Tag Archives: 201302

Simmons Connection is Now Available on Mobile

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s57_datatelportal-logonewsletterWe know that you’ve been waiting for Simmons Connection to be available on mobile devices and we’re happy to announce that we have completed an upgrade that allows for full mobile access.

You can now use Connection, including AARC, by visitingconnection.simmons.edu on any common mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android devices, etc.). We recognize that the lack of mobile access made things difficult for many of our customers, especially students, and we hope that this upgrade makes accessing grades, registration, student billing and other services easier and more efficient.

In addition to the mobile upgrade, we’re also working on a project to enhance the news and announcements section of Connection. This upgrade will allow you to add rich media to announcements, comment and interact, and share listings on Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Based on your feedback, we’re also investigating alternatives to Planga as the event management tool for Simmons. We included Planga in Simmons Connection because it is a free tool and we wanted to test the value of an event management platform for our community. After months of use, it has become clear that Planga does not have the tools that you want nor does it have the technical capacity to fully integrate into Connection. Moving forward, we will assess other products based on criteria that you provided for us over the last six months. As soon as we have more information about when and how we will replace Planga, we’ll send an update to the entire Simmons community.

The Move to Moodle Gathers Steam

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The Spring 2013 phase of migrating courses from eLearning to Moodle is now complete! The School of Management, The Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The School of Nursing and Health Sciences, and several departments in The College of Arts and Sciences are now using Moodle. All together, this Spring we migrated about 60 courses from eLearning to Moodle; 160 new Moodle courses were built from the ground up.

Getting Up to Speed on Moodle
Since July, faculty have attended over 140 hours of dedicated Moodle training. In addition, we’ve been busy hosting drop-in sessions, in which faculty can stop by without an appointment for immediate one-on-one support, and staffing Moodle informational tables around campus. We’ll continue to have tables outside the library where students and faculty can have their questions answered. Finally, improved, searchable Moodle documentation is poised to be integrated with Technology Support’s FAQ database later this month. Keep an eye out!

What’s New in Moodle
This December saw a big update to Moodle that brought with it a number of improvements. Moodle’s new drag-and-drop feature allows instructors to drag multiple files from their computer directly into their Moodle course with a flick of the wrist. Moodle Assignments have been streamlined and made more flexible. In response to faculty requests for a tool that would let students sign up for Groups, we’ve added the new “Group Choice” activity.

Hook into Educational Tools through Moodle
Moodle facilitates integration with educational tools to enhance your course. Access the Library’s Course Reserves system directly from Moodle. There’s no need for students to log in again, and instructors no longer have to establish special passwords for their courses. More faculty are also trying out Tegrity, our Moodle-integrated content capture solution, to record videos of lectures and course content. Tools like these make it easier for faculty to flip the classroom and spend more face-to-face time on interactive work and discussion.

 

Google Apps for Faculty and Staff Remains on Schedule

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google_apps_smAs of today, Technology has migrated approximately one-third of all faculty and staff to Google Apps for Education, including the School of Social Work and the School of Management. In the coming weeks, we’ll be working with GSLIS and the School of Nursing and Health Sciences to transition them to Google Apps as well.

With Spring semester moving along quickly, we want to make everyone aware that we’re hosting four drop-in training sessions every week on Tuesday and Thursday. Three of these sessions cover the basics of Gmail and Google Calendar, while the remaining session focuses on the other apps, like Drive and Sites. You can find an upcoming session by viewing the training calendar available here. You can also access additional resources on the Google Apps project site: googleapps.simmons.edu.

Putting the Power of Reporting in Your Hands with Informer

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In the past, Simmons staff members who wanted to run advanced reports or gather specific data stored in Colleague and other sources would have to contact Technology to have a programmer design and run a custom report. This expenditure of time and effort was necessary for every distinct report request that came in. As the number of requests grew, this put a strain on our resources and made it difficult to produce reports in an effective and timely manner. It had become obvious that it was necessary to empower our customers by implementing a solution that allows staff to create and run reports as needed.

Technology is happy to announce that we have installed a new reporting tool called Informer, available at myreports.simmons.edu. Informer provides an easy-to-use interface that can gather, sort, and analyze information to create reports as they are needed. While Technology will still manage the data and support your use of Informer, you no longer have to request reports and wait for us to run them and return the information to you. Currently, the Registrar’s office, along with the Comptroller and the Budget Office, are using Informer to create, manage, and run their own reports, and more departments will be using it soon. Please note that if you need reports from a specific department, you should contact that department to determine the best way to gain access to the report.

Over the last few weeks, Technology has provided Informer training to key stakeholders and will continue to do so. If you have started using Informer and you need some additional guidance, you can also access training online by visiting the Informer YouTube channel. If you need access to Informer or if you want additional training or support, please contact the Service Desk at 617-521-2222.