Unit Updates, December 2017

Blackboard Upgrade: 12/26-12/27

Beginning on December 26th at 12:30AM/EST, Blackboard will be unavailable due to a system upgrade lasting 36 hours.  While the system will be available periodically on December 26th and December 27th, please be advised that Villanova staff will be making additional changes to the system until 6:30PM/EST on December 27th. We advise that no changes be made by faculty or students during this time.

In compliance with updated University policies regarding data retention, we will archive old courses from Bb Learn.  Additionally, the license for storage in Bb is finite and requires us to purge courses from the system to stay within our limit.  All courses in the following terms to be archived: Spring15, Summer15, Fall15.  These courses will be stored offline for a period of five years. The policy for Blackboard courses can be found here.

Blackboard's New Inline Grading Tool

Blackboard will be using the comparable replacement services  to Crocodoc called “New Box View” for Inline Grading Tool.  As part of Villanova’s Blackboard upgrade, the Inline Grading service will transition from Crocodoc to "New Box View" offering several improvements over Crocodoc, including improved rendering fidelity and expanded support for new file types.  As part of the upgrade, all of the annotations and documents used in the current Inline Grading service (Crocodoc) will be converted into the “New Box View” Inline Grading service in Blackboard.  The table on this page will show the main differences between Crocodoc and New Box View.

Classroom Technologies Fall Upgrades

Below are some of the highlights that the Classroom Technologies team have completed during the Fall Semester: 

• Upgraded 6 classrooms in Driscoll Hall which includes new infrastructure, podiums, switchers, projectors, and lecture capture including in room Media Sites. 
• In collaboration with Media Technologies, Classroom Technologes have installed 6 new Media Sites to continue headend replacements to one to one configuration. 
• The Inn at Villanova now has full wireless AV capabilities. Mersive wireless AV devices have been installed in the meeting rooms, giving users a tether free experience. 
• Classroom Technologies and Media Technologies have installed Athletics first Digital Signage outside of the Academic Support office in The Andy Talley Center. 

Nova Alert Reminder

Winter and inclement weather is right around the corner!  Don't miss urgent alerts.  Sign up for NovaAlert now and recieve important campus alerts and updates to any mobile device or email.  Sign up or change options here.  

Interested in using Blackboard Collaborate Ultra and Zoom web conferencing?  Visit the Blackboard Collaborate and Zoom sites to review instructional guides and video tutorials which cover the basics of Blackboard Collaborate Ultra and Zoom.  We also have in-person training available, to sign up for these sessions please go to the Training Calendar

IT Security: Securely Disposing of Your Mobile Device

Mobile devices, such as smartphones, smartwatches, and tablets, continue to advance and innovate.  Some people replace their mobile devices as often as every year. Too many people dispose of their devices with little thought on just how much personal data is on them.

Mobile devices store far more sensitive data than you may realize. Typical information can include:

• Personal Information & Address Book
• Call, Text, Multimedia history
• Social Media 
• Web browsing history, search history, cookies, and cached pages
• Personal photos, videos, audio recordings, and emails
• Stored passwords and access to personal accounts, such as your online bank or email

Regardless of how you dispose of your mobile device, you need to be sure to erase all sensitive information.  This process is called wiping the device. This overwrites the information, ensuring it cannot be recovered or rendering  it unrecoverable. Before you wipe all of your data, you most likely want to back it up first. The easiest way to securely wipe your device is use its “factory reset” function. Be sure to do remove the SIM and any SD cards if your device has   them.