May 2003
Dear Reader,
IT plans to redesign Download before the fall 2003 issue.
Your feedback will help us develop a look and structure as well
as content that will better meet campus needs and interests. Please
take a minute or two to respond.
Click here
to submit your response to the following questions:
1) What topics would you like to see in IT Download?
2) What design or organizational features would make IT
Download a more user-friendly and valuable source of information
about IT and relevant technology? Please provide URLs for examples
of other e-newsletters/publications that you enjoy.
3) Would be willing to participate in any potential focus
groups to preview designs and usability.
Thank you for your feedback!
Q&A:
Web Accessibility with Jim Powell
As webmaster, Jim
Powell oversees the production and development of the campus web
site. He is also responsible for tracking campus compliance with
the latest ADA web regulations.
Recent changes in Federal and California
state laws have accelerated the need to make campus websites accessible
to disabled users. Here's an overview of why it's important, what
needs to be done, and what you can do.
| 
|
John
Woodman and his dog, Cabbot, use the computer access lab in
UH-115, which has adaptive software for blind computer users
and also houses an extensive e-text program. |
Q. What
do you mean by "web accessibility?"
Technology is accessible if it can be used as effectively by
people with disabilities as by those without. For the web, that
means making web pages viewable and usable to all users, regardless
of their physical abilities, the kind of browser they use, or
the assistive technology they may require to view, access and
participate in internet web technology. Many people, including
some web developers, forget that the web is not a visual or graphic
medium; rather, it is a medium for the distribution of, and access
to, information, products, services and other resources.
Q. Why
is accessibility important?
One of the ironies of the Web is that it is so pervasive--everyone
with a computer and an internet connection has the potential to
access everything from shopping at online stores to paying their
income taxes. Unfortunately, not everyone uses the web in the
same way. "Where accessibility and usability of the Web are
concerned, there are distinct advantages for able-bodied people
over people with disabilities," noted author Michael G. Paciello
in his book Web
Accessibility for People with Disabilities. "Many websites
are not accessible to large segments of the disability communities--particularly
people who are blind, deaf, or hard of hearing."
Making web sites accessible makes sense on many levels. First
and most important is that it's the right thing to do: our society
expects all members to participate to the greatest extent of their
ability. Building accessible web sites enables everyone to participate
equally.
Secondly, it makes economic sense. Even in education, the web
is a marketing tool. You can't sell your product if you can't
reach your audience. The same web design standards used for providing
accessibility can also broaden your reach through other web enabled
devices like cell phones and PDA's. Building accessibility in
from the ground up is less expensive than having to retrofit existing
web sites.
Next, plainly stated: it's the law, and Cal State Fullerton is
subject to several. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
provides for equal access to programs, services, and activities.
Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 requires
that state and local governments give people with disabilities
an equal opportunity to benefit from all of their programs, services,
and activities.
Q. What are 508 Standards?
Section 508 of the aforementioned Title II of the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990 sets "standards for accessibility
and establishes requirements for electronic and information technology
. . . to be accessible to people with disabilities, including
employees and members of the public."
For the CSU, Section 508 was further strengthened on September
30, 2002, when Governor Gray Davis signed California Senate Bill
105 into law. This bill amends Section 11135 of the Government
Code, requiring state governmental entities to comply with the
accessibility requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation
Act as amended. Whether in developing, purchasing, maintaining
or using electronic or information technology, state universities
must ensure that the technology is accessible to everyone.
As they pertain to the web, the 508 standards incorporate some
Priority 1 checkpoints originally introduced in 1999 by the World
Wide Web Consortium's (W3c) Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines. When implemented, techniques
described by these guidelines assist disabled users to access
the web.
This link takes you to the 508
standards as they apply to the web. (All but paragraphs (l),
(m), (n), (o), and (p) were originally included in the W3C standard.)
Q. What
are the most common errors?
The most common omission pertains to paragraph (a) from the 508
standards, the use of the ALT tag. All images must have a text
equivalent. Placeholders and decorative items should have an empty
ALT where ALT="" in the page's code. (Empty, because
a blind user's screenreader reads the ALT tags, and no one wants
to hear "spacer" repeated multiple times.) Photographs
or other images need an adequate description. Images such as charts
or graphs that convey more complicated information may need a
"longdesc" tag to help convey the information accurately.
