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| CONTENTS A-Z | SEARCH | CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD | ANNOUNCEMENTS | STATUS MESSAGES |
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The University of Essex will launch its new website next week. It is aimed primarily at student recruitment due to the changing environment for student finance and recruitment. Among other new features and improvements the new site will:
- fit more closely to the University’s brand
- make prominent features of high quality imagery and video
- feature a new version of the Course Finder - extended to cover PG taught and PG research opportunities (both supplemented with scholarship and fee finders).
At the same time as developing the new site, major work is taking place to migrate www.essex.ac.uk on to a new server infrastructure to improve speed, resilience and scalability.
The new website is a collaboration between Web and Learning Technology, Communications and External Relations and external consultants Headscape.
How will the new website affect you and how you work?
Some webpages will move! This major rewrite will mean that links to existing pages will be broken. WaLT will do their best to minimise this via:
- a guide to new locations to help web authors update links
- automatic redirects on key pages
- informative error messages for the rest
- automated checks will be run to alert web authors.
If you are a web author and you find a broken link, email walt@essex.ac.uk. During the migration of existing sites on to the new servers, web authors whose sites are hosted on the www.essex.ac.uk server, might experience a temporary loss of editing access.
For further information on the new site, email Web and Learning Technology, walt@essex.ac.uk
Later in October will also see the launch of a new staff portal, a University website dedicated to information relevant to you.
Building on the success of the myEssex portal for current students (90% of students find myEssex ‘easy’ or ‘very easy’ to use), the staff version of myEssex will use highly sophisticated technology to deliver personalised information and services. For example, rather than calling HR for information about your employment, you will be able to get this through the portal. You will be able to change your own contact details. You will be able to see when your password is due to be changed and see information about teaching and staffing development. The portal will also act as a targeted communications channel.
Future developments will be driven by user demand, feedback and needs from departments, sections and communications.
A new version of the current student portal will follow once the staff portal has been established.
For further information on the Staff Portal, email Web and Learning Technology, walt@essex.ac.uk
Most email becomes irrelevant after a while – it’s a never ending job to control and monitor them.
Managed Folders, a feature of our Microsoft Exchange email software, is a new service, available to all academic and support staff, which does your housekeeping for you. All such members of staff now have a Managed Folders directory in their mailbox. To use the service:
- open and read an email
- decide how long you wish to keep the email for
- file the email within a relevant subfolder within the Managed Folder directory - 1 Year, 2 Years, 5 Years
- the email will then be automatically deleted after the specified timeframe - from the date the email was sent.
You can drag-and-drop emails to and from the sub-folders and move emails using Outlook rules. You cannot create or delete any sub-folders of Managed Folders yourself, but you can create sub-folder hierarchies within the sub-folders.
Emails within Managed Folders still count towards your email quota. Due to our licensing arrangements, Managed Folders cannot be created for students. See also Managing e-mail
For further information on Managed Folders, email the ISS System Group sgq@essex.ac.uk
The default email quota for academic and support staff will be increased from 300MB to 1GB shortly after the start of the new term. If you are using the new Managed Folders service and still need more space, your overall mailbox quota may, on request, be increased as long as the increase can be reasonably justified.
For further information on email quotas, email the ISS System Group sgq@essex.ac.uk
We all have to change our passwords regularly using https://www.essex.ac.uk/password. To do this you need to use your current password, or your registered email address and passphrase – however, it’s easy to forget your password and passphrase. We are now introducing the use of one-time passwords - valid for password changing only - which will mean you can facilitate a password change yourself even if you’ve forgotten your password and/or passphrase.
For those who have registered an external address and/or mobile phone number, you can now change your password in two stages:
a) by requesting a one-time password – to be sent to your registered mobile phone (you will get a text) or external email address (you will get the password embedded in a URL which will take you directly into the password-change webpages)
b) use that one-time password to assign a new password.
If you choose the one-time password to be sent to your registered mobile or external email address you will be asked to demonstrate who you are by giving your PRID (on your Staff or Student card) and your date of birth.
You can change your registered external email address at https://www.essex.ac.uk/passphrase. You will be able to change your registered mobile number within the relevant staff or student portal in due course.
For further information on passwords, email the ISS System Group sgq@essex.ac.uk
As well as all the PC labs moving to Windows 7, a programme will start shortly to provide Windows 7 for all staff PCs. In the majority of cases most software will run under Windows 7, but we are aware of some that will not. A couple of examples are lightScribe and filemaker pro [older versions].
If you have specific questions on how to use Windows 7, contact the Helpdesk (ex 2345).
For further information on Windows 7 in the labs, email Tessa Rogowski tessa@essex.ac.uk
The Helpdesk is now open from 9am to 6pm – the move follows the results of the ISS based survey targeted at first year students in summer term 2011. The survey also showed that students found the cost of colour printing high – ISS has since reviewed the charges which will be reduced to 35p from October, 2011.
