Dropbox – CUNY’s New Cloud Storage Solution
The beginning of the Fall 2019 semester brought the launch of another new service: CUNY made Dropbox available for free to all active faculty, administrative staff, and students. One of the most popular file-hosting services in the world, Dropbox is designed as a workspace that helps you keep all of your content in one place and have it readily accessible from any device. CUNY is providing all active faculty and administrative staff with unlimited Dropbox storage. Dropbox Paper is also available to all CUNY users and allows collaboration within the same document in real-time by multiple users.
All faculty, administrative staff, and students should have received an invitation from Dropbox with a link to activate their accounts. You can then log in to Dropbox at dropbox.cuny.edu (preferred), dropbox.com, or the Technology Service pages for faculty and staff.
Please remember that the terms of the CUNY Acceptable Use of University Data in the Cloud Policy apply to your use of Dropbox and other CUNY cloud solutions.
Support and instructions on using Dropbox are available from the Dropbox Help Center web pages. CUNY also provides links to some helpful FAQs, guides and videos are available on the CUNY Dropbox page at www.cuny.edu/dropbox.
If you have additional questions, please contact your campus Help Desk. Each campus has at least one trained Dropbox administrator ready to support users with claiming accounts, navigating the interface, or any issues that may arise.
18th Annual CUNY IT Conference on December 5-6
The 18th annual CUNY IT Conference will be held on December 5-6, 2019 at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. It will offer overviews of the University’s key IT initiatives, panels on how technology can support and advance teaching, scholarship, and administration, and also a chance to meet with vendors.
This year’s theme is “Bridging Gaps,” exploring the disparities that technologies mitigate and how technology can help us overcome barriers to connection and learning. It will also examine the creative and novel approaches in using technology across the University.
Attendance is free for all CUNY faculty, staff and students. You can register and find other information on the Conference website.
Blackboard Upgrade at End of December
CUNY’s Office of Computing and Information Services (CIS) upgrades Blackboard once a year at the end of December – the only time when there are no classes in session on any CUNY campus. The Fall 2019 Blackboard upgrade is scheduled to begin on Sunday, December 29th at 12:00 am and is expected to be completed by the close of business on Monday, December 30th. This year, the upgrade will incorporate the latest security patch so there will be no visible change in using Blackboard.
During the upgrade, Blackboard will be taken offline and there will be no access to the environment. The upgrade should not interfere with grading, as the CUNYfirst grade rosters are generally scheduled to open on Friday, December 20th and close on Friday, December 27th, before the upgrade is scheduled to take place. Please check with your campus for the exact dates.
CUNY CIS and the Blackboard Management Council Communications Group will be providing materials for distribution to faculty, including announcements and signage, prior to the upgrade. Faculty will have access to Blackboard course shells for the Winter Intersession and Spring 2020 Blackboard course well in advance of the scheduled downtime. Course shells for these semesters will be created in Blackboard starting the first week of November.
New Features on CUNY’s Virtual Bookstore
Various new features were incorporated for Fall 2019 in the CUNY Virtual Bookstore, the bookstore operated by Akademos and used by most CUNY colleges. These updates include a multiple selection adoption tool, allowing faculty to adopt for multiple sections at once. By the end of 2019, Akademos will also build customizable OER options directly into its portal so faculty can more easily review these offerings.
Akademos has also made improvements to the student experience with an updated checkout screen, 24/7 customer service availability during start of term, and extending returns for new items through the first two weeks of class.
National Cyber Security Awareness Month
CUNY once again participated in the National Cyber Security Awareness Month program run by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) to create awareness about cyber security. Each week in October, we shared information and tips from leading cybersecurity organizations about protecting yourself online. This year’s themes focused on OWN IT (understanding your digital profile), SECURE IT (securing your digital profile) and PROTECT IT (maintaining your digital profile).
Our goal is to help you make the most of today’s technology…safely and securely. You can find all information on the National Cyber Security Awareness Month page on the CUNY web site. Remember that CUNY also provides an online security awareness course that is catered to CUNY students, faculty and staff and a growing security resources list on the CUNY Information Security pages. You may also want to subscribe to OUCH! - the world’s leading, free security awareness newsletter designed for technology users.
CUNY Revamps Guest Access to Emergency Notifications
CUNY Alert, the University’s emergency notification system that sends alerts about public safety emergencies and weather-related closings, recently implemented its new guest subscription service. Parents, University vendors, interested parties, and University employees who do not have CUNYfirst accounts can now register to receive CUNY Alert notifications by creating a guest account and specifying notification preferences through the Guest Portal.
If you are a current CUNY Alert guest account user you must re-subscribe to CUNY Alert through the new Guest Portal to continue receiving notifications.
See the CUNY Alert page on the CUNY website for more information about CUNY Alert.
New Policy for Use of Cloud Services
With the provision of Dropbox and Microsoft Office 365 cloud services, the University established a policy to safeguard University data stored in the cloud. All CUNY users of cloud services should familiarize themselves with the terms of the Acceptable Use of University Data in the Cloud Policy and Data Classification Standards before using such a service. Users of CUNY cloud services and tools are responsible for ensuring that the type of data being stored or shared will be properly protected.
The policy establishes safeguards that vary by the type of data shared or stored in the cloud. In sum, Public Data can be freely published, processed, created, collected, stored and archived in the cloud without restriction. Sensitive Data cannot be processed, created, collected, stored and archived in the cloud unless the service is determined to support security controls as necessary to sufficiently protect the data. The Data Owner and College CIO and/or College Information Security Manager must be consulted to determine that adequate protections are present in the cloud service with documented approval.
Confidential Data cannot be processed, created, collected, stored nor archived in the cloud unless the specific use and Cloud Service Provider’s security protections and certifications have been reviewed and approved by the University’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) in consultation as necessary with Cloud Customer(s), Data Owner(s), College CIO(s), Information Security Manager(s) and relevant offices possessing expertise on the type of data involved, including Provost(s).
USS Scholarship Applications Go Digital
Every year, the University Student Senate (USS) Scholarship Committee released the annual scholarship application packet and was inundated by paper applications for its four scholarships. This past spring, CUNY’s Office of Computing and Information Services worked with the USS to digitize the application process and integrate it with CUNYfirst with remarkable results.
The Scholarship Committee can now easily identify eligible students using CUNYfirst. The students themselves now apply online through CUNYfirst self-service and request recommendations as part of the application process. Recommendation letters are now submitted online as well. Additionally, an Administrative Console is available for the Scholarship Committee to track the number of applicants and status of their application and recommendation letters.
“Making the application electronic was an absolute game changer and allowed more students to easily apply,” said Rejwoan Matubbar, former USS Vice Chair for Technology Fee Affairs. More than 2000 applications were submitted overall. Within the first three days of its launch, more than 100 applications were submitted - the maximum number of applications accepted for any one of the four scholarships.