Fall 2008 SL Virtual Welcome Session

Join the SOM eLearning Team in welcoming our online students to the Fall 2008 semester! This event will take place on the UTD SOM island in Second Life.

Meet the program directors — George Barnes (director, Global MBA Online program) and Amy Troutman (coordinator, MS Accounting Online program) will be available to answer any of your question.

Ask an advisor — Corina Cantua, our online advisor, will be available to answer any of your advising questions.

Meet the SOM eLearning Team — Darren Crone, Qin Fang, and Katrina Adams will be available to answer any questions about course design, proctored exams, and how online courses work in general.

And most important — Meet fellow students!

Please join us!

Date/Time: Friday, Sept.12, 3-4pm

Place: UTD SOM island

RSVP: http://www.new.facebook.com/event.php?eid=27076054598

Hope to see you there!

Updated Java Certificate

Good morning folks. We just received the following msg from our WebCT admins:

WebCT had a java signing certificate set to expire this month; it’s now been replaced with a new certificate set to expire in August 2010. Users will receive a pop-up asking that they confirm the new signing certificate the first time they log in to WebCT from a computer (and subsequently if they do not choose to permanently accept). This is expected, and users are encouraged to accept the certificate.

Electrical Outage – Aug 30-31

An upgrade to the electrical power infrastructure for the UTD campus will be performed on Saturday, August 30 and Sunday, August 31. The power upgrade will require the disruption of regular and emergency electrical power to most computer systems. As a result, many computer systems (including WebCT, Email, Galaxy, and SIS) will not be operational during the outage. We apologize for the disruption in service to the University’s user community. The patience and tolerance of the user community is greatly appreciated as this necessary work is accomplished.

Computer systems availability will generally be disrupted beginning at 6:00 PM on Saturday, August 30, when systems will be taken down on a phased basis. Electrical work will begin at 10:00 PM and it should conclude around 7:00 AM on Sunday morning, August 31. Power will be restored at approximately that time. All systems should be back on-line no later than 12:00 noon on Sunday, August 31.

The patience and tolerance of the University’s user community is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Streaming Video Server Has Been Restored

A new server has replaced the streaming video server that crashed earlier today. You should now be able to access all of the video and audio files. Should you encounter any issues accessing a streamed video or audio file, please contact us at som-elearning@utdallas.edu We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Streaming Server Outage

This message is to inform all online students and faculty that the server that stores our streaming video (i.e. faculty intro videos, short video clips in courses) has crashed.

Please note that this affects a very small percentage of our course materials; however, we are working as quickly as we can to get a replacement server and restore the video content.

Please contact us if you have any questions or need any further information.

Reminder: Facebook

Hi folks! It’s definitely been a slow month when it comes to blog posts. So I thought I’d take a second to remind you about our Facebook group for UTD SOM Online Students:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9106545519

This is completely your space to post photos, leave comments, sell books, ask questions re: classes and profs, anything!

Update: WebCT availability this weekend

Based on recent changes to campus power outage schedules:

Sunday, June 22nd: WebCT availability should not be affected by the limited power outage.

Sunday, June 29th: WebCT should be up and running with generator power during the campus wide power outage. However, network availability of WebCT, especially for users on campus or in Waterview Park/University Village, may be interrupted. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

WebCT – Upcoming Power Outage

Just received this note from the WebCT folks on campus:

WebCT is on generator backup and expected to remain operational during the upcoming campus power outage this Sunday, June 22, 10am-2pm. However, due to potential network connectivity issues that are outside of our control, we cannot guarantee that WebCT will be accessible for the entirety of the power outage. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Reminder: Scantrons!

If your course requires a proctored exam, and if your professor hasn’t already specified in the course syllabus, ask whether or not your proctored exam will require a Scantron. We (SOM eLearning) will not have that info until your prof sends us the exam, so the best place to find out is to go directly to the professor.

What is a Scantron, you ask? Below is a picture of the Scantron that professors have asked for most frequently. You can usually find them in at a university or community college bookstore. I’ve found them occasionally in grocery stores, but that’s hit or miss. My advice — don’t wait until the day before your exam to find one. Find them now, and maybe buy a pack of five or so (they’re not expensive at all) so that you’ll have them on hand for future proctored exams.

Virtual Welcome Session a success!

Thanks to everyone who joined us at the UTD SOM island in Second Life! Today’s Virtual Welcome Session was a success! Below are a few pictures from the event. To see the full set of pictures, click here.