It’s golf season! Do you want to get to know some fellow Drake University faculty/staff members? Sign up to participate in the 10 week golf league open to all faculty and staff.

For more information, contact Ryan Parriott at 271-3522 or ryan.parriott@drake.edu, or view the Golf League website.

— Ryan Parriott, Recreational Services

Please join us at a reception for Carlyn Marron, assistant director of international student and scholar services, who is departing Drake and “retiring” from her career in international education. Stop by Drake International on Friday, May 10, from 2-4 p.m. to thank Carlyn for her ten years of service and wish her well as she begins this new chapter.

Bonnie Ehler, International Programs and Services

The Provost’s Office will host an Ice Cream Social on the Ray Promenade Tuesday, May 7, from 4–6 p.m. During the social, Human Resources will honor employees who celebrated 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, or 35 years of service from July 1, 2018, through June 30, 2019, and those who are retiring or have recently retired.

Seating will be limited, so you are welcome to bring your lawn chair. In case of inclement weather, the event will be held in the Shivers Hospitality Suite.

This will be a zero landfill event. Sodexo will provide all compostable table service. There will be ice cream sundaes, iced tea, and lemonade.

Drinda Williams, Academic Support Specialist

The Office of University Communications and Marketing has developed a new, easy to use tool to share news of your accomplishments. Accessible at drake.edu/accomplishments, you will now be able to write your own story and upload photos to share broadly with the help of the communications team. The form is designed to act like a minimalistic word processor, capable of adding links, bullet points, and other style choices. Additionally, you have the ability to upload photos, which we strongly suggest you do with each submission.

We found that the previously available form created a number of bottlenecks in our system, impacting this office’s ability to share your stories in a timely manner. When submitting the new form, you are actually creating a draft story on the back-end of our newsroom. Upon submitting that story, the communications team is automatically notified so that we can make any necessary changes to accommodate Drake’s style guide or other minor editorial changes prior to publication. This new process is designed to speed the process of sharing good news, and to help ensure accuracy of what is published online.

If you have any questions about the new process or run into any issues as we roll out this system, please reach out to Jarad Bernstein at jarad.bernstein@drake.edu.

Jarad Bernstein, Director of Communications

Criminals continue to develop creative ways to fool us. A new type of scam has been gaining popularity recently—personalized scams. Thieves find or purchase identifying information, then use it to craft a customized attack.  

How do personalized scams work?
Traditional scam emails or phone calls are typically generic. Think of the infamous Nigerian Prince or “You Won the Lottery” examples. Personalized scams are different. The criminals start by doing research and crafting a tailored message for each intended victim. They find or purchase names, passwords, phone numbers, or other details. This information is found on hacked websites, social media sites or in public government records. 

A common attack is to track down your email address, name, and an old password that you used on a hacked website. The criminal claims to have evidence about embarrassing or criminal activity and references your password(s) as proof that they’ve hacked your accounts. If you don’t pay them, they threaten to share the information with your family and/or law enforcement. 

Despite this threat, your computer is very rarely at risk. The scammer is simply using a few details in order to scare you into believing they have a record of all your online activity. 

What should I do if I’m targeted?
Recognize that emails and calls like these are scams. Feeling scared when someone has personal information about you is natural, but remember the sender is almost always lying.  

Here are some clues to look for: 

• Be suspicious of highly urgent emails and phone calls. Scammers use fear and urgency to play to our emotions and it’s a tactic designed to rush us into making mistakes. 
• Requests for payment in Bitcoin, gift cards, or other untraceable methods are nearly always fraudulent. 

Ultimately, though, common sense is your best defense to defeat these intrusive attacks.  

ITS will continue phishing education in May using emails that mimic real attacks. If you receive an email that you suspect is phishing, don’t click any links, download any attachments, or reply.  

For more information on reporting phishing emails, see the IT Service Portal guide, Reporting a Phishing Message (How-to). 

Peter Lundstedt, ITS 

Each month a faculty member, nominated by their dean, is recognized for their efforts to integrate innovative technology into their classroom. April’s digital faculty member of the month is Kelley Ellis, assistant professor of practice, school of Accounting, College of Business and Public Administration. Read an interview with Kelley below:

Which course(s) do you use this technology in? I would like to share a variety of technology tools that I use in my courses. I am continually looking for ways to make my life easier, make my courses easier to navigate, and make the content more interactive for the students. I probably use the most technology in my Accounting Systems course.

What type of technology do you use?

1. I have set up this course in Blackboard using Modules and Module Pages so that I could create “pages of content” that included my written context comments, documents, and videos.
2. I use Panopto recordings to tape lecture content for the students. I have also embedded quiz questions into the Panopto lecture to test the student’s understanding of the content and to ensure the students actually viewed the lecture. The quiz scores from Panopto are automatically transferred into Blackboard.
3. I have used Blackboard Collaborate on a limited basis to video chat with students and be able to share computer screens to talk through technology issues and project questions with students. This particular tool in Blackboard has a lot of potential, especially for online courses
4. I use test pools that I download from the textbook publishers to create quizzes for students that generate unique quizzes for each student.
5. I use grading schemes so that Blackboard grades can be electronically transferred into MyDUSIS. I also use grading color codes so that I quickly and visually see how students are doing on each assignment, project, quiz, and exam.
6. I also integrate the textbook assignment software into Blackboard so that the students can access everything that they need from one source—Blackboard. The grades for the homework assignments from the textbook software system are then automatically recorded into Blackboard.
7. The other major technology that I will use next year is Citrix. The students have traditionally had to buy and install QuickBooks general ledger software onto their laptop computers. The IT department worked with QuickBooks to get the software and allow the students to access the software for class via the Citrix server so that they no longer have to install the software on their personal computers.

How does this type of technology align with your teaching pedagogy? I think demonstrating the use of lots of different technologies within the course is good for the students to see for this system course. In their professional careers after graduation, they will have to learn many new software packages and tools. This course gets them used to learning new technologies—and me too.

Where did you get the inspiration to make a change?
Some changes were required out of necessity, others were based on attending training sessions at Drake by ITS or webinars offered by Blackboard.

How long did it take for you to implement this technology?
None of the technologies that I have implemented took very long to master. I have just added new things each year and tried to continually improve the course.

Did Drake ITS assist you in implementing this technology?
I have set up consultation meetings with ITS to talk about objectives I wanted to accomplish. ITS gave me options to choose from and pointed me toward resources to help me learn the skills needed. Once I started implementing a new technology, I developed very specific questions, and ITS was always very responsive in answering my queries.

Are you interested in trying out new technology in your classroom? Want help from ITS? Schedule a technology adoption consultation.

Jon Hurdelbrink, CPHS, and Carla Herling, ITS

From April 23 through May 6 the campus bookstore’s online site shop.drake.edu will have a 15% discount off all gifts and accessories.  Perfect timing for graduation, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day. Visit shop.drake.edu.

Caron Findlay, Finance & Administration