Drake ITS is switching from Sophos Antivirus software to Microsoft Defender Antivirus. As a result, if you are using a Drake-owned Mac you may see a pop up asking to Allow network filtering. Please click Allow if you see the message as shown below. If you’ve already clicked Don’t Allow, the software will install at a later point on your computer and will not interrupt your work.

This will move antivirus protection from individual computers to the network which is more effective. Please note that ITS cannot view or monitor website activity.

If you have further questions on this change, please contact the support center at 515-271-3001 or visit service.drake.edu/its.

— Carla Herling, ITS

Staff Appreciation Month is a great time to nominate a Drake staff member or team for a Called to be True Blue award. Those that are “True Blue” go above and beyond expectations to serve students, colleagues, and the Drake Community and possess these characteristics:

• Epitomizes the values of leadership, teamwork, and integrity, and exhibits their commitment to the Drake community.
• Has shown others what it takes to get a task or project done, and accomplishes that by working well with others.
• Is able to be honest and fair in the situations they face.
• Does all of these things for the betterment of Drake and its values and goals.

The All Staff Council Recognition Committee is accepting nominations using their online form.  True Blue honorees will be presented with a certificate, and those who receive a True Blue award prior to April 1 will be entered into this year’s Sapphire Award nomination and recognized at the annual Sapphire Awards event.

— Linda Feiden, Human Resources

With the recent addition of automatic captioning by Zoom, we now have access to two platforms (Zoom and Microsoft Teams) that provide automatic transcriptions as well the ability as enable automatic transcripts to recorded content using Panopto. Recordings made with Zoom or Microsoft Teams can be uploaded to Panopto to include captioning in the recording.

To assist faculty and staff with using these features, ITS staff has created a new knowledge base article with instructions and information. Learn more by reading Using Automatic Transcription Services (How-to).

— Clayton Mitchell, ITS

Congratulations to Sally Haack, professor of pharmacy practice in the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, on winning the 2021 Global Citizenship Award!

The Principal Global Citizenship Award is awarded annually to a Drake University faculty or staff member, recognizing outstanding contributions to global engagement and internationalization of the campus and curriculum. This award is sponsored by the Principal Center for Global Citizenship.

This award was presented to Professor Haack by Provost Sue Mattison March 4 at the Global Citizen Forum. This presentation is available on YouTube to watch on-demand.

— Hannah Sappenfield, Global Partnerships Coordinator

Drake Online Design Dialogues will recommence March 11 at 11:30 a.m. and continue every other Thursday. The sessions have been added to the University calendar. The sessions will be led by the instructional designers and technologists from Drake Online and Continuing Education and will focus on Blackboard Learn Ultra.

Visit the links below to learn more about each session and to register. All sessions will be recorded and uploaded to the Drake Online and Continuing Education Faculty Resources website. Here is the schedule of topics:

March 11:  Ultra Base Navigation (UBN) and Transition Preparation
March 25: Copying Courses in Ultra
April 8: Build and Organize Content in Ultra
April 22: Assignments and Rubrics in Ultra
May 6: Communicating with Students in Ultra
May 20: Groups in Ultra
June 3: Assessments in Ultra
June 17: The Ultra Gradebook

— Christina Trombley, Drake Online and Continuing Education

We’re excited to announce that faculty and staff are welcome to dine-in at Hubbell Dining Hall beginning Wednesday, March 3. We do ask that everyone be respectful of fellow diners by sitting in smaller groups and observing the COVID-19 safety guidelines put forth by Drake University while dining at The Hubb.

Due to continued seating capacity restrictions, we will not resume the $5 Wednesday lunches until further notice. These dining arrangements are subject to change at any time.

If you have questions or comments, please send us a message at dining@drake.edu.

— Casey Morgan, Dining Services

The days of foreign princes wanting to give us millions of dollars via email are gone. Today, large, organized, international criminal syndicates make massive investments in methods to trick us into believing that we should click on links in innocent seeming email messages. This is called social engineering—using deception to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential and/or personal information. Fortunately, some basic steps can help us avoid social engineering traps.

Following these three basic rules for reading email messages will dramatically reduce your risk of unknowingly falling victim to a social engineering trap.

Slow down – Take the time to determine if the message makes sense. At first glance, a message saying you need to reset your Facebook password (for example) may seem very reasonable. But pause to think before clicking, opening attachments, or entering confidential information. Does the request make sense? Has something changed that requires an action? If it doesn’t make sense, report the message or ignore it.

Pay attention to the details – Look at the message specifics. Does the sender’s email address match the purpose of the message? Be careful–sometimes the differences are subtle, like facebook.com vs. ffacebook.com. Do the links point to a site that makes sense within the context of the message? Do you know and trust the sender?

When in doubt, check it out – If you have any reason to question the message, take the time to verify before responding. Reach out directly to the sender or visit the site rather than clicking the link in the message. Not sure? You can always report the message by emailing informationsecurity@drake.edu and ITS will review it for you. The bottom line is, if you have any doubts, don’t respond directly or open links or attachments.

If we all follow these practices, we can protect ourselves and others and prevent social engineering attacks from succeeding.

ITS will be continuing phishing education this month using emails that mimic real attacks. A short training lesson will be assigned to any faculty and staff who repeatedly click links or open attachments in phishing emails, simulated or not.

— Information Technology Services