For further information on the Student Survey, email Tessa Rogowski tessa@essex.ac.uk
The replacement of the cassette tape recording system with the digital “Listen Again" has been very popular with students. Lectures in Listen Again rooms are recorded* and students can hear the lecture again by accessing the content through Moodle or CMR. Listen Again started in the summer term when there are few timetabled teaching events and impressively, still achieved over 4,000 lecture replays.
* There are some events where opt outs have been invoked, and these are not available for Listen Again.
For further information on the Listen Again service, email Tessa Rogowski tessa@essex.ac.uk
A new printer accounting system, Papercut, has been operating since July. Running on Microsoft Server it will help to track, manage, control print costs, save paper and minimise environmental impact. It ensures compatibility with the latest desktop operating systems and has new features such as ‘follow me printing’, ‘web printing’ and dual queues.
For further information on Papercut, email Darin Cruicskhanks darin@essex.ac.uk
The username and password for the off-site updating of Sophos has been updated for the new academic year. They can be found on the webpage https://www2.essex.ac.uk/cs/virus/sophos/Default.htm
For further information on Sophos, email David Constable davidc@essex.ac.uk
The Compute server unix0 has been replaced with the more powerful quad core AMD Opteron 2.20Ghz system which has 48 processing cores and 128 GB RAM. This upgrade provides research staff and postgraduates with a faster, more efficient and user-friendly service for large, complex research and compute/memory intensive tasks. See http://www2.essex.ac.uk/cs/services/unix/serlx27.htm for further details
For further information on Compute servers, email the ISS Systems Group sgq@essex.ac.uk
SS has taken on the ownership and management of two PC labs in the Constable Building From the start of this new academic year. Formerly owned by International Academy, the two labs will be known as lab P (room CB.10) and lab Q (room CB.19) and will have 17 and 26 PCs respectively. Each lab also has AV capabilities and will be available for centrally timetabled classes and events.
For further information on Computing labs, email Darin Cruickshanks darin@essex.ac.uk
Major work within the internal square on the east and west sides of the old Physics building (behind the Happy Days diner on Square 4) is nearing completion. The West Side will feature the new Media Centre – offering cutting-edge broadcasting, podcasting and vodcasting facilities to students alongside a second, larger TV studio and rejuvenated PC labs. Two sliding glass doorways will be created on both sides opening on to the Amphitheatre.
The space previously occupied by Language Services is being re-developed as part of the new Media Centre. To ensure that the standard of language services available to the students is maintained, ISS has relocated language resources to the Albert Sloman Library which can be borrowed on short term loan. Foreign channel satellite viewing will be made available over the network and can be received in any of the PC labs on campus from October 1.
The Amphitheatre will be fully wifi-enabled to encourage outdoor working as part of the University’s wider plan to turn more space across campus into learning space – expanding on the more traditional areas of seminar rooms and offices.
On the East side of the amphitheatre there will be another version of the popular Orangery, named the Limehouse, with PC-equipped learning group pods. The space will also include two new seminar rooms and a new pathway outdoors onto decking with a canvas sail-style cover in the amphitheatre.
For further information on the Media Centre, Amphitheatre or Limehouse, email Tessa Rogowski tessa@essex.ac.uk
Planning permission for the new state-of-the-art library and learning facility in Southend, called The Forum, has been given the green light. The £27m project, jointly funded by Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, the University of Essex and South Essex College is due to be completed in August 2013. It will provide a new public and academic library to replace the existing Central Library, a new teaching facility for the College and new research and learning facilities for the University.
ISS is currently planning the installation and provision of the latest hi-tech IT and AV facilities in:
- a 200-seat Lecture Theatre (for lectures, graduation ceremonies, public lectures and external events)
- 6 teaching rooms
- office space for professional services and academic departments
- Student Support and Information Help Desks
- a Learning Hub (student resources area including modern reader spaces, media workstations, Orangery-style group working facilities and innovative learning spaces, all potentially with 24-hour access.)
This Academic year there will be some IT-related room changes:
- IT Lab 2 at the Gateway Building will be turned into a standard teaching room
- R2.81 (Second Floor, Gateway Building) will be transformed into a 10 seater computer lab/training room using some of the replaced machines from IT Lab 2 (features SMART AV and plasma screen)
- Additional PCs will be placed in the Open Study Area (which has been given a new look)
- IT Lab1s machines will be replaced as part of the standard lab replacement cycle
- New PCs will be deployed in: 2nd Floor Lift Lobby, 2nd Floor Student Common Room, 3rd Floor Lift Lobby, 5th Floor Atrium and Seminar Room 1 (Clifftown Studios).
For further information on the Southend Campus, email Matt Softly msoftl@essex.ac.uk
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