Category: Announcements

Announcements/Updates to the BMC community

Intermittent Trouble Adding Files to H: Drive

Starting this week, community members started reporting issues adding files to their H: drives. This is due to an unusual increase in the number of files that are currently being added to the drive.

We are working as quickly as we are able to provide additional storage to the drive and you may continue to have trouble saving files to your H: drive. In the interim, you can save any eligible files to OneDrive and any shared files to your S: drive. Please remove any data you no longer need from the H: drive.

Thank you for your patience while we work to resolve this storage issue. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Help Desk: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440.

Launch Day: Information Security Education Program


Today is the day! Your Information Security Education Program has launched. All community members with a Bryn Mawr email address (excluding undergraduates) are required to complete the program by 11/1.

Completing the program:
  1. Navigate to the United Educators Learning Portal
  2. Log in using your Bryn Mawr email address and the password InfoSec@BrynMawr1
  3. Set up a password and security question of your choice
  4. Complete the five modules with Data Security in the title by November 1st

Note: You do not have to complete the program in one sitting — your progress will be saved. On average, the entire program takes ~50 minutes.

Password not working?
  1. Request a new password from United Educators
  2. Enter your Bryn Mawr email address
  3. Check your email for a message from noreply-learningportal@ue.org containing a new password

Note: The password to the United Educators Learning Portal is not connected or related to your password for your College accounts.

Not sure if you need to complete the InfoSec Program?

Complete the short quiz below to find out!

For additional information about the Information Security Education Program, please see our Information Security Education page on the College site.

For any additional questions, please reach out to the Help Desk at help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440

Bonus content:

It was a dark and spoooooky day in Las Vegas when a Spider and a BlackCat* descended upon the casinos. The Spider and BlackCat used their wily social engineering skills to gain access to the casinos’ data and hold it ransom! All (most) of Las Vegas was thrown into chaos for days and days. Tasks that were done by computers were now being done by hand! [insert scream sound effect]

To read more about this haunted happening, see Vox’s explainer of the ransomware attack.

* The groups Scattered Spider and ALPHV/BlackCat are believed to be responsible for the ransomware attack.

RESOLVED: Calls To and From Off-Campus Numbers Not Available

Update, 11:15am: All telephone service has been restored and community members should be able to make calls to and from their campus extensions as normal. Thank you for your patience while we resolved this issue.

Please report any lingering issues or oddities to the Help Desk.

Update, 8:30am: It appears that all campus phone service, both to and from on and off-campus numbers is unavailable in Taylor Hall. We are continuing to work to resolve all issues as quickly as possible.

Early this morning, community members started experiencing issues with calls to and from off-campus telephone numbers. Calls from campus extensions to and from other campus extensions appears to be working normally. LITS is working with the vendor to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.

If you have any questions, please contact the Help Desk at help@brynmawr.edu.

Bryn Mawr Blogs and Comment Spam: Change to WordPress Settings

To reduce comment spam, LITS has updated all blogs on Bryn Mawr Blogs to require users to be registered and logged in in order to comment on a page or post.
If you are a blog administrator and your target audience contains a large amount of users that have non-BMC or non-TriCo emails, this setting can be changed to allow anonymous users to comment on your blog. Please understand that this will make your blog susceptible to comment spam and you may start to see a large influx of comment notifications in your email inbox.
To learn more about comment moderation and allowing anonymous users to comment on your blogs, please see our Bryn Mawr Blogs comment documentation in Ask Athena.
Please contact the Help Desk with any questions or concerns: help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440

Moodle Maintenance Requiring Downtime at 8am October 12, 2023

We will be performing maintenance on Moodle on Thursday, October 12 at that requires a brief service outage.

This maintenance will begin at approximately 8:00am and last no longer than 30 minutes. You may lose access to Moodle during this window and/or experience slow or unusual behavior.

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

Happy InfoSec Season! (Launching 10/1)

It is that time of year again — Halloween! As we head into spooky season, the Information Education Security Program (InfoSec for short!) is here to help you keep mischief and trick-or-treating out of your College accounts.

Starting October 1st, community members (excluding undergraduates) will be able to access our Information Security Education Program at https://learn.ue.org/Login2.aspx Please keep your eyes out for a launch day (10/1) email for the login information necessary to complete the program!

