance and the campus Electric Shop have been working on a project to
replace each building‟s electric meter with a new model that connects to the campus data
network. Like many similar utility and safety monitoring systems, these devices have
critical IT components: the server that collects information and sends out alerts, the fiber
and copper network over which all the devices communicate with the server, and the
connections that allow both campus and outside vendor support.
IT Research & Development
worked with the Electric Shop, the
manufacturer (Siemens) and the
site contractor to plan the
implementation, test the system and
get it configured. Network and
Telecommunications Services
provided physical connections, IP
addresses, and registered the
devices on the network. IT Security
consulted on the necessary network
segmentation and necessary
firewall rules, and IT Applications &
Servers provided a secure location
for the management / logging
server in one of the campus data centers.
These new meters provide several important capabilities for the College. The
consumption of power in each building can be both logged and analyzed in real time. The
quality of that power can be also analyzed to look for problems on each phase: things like
transient spikes or undervoltages, surges, and other issues. The data on usage can also
be tracked and analyzed to find opportunities for reducing consumption and tracking the
results of those efforts.
We also would like to use the
data to present environmental
dashboard-type displays to assist
in the broader campus
sustainability efforts. There‟s
nothing like seeing a real-time
display of the kilowatt-hours
being consumed by our buildings
to make usage and conservation
more immediate in our
awareness.
A typical screen display for building power data
Images courtesy Dave Gregory
October is known for many things, but did you know it is also Cyber Security Awareness
month? This is an annual effort to increase the awareness of the many dangers one may
face when connected to the internet (or indeed most any network). It is our shared
responsibility to protect our data and to make sure the internet is used safely.
There are three simple starting points for staying safer:
STOP: take some time out to learn about the dangers of the internet and how to
foresee them, so that you can better prevent potential problems.
THINK: before you decide to make any moves online take a moment to check for
warning signs, and take into consideration how your actions could affect your
safety.
CONNECT: now you can use the internet with complete confidence, knowing
that you have taken all of the accurate steps to enforce internet safety.
Keeping passwords private is a common topic when it comes to internet security, but what
about the idea of password variety? Most users have the same password for multiple
accounts, because it makes life so much easier. However, what about if you fall victim to a
phishing scam and your personal email account password is retrieved? If that password is
also linked to your banking password, theses hackers now have access to not only your
email but banking information as well. The fact that most people reuse passwords for all
different types of accounts is something that cyber offenders are aware of and take into
consideration. As always, continue to treat your password as you would your
toothbrush. Change it often. Don‟t share it. If you have shared it, discard it and get a
new one. And don‟t leave it lying around for anyone to „borrow‟.
If you have any questions involving Cyber Security, contact IT Security Administrator
Aimee Swan at [email protected] or x2708.
Federated Identification Project
For years and years we‟ve employed our usernames and passwords to access IT
resources here on campus – hardware, software, our files, various services, stuff like that.
There were also always lots of IT resources outside of campus, too. Some were available
through SUNY, some through the State of New York, and some through affiliated
agencies and companies. Getting access to these was a hassle, though. Each required
different hoops to jump through, different credentials, passwords and so on and so forth.
The SUNY Federated Access Project is an effort to deliver access to a larger set of
resources with your Oneonta username and password as well as a parallel project to
integrate that access into “Single-Sign-On” environments like portals and mobile sites.
The object is to make our access mechanism conform to a set of widely-recognized
standards along with a whole lot of other SUNY campuses.
It‟s one of those odd projects where you won‟t really notice much of any change, although
it involves a tremendous amount of complex coordination behind-the-scenes. The
departments of Applications and Servers and R&D are taking care of the details, and
what you will ultimately get is more services in a more transparent delivery.
We will provide more details in IT Works as the project moves along.
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