Other common errors include not tagging data tables properly
(g) and (h), tagging form fields (n) and titling frames (i). As
a side note, we're trying to discourage the use of frames.
Q. Why
is this problematic on campus and what is the campus doing to fix
it?
Many websites were developed early on, without accessibility
features built in. Most sites, however, can be easily retrofitted
to meet standards. The office of Web & Portal Services automatically
scans most department sites each month and reports the findings
to the divisional webmasters with a request to repair the sites.
Automatic scanners, however, pick up only some of the 508 issues.
Many errors can be detected only by visual inspection.
Q. What
kind of resources are available--either for developers, or those
interested in learning more about accessibility?
If you have questions about the usability
of your site, check with Web and Portal Services. We work closely
with Jeff Senge of Disabled Student Services to get a user's perspective
of websites. Jeff has access to all the latest assistive technology.
ETD's Timothy Benbow includes a section on
508 in his Dreamweaver and
Frontpage classes. The Faculty
Development Center also provides assistance to faculty to
ensure that their web pages are accessible. Contact FDC's Julian
Laverde for more information.
There are several links located on Web and Portal Services Accessibility
page. Perhaps the best site is WebAim,
which features tutorials, how-to's and links to other sites. Another
important site is the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
as well as the Federal Government's Access
Board 508 site. Information on Web Accessibility from the
User's Perspective is also available. Fresno State's video titled
"Know Your Users: Web Accessibility from the User's Prospective"
is now available online to all on-campus CSUF faculty and staff
in both Streaming
Real Media and Streaming
Windows Media formats. Streaming is courtesty of our colleagues
in the Faculty Development Center.
There are several tools available to web developers. One of the
best is Lift from UsableNet.
Lift integrates with Dreamweaver and Frontpage with additional
tools and wizards to build in accessibility as a web page is being
developed. Purchase also includes access to a powerful online
checking service. Lift retails for about $299. A less expensive
option is to check your pages with Watchfire's
Bobby. You can check one page at a time at the site, but a
better solution would be to buy a copy of the program (under $100).
Q. What
does the campus need to know?
Everyone who works at CSUF needs to be aware of the tradition
of the university's commitment to accessibility; a commitment
that has endured for more than 35 years, and a tradition that
has exceeded requirements to barrier-free design. Web accessibility
is simply an extension of that tradition. When departments conceive
or update websites, accessibility needs to be part of the site's
specifications.
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Did you know?...
Did you know
that IT has created an extensive PICTORIAL glossary at
http://www.fullerton.edu/it/HelpDesk/glossary.htm
This technical glossary displays labeled photographs of CSUF-specific
hardware, and provides user-friendly definitions of some commonly
used tech terms. |
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Campus
Strategies Minimize Illegal Filesharing
by Dick Bednar
Anyone paying attention to recent news stories
understands that students who allow others to get (download) copyrighted
materials from their computers are "at risk". The billions
of dollars at stake in the music and video industries provide powerful
incentives for the owners of copyrights to curtail unauthorized
sharing. The same Internet which makes Peer-to-Peer file sharing
so convenient also makes tracking down those who shared files pretty
easy. Potential consequences for this kind of file-sharing are pretty
dramatic. The university has taken a number of steps to reduce the
chances that anti-piracy zealots will bring suits against students,
faculty, staff, or the university itself for distributing copyrighted
materials illegally. First, network connections in Housing are behind
a firewall which conceals their network address - technically called
Network Address Translation (NAT). This keeps hackers from compromising
student computers and installing file sharing software without their
knowledge. Second, the university uses a "Packeteer" system
which prevents popular Peer-to-Peer sharing protocols from sending
material OFF campus. Students can download files FROM the Internet,
but people off campus cannot take files. It's the people providing
music and videos who are being sued.
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Anti-SPAM
Measures at CSUF
by Dick Bednar
Email users at CSU, Fullerton will probably agree with reports
that unwanted and inappropriate messages are a major annoyance.
Although estimates that 80% of all email is SPAM seem unrealistic,
nearly everyone shares a perception that they get “too much”
in their InBox that they don’t want. After considering a number
of options, IT has implemented some primitive anti-SPAM measures
and is considering more.
