IT News - 2015 & 2016 | NWU | North-West University http://www.nwu.ac.za/it-news-2015-2016
IT NEWS 2015
IT changes gears to support researchers at NWU
01/12/2015 - 11:05 IT @ NWU has a new vision for the relationship between IT and the University’s researchers. IT wants to help accelerate research discovery through provisioning of relevant technology, infrastructure, and support. Boeta Pretorius, Chief IT Director says: “Research has been mentioned in the IT strategy for many years, but in 2015 we’re actually going to do something about the way we support our researcher”. So moving from words to action, in the past three months IT has done the following:
added an eResearch specialist to their staff complement, joined conversations about an African Research Cloud together with other prominent research institutes in South Africa and abroad, and obtained approval for NWU to feature as founding partner of a South African based institute that will be aimed at research in data intensive sciences. These steps are the rst towards establishing an eResearch Initiative at the North-West University from an IT perspective. Other eResearch partners are also gearing up to embrace technology in research support.
According to Mrs Elsa Esterhuizen, director of Potchefstroom Campus Library Services, eResearch highlights the importance of dovetailing between the various role-players. The Library Services do not only provide access to accredited information sources, but also training and support in the use of research tools. The Research Commons allows exclusive access to postgraduates and researchers. This collaborative hub offers relevant infrastructure enhancing the research process. Another strategic initiative from the Library is the establishment of Boloka, the NWU Institutional Repository where the NWU research outputs are showcased, more visible and online accessible.
Although the focus of eResearch is often on the cyberinfrastructure, Australia’s Monash University eResearch Centre classi es eResearch capabilities under the 6 C’s: Collect, Compute, Comprehend, Collaborate, Communicate, and Customise.
Collection refers to the capturing, storage, and management of research data. Data can be generated by research equipment such as microscopes, next generation sequencers, or high performance computers, or through online surveys, and of course even in paper format. Data has to be managed throughout the lifecycle of a research project and thereafter. Good research data management practices are essential for reproducible research and enables researchers to share and reuse data. Role players from an institutional point of view include IT (physical storage and data transfer) and Library Services (development of research data management plans), as well as Research Support (focussing on compliance with funders’ data management requirements).
Although the Compute capability is typically well-developed within research areas such as physics,
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engineering, and chemistry, data volumes have increased exponentially in various other disciplines including genomics, medicine, and humanities amongst others. Increased data sizes combined with a need for integration of diverse data sets and other factors, have increased the computing requirements in these elds too. Access to adequate high performance computing resources (hardware and expertise) is critical for modelling, simulations, and data processing. Collaborations between traditionally compute intensive research units, IT, national and international infrastructure providers is of utmost importance to ensure development of appropriate computing resources for research purposes.
It is well understood that the human brain can interpret complex datasets better through appropriate graphical or visual displays than in textual or numerical format. Comprehension of research datasets can be facilitated through the use of visualisation facilities such as the Highly Immersive Visualisation Environment at University of the Western Cape, the Scienti c Computing group’s visualisation studio at the University of Cape Town, or the CAVE2 at Monash University. Visualisation of research datasets provides very interesting and complex challenges and is an active topic of research across the globe. Not only does it involve IT, but also subject speci c researchers, computer scientists, engineers, arts, and software developers.
Thinking about large international Throughout the lifecycle of These communication mediums collaborative research projects research projects, data is have been popularised alongside such as the (SKA) Square generated (and managed), electronic journals to reduce the Kilometre Array or Human, analysed and visualised. The time to access new information Heredity, and Health in Africa stakeholders including the funders, and create new opportunities for (H3Africa) one soon realises that fellow researchers and collaboration and knowledge new technologies and collaborators, potential students, sharing. methodologies are required to policy makers and governments support the Collaboration aspect of need to be informed of the these project. Virtual meetings, progress, process, and outcomes. collaborative document editing, Research Communication has also collaborative software changed over the last few years. development, and collaborative The use of social media and Web training initiatives are only a few 2.0 - Twitter, Face- Book, blogs, and W v Belkum, A vd Walt, F v Niekerk, aspects where eResearch comes to discussion forums are now B Pretorius, play. included. P Enslin
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The Power of Partnerships
01/12/2015 - 10:14 In July 2015 the NWU officially commenced with an eResearch drive that will ultimately help to align research support units and researchers across all disciplines to embrace the power of the digital world in the 21st century.
The NWU eResearch Initiative was launched with a two-month awareness campaign across the Mahikeng, Potchefstroom, and Vanderbijlpark Campuses. Engagements with institutional management, library services, information technology, research directors, researchers, and postdoctoral research fellows were top priority.
On 1 October the rst quarterly NWU eResearch workshop took place. The quarterly workshops form part of the eResearch strategy and provide opportunities for stakeholders to improve their knowledge and share their progress as well as challenges. During the workshops the daunting task of keeping abreast of developments in research related technology and methodology is addressed by invited talks from experts in one of the relevant areas.
Melissa Badenhorst from Worldwide Information Services (WWIS) spoke at the rst eResearch workshop and demonstrated the research tracking capabilities within InCitesTM, a research analytics tool from Thomson Reuters. The demo was insightful and lead to a lively discussion about how the tool, which the NWU already has a license for, could be used by researchers and research administrators to benchmark research activities within the university.
