Cybersecurity Compliance Testing scheduled from 8 AM on Friday, July 7th until 12 midnight on Sunday, July 9th

Posted on July 3, 2023 by ndobie

In order to comply with Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), we are required to conduct an annual cybersecurity compliance test. This involves running through a set of software that mimics what the hackers typically try to do to enter into our networks and steal the information. This process only attempts to connect to all the servers on campus, including some of the departmental and faculty research servers. This is a time consuming process, but should not result in any service outage. However, it is possible that for short periods of time between 8 AM on Friday, July 7th and 12 midnight on Sunday, July 9th, certain services may be slow. 

Depending on the findings of this exercise and their severity, we may have to take immediate actions that may result in service outages. We will inform the community before we take such services down.

If you notice any service outage for an extended period of time, please call the helpdesk at X3333 on Friday or the Campus Police on Saturday and Sunday.

To: Everyone

From, more info: Nephellie Dobie, Assistant CIO, LTS x3671

Posted in Network, Security, Software | Comments Off on Cybersecurity Compliance Testing scheduled from 8 AM on Friday, July 7th until 12 midnight on Sunday, July 9th

Mandatory upgrade of Zoom versions 5.15.x

Posted on June 30, 2023 by dchudzik
Zoom has identified a vulnerability in Zoom Desktop Clients 5.15.0 (Windows/macOS), 5.15.1 (Windows), and certain other products (i.e., iOS, Android, Linux, Zoom Rooms, SDK) – primarily versions 5.15.0. Users on these versions will be prompted to update before they can join meetings and these versions will no longer be available for download. Please note that it is important to accept this upgrade and cancelling it will not allow you to participate in any of the meetings.
To: Everyone
From, more info: Nephellie Dobie, Assistant CIO, LTS x3671
Posted in Zoom | Comments Off on Mandatory upgrade of Zoom versions 5.15.x

Monday, June 26th 6:30AM – 7:30AM MATLAB may be temporarily unavailable due to maintenance.

Posted on June 15, 2023 by ndobie

On Monday, June 26th  from 6:30 AM to 7:30 AM we will be updating our licensing for the MATLAB application. Please save any work before that time, in the event you are not able to get in or are kicked out.

If you have any issues accessing MATLAB on a classroom/lab computer after this maintenance window, please contact the Help Desk at helpdesk@wellesley.edu or 781-283-3333 (faculty and staff) or 781-283-7777 (students) so we can assist you.

 

To: Everyone

From, more info: Nephellie Dobie, Assistant CIO, LTS x3671

 

Posted in Software | Comments Off on Monday, June 26th 6:30AM – 7:30AM MATLAB may be temporarily unavailable due to maintenance.

Zoom Phone issue has been resolved

Posted on June 14, 2023 by dchudzik

Zoom has resolved the issue with Zoom Phones.

If you are still having issues with Zoom Phone, please contact the Help Desk, at 781-283-3333 or helpdesk@wellesley.edu.

To: Everyone

From, more info: Nephellie Dobie, Assistant CIO, LTS x3671

 

Posted in Zoom | Comments Off on Zoom Phone issue has been resolved

Zoom Phone is experiencing issues

Posted on June 14, 2023 by ndobie

LTS is aware of the Zoom Phone issues. It appears at this time to be an issue that is beyond our campus. We are monitoring the situation and will provide updates as we receive them.

To: Everyone

From, more info: Nephellie Dobie, Assistant CIO, LTS x3671

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Zoom Phone is experiencing issues

LTS Support on Monday, 6/19/23 for Juneteenth and Tuesday, 7/4/23 for Independence Day

Posted on June 12, 2023 by ndobie

LTS staff will be unavailable on Monday, 6/19/23 for Juneteenth, and Tuesday, 7/4/23 for Independence Day, holidays that the College observes. 

  • Clapp Library and the Art and Music Libraries will be closed. (Faculty have swipe access from 7am to 10pm.)
  • Special Collections and Archives will be closed.
  • LTS Help Desk and Registrar’s Office will also be closed and we will not be able to respond to the emails sent to the ticketing systems until Tuesday, 6/20/23 and then again Wednesday 7/5/23.
  • In case of any major issues such as a network or service outage, please call the Campus Police to report. They will call the appropriate LTS staff to help diagnose and correct the issue. 

