Sign up for the Microsoft Campus Agreement Now

The deadline for divisions to participate in the 2004-2005 Microsoft Campus Agreement is rapidly approaching. In order to use Microsoft products licensed under this agreement, divisions will need to submit payment by April 15th.

Deans, directors, and department heads will receive a memo soon detailing the agreement for the coming year, including the cost. This will be the only opportunity for divisions to sign up for this year's agreement.

Divisions that choose not to renew the agreement must demonstrate that they have either uninstalled or purchased licenses for all software installed under the agreement.

The Microsoft Campus Agreement provides licenses for specific Microsoft products for participating departments. This agreement, which is managed by the Office of Information Technology and funded by participating divisions, must be renewed annually.

The cost is based on the number of people (full time equivalent) in a participating department; the software licenses cover all computers owned by the department. Home use of Microsoft Office for University-related work is also included for faculty and staff members in participating departments.

More information about the University's participation in the campus agreement—including the license terms, frequently asked questions, and list of participating departments—is available on the HelpDesk's website at http://helpdesk.ua.edu/software/microsoft.

New SMTP Policy

A new security policy requires that on-campus computers only connect to specific on-campus SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) servers.

Those people most likely to be affected by this change are those on campus using POP or IMAP e-mail clients, including Microsoft Outlook and Netscape Mail. They should set their SMTP (outgoing e-mail) server entries to smtp.ua.edu, not bama.ua.edu or any other server. This change does not affect those using Microsoft Outlook on an Exchange server.

Many recent Trojans and viruses have generated their own SMTP servers that are then used to send out viruses and/or spam. This proliferation of e-mail can flood e-mail servers worldwide and has interfered with the delivery of legitimate e-mail sent from the University. This change is in direct response to those problems.

Spam Checking on BamaMail Delayed

An announcement was made at the beginning of March to begin system-wide spam checking for bama.ua.edu, the University's main mail server. Unfortunately, after multiple tests it has been determined that scanning every piece of e-mail received is not possible at the present time. We are going to continue to adjust our configurations so that we may implement this feature in the future without interfering with the other functions of the machine.

New Administrative Systems

The University's administrative systems (including student information, finance, and human resources) will be changing in the next few years. This change will provide almost continuous availability and a much easier to use interface.

Currently, access to the administrative system is obtained through a TN3270 program such as Hummingbird and, while menu-driven, is entirely text based. The new system, Banner, is Web-based.

Additional benefits include greater access to Tideguide resources for faculty and students that currently have scheduled availability, such as class registration and grading. The current systems must be brought down every night to run batch files; the new system will not.

The migration of the Student Information Systems (SIS) will start this August. Training on each new system will be provided as each system or module is converted.

New SPSS Site License

The University has a new site license for SPSS, a data management and analysis product. The license includes SPSS Base, Regression Models, and Advanced Models for both Windows and Macintosh. It also includes Tables for Windows only.

These products are available without charge for installation on most University-owned computers. (The only exception is for laptop computers intended primarily for student use.) Those interested in obtaining a copy should contact the HelpDesk at 348-2435.

Home use for full-time faculty and staff is included in the new license. Faculty and staff wishing to take advantage of this provision must sign a home-use agreement form, which is available at the Network and Computing Support HelpDesk in A-203 Gordon Palmer.

Free SYSTAT, Maple Software

Under our current site licenses, Maple and SYSTAT may be installed on any campus computer at no extra cost. Each license also includes home-use rights for faculty and staff. For copies, departments and users should provide their own recordable CDs to Sherry Harvey in A-203 Gordon Palmer.

SYSTAT is a statistics software package with a focus on scientific research and technical graphics. The Systat Software Inc. site (http://www.systat.com) has more details regarding the program's system requirements and capabilities.

Maple is a Windows-based mathematics software package. It includes calculus, vector mathematics, linear algebra, differential equations, statistics, and data visualization capabilities. For a more detailed feature list and system requirements, see the Maplesoft website (http://www.maplesoft.com).

More information about University software license programs is available at http://helpdesk.ua.edu/software.

Antivirus Software Upgrades

A new version of McAfee VirusScan (7.1) is available for University-owned computers only. Please contact the computer support personnel for your department to have it installed.

Virex 7.2 has also been released. This version includes automatic virus signature updating and requires OS X 10.1.3 or later. It is available for download from http://ncs.ua.edu/software.

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