The next item on the agenda was an update from Library Services (Mahikeng, Potchefstroom, and Vanderbijlpark Campuses), the Research Support Office, and Information Technology about their current standing and future vision for embracing technology to enhance research.
The workshop provided a great opportunity to learn about ongoing initiatives in the various areas and also to plan collaborative actions for the next few months. The next workshop is planned for early December and will focus speci cally on Research Data Management.
To contact us, please email [email protected] or follow us on Twitter @NWU_eResearch.
(Written by Anelda van der Walt)
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Aligned Access Control Process across Campuses
11/11/2015 - 16:14 Institutional Management requested an alignment of access control across NWU campuses to permit electronic access to all open access areas
(e.g. pedestrian turnstiles, vehicular access booms, libraries) for all staff and students of the university across campuses.
In close collaboration with our colleagues from the Protection Services across campuses, this process has been nalised and went live on 12 October 2015.
What changed?
All active staff and registered students of NWU will be able to access all general open areas e.g. main gates, pedestrian turnstiles, libraries across campuses by swiping their card. No special arrangements needed any more. Each campus retains its own autonomy and exibility in respect of their speci c access control areas and security systems Business processes, documentation (forms) and information regarding access control are now standardized and aligned across the campuses. This process is now integrated with the core administrative processes and business rules of NWU. It will prevent data duplication, enables data validation, improves business process efficiency, productivity and improves data integrity. For example, the appointment and resignation of staff and the registration and/or discontinuation of students are linked to the core administrative system which enhances the efficiency of access control. The project also created a common information platform for future enhancements and access control related functionality. If you experience any access control problems, please contact your nearest Protection services.
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Office 365 ProPlus
28/10/2015 - 12:44 Starting October 2015, students of the NWU are eligible to download Office 365 ProPlus for free. Read more...
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Software Carpentry: Open Tools for Reproducible Research Workshop
19/10/2015 - 16:12 North-West University's eResearch Initiative is proud to present our rst local Software Carpentry workshop in collaboration with IT@NWU and NWU Faculty of Engineering.
Our instructors will join from North-West University, University of the Western Cape, and University of Cape Town. We would like to invite postgraduate students, postdoctoral research fellows, and researchers affiliated with the North-West University to join us at this exciting multi-disciplinary event.
Software Carpentry's mission is to help scientists and engineers get more research done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic lab skills for scienti c computing. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.
For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper "Best Practices for Scienti c Computing".
For more information on the workshop visit http://anelda.github.io/2015-11-05-NWU/
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Voting for the Top Lecturers
12/10/2015 - 07:43 Since 2012 students have the opportunity to vote for their top lecturers via a link provided in eFundi.
The voting process takes place twice a year – in the beginning of the second quarter and again in the beginning of the fourth quarter. This is because lecturers may vary per semester.
After the results and data for a year are consolidated and audited, the winners are announced at a prestigious gala event hosted by the Rapport. A winner of each faculty per campus is presented with price money sponsored by Rapport.
Between 50 and 60% of undergraduate, full time students vote each year. The voting system is accessed via the student’s NWU# and network password.
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NWUWIFI Setup
02/10/2015 - 10:17 To take advantage of the automated NWUWIFI setup compatible for Windows 7, 8/8.1 and 10, click here. The .exe le will help you setup your NWUWIFI pro le.
The process as a whole is as follows:
1. Run the NWUWIFI_Setup.exe 2. Connect to the NWUWIFI with your NWU# and Network password. 3. When connected open your browser and go through the remediation process which entails:
1. Authenticate by once again by supplying your NWU# and Network password. 2. Download and install the Bradford client as provided by the link in the browser. 3. When using Windows ensure that the Microsoft antivirus software is installed and updated (For Windows 7 Microsoft Security Essentials and for Windows 8/8.1 or Windows 10 Microsoft Defender). Remove all other antivirus software (not applicable to Windows 7). The links to install and update your antivirus software will be provided in the browser.
4. Now click on the Rescan button in the browser and wait for the 60 second countdown to complete. 5. You should now be connected to the NWUWIFI.
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IT Projects @ NWU
23/09/2015 - 11:59 Welcome to IT’s project site* (it-project.nwu.ac.za) where anyone can access the current IT project portfolio.
The projects are ranked in the categories:
Active; Completed; and Requested. Projects are further depicted in terms of the progress, start date as well as the planned end date. The project description and documentation is available when clicking on the project name.
Transparency is important to us, and we invite all IT users to take a view of our world. Should you have any queries regarding any of IT’s projects, please contact [email protected]
*The recommended web browser to access the site is Firefox
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International Bandwidth Upgrade
18/09/2015 - 11:28 For the past few weeks we have seen congestion on the NWU’s International bandwidth.
We have been in negotiations with TENET on options and prising to upgrade the NWU’s International bandwidth. Up to now the University only had 600Mbps International bandwidth, but was allowed to burst to 1Gbps.
An upgrade order was placed on TENET for 1.6Gbps International bandwidth. The upgrade will be implemented in two phases:
The rst phase is already implemented with the SEACOM limit of 1Gbps being replaces with a 1.6Gbps limit.