To: Students, Faculty and Staff

From, more info: Nephellie Dobie, Assistant CIO, LTS x3671

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on LTS Support on Monday, 6/19/23 for Juneteenth and Tuesday, 7/4/23 for Independence Day

6/16/23 4:00AM – 6:00AM Interlibrary Loan (ILL) unavailable due to system update

Posted on June 8, 2023 by ndobie

On 16 June 2023, from 04:00 AM to 06:00 AM Eastern, our interlibrary loan (ILL) system will be unavailable due to a system update.  Please contact ILL (x2101 or ill@wellesley.edu) with any questions.  

Posted in Library, Uncategorized | Comments Off on 6/16/23 4:00AM – 6:00AM Interlibrary Loan (ILL) unavailable due to system update

A Database Server will be briefly unavailable on Tuesday, June 13th at 6AM

Posted on June 7, 2023 by ndobie

A Windows server called Blizzard that runs Microsoft SQL Server database system will be unavailable at 6AM Tuesday, June 13th, for roughly 5-10 minutes.

Due to the interconnected nature of systems, systems such as SEQ/LER, Alumnae Directory, and Alumnae password reset will be unavailable during this time. It is also possible for other applications to be affected. When you connect to a web application that depends on this server during this period of time, the app will display “Unable to Access a Database Server”.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you.

To: Everyone

From, more info: Nephellie Dobie, Assistant CIO, LTS x3671

Posted in Current, Network, Web Apps | Comments Off on A Database Server will be briefly unavailable on Tuesday, June 13th at 6AM

Bard, Google’s Conversational AI system

Posted on May 30, 2023 by ndobie

To: All Faculty, Students and Staff

From: Ravi Ravishanker, CIO & Associate Provost

Subject: Bard, Google’s Conversational AI system

Bard is Google’s answer to ChatGPT that everyone now is familiar with. It is a conversational artificial intelligence system just like ChatGPT, but there are significant differences in the data that each of these systems use to learn and provide answers. Here are two resources that talk about the differences between the two approaches – “Bard vs. ChatGPT: What’s the difference?” and “ChatGPT vs Google Bard”

Google recently made Bard available to all of us who are Google for Education (also known as Google Workspace) customers. We have configured it to be available to our faculty, students and staff using your Wellesley account, but you need to explicitly opt in to use it (bard.google.com).

Bard is not a part of Google’s core suite of services. Google’s core suite of services have certain privacy protections for data that are different from those Google applications that are outside of the core suite. So, though you can use Wellesley’s email address to sign up, you must agree to terms and conditions that are different from those for core suite. Therefore please read the terms and conditions carefully before signing up for it and if they are not acceptable, you can decide not to sign up to use it. Bard is free to use for now.

If you have already signed up for Bard using your personal email address, there are no clear advantages to also sign up using Wellesley’s email address. However, if you wish to do the same, you need to switch back and forth between the two accounts by clicking on your profile picture on top.

If you have any questions, please send an email to helpdesk@wellesley.edu.

 

Posted in Google, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Bard, Google’s Conversational AI system

Monday, 5/15 5:30am – 8am: Maintenance on Software License Servers

Posted on May 5, 2023 by ndobie

On Monday, May 15th, between 5:30 AM and 8 AM we plan to perform required maintenance on some of our servers that manage the software licenses. As a result, the software listed below provided by Wellesley College on both college and personal computers may experience interruptions and not be available during this period.

Software that may be unavailable:

  • Ableton Live
  • ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap 10 on Windows PCs; ArcGIS Online is not impacted)
  • Faces
  • JMP
  • Jitter/Max/MSP
  • MassHunter
  • Mellel
  • Stata/BE, Stata/IC and Stata/SE (not Stata/MP)

As a precaution, we strongly advise you to save any work you do on any of the above software before 5:30 AM on May 15th in order to avoid the risk of losing valuable work.

If you have any questions regarding this, please contact the Help Desk at helpdesk@wellesley.edu.

To: Everyone

From, more info: Nephellie Dobie, Assistant CIO, LTS x3671

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Monday, 5/15 5:30am – 8am: Maintenance on Software License Servers