Last Sunday was Data Privacy Day, an opportunity to create awareness about the importance of respecting privacy, safeguarding data, and enabling trust. As we are reminded on the Data Privacy Day website, “all companies are data companies today,” and we all must remain committed to safeguarding our own personal information and that of our fellow students and employees.

I urge you to show great caution when clicking on links within email messages. Account phishing is the most likely way for the University to be attacked by identity and information thieves. The University and all of our private data is at ever-increasing risk, and we need to be vigilant.

Please always keep in mind the following tips:

• Slow down and look carefully
• Check the message source
• Think before you click
• Be wary of attachments
• Don’t give anyone your password

When in doubt, report it. Learn how here.

If you’ve been watching OnCampus, you’ve likely seen regular updates and information from ITS. One of our primary goals over the past year has been to improve our communication with campus, and we are using OnCampus as one of our primary methods.

In general, this is how we communicate with campus. For each type of message, we may use one or all methods depending on the audience:

• For community-wide informational messages – OnCampus, ITS website
• For professional development and learning opportunities – OnCampus, ITS website
• For planned maintenance outages – ITS website/blueView login screen/IT Service Portal, Twitter (follow us at @DrakeITServices), and Facebook Student Central
• For campus-wide outages – email, ITS website/blueView/IT Service Portal, Twitter, and Facebook Student Central
• For targeted information – targeted email (e.g. Banner Users group, Print Superusers group, etc.)

If you want to know more about ITS or get help with an issue:

• For basic information about ITS, visit the ITS website.
• For help with technology issues, call ext. 3001, visit the IT Service Portal, or email helpdesk@drake.edu.

ITS has recently made some significant changes to the IT service portal to help our users find what they are looking for. In particular, we have added a My Open Requests button to the page. You can use this link to review all of the service requests you have made to ITS. Open requests appear by default after you log into the site, but all current and previous requests can be viewed. Detailed information about each request can be found by clicking on the title of the request.

We have also redesigned the service catalog list, accessible from the Request Assistance button, and the list of self-help (knowledge base) articles on the Find Answers button. Please let us know what you think. We hope you’ll find this new layout more friendly and helpful.

Finally, please take a look at the upcoming topics for Tech Tuesdays and EdTech Workshops. Tech Tuesdays are lively and entertaining one-hour sessions on different IT topics; they have been a hit with those who have attended. If you take a look, you’ll find something to attract your interest and we’re sure you’ll find them informative and useful.

Our own resident Blackboard expert, Dr. Karly Good, is also hosting regular EdTech Workshops specifically designed to help faculty advance the use of technology in their pedagogy. Karly has a great list of upcoming sessions for the spring semester.

As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any member of my team if you have questions, comments, concerns, or ideas for improvement.

— Chris Gill, ITS