The second and more long term implementations will split this bandwidth equally (800Mbps, 800Mbps) across SEACOM and WACS system.
Published at http://hosting3.nwu.ac.za/?p=1561 on 2015/09/10 at 15:18
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NWU ventures deeper into space
18/09/2015 - 11:11 Watch this space and see how the North-West University (NWU) is boldly taking data science in South Africa to the next level. Through a new partnership with two other universities, the NWU will help bolster the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project and strengthen inter-university cooperation.
The main aim of the project is to make South African data science more globally competitive.
Ms Naledi Pandor, Minister of Science and Technology, officially launched the Inter-University Institute for Data-Intensive Astronomy (IDIA) on 3 September at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town.
The IDIA will bring together expertise from the NWU, University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape. The R50 million, ve-year partnership will partner researchers in various elds such as computer science, statistics and eResearch technologies. It will create data science capacity that will enhance, among others, the MeerKAT SKA precursor projects and the SKA key science.
The IDIA will address the big data challenge that the SKA poses as it will be instrumental in processing and generating data for the SKA. According to researchers, it would take two million years to play back the data generated in one day by the SKA on an IPod. Data will thus account for much of the total project’s costs, which can run into billions of Euros.
Dr Bernie Fanaroff, director of SKA South Africa, said big data is the new socio-economic industry that will dominate the next few decades. “We do not want to be in a position where we send out data and other countries’ people writes the academic articles. It has to be done here and the Nobel Prizes need to be won here.”
The IDIA will be under the leadership of its founding director, Prof Russ Taylor of the University of Cape Town. Prof Taylor currently holds a joint UCT and University of the Western Cape SKA Research Chair.
Ms Pandor said during the launch that the IDIA’s SKA-driven Data-Intensive and Research and Training Programme is expected to drive innovation in big data solutions that will have an impact beyond astronomy.
* The SKA is considered to be the biggest scienti c project in history. It entails the construction of the world’s largest radio telescope, with over one square kilometre of collecting area. It will help astronomers to answer some of the most pressing questions about the origin and evolution of the universe, and the NWU is proud to be part of this.
Published at http://news.nwu.ac.za/nwu-ventures-deeper-space
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What happened to ITB
04/09/2015 - 11:05 In the “old days” when you wanted to talk to IT, you would phone or visit ITB (Inligtingstegnologie en Bestuur). A lot has changed since then… for ITB no longer exists in name.
We have also discarded the ITC (Information Technology Central) and as from 1 May 2015 with the appointment of our new chief IT Director we are known as IT or IT @ NWU. IT thus consists of the IT support services on Mahikeng, Potchefstroom, Vanderbijlpark, and the Institutional Office.
Be rest assured that we are still the same people, but with a new “face”.
4 September 2015
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GroupWise Archives
28/08/2015 - 16:02 (This article only applies to the GroupWise client and not to Webmail or GroupWise Mobile.)
Are you frustrated with the size of your GroupWise mailbox? Create a GroupWise archive…
A GroupWise archive is an extension of your mailbox where you can transfer emails to in order to manage the size of your mailbox.
Archived emails would normally be emails that you have nished working with, but need to keep for future reference.
Where can I keep my Archive?
You can create an archive on your computer’s local C-drive or on your network drive. The table below indicates the differences.
P–drive archive C-drive archive
Access On campus: You can access your archiveThe archive is on the computer itself, so if you from any computer when logged into Novell.carry the computer with you, you will always have access to the archive. Off campus: Only accessible via VPN (With a map to your network drive).
Backup IT @ NWU makes regular backups, thus if theYou are responsible for the backups of your archive is lost it can easily be recovered. computer. If the archive is lost, IT @ NWU will not be able to recover it.
Available Space is limited to the available free spaceSpace is limited to the free space available on Space on your network drive (normally 10 GB). your computer.
How do I create an archive folder?
Once you have decided where you want to put the archive, you can simply go to that location (we are going to use the P drive as example) and create a new folder e.g. GWArchive\2015 (Separate folder under the GWArchive folder). This naming convention is not important; you can name the folder anything you wish as long as you remember what and where it is.
How do I setup an archive?
Once the archive folder is created, you can set the location of you archive in GroupWise by going to Tools > Options > double click Environment > select File Location. Type the path under Archive Directory or use
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the Browse Folder option to the right.
How do I archive email?
You can simply select the email you want to archive (or select multiple emails) and then right click on the selected mail and choose Archive. GroupWise will then automatically recreate the folders in the archive and transfer the selected email(s) to the archive (in the exact same folder name it was in your mailbox)
How do I access my archive?
Simply click on File at the top and choose Open Archive. Repeating the steps will take you back to your online mailbox.
Can I un-archive email?
Yes, you can simply open the archive, select the email(s) you want to un-archive, right click on it and select Archive again. You will see that the archive option has a tick mark next to it, if it is archived.
How does GroupWise work with the archive folder and les?
