News and Updates (10/18/24)

IT News and Updates:


Posted 10/16/24

Teaching Technology Sessions

The university adopted several applications to support teaching and learning. Join to us to learn about leveraging the Learning Management System to facilitate your courses, secure your exams, set up your gradebook for student transparency, and improve the group project experience.  
 

Blackboard AI Design Assistant

Building a new course from scratch can be time-consuming and often involves repetitive tasks. Whether you're looking for guidance in organizing your course or want to streamline the process, the AI Design Assistant can help. It leverages advanced AI to create learning modules, rubrics, question banks, discussion boards, and assignments, making it easier to develop a complete and effective course. Plus, it adapts to your teaching style, ensuring your course is tailored to your needs while saving you valuable time.

Securing our World

Over the past year, you have reported over 3,892 suspicious emails, leading to the interception of 920 threatening messages. Thanks to your vigilance, we have been able to isolate, mitigate, and resolve these incidents, safeguarding the University. Your commitment to the University’s security has been invaluable.

As we continue to enhance our defenses, it's essential that we all stay informed and up-to-date. Therefore, as part of the University’s annual requirement for cybersecurity training, the completion of the courses below is mandatory for all staff and faculty. These courses will take 25 minutes to complete and can be accessed via the MySHU portal starting October 1st. Navigate to the "Information Technology" section and select "Cybersecurity Training." Enter your email address to be directed to the KnowBe4 platform.

This year's theme, "Securing Our World," includes the following modules:

  • Generative AI: Intelligent and Dangerous?
    Explore the basics of generative AI, its potential uses by cybercriminals, and how you can protect yourself from related threats.
  • Security Bytes: PII
    Learn how to safeguard Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in this informative video.
  • Security Bytes: Phishing
    Recognize and avoid phishing attacks with this quick, targeted lesson.
  • The Inside Man: Buying Time
    Discover the importance of using a password manager to keep track of strong, unique passwords and passphrases.
  • Classic Danger Zone
    Challenge yourself in this interactive game where you must outsmart a hacker by answering security awareness questions before they breach your computer.

These courses will be available throughout the month of October. Courses take 25 minutes to complete, but materials will always be available for your reference through the Cybersecurity Training link on Blackboard.

Blackboard Updates for September 2024

On September 6, 2024, Blackboard released the newest updates to the Learning Management System. These updates include a modified layout of the Course Content page, several enhancements to course content and grading workflow, and a new AI feature called AI Conversation. For detailed information about these features, please visit the September 2024 Release Notes created by Academic Technology