IT Newsletter Trimester 2 2015

From the Director

Welcome to the Newsletter!

Did you know that you are studying with one of the most highly IT enabled  universities  in  Australia.  UNE has  proportionately  invested  more into its IT infrastructure than any other university in recent years, creating a platform that will enable and support teaching and learning in amazing ways.

One of our biggest achievements is the new IP telephony based system call Lync, which has now been branded  ’Skype  for  Business’  by Microsoft.  UNE’s students will be the first in the Southern hemisphere to be provided with this application, which will be transformational in the way you collaborate with your peers, lecturers and administrative staff.

We’re very excited to see how you use this application to excel in your academic and research pursuits. In developing your capabilities in the use of these tools  you  will  automatically  become some of the most online enabled graduates in Australia!

Our  legacy  wireless  network  of  300 access points has been replaced and expanded to 1,200 of the latest WiFi access points supporting over 1Gbps access speeds, using technology that supports ’Skype for Business’, making voice and video calls a fantastic experience.

We have also invested heavily in our back-end  infrastructure  and  I  won’t bore you with the details other than to say every layer has been strategically developed to ensure the best possible student experience. The capability of our IT team is amazing, and it’s very exciting to get these capabilities  into your  hands  this  year enjoy!

Echo 360 Lecture Recordings for Students

In Trimester 1, UNE introduced a new lecture recording system for students called Echo360. In units where lectures are recorded and then made available to students for streaming and/or download afterwards, you will see an EchoCenter block. Click on the “Launch EchoCenter” link to view all available recordings in a playlist.

Interesting fact: In Trimester 1 we had over 5000 recordings uploaded into Echo360 which had a total of nearly 350,000 student views!

Free Microsoft Office for Students

As a student of UNE, you are eligible for installations of the full Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.) on FIVE devices while you are enrolled at UNE. To take advantage of this, download the software via your Office365 email account.

For more information on the offer and for instructions on how to download and activate the license see Microsoft Office 365 for Students.

Using Word Referencing

Word’s reference tools make it easy for you to add an automatically generated table of contents, add footnotes and/or endnotes and in-text citations.

Once you have added references, using the “Manage Sources” tool to record your references will help you to keep track of those sources, create automatic references in the style required (ie APA or Harvard) and add in-text citations (which can be especially helpful when writing up your assignments or when sharing references across multiple assignments).

The References tab also includes tools to create captions for your Table of Figures and List of Tables. All of this from one tab!

Don’t click that! — Phishing Emails

Phishing is an attempt to use a fake lure or bait to catch your username, password, credit card or banking details. If you receive an email or an instant message from a bank, PayPal, eBay, WhatsApp, UNE, a government department or someone you don’t know, asking you to login to a website or reply with personal details, be very careful.

Most of these services will never ask you to confirm your information by email. If you are unsure, the best approach is to delete the message, go directly to the official website of the organisation and login from there rather than clicking any links in suspicious messages. Spear Phishing is a more advanced, targeted attack. Spear Phishing emails might appear to be from a friend, colleague or a business you know. They might use your name or reference something you’ve recently done or a recent online purchase you’ve made.

Spear Phishing attacks are personalised and well researched. Recent spear phishing attacks at UNE have attempted to subvert normal business processes and trick the recipient into entering fraudulent transactions. Messages may appear to come from your supervisor, your lecturer or UNE administration, requesting that you perform some action. Sometimes, these requests can appear to be fairly harmless, but are in fact just one part of a much more complex and clever plan which includes multiple parts, often involving a number of victims.

How to spot a phishing message:

  • Wrong “From:” address - this might be similar to, but slightly different to what you’d expect, Make sure you look closely!  Emails also make use of hidden “Reply-To” headers, which alter the reply address. When you reply to the message, the address will be different to the from address shown in the original.
  • Spelling errors, poor grammar and poor quality logos & graphics.
  • Urgent calls to action-they might say “your account will be closed” or “urgent action required”.
  • Generic greetings-such as “Dear UNE User”, "Dear Member” or “Attention Customer”.
  • Fake web links-they may have created a very convincing clone of the login page for the service they’re mimicking. Carefully check the address of any web page where you login.

UNE App

Did you know that UNE has an official UNE app? It’s called mUNE and is available via the iTunes and Google Play stores. Links to Timetables, Maps, News, Support and much more at your fingertips.

Download the UNE app from https://my.une.edu.au/mobile

Skype for Business is coming!

Later on this year, UNE will roll out Skype for Business to all students. With the Skype for Business client installed on your computer, you will be able to make free voice and video calls to other students on the same system
as well as set up small online group meetings and use instant messaging to collaborate with each other.

Check your email account regularly for up-dates during Trimester 2.

2015 Satisfaction Survey.

For the last 5 years UNE – together with over 30 other universities – has been participating in an IT support satisfaction survey to find out how well we are doing and where we can improve our services to you. In early August this year, you’ll see an invitation to participate in this year’s survey in your inbox. We would appreciate if you could take the time (and it shouldn’t be more than 5-10 minutes) to respond and give us your feedback, good or bad.

Regional Study Centres -Network Upgrade

Good  news  for  students  in  Gunnedah and Narrabri. UNE’s study centres in those locations have been upgraded to a huge 1 gigabit/second  network  connection  from AARNet (up from the current Telstra 2 Mbit/s speed), giving students lightning fast network access in those locations. WiFi speeds have also been upgraded.