Education Series – The Spring Education series began on Tuesday, January 28, with hands-on demonstrations of the new Scantron test scoring scanner. This semester a special workshop series has been designed to train faculty in classroom material preparation with seminar content addressing applications faculty use for teaching and the classroom (Scanner, Online Class Rosters/grade submission, MS Excel 2000, MS Access 2000, MS Powerpoint, Creating Course Webpages, and RAMS – automated mailing lists for class).

Other seminars/workshops available this semester include Netscape Email, Introduction to Microsoft Powerpoint, Dialup Access to Rutgers with Windows 95/98/Me, Introduction to Creating Web Pages with Netscape Composer, and Using Webmail. An overview of the workshops offered, as well as online registration is available at:

RUCS staff is available to make group presentations to classes, faculty meetings, student organizations and departmental office staff on topics that we are knowledgeable. If interested in a group presentation, please call our office at 225-6065 x18 to discuss the proposed topic and date.

Fall 2002 News Highlights –

The distribution and communication of the RUCS-Camden Fall 2002 Newsletter was not as complete and widespread as has been common in the past. The following are some of the topics that were covered:

Public Lab/Central Services Updates

Account Web Tools Available

Accessing the Internet Responsibly

Wireless Computing in the Campus Center

You will find paper copies of the Fall newsletter in the computing labs as well as online at:

http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/RUCS-Camden/Announce/newsfall.02.html

RUNet 2000 in Camden – The Campus Center and Law building have been moved to the RUNet 2000 infrastructure. Although the Science building was scheduled for transition by the end of the calendar year, its transition had to be delayed until the spring. Expectations are to convert the remainder of the Science building to the new infrastructure in February. Robeson Library, the last building to be wired from the RUNet 2000 project, has the interior wiring completed and the electronics ready for installation. Final electrical work and transition is expected to be completed by the end of the spring semester.

Room Reservation Calendar on Web page – Do you want to reserve the Instructional Classroom (BSB 117), the Unix classroom/lab (BSB 132/133), the secondary PC lab/classroom (BSB 108) or a time on the test scanner? Camden Computing Services maintains reservations for three instructional labs and one exam scanner (Scantron) in the Business and Science Building. Please make reservations by sending email to room-reserve@camden.rutgers.edu or, by contacting the appropriate person listed on the web page. You may click on our hot link in the left margin of the RUCS-Camden main web page or go directly to: http://rucs.camden.rutgers.edu/reservations/

Insecure Services to be Removed and Replaced by Secure Services – As part of a university-wide effort, RUCS (Rutgers University Computing Services) in conjunction with departmental Information Technology staff (UCSs) are working to replace various insecure applications and protocols with secure versions. The insecure software often passes data (including passwords) in the clear (not encrypted) that could lead to someone “capturing” your access information. In the past there were no other choices and these services were the only methods of accessing servers and services. Today, various secure versions of the same software are now available. We’ve identified these services over the past year: telnet to log into unix servers; POP for accessing email through older mail programs like Pegasus and Eudora; insecure IMAP found in older versions of email programs like Netscape version 4 and Outlook version 3; and ftp for transferring files to and from servers (including Netscape Composer). Telnet will be turned off on July 1, 2003 and the other services will be removed on January 1, 2004. For more information, please visit:

http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/RUCS-Camden/Announce/secure-services-announcement.html

CDs containing the Secure SHell software (SSH) that is replacing telnet may be borrowed from either the BSB lab or the Campus Center lab.

McAfee Anti-virus Software FREE from RUCS - Rutgers University has a site license agreement with Network Associates Inc., makers of McAfee Anti-virus products. All Rutgers faculty, staff and students are encouraged to download and use the McAfee Total Virus Defense (TVD) suite of software free of charge on university-owned and privately owned computers. Protect your computer from virus attacks. Visit the Rutgers Site Licensing web page located at:

http://mssg-ftp.rutgers.edu/mcafee.html

RAMS (Rutgers Automated Mass-mailing System) is now active - RAMS has now completely replaced the older Mass Mailing system for sending email to campus constituencies for the delivery of official Rutgers departmental notices. RAMS is a dynamically produced mailing list of individuals generated when an email is to be distributed through it. The database containing the information should include all faculty and staff on the payroll the Tuesday before checks are issued and all students in the Student Record Data Base (registered for classes) on the previous Friday (and, daily during the first two weeks of each semester). Not only are lists established for departments and faculty on campus to use, but faculty may create a "class roster" in RAMS that would also be dynamically generated. In order for a faculty member to switch from a majordomo list or create a new list, you must have access to the online class roster application (permission is assigned through the departmental or dean secretaries). No longer would you need to maintain an individual majordomo listing for your class. Of course, in order for successful communications to occur amongst the entire campus, everyone must insert and maintain a valid email address in the Online Directory for Rutgers (a feature required at account creation time since June 1, 2002 in Camden). The entire RAMS process is web-based with a full suite of features available to the owners/moderators of the lists. Please, check out the documentation and procedures to follow at: http://rams.rutgers.edu

BSB 134 Active on RUNet – Room 134 in the Business & Science Building now has active data jacks and power to each seat in the classroom. This is the second room on the campus (BSB 116 is the other one) with the capability to permit students/faculty/staff to bring in laptop computers for classroom activity where each may be connected to the Rutgers network (RUNet) from their seat. If your course lends itself to the need for such connectivity, please ask the Registrar’s office to schedule your class in one of these rooms. A projector, DVD/VHS player and instructor laptop connections are planned for this room to add it to the list of semi-smart classrooms on the campus.

Firewall Installed to Protect Faculty/Staff Servers – A firewall has been installed, tested and placed into full production to improve security for the RUCS operated faculty/staff servers providing essential campus services: email (email.crab), web pages and video streaming (shad), and unix and personal web pages (crab). Additionally, internal reorganization of server connections and a new process for handling network traffic over the VLANs provides even more protection for the servers and your files from attack.

Quick Updates –

All of the central Sun servers and Sun clients in the public labs have been upgraded to the latest version of Sun’s Unix operating system, Solaris 9. Pine, C and C++ compilers, Maple, and Pico (editor) were upgraded on all Sun systems.

In order to provide a more secure connection in the Campus Center wireless implementation, a new login method was introduced using a Bluesocket wireless gateway. The combination of this gateway and VPN connectivity will fully protect passwords when being sent over the wireless network. Wireless cards are still available and may be borrowed for the semester as part of our pilot program by contacting RUCS (email to help@camden). For more information see: http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/RUCS-Camden/S50-4320_wireless.html

Future Activity -

Wireless Computing Coming to the Robeson Library –Following the successful installation and piloting of wireless networking in the Campus Center, RUCS-Camden will now be able to extend this access to the Robeson library by the summer.
Spam filtering is planned for the campus email servers.

Support Reminders –

Support oriented web page from RUCS-Camden:

http://rucs.camden.rutgers.edu

FAQs - (Frequently Asked Questions) are now Online for easy access at:

http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/HELP/content/faq/

Open Ethernet Data Jacks –Open Ethernet data jacks are located in the Robeson library (open shelving areas on the 2^nd & 3^rd floors), Campus Center lab, Armitage Hall lobby, and BSB 110 (north wall). Bring your laptop into the computer center lab in BSB to register your Ethernet card for access permissions to be granted or complete the online registration form:

http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/HELP/Documentation/Windows/laptopregistration.php

Student Reminders -

Web-based student services available and online:

http://www.acs.rutgers.edu/Apps/studweb.htm

Student oriented web page support from RUCS-Camden:

http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/RUCS-Camden/students.php

The “Student’s Guide to Computing Services at Rutgers” brochure is available in all of the public labs on the campus.

RUCS extends lab hours in the Business & Science Bldg. on Sundays for the last three weekends of each semester (opens at 9am).

Computer Problem Report Forms - Report problems quickly to the computer center staff by completing a “Computer Problem Report Form” found in the wall pockets in each lab. The collection pocket for the completed forms is located near each lab door.

Faculty/Staff Reminders -

Web-based faculty services available and online:

http://www.acs.rutgers.edu/Apps/adminweb.htm

Faculty/Staff oriented web page support from RUCS-Camden:

http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/RUCS-Camden/facstaff.php

RAMS class email list generation:

http://rams.rutgers.edu

Create a "firstname.lastname@camden"” email address – send a request to help@camden

The 2003 “Faculty/Staff Guide to Computing Resources at Rutgers” brochure has been sent to all faculty members in January. If you did not receive a copy or would like a replacement copy, send the request in email to help@camden and we’ll send you one.

February 18, 2003

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Quick Updates –