In a typical week, IT’s Internet email servers process about
400,000 messages. Eight weeks ago, the servers were configured to
reject connections from Internet hosts which were found on any of
three "Realtime Blackhole Lists" (RBL’s) that track
sources of SPAM and email hosts that allow unlimited relaying of
messages. Each week, an average of 160,000 connections are refused
on this basis (about 40%). When real people attempt to send messages
and get a rejections, they tend to be fairly assertive in letting
us know. (Several verbs come to mind; perhaps “complain”
is the most tactful.) In the eight weeks that we have rejected a
total of 1,300,000 connections, we have received fewer than 10 complaints.
Strangely enough, since we’ve been rejecting connections,
the actual number of attempts has begun to drop. Perhaps there’s
some sort of feedback that causes bulk email programs to take us
off their list. Using RBL’s to reject email connections is
only the first of several steps.
More to Come
SPAM is sort of like pornography. It’s really hard to come
up with a reliable definition, but everybody “knows it when
they see it.” Training email gateways to recognize and reject
unwanted or inappropriate messages is pretty tricky. The goal is
to reject as much trash as possible without blocking legitimate
messages, and no one knows precisely how to strike a balance. Blocking
one or two messages incorrectly out of 100,000 doesn’t seem
like much, except to the people who wanted those two messages.
Some very bright people have been working on the problem of unwanted
email and have come up with an assortment of techniques which appear
to do a good job of identifying messages which are likely to be
unwanted. (We’re copying their techniques – why reinvent
a good thing!) A group of volunteers is currently passing all their
messages through a filter that look for typical SPAM signs in the
email envelope. So far, this filter looks promising and may be extended
to all the email entering the campus.
The next step is to look at the content inside messages to find
characteristics that are typical of bulk mail. Taken one-at-a-time
they aren’t conclusive, but when enough are found in the same
message, it’s pretty clearly SPAM. For example, someone may
write a message about “my dad is now taking Viagra”, but
they’re not likely to also include a phrase about “to
unsubscribe…” and be addressed to “Dear friend”.
When it not only walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, but it’s
identical to a duck in a dozen other ways, there’s a great
chance it’s a duck.
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Credentials Office Document
Imaging System:
A Case Study
Introduction:
The Credential Preparation Center of CSU Fullerton provides quality
advisement and certification services to all CSUF trained professional
educators. Credential applications are evaluated, recommended and
forwarded to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing
for issuance of credential documents. The Center recommends approximately
l700 credential applications per year.
Approximately 8,000
documents are archived in local storage- dating from the
1960s - within the Credentials office, requiring one 12 x 12 room
and off-site for-fee storage. The archives include a wide range
of document types - from 3x5 cards to poorly copied certificates
to multi-colored / multi-paged documents. All of these documents
are filed so that they can be retrieved any time a request is made
by a student, the State of California, or credentialed teacher.
Copies are made and then forwarded.
Prior to reengineering and improvement, the process was entirely
manual.
The Challenge:
With each passing year, the time and manpower required to store,
find, and retrieve archived documents was increasing exponentially.
Additionally, the cost to maintain off-site storage was increasing.
Joan Monteverde, director for the Credentials Office, requested
an analysis of their current system. According to Monteverde, they
faced several challenges. The Credentials Office was out of storage
space for documents resulting in the need for costly off-site storage.
Additionally, the workload had grown significantly as the requests
for documents and information increased (with no additional manpower
to respond to requests).
A complete "reengineering" of the business process behind
the capture and archiving of Credentials data was indicated.
The Solution:
Enterprise Computing designed a FileNET imaging and retrieval solution
that eliminated all need for hardcopy storage of documents. FileNET's
Panagon Capture system was used to recognize the various original
documents and automatically adjust for size and color - regardless
of legibility of the original. (In many cases, the processing by
the Panagon capture software resulted in an image that was far more
clear and intelligible than the hardcopy document). Each document
is indexed so that it is easily and quickly retrieved and printed.
| |
Joan Monteverde
and Pat Judson of the Credentials Office work with their new
FileNET/ Kodak Imaging System. |
An important part of the reengineered design was the requirement
that any index data entered be validated against the university's
databases. As each document's fields were indexed, the fields were
checked against similar data and the entry was either "passed"
if an exact match was found, or "failed" if no match was
found. This resulted in a "clean" database for Credentials
information, and one which would be in complete synchronization
with campus data.
