Information
Technology
myU, a tool for
collaboration
and commnity
building............... 1
Google comes to
the University...... 4
Update: UDMS
expands capacity
and services ....... 6
WebMail 3
is here ................ 7
What’s Inside OIT February 2006 News le t t e r
UMN
DMC Spotlight Issue
Collaboration and Community-
Building with MYU
Each month, Digital Media Center (DMC) consultants publish a “Spotlight
Issues” ar ticle on our web site about a current technology-enhanced learning
(TEL) issue highlighted at sessions of the TEL Seminar Series, in our classes,
or at our program or project meetings. This month’s ar ticle is below.
T he University’s customizable web site, the MYU portal, is beingincreasingly used. In the fall of 2005, nearly 58,000people logged in over one 30-day period. OnOctober 18, just shy of 10,000 peoplelogged in over 24 hours. A sizable
majority of these users are students for whom
customized home pages have been developed
and publicized, such as members of the Class of
2009. But other students and faculty and staff
members are logging in as well. The Portal is
emerging as a powerful tool to facilitate a
variety of administrative tasks, including those
related to the strategic positioning process,
search committee work, and departmental and
collegiate internal communication efforts.
This is because users who don’t have programming skills
easily can create Portal pages for specific groups of Portal
members, as well as use built-in tools to collaborate and share any type of
digital file with such groups. These groups include members of search commit-
tees, colleagues collaborating on grant applications, task forces working to develop
Do you
MYU?
TechTalk
Watch TechTalk, where
University and local experts
discuss the digital technology
we encounter in our daily
lives.
9:00 p.m.,
TPT MN channel 17
Twin Cities
• Technology and Cars,
February 5
• Digital TV and DVR,
February 12
• Computer Breakdown,
February 19
• RFID Tags, February 26
• Traveling with Technology,
March 26
View the November, 2005
to March, 2006
Season 4 schedule at
techtalk.umn.edu/schedule
2 OIT Newsletter
recommendations or policies, and faculty and staff
members in particular departments, schools, and
colleges sharing information with their students.
For example, the search committee for the dean of the
College of Education and Human Development is
using the Portal as a password-protected repository of
their working documents. Several task forces, including
Undergraduate Reform: Writing, AHC Knowledge
Management Technology, and College Design: CNR/
COAFES/CHE, are posting meeting notes, back-
ground documents, and draft versions of reports in the
Portal as shared resources and using other Portal tools,
like the private discussion board and internal calendar,
to complete their tasks.
The Academic Health Center (AHC) is using the MYU
home page to deliver timely, specific, and customized
information to students; for example, dermatology
students can access information published by the
dermatology department, the Graduate Medical
Education program, the Medical School, AHC, and
University Relations from a single location, a custom-
ized MYU home page.
March TEL seminar
Please join us to learn more about how members of
the campus community are using the Portal to im-
prove administrative efficiency, facilitate the strategic
positioning process, and support the undergraduate
community:
Thursday, March 2, 2006,
12:00 p.m.–1:30 p.m.
155 Peters Hall, St. Paul,
Twin Cities campus
The seminar also will be available live online
via Macromedia® Breeze™. Sign up at
http://dmc.umn.edu/series
/tel-seminar-breeze.shtml.
Scott Barnard, a senior educational technology con-
sultant at the DMC, will moderate a discussion that
includes the following panelists:
• Jonathan Binks, Office of the Senior Vice
President for Academic Affairs and Provost,
Twin Cities campus;
• Bob Rubinyi, University of Minnesota Extension
Service and Office of the Senior Vice President for
Academic Affairs and Provost, Twin Cities campus;
• Janet Shanedling, Office of Education, Academic
Health Center, Twin Cities campus
Bibliography
The following readings may help you prepare for the
TEL seminar.
■ Coventry, Martha. “The Digital Doorway to the U:
MYU Portal Eases Communication and Creates Com-
munity.” University of Minnesota UMNnews, 21
October 2005. http://www.umn.edu/umnnews
/Feature_Stories/The_digital_doorway_to_the_U.html.
Coventry explains what a Portal is and how the
MYU Portal works. The article includes quotations
from a student user and MYU sponsors and admin-
istrators, as well as links to customized faculty,
staff, and student MYU home pages.
■ Digital Media Center. “Using the MYU Portal.”
University of Minnesota, 23 March 2005.
http://dmc.umn.edu/spotlight/myu.shtml.
This information was published in conjunction
with  a spring 2005 TEL seminar about the Portal.
It includes an explanation of what a portal is;
The Portal is emerging
as a powerful tool to
facilitate a variety of
administrative tasks,
including those related to
the strategic positioning
process, search committee
work, and departmental
and collegiate internal
communication efforts.
February 2006 3
screenshots of customized MYU home pages for
extension educators and Class of 2008 students; a
bibliography of articles about the use of portals in
educational settings; links to related campus
resources; and a link to a Macromedia Breeze Live
recording of the seminar.
