Author: Jenny Spohrer

MATLAB (a programming language and environment for numerical computation, data analysis, visualization, and algorithm development) is moving to a named-account licensing model, which will change the options Bryn Mawr College faculty and students have for accessing it moving forward:

• • Anyone can get a free account to use MATLAB Online Basic.
  • Bryn Mawr faculty and students can now get an account on Bryn Mawr College’s new MATLAB academic teaching license to access the full suite of online features and install MATLAB on college-owned and personal computers. (Haverford students can get this access through Haverford’s license.)
  • We’ve left an older version of MATLAB that does not require an account installed on classroom and lab computers to minimize disruption, but faculty and students who need the latest version or additional toolboxes will need to get an account on the new academic teaching license.

Please see our MATLAB help guide on Ask Athena for more details.

If you have any questions or concerns, please stop by or contact the Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu, 610-526-7440).

Bryn Mawr College faculty, staff, and students now have access to individual and team-based appointment booking through Zoom’s new Scheduler feature.

As with most online appointment-booking platforms, Zoom Scheduler allows you to create one or more booking pages that shows an individual’s or group of people’s availability for appointments. It can be used for both in person or online meetings: when an appointment is booked, Scheduler sends both parties a calendar invite with the in-person location or a Zoom link, depending on the type.

Get Help with Scheduler

• See our ask Athena Guide on Zoom: Use scheduler for appointment booking.
• See Zoom’s in-app Getting Started Guide (open the Zoom web portal or desktop app, click Scheduler, then look for the button in the bottom right)
• Take Zoom’s Welcome to Zoom Scheduler mini-course (14 mins, use SSO login when prompted)
• Schedule a Zoom Scheduler consultation with LITS if you have questions or need help.

Transitioning from Calendly to Zoom Scheduler

If you or your department uses Calendly (or another paid service) for online appointment booking, LITS recommends switching to Zoom Scheduler feature, which gives you the same functionality at no cost to your department.

Transitioning is a three-step process:

1. Set up appointment booking in Zoom Scheduler. It’s okay to do this while you are still actively using Calendly; the two systems don’t conflict with one another!
2. Find the places you’ve shared your Calendly booking links (in your email signature, on College webpages, on syllabi or Moodle course pages, etc.) and replace them with Zoom Scheduler links.
3. Cancel your Calendly subscription and close your account.

You can stretch this transition over as many weeks as you need; however, if your Calendly license renews annually, be sure to cancel before your renewal date or shift to monthly payments to avoid unnecessary expenses.

If you need help figuring out how to recreate a Calendly workflow in Zoom, please schedule a Zoom Scheduler consultation with LITS!

We are delighted to announce that new features will begin rolling out to Bryn Mawr Zoom accounts in the coming weeks:

• Everyone will get access to Zoom Scheduler, an appointment-booking app for in-person and Zoom meetings, including team appointment bookings like next available round robins.
• • Individuals and departments who subscribe to platforms like Calendly or Book with Me may want to migrate to Zoom Scheduler but can wait until it is convenient to do so.
  • LITS will provide detailed migration information and support starting in May.
• Faculty and staff will be able to host Zoom Webinars with up to 500 participants in addition to Meetings with up to 300 participants.
• Note you will need to log into the Zoom web portal to access these features. (The Zoom desktop and mobile apps have more limited features and the integrations with Moodle and Outlook are designed for Zoom Meetings only.)

There will be no downtime and no change in how Zoom Meetings work.

Please contact the Help Desk at help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440 if you have questions or concerns.

Starting this semester, Moodle users may notice new accessibility icons next to course materials. These are part of a new accessibility platform called Yuja Panorama, which LITS and Access Services have integrated into Moodle in support of the College’s commitment to digital and course material accessibility, universal design for learning, and addressing structural barriers to equity and inclusion.

• Students can click these icons to open course materials with assistive technologies or convert them to alternative file formats. See Moodle: Get accessible alternative formats for more info.
• Instructors can click the icons to view Accessibility Reports on documents and how to fix any issues. Self-enroll in the Accessibility Training Institute, Part I: Discover Yuja Panorama Moodle course to learn more and get help.

Help with accessibility: for technical issues or questions about Yuja, please contact the Help Desk at help@brynmawr.edu. If you have accessibility needs beyond what Yuja offers, please contact Access Services at accessservices@brynmawr.edu.

LITS will shut down rstudio.brynmawr.edu, the college’s RStudio Server installation, on 5 January 2024.

Please download any R projects, files, or data on rstudio.brynmawr.edu that you want to keep before this date. LITS will not save any content stored on rstudio.brynmawr.edu before shutting it down.

If you use the RStudio IDE for data analysis, it will continue to be available as a free download from Posit, on classroom and public library and lab computers, and remotely via LabStats and Apporto.

If you teach with R, we have replaced RStudio Server with an institutional license for a cloud-based alternative called Posit Cloud, which LITS successfully pilot-tested with faculty teaching in the data science program last year. Posit Cloud has features designed explicitly to facilitate teaching with R that were not available with our local RStudio Server install, such as collaborative projects, shared workspaces, and easier student account creation. See our AskAthena article on Teaching with Posit Cloud for more information.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us via the Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440)

In order to fix an issue preventing some instructors from scheduling Zoom meetings through the Moodle Zoom activity, LITS was forced to recreate the Zoom-Moodle connection at around 10:30 am on September 5.

If you see an error message (OpenID Connect Initiation URI is invalid) when accessing a Zoom activity created before this date and time, please delete the activity and create a Zoom (new) activity to your course in its place.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience this causes.

If you have any questions, please contact the Help Desk (help@brynmawr.edu, 610-526-7636).