This is important to know, especially for people that have multiple archive folders. A common mistake when people switch between archive folders is that they create an archive within an archive. When you specify a path for GroupWise to create an archive (P:\GWArchive\2015 in our example) then GroupWise creates a folder with a unique name inside the folder you speci ed e.g. of08xarc. Only GroupWise can understand the contents of this folder, do not try to open it or make any modi cations to it as this can destroy your archive. When you switch between archive folders, it is important to never select this folder, thus do not select of08xarc. You must select the folder name you created (P:\GWArchive\2015 from our example). GroupWise will automatically detect the special folder it understands within the parent folder you speci ed. Very important to remember if you are switching between existing archive folders, is to always select NO if GroupWise asks you if you want to move the contents of your archive and also when creating a new archive.
Problems you might experience:
Don’t create and archive folder in Dropbox and set GroupWise to use that folder. Dropbox has a way of handling le changes and synchronization that can cause problems with the GroupWise Archive. We have had a couple of users whose archives have been damaged in Dropbox and could not be recovered. The risk of problems with an archive rises as the archive becomes too big. Do not use excessively large archives. If you archive reaches approximately 4 GB it is time to create a new one. This is if you want to backup to a DVD. When making a backup of you archive folder make sure that GroupWise as well as the Notify option are closed. If they are not closed, your backup will not work because it will not copy the necessary msg.db and user.dl les. Very Important – If you make use of more than one archive do not use the automatic archive function.
Having trouble accessing GroupWise when you are off campus?
Make sure in your GroupWise login screen next to address that the full server name is typed in: ngwnameserver.nwu.ac.za and the port must be 1677.
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Research boost at NWU
20/08/2015 - 15:22 Research support at the NWU experienced a boost in the form of a new staff member, Anelda van der Walt. A researcher in own right, with the IT knowledge and enthusiasm needed, Anelda's services has been contracted until July 2016.
The initiative - termed eResearch - will involve stakeholders from IT, library services, the research office, researchers, as well as South African and international partners. The initiative kicked off with an awareness campaign on all three campuses and aim to facilitate better access to research infrastructure, new training opportunities, improved access to information, and better support for a variety of research tools.
An overview of what eResearch entails was published in the IT Newsletter of August 2015 (page 14): http://www.nwu.ac.za/sites/www.nwu.ac.za/ les/ les/i-information-technology/Newsletter /ITNewsletterAug2015.pdf
For further enquiries, please contact [email protected]
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Differentiators and Innovations
13/08/2015 - 13:14 Today, higher education is in a unique and unprecedented position. The challenges we face, will not be met by efficiency alone. It also demands innovation.
Because of the nature of our industry, IT is uniquely positioned to contribute signi cantly in this regard. The NWU has a proven track record of strategic IT innovation by its IT staff, and for providing disproportionate value when compared to our peers. A number of these innovations are highly visible, but there is an equal number of behind-the-scenes things that are seldom noted.
We are one of the rst universities in South Africa to provide students with the freedom to use their own e-mail addresses for communication. Our statistics show that students already arrive at universities with their own e-mail, and that the majority of “other” email systems (our on-Campus student e-mail system included) are simply used as expensive forwarding systems to deliver the mail to their chosen inboxes. The NWU is still the only university in South Africa to provide all students and staff with free and uncapped internet access. As an ever increasing amount of resources to support our core mission move online, and with the cost of connectivity falling, this is providing signi cant value. Few other universities can afford to provide the amount of enterprise storage that we do, especially at the given price point. While other organisations are still grappling with what is known as “the data explosion”, we simply provide the service, be it for administrative, teaching or research needs. Apart from being extraordinarily cost-effective while performing beyond the industry norm, our physical network has an important strategic advantage: we have a single point of whole-network control. This means that we can rapidly assess, deploy, and/or prepare for bandwidth-intensive network applications, while other organisations have to come up with multi-year plans to upgrade their networks. Our SOA architecture allows us to extend, change and integrate enterprise systems at a vastly higher tempo and lower cost than most South-African enterprises. What we see as ordinary, is simply not possible using conventional architectures. As with most things that provide disproportionate value, this gain didn’t materialise without effort. It is the culmination of a strategy that we started implementing in 2004, and through disciplined execution revised our entire architecture over a period of many years to enable this. While we are not the only university any more who adopted the SOA principles, we have, by far, the most complete implementation. 14 August 2015
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Software Downloads for Staff
13/08/2015 - 10:47 IT has launched a webpage from which to download legal software available to all staff. The software webpage is available on the University’s intranet through a browser.
Staff have to enter their NWU number and network password to download and install the available software. There is no need to log into the Novell network.
IT invites staff to collaborate and contribute to this webpage. Unfortunately, IT does not have all the specialised skills and/or licences to support the diverse software requirements of all NWU employees. If you are a specialist in a speci c eld, for example Macintosh or scienti c software, and you need to distribute software; this is the ideal way of doing so.
Bear in mind that all NWU employees have access to the Intranet, thus the software must be legal. A program owner can contact Gerda Schilling to contribute to this webpage.
The link to the Software Download page can be found on IT’s home page under “Staff”.