■ MYU. “PDF Help Documents.” University of
Minnesota, 2002–2005. https://www.myu.umn.edu
/metadot/index.pl?iid=411659.
This page includes links to support documents
published in PDF format that describe how to
create groups of MYU Portal members, set permis-
sions for Portal pages, and set up and use Portal
tools.
■  MYU. “MYU Help.” University of Minnesota,
2002–2005. https://www.myu.umn.edu/metadot
/index.pl?id=77358.
This page includes links to step-by-step written
instructions and animated demonstrations about
how to use the MYU Portal.
Campus resources
The following campus services and sources may help
you further explore how the Portal can be used to
support collaborative and community-building efforts:
• Meet with one of our consultants. See
http://dmc.umn.edu/consultations/.
• Take a short course offered by the University
Technology Training Center (UTTC) to learn how
to use the Portal. See the Short Courses Alphabeti-
cally page at http://uttc.umn.edu/training
/courses/alphabetical.jsp#P.
• To access customized MYU home pages that have
been developed for different groups of under-
graduate students, see the Portals for Undergrad
Students Content Provider Info page at
http://www.umn.edu/ugportal
/submitcontent.htm.
■ Scott Barnard and Christina Goodland,
Digital Media Center
Portal
training
For registration, a complete list of training
options, and complete training descriptions
see the Short Courses Alphabetically page at
http://uttc.umn.edu/training/courses/
alphabetical.jsp#P.
Portal Workshop
Spring 2006: May 2, 2006
This 2-hour course teaches participants how to use
the myU web portal as a tool for effectively sharing
materials and encouraging online discussions.
Participants will also learn how to customize myU to
their personal interests. The myU web portal has
been created to foster the development of communi-
ties of learners and facilitate communications both in
and outside the University of Minnesota. myU can be
accessed at http://www.myu.umn.edu/.
This hands-on course includes the material presented
in the corresponding orientation.
Portal Orientation
Spring 2006: February 7, March 8
This seminar introduces the myU web portal. The myU
web portal has been created to foster the develop-
ment of communities of learners and facilitate
communications both in and outside the University
of Minnesota. myU can be accessed at
http://www.myu.umn.edu/.
The material presented in this orientation is also
included in the corresponding hands-on workshop.
This course is available in two formats: an in-person
seminar or live online. The live online format enables
you to participate in the seminar from the comfort of
your own desk. You can ask questions, download
course materials, and even chat with the rest of the
class...all without having to leave your office!
For more information on attending this course
via the live online format, see
http://uttc.umn.edu/training/info/live_web.jsp
4 OIT Newsletter
Google
T he search engine that’s become sopervasive that it’s become a verb cannow help University of Minnesota userssearch for local information. WelcomeGoogle. The Office of Information
Technology has obtained a Google Search Appliance
(GSA), and it is now available to improve the ability of
web users to find relevant University of Minnesota web
content.
A tool for Webmasters, too
The GSA allows use of a familiar google-like interface
to search web sites at the University of Minnesota.
Webmasters at the University may obtain manager
accounts on the GSA to allow them to create searches
limited to their web sites and results pages with an
appearance that matches their web site.
GSA advantage
Many University of Minnesota web sites currently use
google.com’s free University Search. Our Google
Search Appliance offers some advantages over the
google.com University Search:
• searches may include multiple hosts (versus a single
host for google.com)
• pages are recrawled more frequently to update the
search index (the GSA continuously crawls the
University of Minnesota web space, attempting to
reindex pages twice as often as they are observed
to change)
• search managers may associate potential search
terms with synonyms, allowing them to suggest
alternative search terms to customers.
• search managers may associate potential search
terms with “keymatches.” The GSA search results
are based on page rank, but Keymatches allow the
search manager to return links in response to
specific search terms, similar to google.com’s
Sponsored Links.
Coming soon to a website near you
Many of google.com’s search features are available on
the GSA. Search forms using our GSA are beginning
to appear on web sites around the U, and University
Relations plans to add a search using the GSA to the
main University of Minnesota search site
(search.umn.edu).
A University-wide search using the GSA is currently
available at http://umn.edu/google/search . Click on
the tips/help link for more information.
Limited number of indexed pages
Since the number of pages indexed by the Google
Search Appliance is limited by our license, we have
excluded some pages from our search index. Among
the pages not currently indexed by the GSA are most
pages with “?” in their URLs, unless requested.
Sections of many sites with “?” in the URL result in
infinite crawl spaces (links to the same pages are
represented by a potentially infinite number of URLs).
To request that currently excluded pages be added to
our search index, please e-mail google@umn.edu.
Obtain a Manager account
Manager accounts on the GSA are currently available
to University colleges and top-level administrative
units. Online account applications, information for
webmasters and search managers, and frequently asked
questions are available at our support site at
http://umn.edu/google.
