Category: Announcements

Announcements/Updates to the BMC community

Office 365: Clutter will be Disabled 10/27/22

On October 27, 2022 LITS will disable a deprecated Office 365 feature called Clutter.

Microsoft no longer supports or encourages the use of Clutter and has replaced it with Focused Inbox. Clutter does not behave consistently and may cause problems for the small number of accounts that still have it.

LITS has been able to do a limited amount of testing, and in our experience, community members that previously had the Clutter feature noticed that more messages appeared in their primary inbox once it was turned off. If this poses problems for you, there are a few ways you can manage the flow of messages to your inbox:

For more information on cleaning up your inbox, check out Microsoft Support’s Manage and Organize advice and our article on Data Clean-Up for your Email Inbox.

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

Week 2: Natural Reader

Natural Reader is a tool you can use to have content on your computer read aloud to you.  As the name implies, Natural Reader provides natural sounding voices, compared to the robotic sounding voices which are sometimes found in text-to-speech programs. You can select a voice from a variety of free and paid options, as well as voices that can read in different accents and languages. Additionally, you can choose how fast or slow the voice reads aloud. 

Natural Reader Google Chrome extension: This extension allows you to listen to web pages and emails aloud. Simply open the extension and click the play button to begin listening. If you would like to start at a particular place in the text, highlight that sentence and then click play so it will read from that point forward. 

Natural Reader Online Reader: This tool allows you to upload files, including .doc, .pdf, and .ppt, and have the content of those files read aloud. You can also increase the font size and convert the text into Dyslexie font so that it is easier to read.  

Lastly, both the extension and online reader allow you to download an MP3 recording of the text being read aloud in the voice of your choice so that you can listen to your reading on the go. 

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

Unscheduled Moodle Maintenance: Monday, September 26

LITS will be performing emergency maintenance on Moodle at  7:30 AM on Monday, September 26, 2022. The upgrade will address security vulnerabilities and should last 10 minutes. People who are already logged in should experience minimal disruption during the maintenance window.

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

Warning: New Phishing Attempt

Please be aware of a recent attempt to gather login, password, and other secure personal or College data from Bryn Mawr College community members.

Be on the lookout for messages that notify you of scanned images and include attached files. Please see the image below of what the email(s) look like. This is a scam.

Do not open the attachment, click on links, or respond in any way. Delete the message or report it as Phishing in Outlook. If you believe you’ve given your information to a phisher, immediately change your password and contact the Help Desk: help@brynmawr.edu, 610-526-7440.

Email scams come in many forms. While we work to keep you informed, attacks are increasingly diverse and sophisticated. It’s not possible for us to warn you of every message before you see it. Be cautious and suspicious. If you ever have a question or suspicion, don’t hesitate to contact the Help Desk.

UPDATE: New York Times Online Access Restored

As of today, community members are again able to access the New York Times online. In order to activate your account through Bryn Mawr, please follow the instructions here: https://guides.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/nytimes-BMC.

Thank you for your patience while we worked to restore this service.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to be in touch: library@brynmawr.edu or circulation@brynmawr.edu

Week 1: Welcome to Keep Calm and Use Assistive Technology!

What is assistive technology? Assistive technology is any tool that helps you do what you want to do. There are many different categories of assistive technology, but for this semester we will focus on tools that help in educational and professional settings. 

This November we will host a digital escape room where participants will use assistive technology to solve clues. To get ready for this challenge (and shave some minutes off your escape room time), follow these blog posts each week to learn about the assistive technology tools you will have to use in the escape room. 

For this first week we will focus on Helperbird, which is an academic support tool available for free to all Bryn Mawr College community members.  

Helperbird is a Google Chrome extension that offers support for reading, comprehension, researching, and writing. In particular, Helperbird can help you as you read PDFs and websites for school and work.   

To get access to Helperbird and to learn all about the features available, read this Ask Athena article about getting started with Helperbird. 

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

Update: Widespread Zoom Outage

Updated 9/15 at 11:30 AM:

Zoom appears to be working again, at least locally. Users across the country are still reporting errors, so you may find that you still have trouble connecting with folks who are not at Bryn Mawr.

Zoom is currently unavailable for many community members at Bryn Mawr, and across the country.

Teams may be a good alternative in the meantime. We will post updates here when we know more.

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

New Accessibility Resources and Learning Opportunities

Check out the new Accessibility Best Practices guide. This step-by-step guide helps you vet the materials and practices you use for accessibility.

Have questions about accessibility or assistive technology?

      • Stop by during Accessibility Office Hours every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 12-1 pm to have your questions answered.
      • Check out Assistive Technology Talk on Fridays at 2pm for workshops all about tools and tips to reach your goals this year!
      • Faculty and staff are invited to our Lunch and Learn program for bite-size tips on how to make your class more accessible: every other Monday from 12-12:30.
      • Watch the Daily Digest for details and zoom links!

Last but not least, the escape room is back! This semester’s game is called Keep Calm and Use Assistive Technology. Keep an on the LITS blog posts starting next week to learn ways to shave minutes off your team’s time this November.  Are you up for the challenge?

New York Times Online Access: Currently Unavailable

Currently, community members’ access to the New York Times online is unavailable. We are working to resolve the issue and restore access as soon as possible, but don’t have a current estimation for when it might again be available. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Please email circulation@brynmawr.edu if you need help finding alternate ways to access specific materials.