14 August 2015
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Fake Windows 10 Upgrade Ransomware Email
07/08/2015 - 14:26 Hackers Sending Fake Windows 10 Upgrade Ransomware Email, Encrypts Every File
It has not been a week, yet hackers have begun to exploit existing Windows users’ computer by sending them a ransomware, via spoofed email, which instantly encrypts each and every le that exists on the computer.
The zipped attachment found in the email, which seems like Windows 10 sent by Microsoft, is not the operating system le but a ransomware.
Windows 10 was officially unveiled to public on July 29th as a free of charge upgrade for every Windows 7 and Windows 8 users. And till date, more than 14 million systems have been successfully upgraded to the latest release of Windows, but still millions are waiting to receive an official update noti cation from Microsoft.
There is an app released by Microsoft called Get Windows 10 which noti es the user if they got a green signal to upgrade their computer. Till then, the app shows a simple message that reads “Watch for your noti cation so that you can start your upgrade. Your noti cation to upgrade could come as soon as a few days or weeks.”
Researchers over at Cisco has warned all the impatient Windows users to not to fall for a Windows 10 upgrade scam, and the fact that users must have to wait for the upgrade to be available makes them even more vulnerable to this scam.
Hackers have seen this simple noti cation message as an opportunity to exploit users who are impatient to upgrade their existing Windows to the latest release. Exploiters are sending out spoofed email about Windows 10 upgrade along with a zipped attachment that once executed will automatically install a ransomware on the targeted computer system, eventually encrypting all the les, pictures, documents, and other important data that exists on the hard drive.
Scrutinizing the Ransomware Email The team of researchers has scrutinized the spoofed email and they noted down four key indicators in the message, which every user must need to watch out for.
To begin with, you have to watch for the from email address. The hackers have skilfully spoofed the sender’s email address to make it look like it is sent by Microsoft i.e.
Secondly, to further spoof the email and convince the receiver to believe that it is sent by Microsoft, the hackers have tried their best to make use of similar color scheme being used by Microsoft.
Thirdly, the most easily notable indicator. The researchers have found a couple of red ags linked with the
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email message. There are many characters that don’t parse correctly. This happened because the hackers were using a non-standard character set while producing the email.
Fourthly, to increase the authenticity of email, the hackers have incorporated a disclaimer message that looks exactly like the one used by Microsoft i.e. “This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.” Furthermore, to trick the targeted users into believing that the attachment is not malware, the closing message also linked to MailScanner, which is an authentic open source email ltration website.
With permission from Hack Read. Farzan Hussain. 2015. https://www.hackread.com/hackers-sending- windows-10-ransomware-email/. Date of access: 7 Augustus 2015.
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eCommunication
07/08/2015 - 14:19 The old Tandberg video conference system has successfully been replaced with the Connect@NWU service.
In 2014, as part of the eCommunication project, a total of ve meeting venues were equipped with modern video conference facilities across campuses. Since the start of 2015 another ve meeting venues have been equipped.
Currently there are two equipped venues at the Institutional Office, two on the Mahikeng campus, four on the Potchefstroom campus, and two on the Vanderbijlpark campus.
The new service is well used and since January 2015 a total of 131 hosts used 291 distinct virtual meeting rooms for a total duration of 4,009 hours. During this period, the virtual meeting room associated with Room 134 at the Institutional Office (one of the frequently used venues) has hosted 89 unique sessions, with an average session duration of 2 hours and 7 minutes, totalling more than 187 hours.
Connect@NWU is a very popular service and is utilised by hundreds of people just about every day. Visit our web page at http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/sc/connect-nwu for more information.
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Windows 10
31/07/2015 - 13:54 Microsoft released its latest version of the Windows operating system on July 29th, 2015. This edition runs on desktops, notebooks and Intel-based tablets, with the mobile version following later. IT has been testing several development releases as part of Microsoft's preview programme. We share the following things with our NWU community.
Windows 10 will be released as a free (for the rst year) update for consumer versions of Windows. However, our license agreement for University devices covers enterprise versions of Windows, which will not receive the no- cost update. But rest assured, we will be able to update in future.
Because we haven't yet had the opportunity to properly evaluate a nal production release, it is difficult to say with certainty if Windows 10 will work with the hundreds of applications used at the NWU. Just testing every feature (even skipping the obscure ones) of every application with a new release of Windows is a huge task. Once that is done, working through the list of things that need xing is even more challenging.
While stating the necessary disclaimers and caveats associated with not having fully tested a nal release, our general impression is that the basics (network connectivity and Internet access) seem to mostly work with the preview releases. More advanced applications have an estimate 50/50 chance of encountering problems, while certain administrative- and academic systems seem to mostly not work. Again, once we've had the opportunity to properly test a production version, we will have more certainty around the compatibility.
Numerous users are still adjusting to the changes in Windows 8. Windows 10 will require quite a mind shift for some people, albeit likely not as signi cant as Windows 8. There are several differences in the user interface. While the familiar task bar menu has been brought back, there are also personalised "live" tile windows as in Windows 8. Windows 10 also has the ability to run multiple desktops, with apps again running in a window, as with Windows 7 and earlier. In many ways it seems as if the interface elements from Windows 7 and 8 were merged in Windows 10.