Comes to the
University
February 2006 5
The support site also includes instructions for adding a
GSA search form to your site, customizing the appear-
ance of your search results, and excluding web pages
from the GSA search index.
Figure 1: Screen Shot of GSA Search for “password”
If you have comments or questions, please contact our
Google Search Appliance team at google@umn.edu.
■ Curt Squires, Academic and Distributed Comput-
ing Services, member Google Search Appliance team
Figure 2:
Screen Shot
of GSA
Search
suggesting
alternate
spellings
6 OIT Newsletter
Update: University
Data Management Services
UDMS expands capacity and services
Centralized data storage
T o service increasing demand for centralizeddata storage, UDMS-OIT expanded itsstorage “footprint” from 100TB to almost
300TB in December. (A TB is approximately 1 trillion
bytes; one TB equals 1,024 gigabytes.)
Disaster recovery
This increase in storage is to facilitate a number of
OIT’s technology initiatives, including providing faster
e-mail access, providing low-cost storage for academic
and research departments, providing storage for
collaborative data sharing, and to expand the storage
available for disaster recovery for critical production
systems, like PeopleSoft and the Library system.
Beyond data storage
The expansion is not limited to more data storage;
we’re offering more services, too.
Prior to October 2005, UDMS offered direct-connect
Enterprise-class storage services via one of its eight
FibreChannel-equipped locations (there are at least
two on each Twin Cities campus). Now, customers can
reach the same quality of storage over the new Gopher
GigaNet (GGNet), which was installed over the past
two years by Networking and Telecommunications
Services staff.
New services which are now available from UDMS
over GGNet are:
• NFS, for server-to-server shared data storage and
• CIFS, for workstation-to-server shared data
storage.
By spring 2006, SAN (Storage Area Network) services
over GGNet (called iSCSI) will also be available. For
additional information contact udms@umn.edu.
Related newsletter articles: November 2004, New
Service, New Department: UDMS; March 2005,
UMSAN: Pilot to Production
■ Carl Follstad, NetBackup Service,
https://www.umn.edu/cco/udms/netbackup
/signon/about.shtml
WebMail Pro—Figure 1: Partial view of OIT Newsletter inbox and “Report as Spam” option
February 2006 7
WebMail 3 is Here
A s frequent users of WebMail know, a newversion is available. In response to feedbackfrom WebMail users we’ve been working on
an update to the University’s own web-based mail
e-mail program for some time. WebMail 3, the new
version, has a spell checker (called Noah), loads
messages faster, and more; it’s also kinder to the
University’s central e-mail resources.
Since Noah, the spell checker service, is application
independent it can be integrated into other applica-
tions. You’ll see Noah as part of University services
and resources, such as the myU portal, WebCT/
Vista, and Jabber/Chat/IM. That’s good news to
anyone who has to teach each spell checker they use
their field’s jargon and other special words.
WebMail 3 supported browsers
WebMail 3 supports these newer browsers: Internet
Explorer (IE) 6+; Firefox 1.x; Netscape 7.x; Opera;
Safari 1.x and 2.x. Java Scripting must be enabled for
those browsers. WebMail 3 does not support older
browsers, such as Netscape 4.x, Internet Explorer 5
and older, and Mac OS 10.2.8 with Safari 1.x.
WebMail 3 looks different but offers the same basic
features. Like its predecessor it’s not a replacement
for a full featured e-mail program, but it offers an
easy way to check your inbox from the Kiosks around
campus or anywhere you sit down to an Internet
connected computer. (Kiosk locations at
http://lighthouse.micro.umn.edu/kiosk/.)
WebMail Pro and GopherMail
You don’t have to use WebMail 3, the new version, if
it doesn’t work for you. The older WebMail Pro will
be available for a while. We’re also testing
GopherMail, which will support older browsers
and will be available soon.
Junk and spam messages
You can still use either WebMail to quickly report
spam or junk mail. (Eliminating the hunt for the
elusive full e-mail header, a requirement to properly
report spam and junk mail.) Like your personal
e-mail address, the OIT Newsletter e-mail address
gets garbage mail. Figures 1 and 2 give you a view of
the OIT newsletter inbox and WebMail 3’s “Report
as Junk” link and WebMail Pro’s “Report as Spam”
link. Both links are on the right edge of the screen.
The past, present, and future
For an overview of e-mail and WebMail at the
University pick up the February 2006 Techmart
/Umart newspaper in newsstands around campus.
■ Tips from 1-Help, OIT’s Technology Helpline.
Acccess either WebMail at http://www.mail.umn.edu
WebMail 3—Figure 2: Partial view of OIT Newsletter inbox and “Report as Junk” option
www.mail.umn.edu
✫©2006 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. The University of Minnesota is committed to the policy that all persons
should have equal access to its programs, facilities and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital
status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status or sexual orientation. This publication is available in alternative formats upon request.
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Last updated October 2005
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