Week's End Report - April 29th

Tip of the Week!

This semester the college has had several instances of spam messages being sent to many faculty and staff throughout the college. If you receive a spam message, forward it to abuse@ivytech.edu and then delete it. Do not forward spam messages, or messages that you think may be spam, to any other individual.

Here are a few ways to recognize spam e-mail messages:

Does the e-mail come from an e-mail address you recognize? Is the e-mail coming from an Ivy Tech e-mail account or from some other account from which you signed up to receive e-mails? If not, it's spam.

What does the subject line say? Spam messages often contain very urgent, and often grammatically incorrect or unprofessional language and spelling errors. Ivy Tech will never contact you threatening to terminate your account. If you receive a message like that, it's spam.

Who is the e-mail addressed to? Is the e-mail addressed specifically to you? If it's addressed to "Dear friend" or "Dear mail user," it's spam.

Does the e-mail request that you verify an account? If so, it's not a legitimate e-mail. Ivy Tech will never send you an e-mail requesting that you verify your account.

Does the e-mail claim to be from IT and contain a link? If so, it's not a legitimate e-mail. Ivy Tech's Information Technology will never send you an e-mail containing a link.

Think the link may be legit? Hover your mouse over the link, do not click on the link. Outlook will pop up a message box showing where the link will go if you click on it, most likely it will be an outside website that you won't recognize. This confirms that the e-mail is spam.

Look at the e-mail signature. All Ivy Tech e-mails will contain a signature encouraging people to contact Ivy Line for additional information or assistance. If the e-mail signature doesn't contain this information, it's spam.

One way to anticipate spam is to watch for periods of time where e-mail delivery is slow. Large amounts of spam being sent out can cause e-mail delivery to be slower than normal so period of slowness are often followed by the receipt of spam messages.

If you receive a spam e-mail, or an e-mail you think might be spam, follow these steps:

• Forward the e-mail to abuse@ivytech.edu
• Delete the e-mail
• Due to the large volume of spam e-mail the college receives and the danger these messages present, we request that you do not forward the e-mails to anyone other than abuse@ivytech.edu

Most importantly, if you think an e-mail might be spam, it almost certainly is and should be treated as such.

Here's a video you can view that contains information about how to spot spam and phishing e-mails: https://youtu.be/AmPX4DdBz-k

Summer Course Information

Summer courses became available to faculty on April 25th. Students will be loaded into the courses at that time as well but courses will remain unavailable to them until three days prior to the start of term as specified in Banner. 

If your course is not available to you in Blackboard: 

• Has your school loaded you into Banner as the instructor of record? Each school inputs instructors into their courses through Banner. Any instructor who has been assigned to a course through Banner is now able to access the course in Blackboard. If you do not see your course in Blackboard, it is because your school has not put you into Banner. To remedy this, you must speak to your school. After you've been added to your course in Banner, allow 36 hours for the course to appear in Blackboard. 
• Has your course content been loaded? Statewide online course content is loaded by the Center for Instructional Technology, regional online course content is loaded by your regional Online Technologies Coordinators. All courses must use the same 16-session formatted original course as loaded into their live course, 16-week courses complete one session per week, eight-week courses complete two sessions per week, etc. Instructors are not permitted to make changes to assignments or to course layout. You may post clarifying information or supplemental materials, but graded assignments may not be changed. If your course has not yet been loaded it is because the content is not currently ready. Please do not load your courses. Any courses that are loaded with content will be wiped and reloaded when the approved content is ready.

If your course is available and you're ready to begin setting it up for the summer semester, please refer to the Getting Started website. The website contains how-to documents, dates, and other information that will be useful for setting up your course.

http://bit.ly/idcgettingstarted