Using students in a very limited and part-time basis, the archives
were completely eliminated over a period of five months (some 23,000
documents). Currently, as hardcopy is received, it is manually evaluated
for action, then captured into FileNET's image repository. No hardcopy
storage is required.
As Monteverde said of the project, "The time to respond to
requests has been greatly improved. We've scanned 23,000 documents,
largely using existing administrative student help at little or
no additional cost. We've eliminated the requirement for both on-site
and off-site storage, and enhanced the accuracy of our records through
automated data validation. The single most important benefit we've
gained from this project is improved customer service."
Benefits:
Intra-departmental Benefits:
An image-facilitated Credentials system greatly reduced the
turnaround time for Credentials evaluation and verification.
Research time greatly reduced.
Physical storage requirements eliminated (within legal and policy
guidelines).
Credentials-transcript matching will be facilitated
Streamlined and reduced workloads
Customer Services Benefits:
Requests for Credentials more quickly processed.
Request for copies of credentials more quickly processed without
the requirement for a manual search through archived documents.
Inter-departmental Benefits:
Data integrity maintained
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IT
Annual Survey of Services 2003
For the fourth consecutive year, IT invited the campus community
to rate IT services via an on-line survey. Our thanks go to the
680 people who responded this year, a remarkable increase of 78%
over the 2002 survey. We especially thank the 174 people who took
time to write comments.
To reflect the expanding technologies employed on campus and better
guide us in meeting campus needs, we added five items and omitted
two, bringing the total of items to 37. Respondents were asked to
use the following scale:
1—no experience or knowledge of the service
2—lousy
3—problematic
4—average
5—good
6—great
The mean score for all services was 5.04, or “good.”
Out of 37 areas of evaluation, twenty-one service areas had an increase
in mean scores; four items had slight decreases yet those areas
already had relatively high mean scores. The mean scores for seven
items did not change and there were 5 new items. Mean scores ranged
from a high of 5.3 for Desktop Field Support to a low of 4.7 for
Campus Bulletin Board. 93% of items had means scores above 4.8 (where
6 is great--the maximum, five is good, and four is average).
The number of responses per item ranged from 77 (Blackberry users)
to 639 (campus email). Three surprisingly low response rates indicate
some areas for additional promotional efforts: spoken directory
(270), Help Desk web site (256), IT web site (373). Two services
received combinations of “lousy” and “problematic”
that totaled 12% of the responses to the two items: CampusBulletin
Board and Campus Telephone Directory. IT already has begun to explore
potential improvements to those services, both of which received
numerous comments and/or suggestions. Other popular items for comments
this year included: Help Desk, Macintosh issues, email, portals
and software.
174 people took time to respond to the one open-ended question:
Tell us how we can improve these or any other services. Those comments
ranged very specific suggestions, some general observations, and
a few complaints, to compliments. Twenty-seven folks made generalized
positive comments (“I think your service is excellent”,
“I love you ladies and gentlemen”, “Services and
training are great”, “Thank you for your quick response”).
| Click on the image to see the survey
results. |
|
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Project Updates
TitanCard
System Upgrade
At the end of March, TitanCard underwent a major system upgrade
from CS Gold 3.3.3 to CS Gold 4.03.
The major highlights of the upgrade included:
a conversion from Oracle 7 to Oracle 9i
the removal of the UNIX-based Nutcracker
upgrade of servers from Windows NT to Windows 2000
This upgrade allowed TitanCard to provide a more stable system
environment, and to take advantage of additional features offered
through Oracle 9i and Windows 2000, making CSUF one of the first
campuses to utilize such a robust and hi-tech campus carding system.
New Food Services Interface
Last summer, the Foundation decided to upgrade all cash registers
in campus eateries. Over the past year, all registers have slowly
been replaced with InfoGenesis, a new touch-screen system (excluding
TSU food court registers which will be replaced soon).
InfoGenesis will allow cardholders to continue making purchases
using their TitanCard as they have in the past. In order to make
the conversion to InfoGenesis blind to the user, TitanCard and the
Foundation have been working together to test the system and ensure
that transactions are processed properly.
