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Category: Communications

June 22-24: Student organization management and student engagement software vendor demo sessions

Posted on by Information Technology

An initiative is underway to select a student organization management and student engagement software to improve the management of student organizations. The new system will be used to foster collaboration and enhance student success.

June 22-24 Student Management Software Demonstrations

Interviews were conducted in Spring 2021 to gather feedback on the use of the current OrgCentral system and finalize the criteria when selecting a new solution. After careful consideration, the review team has identified three vendors who meet the needs of K-State. Vendor demonstrations are scheduled for June 22-24.

For the demonstrations, the vendors will use real-life K-State scenarios to include:

  • Creating events
  • Managing student organizations
  • Tracking student engagement and communications

During the presentations, each vendor will demonstrate the functionality of a live system from a student and staff perspective.

For dates and zoom links to the vendor demos, view the software vendor demo page. You will need to sign in with your eID and password to view the information.

Personal webpage services to be retired August 31

Posted on by Information Technology

On August 31, K-State’s existing personal webpage service will be retired. K-Staters with personal webpages are being contacted by the Division of Information Technology (IT) regarding the retirement of this service. If you have a personal website the URL would be http://www-personal.k-state.edu/~eid.

Example url: http://www-personal.k-state.edu/~willie

IT recommends faculty and staff publish relevant content, including bios, curriculum vitae, and research information on their academic or administrative unit’s website within the Content Management System (CMS). Every department/unit on campus using the CMS has a workflow/approval process, based on unit-level decisions, to allow those in their unit to access and post content. Please contact your web manager for the best option on moving K-State-related content to the CMS. Training is required before being granted access to the CMS. For information on training, see the CMS training website. Continue reading “Personal webpage services to be retired August 31” →

K-State completes successful migration of websites to the cloud

Posted on by Information Technology

Since the fire on the roof of Hale Library in May 2018, the Division of Information Technology (IT) has undertaken the goal of modernizing our data center with a cloud-first strategy. One of the largest projects was moving more than 800 K-State websites to the cloud.

Staff from the Division of Communications and Marketing and IT have spent countless hours planning, preparing, testing, and retesting. While some tweaking continues, the move is a great success. The benefits of moving to the cloud include disaster recovery/business continuity, scaling, resiliency, and reduced downtime. Continue reading “K-State completes successful migration of websites to the cloud” →

KSIS Training sessions for Spring 2021 available

Posted on by Fred Darkow

KSIS training dates and times are now available for spring 2021. Instructor-led training is available for faculty, academic advisors, and staff at no charge. However, registration through HRIS is required. See Using HRIS to register for classes.

Training for staff and faculty include the following topics:

  • Advising in KSIS
  • Class Scheduler
  • Deans Office Staff
  • Grading in KSIS
  • Master Extract Reporting
  • Processing Minors in KSIS
  • Student Records for Academic Department Staff
  • Student Records for Administrative Department Office Staff

For more information about each topic and the dates and times for training, visit the KSIS Training web page. If you have any questions or need more information, please contact Fred Darkow, KSIS Training Coordinator, at fdarkow@ksu.edu.

IT Update: Feb. 2021

Posted on by Information Technology

The Division of Information Technology staff wasn’t worried about seeing their shadows. Instead, the staff has been busy with new projects, old projects, maintaining systems, and providing support. A few statistics for the first two weeks of the spring semester: 142,972 views of 5,649 Mediasite presentations. For Zoom during the same time period, K-State held over 26,000 meetings with 255,392 participants.

The Data Analytics Project to create an enterprise data store or data warehouse launched in late January. Listening sessions are being scheduled now.

K-State IT policies in Chapter 3400 of the K-State Policy and Procedure manual are being reviewed and updated. View the IT Policy Review Process for more information.

Continue reading “IT Update: Feb. 2021” →

Preparing to receive your SPARK laptop

Posted on by Information Technology

The Division of Information Technology (IT) is in the process of distributing the laptops that were made available due to SPARK (Strengthening People and Revitalizing Kansas) funds. In preparation for the distribution, employees who receive technical support from IT Client Services are asked to back up their files on OneDrive.

Basic information about OneDrive, including an overview and short video, is available from What is OneDrive on the Microsoft support site.

Sync files with OneDrive is another important tutorial to review before receiving your laptop.

Backing up your data to OneDrive will make the equipment switch over easier due to the number of faculty and staff working from home. The new laptop can be set up, and OneDrive will automatically sync your data to your new device.

These tutorials are also available on the Office 365 website under OneDrive.

IT Update: Jan. 2021

Posted on by Information Technology

The Division of Information Technology staff is back from the holiday break and diligently preparing for the spring semester.

Our largest project is the opening of Hale Library on Jan. 25 after a 32-month absence. Staff are working on cabling and switching throughout Hale. Public computers and printers are being installed. Furniture installers are building cubicles, and IT staff will begin returning to offices in Hale following COVID-19 guidelines.

Core infrastructure upgrades on the Polytechnic campus will be completed by Jan. 16. This upgrade provides the necessary platform for creating a 10GB campus backbone in future upgrade phases.
Continue reading “IT Update: Jan. 2021” →

IT Update: December 2020

Posted on by Information Technology

December brings the end of the fall semester, but doesn’t stop IT! Staff are busy with maintaining services and planning for the new year.

ImageNow was successfully upgraded Dec. 4-7 to Perceptive Content Foundation version EP2. ImageNow users now have access to an upgraded desktop client and a new web client.

The Financial Information System (FIS) will be unavailable from 6 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 19, through 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 20. Once the monthly maintenance is complete, FIS will available for your use.

HRIS, KSIS, and DARS will be unavailable from midnight – 4 a.m. Jan. 10. Maintenance will be performed on the Oracle PeopleSoft systems.

A change freeze on servers and services went into effect Nov.30 at 12:01 a.m. and lasts through Dec. 15 at 11:59 p.m. Continue reading “IT Update: December 2020” →

Rocket.Chat will be retired Aug. 31

Posted on by Christine Doucette

K-State will retire Rocket.Chat, a web chat service on Aug. 31. Rocket.Chat used by IT staff will be replaced with MicrosoftTeams. Since MicrosoftTeams has a chat feature that has been widely adopted across campus, it was time to standardize on one chat platform, reduce support overhead from multiple chat services, and save money.

Continue reading “Rocket.Chat will be retired Aug. 31” →

July 17: Tapping Social Media with NCapture and NVivo

Posted on by Shalin Hai-Jew

“Tapping Social Media Data with NCapture and NVivo” will be offered 1:30-3:30 p.m. Friday, July 17, on Zoom. This presentation provides an overview of the NCapture browser add-on (to Google Chrome and Microsoft IE) as a tool for extracting information from social media platforms and will explore how the extracted data is analyzed using NVivo 12 Plus, a qualitative and mixed methods data analysis tool. (The NVivo for Mac now enables this functionality as well.)

Continue reading “July 17: Tapping Social Media with NCapture and NVivo” →