Using Windows 10 without a Microsoft login ID for their cloud services is almost not worth it. Using the cloud-based services can be handy – such as having backup copies of documents stored in the cloud. It can also be risky for all the cloud services are currently based outside the country. This implies that in the regulatory sense, one has to think carefully about which types of information is stored in the cloud. Interesting problems are likely to arise in cases where one has no Internet access to use the cloud services - something which is a reality for us, but not necessarily for the designers of the operating system.
It might be wise to wait a while before updating to Windows 10, but for the adventurous among us it can be an exciting journey.
31 July 2015
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eFundi Move
31/07/2015 - 13:53 eFundi MOVE is an app being developed for eFundi. The MOVE part of the name is an acronym for Mobile Offline VErsion. The rst version of eFundi MOVE is currently in pilot phase.
The main function of this version of the App is to take the content that lecturers make available through the Resource tool, offline. This is available for Windows desktops as well as Android and iOS devices. Students will be able to access their learning material via MOVE, when they have no connectivity.
The next version is in its planning phase and will probably include collaboration tools such as Announcements and Messages.
31 July 2015
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Central High Performance Computing
24/07/2015 - 10:02 The central High Performance Computer (HPC) Cluster, which provides researchers with an extremely powerful processing platform, has undergone several upgrades. The 2014 upgrade brought much needed features, improved parallel processing capabilities, and enhanced support for the latest and fastest hardware.
The long-standing NWU HPC strategy provides recognition to the four different levels of computational research facilities namely:
Level 1: Personal workstation Level 2: Department Compute Cluster Level 3: Institutional HPC Level 4: Nat HPC In a partnership with the Physics department, started in 2013, additional capacity and In niband capabilities were added to the central HPC to support their research needs for the duration of 2014. We have built on this partnership with the Physics department to extend their departmental cluster and accommodate their requirements. This cluster has already given their astrophysics research a welcome boost.
Due to the speed of technology and the ever increasing demand of researchers we are continually monitoring the capacity of the Institutional HPC in order to plan for possible upgrades. The HPC capacity is currently being evaluated and may lead to another upgrade near the end of 2015.
24 July 2015
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ICAS System Implementation
24/07/2015 - 10:00 The more than 100 quali cations offered at the NWU comprises of 5,890 modules that require constant change to keep them relevant and up to date with new developments. The modules, as well as the changes must conform to several stringent quality and legal standards, set by a number of internal and external certi cation bodies. To manage the average of more than 20 change proposals per month with the traditional paper-based process, became a major challenge.
The ICAS (the Institutional Committee for Academic Standards) system allows stakeholders to collaborate on a proposed change. The potential impact of changes across the institution is shown via a dependency analysis, and rules for modules and programmes such as prerequisites are also de ned. Furthermore an automated work ow process for approval for internal and external proposals is provided.
The NWU development team played a leading part in creating the module for the Kuali Foundation in close collaboration with various academic support departments. The ICAS system is based on the Curriculum Management module of the Kuali Student Administration system.
Once again we became the rst university worldwide to implement the full Curriculum Management module.
24 July 2015
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Kuali Financial System Implementation
17/07/2015 - 10:40 In close collaboration with our colleagues from the Finance department, the NWU became the rst South- African University to successfully implement the Kuali Financial System (KFS), to replace our previous vended system from Oracle.
KFS is an open source nancial system, collaboratively developed by several international universities, and used by institutions like Cornell, Indiana University, the University of California, and more than 20 other universities. Because it is developed by universities, and for universities, it has a much better functional t on the higher education business model than commercial solutions, and will bring about considerable savings compared to a vended solution.
The implementation project started in 2013, touched more than 70 business processes and required integration with ten other administrative systems. It must be noted that the integration was completed in a much shorter time and a much lower cost as the accepted norm, because it was handled through our SOA architecture - another strategic rst for the NWU in South African higher education. IT has been following the SOA architecture principles as integration strategy since 2004, and it again provided us with substantial agility and value in the KFS project.
We are proud to announce that the implementation of the Kuali Financial System (KFS) took place on 5 January 2015 without any glitches.
17 July 2015
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What is Kuali?
17/07/2015 - 10:36 The word “kuali” is of Malaysian origin, and signi es a humble kitchen wok that plays an important role in any successful kitchen. The popular slogan is “Keep your money in your Mission”.
Kuali is an international collaborative effort between universities to develop their own administrative systems. At the turn of the century, universities in the USA were collectively spending more than $5 billion per year on commercially vended ERP systems, suitably modi ed for the higher education environment. In South Africa, we use the same systems from the same vendors, and an implementation can cost a single university anywhere between tens to hundreds of millions of rand. So, whether in the USA or in South Africa, this is a lot of money that could have been used to further the mission of higher education.
With a grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, a group of like-minded universities started writing their own administrative software: Software for higher education, by higher education. Since 2004, this collaboration has grown to include more than 80 members from the US, Europe and South Africa, and 12 systems are being developed, ranging from nancial systems to research administration systems.
Today, Kuali systems have a proven track record of costing a fraction of equivalent commercial implementations, and for having a better functional t on higher education’s unique business model.
At the NWU Kuali forms the foundation of the current Financial System (KFS), new automated Institutional Committee for Academic Standards System (ICAS) as well as the Guest Registration service.