For additional information about the Information Security Education Program, please see https://www.brynmawr.edu/lits/projects-partnerships/information-security/information-security-education

Not sure if you need to complete the InfoSec Program? Complete the short quiz below to find out!

For any additional questions, please reach out to the Help Desk at help@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-7440

Apple Security Update Released; LITS will Push Update to all College Owned Apple Computers at 5pm TODAY (9/22)

Apple recently released a security update to iOS and OS systems. These updates address a zero-day vulnerability. It is crucial that all community members update all of their Apple devices, including iPads, iPhones, computers, and Apple Watches as soon as possible.

Beginning at 5pm today (Friday, 9/22), LITS will push this critical update to all College-owned Apple computers.

The update will automatically download and install. The computer may shut down or restart without warning; please remember to save your work early and often. If you update your computer prior to 5pm, it will not restart again after we push the updates out.

Thank you for your patience; we are working to address this security concern as quickly as possible. If you’re not sure you’ve gotten the update or if you want help doing the update on your own, don’t hesitate to contact the Help Desk: 610-526-7440 or help@brynmawr.edu.

Campus Internet and Services Unavailable 9/17 3-6AM

Update 9/18: This work was completed successfully during the specified outage window. Thanks for your patience!

LITS staff will be rebooting the core network switch and applying updates on Sunday, September 17th from 3:00am – 6:00am. During the reboot there will be no network connectivity, including wireless.

All services hosted at Bryn Mawr College (including Moodle), as well as internet access from campus will be unavailable.

The telephone service is on a different network and will not be affected.

Thank you for your patience as we perform this urgent work.

Please contact the Help Desk with any questions: 610-526-7440 or help@brynmawr.edu

LITS Welcome Back Newsletter 2023

Top Resources for Students

  • New and returning students: get started with FREE Microsoft Office for your personal computer. Learn how to access a variety of software from the library, your dorm, and off-campus – and get info about wireless, printing, Moodle, and more!
  • The Assistive Technology App Database is now up and running on the Assistive Technology: Features and Resources page. Use the database to find resources on accessibility, productivity, note taking, time management, writing, and more.
  • Check out LinkedIn Learning for online courses and quick tutorials in software, business, and creative skills.

LITS News Highlights

Welcome New LITS Colleagues!

Janelle Rebel, Seymour Adelman Director of Special Collections

Cameron Bucher, Educational and Scholarly Technology Assistant

Upcoming Exhibition

Art image from Cecilia Paredes exhibit

Cecilia Paredes: Not ~ At Home opens October 25th in Bryn Mawr’s main gallery space, the 1912 Gallery (formerly the Rare Book Room).

See our full calendar of events

Study Break!

Cozy up with a book in the newly named Nook! Visit the Students Shape the Shelves book display and other additions to the library collection in the Nook, located to your left just inside the front entrance of Canaday.

The Nook in Canaday Library with rows of books and posters on display

Librarians are always available for academic consultations…but sometimes you need something fun. This page collects some favorites. We also have access to many major newspapers!

Spotlight on Security

Reminders

Special Collections reading room entrance

  • The Special Collections Reading Room has new fall hours:

Mon-Fri: open 12pm – 4pm
and by appointment (SpecColl@brynmawr.edu)
Sat-Sun: closed

New Version of MacOS (Sonoma) Coming this Fall

This fall, the newest Apple operating system macOS Sonoma (version 14.0) will be released. Though we don’t know the exact release date, we’re busily testing a beta version of the macOS so that we can identify any quirks or peculiarities before it becomes publicly available.

Whenever Apple releases a new version of macOS, they also deprecate one of their older versions. This time, macOS Big Sur is the one that is scheduled to fall out of support. Once Apple stops supporting this version, they also stop releasing security updates for it and it becomes critical to update to a newer version as soon as possible.

You can easily use the steps on the Apple website to to find which version of Mac OS you’re using.

If you find that you’re running Big Sur (or something earlier!), you can find instructions from Apple support on performing an update on MacOS. Please make sure that all of your files are backed up before you start the update – though the process is usually straightforward, it’s always best to have a backup in case something goes wrong. This is particularly important if you are updating from a significantly older version of macOS (version 10.15 or older).

If you’d like assistance with checking the version of your OS or with updating or with backing up your files, please contact the Help Desk at 610-526-7440 or  help@brynmawr.edu.