All posts by Heidi Weiss

How to get started using Blackboard

Faculty are invited to attend the ITS workshop “Getting Started with Blackboard” on Monday, Jan. 22, from 10 to 11 a.m. in Olmsted Center, TMR 132. Learn basic tips and tricks for working with Blackboard with a focus on course menus, navigation, grade center setup, and more. Please bring your own laptop or another internet capable device. Laptops can be checked out from the kiosk located in the lobby of Meredith Hall. The course will be taught by Karly Good.

Register for the course, and view other upcoming workshops.

Carla Herling, ITS

Pilot project: Drake faculty writing group

En Li, professor of history, and Nate Holdren, professor of law, politics, and society, are convening a faculty writing productivity group in the spring semester, with a monthly meeting and weekly check-in. Faculty members interested in participating are welcome to contact Li at en.li@drake.edu or Holdren at nate.holdren@drake.edu for more information.

—Nate Holdren, Law, Politics & Society

Water shutdown and power outage to affect campus buildings

Water shutdown

Drake will experience a water shutdown tomorrow, Dec. 20. The shutdown will last approximately seven hours. The shutdown will begin at 10 p.m. tomorrow, and the water will be back on at approximately 5 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 21. The buildings included in the water shutdown are Howard Hall, Old Main, Sheslow Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, Harmon Fine Arts Center, Turner Jazz Center, Opperman Law Library, The Knapp Center, Cartwright Hall, Jewett Residence Hall, Collier-Scripps Hall, Olin Hall, Fieldhouse, Bell Center, and Facilities Planning and Management .

Power outage

Facilities Planning and Management needs to make minor repair to an electrical switch located near Aliber Hall.  Electricity will be shut off to Aliber Hall and Olmsted Center on Friday, Dec. 22, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

—Jolene Schmidt, Facilities Planning and Management

Reminder: Blackboard migration Dec. 23–27

Blackboard will be migrating to a different kind of environment without much change to its users. In order to complete the migration, Blackboard will be unavailable from Dec. 23 to 27. Please be sure to plan accordingly for this migration timeline. After the system is available, faculty may generate course materials and finish their preparations for J-Term and spring courses.

Our move to Blackboard’s SaaS (Software as a Service) will make new tools available and position Drake to provide better online offerings for years to come. The planned migration from managed hosting, which is housed on Blackboards servers, to SaaS, hosted on Amazon Web Services data centers, will occur during winter break to have the least amount of impact.

Once the migration takes place, we will continue running the current experience on Blackboard known as version 9.1. By moving to SaaS, we gain some major benefits from the new environment, which will also allow us to make future upgrades and patches to our environment with little to no downtime.

—Karly Good, ITS

2018 mileage reimbursement rate

Drake reimburses mileage for use of personal automobiles by employees for actual miles driven during business travel. The reimbursement rate is based on the current standard mileage rate issued by the Internal Revenue Service.

Effective Jan. 1, 2018, the standard mileage rate issued by the IRS is 54.5 cents per business mile driven, which is up from 53.5 cents in 2017.

The standard mileage rate is evaluated annually by the IRS and is based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile.

If you have any questions regarding the reimbursable mileage rate, please visit the IRS website or contact Accounting at accounting@drake.edu.

Jenifer Baugher, Accounting

Facilities Planning and Management welcomes new Bulldog

Facilities Planning and Management is pleased to welcome Patrick Williams to its team. Patrick will serve as grounds supervisor. He holds a Bachelor of Science in horticulture from Iowa State University and has more than 10 years of experience in turf management, including several years as a head golf course superintendent and operations manager. We are excited to have Patrick on board to lead the grounds day-to-day operations and to take our beautiful campus to the next level.

—Aaron Edwards, Facilities Planning and Management

Campus-wide fire alarm inspection Dec. 21

Protex Central, a fire alarm systems vendor, will be on site Dec. 21 beginning at 8 a.m. to inspect fire alarm panels in each building on campus. The alarms will sound briefly, but evacuation is not necessary. The inspection will ensure that alarms are working properly and ring directly to Public Safety. The inspections will conclude at the end of the day.

—Jolene Schmidt, Facilities Planning and Management