17 July 2015
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Meet our Chief IT Director
10/07/2015 - 11:43 Mr. Boeta Pretorius, newly appointed Director of IT remembers his career journey as one where he had started off as a junior lecturer at Computer Science. He confesses, that it led him to this very challenging position where he, his team of managers and everyone in IT will strive towards excellence.
He also stated that: “I never thought I would be in this position one day. When I think about all the great people before me, Prof. Giel Hattingh, Dr. Philip Welman, Dr. Cobus van der Walt and most recently Mr. Attie Juyn, it still feels too good to be true. Fortunately they laid a solid foundation for me to work from and I am very grateful for that”.
Asking the question, which his best event was, Boeta replied: “Apart of this privilege, there are a few things that stand out in my life - the choice of a lifetime partner, a highly talented daughter and a sporting career which enabled me to see the whole world”.
Boeta is a highly motivated person, he claims that it derives from the fact that: “I stretch myself, even as a student I wanted to be rst in the class, in sport I did not stop before I was the best in my age group, ...therefore I think that I was born with drive and enthusiasm and to always look out for new challenges.
On a lighter note, Boeta replied that his music preferences are strictly exercised during leisure time: “I have to be aware of cars when I am on the bike, so I do not listen to music while training. If I have to listen to music I will most probably listen to Bob Dylan or Neil Young”. For fun Boeta admits: “there is nothing better than to be out on a dirt road on my mountain bike”.
According to Boeta, taking 2014’s accomplishments into account, the following deem to be noteworthy:
Taking eFundi content offline Implementing the NWU eCommunication strategy Piloting the Lecture Capturing Implementing the new print strategy Implementing the new student email strategy
It has been said that a Director makes a 100 decisions per hour, if that holds true for the IT industry, it still remains to be discovered... Thus when Boeta was promted to reveal the IT Departement’s emphasis for the current year, he replied as follows:
Start a process to move towards maturity in all three value disciplines of IT, namely operational excellence, customer intimacy and product leadership. Achieve a better balance (projects, people, time, budget) in terms of our domains of work, namely: Learning and teaching enablement; Research enablement; Administrative systems; Shared services; Ancillary services. There are lots of other challenges for this year, Boeta replied. “I will only mention a few: IT Governance, eResearch strategy, Restructuring (completed), IT strategy, Business continuity planning, Disaster recovery planning, broader
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transformation, peer evaluation improvement plan, national and international collaboration…”
This inspirational words are both comforting and reassuring as Boeta states: “With a highly competent IT team, I feel comfortable to tackle any challenge coming our way”.
10 July 2015
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Let the learning begin with lynda.com
10/07/2015 - 11:33 All staff now have access to lynda.com, an online subscription library that teaches the latest software tools and skills through high-quality instructional videos taught by recognized industry experts.
Staff can access more than 2,500 training videos on a broad range of subjects, including business skills, photography, design, music and video, home computing, animation, and web design and development. New courses are added every week.
Access the lynda.com library 24/7-even from your iPhone, iPad, Android device, or mobile phone-and watch entire courses or single tutorial videos as you need them. Exercise les let you follow along with the instruction as you learn, and bookmarks help you keep track of what you'd like to watch.
Start by viewing our IT Service Catalogue entry for lynda.com with information on how to gain access to this service.
10 July 2015
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Adware Do's and Don'ts
03/07/2015 - 11:19 Adware infections can compromise both the usability of your computer and network usage.
Many people might ask if adware is a virus? Does it delete my les? What do I do now that I have it?... Let’s break it down.
What is adware?
The term adware is frequently used to describe a form of malware (malicious software), which usually presents unwanted advertisements to the user of a computer. The advertisements produced by adware are sometimes in the form of pop-ups. It can be anything from a small add that looks like the normal page, just having more clickable links, to a new window promising to teach you how to become an instant millionaire.
When you realize you have been infected with any type of adware, you as the user, must try and minimalize usage with that computer and have it scanned for malware and adware as soon as possible.
How do I prevent adware infections? To prevent adware from infecting your device you could use a variety of anti-malware programs, but the best way to prevent malware is always being alert to strange or suspicious websites. Be very careful when installing programs from any website that you do not trust.
Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender might not identify all adware since it is not technically a virus, but still a type of malware. Depending on the severity of the adware, it might be removed or left alone. That doesn’t mean you can’t get rid of it yourself.
Be on the look-out and remove the following malicious programs/software:
Orbit (any programs from this developer) Remarkit Reg Cleaner (Pro) PC Optimizer (Pro) PC Speedup Registry Doctor Any misspelled/-labelled programs are a clear sign e.g. (SaaVer CoopUns, PrinTsaFerr, etc.)
The last thing to ensure, after cleaning your computer of adware infections, is to check that your program les are clean of all the left-over les associated with these adware/malware issues and to clean your browser add-on section of infections.
Contact your Campus IT Service Desk for any questions related to this article.
3 July 2015
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Lecture Capturing
02/07/2015 - 15:12 In any modern university, it has become a core capability for lecturers to record their lectures, and use the recordings in a number of ways to enhance the teaching and learning processes. To this end, we have launched a lecture capture pilot project in 2013, speci cally aimed at sustainability and affordability.