The benefits of the new InfoGenesis interface include:
additional space at the register
a direct interface with CS Gold, requiring less maintenance by
TitanCard staff
the use of InfoGenesis software instead of an external hardware
As of press time, this interface is still in test mode and is soon
expected to be ready for release.
| |
The
new InfoGenesis system on the second floor of the bookstore
uses touch-screen technology. |
Commencement Tickets
TitanCard monitors the distribution of commencement tickets by
providing a way to track eligibility for tickets. Students are required
to swipe their TitanCard at one of several distribution sites on
campus (and El Toro) in order to verify their eligibility. Once
a student has swiped their card, they are no longer eligible to
receive tickets. Approximately half of all graduating students picked
up their tickets during the first week of ticket distribution.
| |
TitanCard's Gladys Maldoon hands
commencement tickets to eager students. |
>>>>>back to top
Wireless
Network Coverage
There is a greater demand from the campus community for wireless
access to the Internet. In response, IT has developed and is expanding
the campus wireless network. New areas of wireless coverage include
a larger area of the Quad (between the EC and Humanities buildings)
and three conference rooms on campus. One of the goals of this expansion
was to enable wireless voting for the upcoming Associated Students
elections.
There are currently 56 wireless access points on campus, 36 of
which are funded by IT through the President's University-wide Wireless
Initiative. Areas of existing coverage include the Library North
and South, the TSU, the Bookstore and the Quad. A map of coverage
areas and instructions for using the wireless network are located
at http://www.fullerton.edu/wireless.
Access points will be added to three classrooms, two in MH and one
in CBE, by July 2003.
Students, faculty and staff may use the wireless network via any
laptop that is equipped with a built-in or external wireless network
card (our campus network is compatible with most popular brands).
The wireless network uses the latest wireless technology 802.11g
(802.11b is also acceptable). Users are required to login using
their username and passwords.
| |
Student Alex Mourra takes advantage
of the wireless access points in the Quad. |
IT's Network Computing and Security group hopes to add additional
access points to expand wireless coverage even further. Any interested
colleges may contact Dan Guzman at 278-7203 or Saeid Mirdamadi at
278-3427. Please note that for security reasons, all access points
must be registered with IT.
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Portal Upgrades
New features were recently added to the campus portals. The latest
enhancements will enable students and faculty to take better advantage
of the personalized features available through portal technology.
The Alumni Portal will be added to the growing list of campus portals
in the summer of 2003.
Student Portal
Departments and colleges can now post personal messages to students
or groups of students in the News and Information section of the
portal.
Students enrolling in classes using Blackboard now have accounts
automatically created for them via the portal.
Faculty Portal
A redesign of the My Classes tab allows faculty to easily send
a message or post a syllabus to the class schedule.
Alumni Portal
Now in the design phase, the Alumni Portal is scheduled to launch
in the summer of 2003.
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TITAN Online
Update A major upgrade to the IBM mainframe improved the
performance of the web-based student information system, TITAN Online.
As a result of the new mainframe, TITAN Online saw improvements
in the following areas:
The maximum number of simultaneous users increased by 50%.
The timeout value was reduced from 10 to 4 minutes (when not at
max. users).
The timeout value was reduced from 5 to 3 minutes (when at max.
users).
The response time for users diminished drastically.
New features were also added to TITAN Online beginning in December
2002:
New Unofficial Transcript display
New Tax Information display (1098T)
New Change My PIN option (allows students to change their TITAN
Online PIN)
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IT Service
Recognition Award Winners
The Service Recognition Award was created to show
staff members outside of IT our appreciation for their contributions
and outstanding technical input and/or support to IT's computing
services.
| |
Recent Service Recognition Award
Winners Sally Adams and Cyndie Mayo (Employee
Training and Development) pose with Lori Arthur. |
Recent Service Recognition Award Winners:
- Rose Calderon (Anthropology) for catching a discrepancy
in the Telident report allowing IT to fix the problem before
data was fed to BFA.
|
- Michael Hofeldt (Public Affairs) for formatting
(4th version) of the hard-copy campus directory providing
a new, slicker, standardized, professional look.
|
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New
Employees
| |
| Rubin Pham
Enterprise Computing |
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Publication
Credits
Editor: Sarah Dvorak
Contributors: Dick Bednar, Andrea Brown, Susan Lasswell,
Jim Powell, Ladd Roberts
Photos: Larry Wong
Photo Coordination: Laura K. Labuda
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