Blogs, Wikis, and More

Jerry Slezak
Andy Rush
Lisa Ames
Lisa Quinton
Kate Cooke
Martha Burtis

UMW staff are using an outside service to provide the opportunity to experiment with open source software in an educational environment. This presentation will focus on the uses of such tools - and how we support them in an academic environment.

Getting Started with Information Security

Mel Vogelsang
Once an institution decides to invest in information security-or if it is still struggling with that decision-the job of getting started can seem overwhelming. This session will examine different approaches for getting started, how to gain broad support and find resources, where to focus attention first, and planning for what comes next.

Web Portals: Issues and Answers

Panel Discussion:
Trisha Gordon
Sandy German
Cathy Derecki
Rob Downs

Have you implemented a web portal or are you in the midst of implementation. This panel will lead us in an interesting discussion about the challenges, issues and fun of undertaking such a project.

Blackboard: Uses Beyond the Ordinary
Jerry Slezak, Lisa Ames

Blackboard provides an array of online teaching tools, but in the busy world of faculty at the University of Mary Washington, reality is that some do not have the time to figure out how to integrate these tools into teaching and learning. Often, they just don't know what is possible with Blackboard, or they assume the learning curve is too steep or will take too long. Blackboard documentation doesn't help either, limiting the know how to simple mechanical instructions, without explanation of how and/or why you might use a particular Blackboard tool. The result may be a low level user of Blackboard that doesn't take full advantage of its capabilities.

This presentation will focus on how we push beyond the functionality of the Blackboard tools and move our faculty towards integration and course enhancements. In this presentation we will discuss a section of our online Blackboard Support website that takes good uses of Blackboard tools and packages them into easy to implement Blackboard Activities. Each Blackboard Activity includes a brief description of what the Activity is, the benefits of the Activity to the faculty and/or student, as well as the "Step 1, Step 2" guidance to get the Activity up and running in a Blackboard course. By presenting faculty with good examples of Blackboard learning activities, along with the step by step instructions to implement them, we are attempting to provide a way for busy faculty to take full advantage of the teaching and learning tools that Blackboard has to offer.

Contingency Management - When Bad Things Happen

Dr. Frank Moore, Assistant Vice President for Information & Instructional Technology Services, Longwood University; Mr. Dale Hulvey, Assistant Vice President for Information Technology, James Madison University, Mr. Bill Jones, Director, VCU-NET, Virginia Commonwealth University.

Fire, flood, mischief, OH MY!!! Have you ever thought about the havoc these and other unplanned events can wreak on your campus data center or technology infrastructure? Join our panelists as they share real-life stories of such encounters and the lessons they included. As survivors, these presenters provide great insight and motivation for others to evaluate existing contingency plans.

The myVCU Portal
Rob Downs

The number of web services offered at the University level has been increasing steadily over the last few years. This has lead to an increased frustration by students to locate these application and in most cases remember the different combinations of usernames and passwords required to access them. The myVCU Portal has helped Virginia Commonwealth University consolidate its web services and eliminated the need for multiple logins to these applications. Other services have been added to provide entertainment and a sense of community within the Portal.

Student Owned Computers – How Do We Support ‘Em?

Panel Discussion:
Don Hall
Kim Redford
Joe Hutchison
Mark Smith

Protect your LAN from Labs with Removable Hard Drives using 802.1x
John York

We have labs with removable hard drives where students practice installing Windows or Linux servers--the instructors want the students to have internet access so they can install patches and search for documentation. We obviously don't want these to have access to our LAN. This same lab is used for standard classes with hard drives we support, and require full access our LAN. When the lab is open after class, they even want one pc to use a student practice drive while another uses a supported drive. It turns out this can be done easily and cheaply using an 802.1x-capable switch, a RADIUS server and possibly an 802.1x client. This presentation tells you how to do it.

Cleaning Dirty Machines and Other Tales at the Network Edge
Joe Haynes

Last year worms wreaked paths of destruction across universities and colleges. Determined to avert a similar scenario this fall, the university installed software that scans incoming computers, blocks infected or vulnerable ones, and repairs them online. This session discusses the beneficial impact of this implementation, including the positive impact on our wireless roll-out.

Network Protection at the Edge
John Craft

This presentation will cover how VMI established network protection at the edge of its residential LAN. VMI chose to enhance network protection via infrastructure upgrades with intelligent edge switches instead of a client/server based approach, such as Perfigo or Safe Access. This approach allows VMI to avoid "bottlenecking" the network traffic, introducing single points of failure and allows for virtually total end-user transparency.

Spyware: Everything You Didn't Learn in Kindergarten
Karen McDowell

The phenomenon known variously as "spyware," "adware" and/or "malware" has grown exponentially in the past year and is now swamping our computer systems, much like email spam but significantly worse. It is possible that university students are even more susceptible than the general public, but it is certainly true that this is a serious problem affecting our national security. Learning to identify and remove it is a critical step in securing computers and networks and in enabling students to complete their work safely and efficiently.

Institutional Insurance: Creating a Comprehensive Campus-Wide IT Security Risk Management Program

Brian Davis, Security and Policy Specialist, University of Virginia

How Do They Do That? - Student - Centered Learning and Technology Support
Jennifer Harrison, Brian Persinger

The Technology Support Center at the College of William and Mary handles support inquiries from faculty, staff, and students, although a large portion of the hardware, virus, and software work on machines is repair work / assistance for student machines. The Technology Support Center employs student employees to assist in this regard, and the Center often receives inquiries from students regarding work done on their machines, and/ or request for phone and/ or email assistance. With this in mind, a comprehensive program, the focus of this presentation, was developed to assist students (and faculty or staff) with their inquiries. Student and staff employees handle these inquiries; this presentation will cover the development of a comprehensive student repair process, and the development of the laptop initiative program for students in the fall of 2005.

Grassroots to the Classroom: Utilization of Populist Internet Technologies in Education
Thomas Lominac

During the past few years several Web technologies have mushroomed into phenomenal use. These include Weblogs, RSS News feeds, and to a lesser extent Wiki sites. This workshop will demonstrate how I have used these technologies in a "Contemporary Issues in Computing" course at VMI, and will show how the technologies can be implemented at other sites. Implications and issues will also be discussed.

Anatomy of a Security Incident
Cathy Hubbs
While information security incidents can certainly be unsettling experiences for a university, they also present learning opportunities. In this session, the presenter will explain how she and her colleagues at George Mason University dealt with a recent high-profile information security incident and share what they learned from the experience.