Development and experimentation with hardware con gurations over the past 18 months, has yielded a solid and cost-effective solution, far outstripping the value proposition of competing offerings. As part of our pilot project, three lecture rooms on the Vanderbijlpark Campus, 4 in Potchefstroom and 1 in Mahikeng were equipped with lecture capturing equipment.
Requests for more have already been received. Since we started the project, it has become clear that this tool has potential in more areas. In close collaboration with translation services, the system was enhanced to accept audio tracks in multiple languages. The translated audio track is now recorded with the original soundtrack, and students can view the recorded lecture with the language track of their choice. eFundi was also extended to display the relevant recorded lectures with the resources of each module in a familiar environment.
The enhancements to the system was submitted back to the Opencast Foundation, and was received with enthusiasm when presented at the Matterhorn Conference in June 2015.
Making recorded lectures available with audio tracks in multiple languages is another South-African rst for the NWU, and has great potential to enhance the learning process.
3 July 2015
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The NWU Internet
25/05/2015 - 12:57 Over the last few months the NWU has experienced more than its fair share of Internet outages, or more correctly, Internet slow-downs. This has led to many questions as to why? The major reasons are: 1) Cable theft/damage and 2) Loadshedding
Although this is a South African problem in general, the NWU does have contingency in place with redundancy built into the network. This is also the reason why the network is not completely unavailable, but rather slower than usual. With the exponential growth in Internet usage at the NWU and the more frequent occurrences of the problem, this redundancy capacity has come under severe pressure. The capacity of the backup/redundant links was not originally designed by SANREN as an equal bandwidth redundancy (because of cost constraints that SANREN experienced). The current bandwidth on the backup link is only 1/10 of the primary link. This problem has been escalated to SANREN and the good news is that SANREN has acknowledged the fact and is in the process of correcting this. The recti cation will come in the form of an additional 10Gbps link between Bloemfontein and Potchefstroom. The expected timeframe is unfortunately between 1-2 months.
23 April 2015
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IT goes green with PaperCut print management system
25/05/2015 - 12:42 PaperCut is a print management system which saves paper and therefore reduces costs by enabling users to release their own print jobs. At the NWU this is done by swiping the user’s NWU card.
A pilot implementation of this system was done on the Vanderbijlpark Campus in the student environment. All the printers available to students in the computer rooms as well as the Library were equipped with the necessary hardware. After thorough testing the system went live during March. Although students can still add money to their printing accounts at all the pay points available in the previous system, a self-help money box was also installed. Students can deposit money on their printing account by swiping their NWU cards and putting the money in the slots (similar to self-help parking cash boxes in parkades). The student’s account is immediately credited with the deposited amount. Students can release their print jobs on any student printer by swiping their NWU card. Photocopying can also be done on any of the assigned devices. The student environment on the Potchefstroom Campus is next and will be followed by that on the Mahikeng Campus. Thereafter the staff environment will be converted.
23 April 2015
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Moving forward with Efundi
24/04/2015 - 16:29 The NWU implemented eFundi (powered by Sakai) as a learning management system at the end of 2006. Since then the number of simultaneous users grew from a maximum of 3000 in 2013 to a maximum of 8000 in 2015. This makes eFundi the most used mission critical system at the university. eFundi is mostly used as a content sharing and collaborative tool.
With the new emphasis on blended learning and the electronic creation of study material, the tools that aid users with this become more important. Therefore, we see an increase in the usage of eFundi tools including Lesson builder, Web content and the recently added LTI integration tools.
To see more features of the eFundi production implementation of 2015, watch this movie clip.
Fig1: eFundi tools mostly used
Roadmap for 2015 July December
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Offline mobile and desktop application will Implementation of the latest version of Sakai, be piloted in production which promises a new responsive look and feel called Morpheus Lecture capture pilot moves to production
23 April 2015
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Email freedom of choice for students
24/04/2015 - 16:11 Providing an email service to students have been part of the IT department's operations for more than 15 years. The time has come to wave the old student Groupwise goodbye, with the service ending at the end of April 2015. Students now choose their own service provider for email and supply this address to the university. Various NWU systems use this address for communication with students. An email alias is provided that can also be used to contact students. Sending email to [student number]@student.nwu.ac.za will forward the mail to students’ preferred email address. A tool is also provided via eFundi for looking up student email addresses. The tool called Email info is part of the menu on the left on the My workspace page. The NWU is one of two South African universities who chose this route after in-depth talks with various student bodies and stakeholders. Follow the link for more info: FAQ
13 April 2015
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Don't react on Scam E-mails
23/04/2015 - 12:33 We would like to draw your attention again to the spam email messages that have been surfacing. These messages replicate a fax message and are sent from different email addresses. They usually have a .ZIP, .EXE, .SCR or .CAB le as an attachment.
PLEASE DON'T REACT ON THESE SCAM EMAILS AND DON'T OPEN THE ATTACHMENT! If you do, it may damage your les and computer. We have no means to restore your les, you are going to lose the infected les.
Should you need any assistance, please contact the Campus IT Service Desk or log an IT-Help.
23 April 2015
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