Tag Archives: remote modalities

CARES Act Purchases Update

Dear Colleagues,

I want to provide you with an update on the technology equipment we secured through the CARES Act. Firstly, I want to thank SJSU’s academic leadership for helping us identify and define each college’s needs; thanks to them, SJSU IT was able to make more informed equipment purchases.

Vin, Charlie, Patrick, and I reviewed those requests and collaborated to purchase a wide array of general equipment as well as specialized inventory through the CARES Act. All general items that college deans have requested have been approved to order and will be on-hand and ready for the start of the Fall semester. The following have already arrived and are readily available through the SJSU IT equipment loaning service today:

  • Laptops
  • Hotspots
  • Webcams
  • Headsets
  • Tripods
  • Chromebooks

Other items will also be arriving in the next week or two and will be ready through the equipment loaning service as well. In the meantime, we do have extra, should our students need it now. These include:

  • USB Microphones
  • Adjustable Laptop Stands
  • USB Keyboard/Mouse Combos
  • USB Mice
  • Monitors

Team can put in a request by calling 408-924-2888. SJSU IT will manage, track, and distribute general items (laptops, hotspots, mice, etc.) and software licenses so that we can optimize limited resources and maximize utilization. College/unit-specific items, like Wacom Tablets and ProTools licenses, will go to the college/unit that requested it through your college techs. Similar to last semester, we plan to communicate to our students, faculty, and staff about our offerings.

We’ll also work closely with MLK Library so that they have an inventory of general equipment on-hand for students. Big thank you to Christine Mune for being so collaborative in support of our students.

Rather than buying all of the requested items at once, we’ll make an initial purchase, monitor inventory, and purchase more when inventory for an item is below a certain threshold. Due to budget constraints, we want to be sure that we don’t purchase excess inventory.  Therefore, keeping an accurate inventory is critically important to ensure that our students have access to the equipment they need.

Arranging this and getting everything ready in time for Fall start was a huge collaborative effort. I want to make sure that I thank all of the IT staff across the entire campus, both SJSU IT and the distributed IT staff. Without everyone working together and quickly, this wouldn’t be possible for our faculty, students, and staff.  I also want to thank Bruce Gardner, who has been coordinating the effort and helping manage questions from across campus. Lastly, thanks go to Vicky Van Leer, Jewel Rodeo, and Susan Huang, who are working days and nights getting our equipment ready. Jason Ferguson, Sharon Watkins, Brent Jones, Joseph Chou, and our entire IMS Team (Darlene Bargas, Devona Williams, Trevor Wylie, Daniela Zopiyatle, John Hanley, Cameron Myers, Fred Asuncion, Rod Maciel, Andy Yeung, Frank De Fanti, Phil Braverman, Danny Vo, Bruce Kelbert) put in a lot of work to get this ready for Fall. This group deserves our applause. 

You can view our inventory, request equipment, and get more information at http://sjsu.edu/equipmentcheckout. Because of the high demand for laptops, we’re asking folks to email classroom-support@sjsu.edu or call us at (408)-924-2888 to set up an appointment.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.

Regards,
Bob Lim

Critical Zoom Updates

Dear SJSU campus community,

As we move into summer and as we’ve mentioned in previous communications, SJSU IT is implementing improvements to Zoom. As usual, we hold off on any changes through finals to minimize any possible disruption for our faculty and students. Both of the items in this email will greatly enhance the security of Zoom for our university and both will impact how you use Zoom.

Authentication with SJSU

Your Zoom meetings have passwords by default, but anyone with the meeting link can still join your Zoom. That’s fine until your link gets shared with a malicious person outside your class or meeting. This is where authentication comes in, providing an additional layer of security on top of using meeting passwords.

Zoom meetings hosted by SJSU users can now require that all attendees be authenticated through SJSU’s single sign-on. Authenticated attendees are individuals who have signed in to Zoom and been verified as valid Zoom users. For SJSU authentication, this means they’ve logged in to Zoom using the SJSU single sign-on portal. SJSU authentication is a great security precaution when everyone in the meeting or class is an SJSU. We’re implementing this setting to enhance security at SJSU. Remember to double-check this setting whenever you schedule a meeting, as different Zoom clients have different default settings.

LEARN MORE

There are a number of cases where you may not need or want to use authentication and may consider changing this setting: classes with a visiting lecturer, meetings with off-campus vendors, or collaborative research discussions with other institutions, to name a few. To read about how to change this setting, please visit our Zoom Authentication website.

This change will go live Thursday, 5/28/2020. Take a moment before then to review our Zoom Authentication website so you’ll know the extra steps you may need to take before joining a class or meeting. It’s also a good idea to give yourself an extra couple minutes before meetings and classes once this change goes live, just in case.

Zoom 5.04

Beginning May 30, Zoom will require everyone to upgrade to the newer version of their client, Zoom 5.04. This new version has a handful of new features, but most importantly it uses a more secure encryption standard.

If you’re using a university machine, then the update will be automatically installed for you. If you’re currently working remotely on a home device, Zoom will notify you of the new version and help you download and install. You can update early by visiting Zoom’s Download Center and downloading and installing the latest Zoom Client for Meetings.

 

You’ll still be able to use Zoom without updating, but it will launch in the web interface. Zoom on the web is much less secure and has a very restricted feature set. That’s why SJSU IT is recommending that everyone update Zoom to this new version.
Student Conduct & Ethical Development
Lastly, I want to let you all know that we will be sending an email to students shortly informing them of our university processes around disciplinary action for Zoom Bombing. SJSU IT and the Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development have been working closely on the issue of Zoom Bombing. Our university has only had a handful of cases, a testament to the integrity of our student population.
If you have any questions about the updating process or need help, please contact the SJSU IT Service Desk online or at 408-924-1530.
Thank you,
Bob Lim