SCC continues to gear up for the implementation of the new Student Information System (SIS) on October 9, 2007. Training is underway and several areas have been scheduled. There are some one hour training sessions scheduled for faculty where you will learn how to print rosters, input grades, and access class enrollment. These sessions will be held in BU141N on Friday, September 14 from 12:30-1:30PM, 2:00-3:00PM, and 3:30-4:30PM, as well as Friday, September 21 from 12:30-1:30PM, 2:00-3:00PM, and 3:30-4:30PM. If there are any faculty members that need to sign-up for one of these training sessions, or if you have any further questions about SIS training, please email bj.bentz@sccmail.maricopa.edu with your preferred date and time.

As you may know, we are rolling out Microsoft Office 2007 to the campus during fall semester. This will be a gradual transitioning process. The CIS department will switch over in a few weeks, then academic department support staff in early September. Everyone else on campus will switch over in October (after launching of NSS) and November. If you`d like to get a glimpse of the changes to Microsoft Office, you can come to one of our "What`s New in Office 2007" hour-long demonstration sessions during Accountability Week. These sessions will be held Thursday, August 16 from 2:00 - 3:00 pm and Friday, August 17 from 9:00 - 10:00 am in the CTLT (BU132). You can attend in person or from any computer via Elluminate, a web conferencing tool. You can always click here for the training schedule and new handouts on technologies used here at SCC.

The ITS Department will be implementing a new Microsoft Exchange 2007 corporate email system. Our plans are to have the new email system up and running by mid to late October. The ITS Department, along with some volunteer early adopters, will migrate to the new system by mid November. The rest of the campus will migrate to the new email system at the beginning of the Spring semester. Your current email address will continue to function when we move to the new system. The new email system will give us the following improvements:

• Fully functional web access!
• Pre-populated address book
• Increased collaboration opportunities
• Full integration with Microsoft SharePoint Services
• Supports full feature set of Microsoft Outlook
• Increased mailbox size limits
• Full control of our platform

The RIO Help Desk System is available for ITS-related requests, such as computer, audio/visual, and the creation of various accounts such as e-mail and network. Campus requests are also available for Maintenance & Operations, the Copy Center, and College Safety. Utilization of the system will allow for central tracking of all requests along with providing email confirmation and notification of changes and/or completion of requests. The system allows end-users to review the status of a request along with the opportunity to provide feedback when the request has been completed. The SCC RIO Help Desk System is available online by clicking here. Navigation from the SCC website is as follows: First click here and select "Employee Resources" (located in the upper right-hand section). Then, select "IT HelpDesk Online Requests" or "Other HelpDesk Online Requests" (located under "HelpDesk Resources").

As announced in our previous ITS newsletter, version 7.1 of Blackboard was installed in late May, with several changes to the program, especially in the area of the Discussion Board. In addition, we`re proud to announce that new building blocks have been added to Blackboard (one of which was temporarily available last spring). Through the Wimba "plug-in," you can add various kinds of voice-based content to your courses. Through Learning Objects, you can add wikis and blogs. You can also send text messages to cell phones through the clearTXT building block. To help you learn about the changes in 7.1, plus a glimpse at the new building blocks, we`ll be holding a "What`s New in Blackboard" overview session during Accountability Week. This session will occur on Thursday, August 16 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm in the CTLT (BU132). You can attend in person or from any computer via Elluminate, a web conferencing tool. In addition, we will be offering our workshop on "Using the Blackboard Discussion Board" on Wednesday, August 29 from 1:00-2:00 pm in BU141N. You can sign up for the workshop by clicking here. To get a quick overview of the changes in Blackboard now, click here.

The final steps of our edge switch replacement are in the works. The new network equipment is being programmed and deployed during the final weeks of the summer. Over the summer we have been able to move to a new Wide Area Network connection to our District office. The new connection will provide for increased bandwidth provisioning in the future.

Caller ID is on the way!! We have been able to complete a change of service contract with our phone system carrier. We will soon have per line caller ID for calls in and out of our campus.

The Media Center is pleased to announce that our Renewal Plan will be bringing 54 new Data Projectors onto campus this fiscal year. The project includes an in-ceiling audio solution designed to replace the Instructor Station desktop speaker as well as a data connection for improved maintenance and security. Our renewal plan begins in LC, AP, and PA, and will have all Data Projectors on campus replaced by 2012. Each projector will then be replaced when it reaches 5 years of service. Happy Viewing!

The ITS Department is responsible for the processing of technology-related checkout requests. Equipment can be checked out by board approved employees for various on-campus or off-campus activities that promote MCCCD. Such equipment includes: laptops, digital cameras, camcorders, data projectors and other audio/visual related items. In addition, a few select software applications are available for checkout. Please contact the Media Center or visit our Equipment/Software Checkout website here for additional information. Personal use of equipment and software is prohibited and it is the employee`s financial responsibility to cover any loss or damage. See the online Governing Board Policy - "1.11 Off Premise Property Loan" here for specific equipment guidelines, including limitations, insurance, and authorization.

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It is the employee`s financial responsibility to cover any loss or damage for campus equipment/software checkouts.

Many online and hybrid course faculty (and wannabes) will be participating in Part 1 of our online course titled "Taking your Course to a Higher Level – Building Online Communities" this fall. As Dean Hermanson, Acting VP of AA stated: "One of our goals is to improve the quality of our e-Learning program. I encourage all current and prospective online course faculty to participate in this course to help facilitate achievement of this goal." The course, developed and facilitated by Pat Serrano, Sidne Tate, and Nicki Maines, will begin on September 4. Faculty clock hours or a stipend will be available to faculty participants. If you would like more information on this course, please contact Sidne Tate at sidne.tate@sccmail.maricopa.edu.

The ITS Department has been working very hard this summer in completing the initial draft of SCC`s Strategic Technology Plan. The Strategic Technology Plan will encompass every area of the college and become the master plan for implementing and improving technology at SCC. Where do you fit in? Glad you asked! ITS will be sending out an email at the end of August to every SCC employee with a link to an electronic survey. We ask that you participate in the survey as it will help us in gathering some very important information. Starting in September we will be sharing the Strategic Technology Plan draft with various groups in the college. We will be asking for input, suggestions, needs, feedback, etc. This will be a participative process.

A special Thank You to Jason Dragon and Ereka Trede for their hard work and creative minds in the design and development of our new Information Technology Services logo! You can see this logo in the upper left-hand corner of the first page in this newsletter.