Web Applications Archives

Beta version of the new Online Catalog now available

May 16, 2013 by TERRIE THOMPSON

The beta version of the new online catalog is now available at http://catalog.olemiss.edu . If you have any concerns or notice any issues contact us at catalog@olemiss.edu. Following are some of the features we would like to highlight.

We have two catalogs in an academic year, Fall and Spring. While the catalog defaults to the current catalog, you can view a different catalog (Fall 2013-14, for instance) by going to the sidebar on the right side of the page and choosing “Select a different catalog”. Having two catalogs per year eliminates duplication and confusion regarding which requirements are current.
The new design follows the pattern set by the recently launched Ole Miss website, and includes the ability to navigate laterally rather than by scrolling down the page. It also leverages Responsive Web Design (RWD)—an important improvement as our users are increasingly accessing our sites using mobile devices.
The content is presented in smaller, more accessible “chunks”. There are more sub-navigation points across the top of the page, eliminating the need to scroll and search through one, long page to find what you’re looking for.

We will continue to enhance the online catalog. Specifically, degree audit rules associated programs of study, listing of faculty and staff achievement awards and indicating the courses that have special course fees. We’ll also be enhancing the search function within the catalog, it is currently limited to course name, code, and department, but we will add course descriptions as well as programs of study, minors, etc., and an A-Z index.

Filed Under: Academic Technology, Web Applications Tagged With: academics, catalog, Degree Audit

Save Time and Effort: Collaborate on Box

February 25, 2013 by abscott

Do you ever send a document back and forth between people making corrections each time? It is my experience, that it is usually hard to be sure which copy is the “good” copy. Box Collaboration allows users to work on a single document and save it each time so that the entire group can view and edit it at any time from any computer. The process is simple. Follow the steps listed below.

Upload Documents

Login Box using WebID and password
Add a new file by clicking the “New” button
Upload document to Box by clicking the “Upload” button within the file you wish to add the document

How to Initiate Collaboration

Click the people icon at the top of the page
Click the “Add Collaborators” button
Enter the email addresses of the people you want to collaborate with
Choose a folder that you want to collaborate on. Your folders will automatically appear, or you can create a new folder.
Select access type. Choose “Editor” to allow changes
Click “Invite Collaborator” button

Collaboration

Click the document that you wish to collaborate on
On the right side of the page, you will see “Sharing.” This section will allow you to share your document with others via email and mobile device
Click the “Collaborators Only Access” drop down to choose how you want your document viewed
Invite collaborators by adding names (from contacts) or email addresses and click “Invite Collaborators”
Collaborators will be able to access, share, comment on, and update all files in that folder

Who Can Collaborate?

Anyone with an email address and Box account can collaborate!

Box account can either be with Ole Miss Box or Box. Both are free to users, except with Ole Miss Box, we receive 10 gb of storage, while Box users receive only 2 gb of storage. Ole Miss users login using WebID and password.

Once you have invited collaborators, you all will be able to edit documents in real time and login from any computer to access your files. For more information on editing, refer to the Box Edit article.

If you have additional questions, please contact the IT Helpdesk at 662-915-5222 or helpdesk@olemiss.edu. You can visit our website for more information or contact us Monday through Friday, 8 AM CST – 5 PM CST.

Filed Under: Academic Technology, Web Applications Tagged With: box, box edit, collaborate

Box Edit Application

February 11, 2013 by abscott

Instead of editing your document on your desktop then uploading to Box, you can edit it with Box Edit. Using this application through Box allows you to edit your document and save in two places, on the cloud and on your desktop, with one click.

With Box Edit, you can:

- Create new documents: Create brand new Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files directly from Box

- Edit files quickly: Open a file directly from the preview page on Box, make edits and save back automatically

- Edit any file type: Word documents, presentations, images, CAD files – you name it, you can edit easily

- Easy installation: Download and install Box Edit once by clicking the ‘Edit’ tab on any file preview, and it’ll work on all your browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari

You must have a document editing program such as Microsoft Office, iWork, or Open Office to be able to edit and save with Box Edit. This add-on is compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7; Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion), and 10.8 (Mountain Lion) and is available to all Box users FREE.

To create, edit and save your files, you must first install the Box Edit application.

Login using your my.olemiss WebID and password.
Then, click the cloud icon for applications.
On the right side of the page, under “Applications,” click “Official Box Applications.”
The Box Edit application is the first application listed.
Click “Box Edit” and follow the instructions to install.

Once the application is installed, you may begin editing your files.

Upload documents to Box
Choose the document to edit
Click on the “Edit” button above the document
Make necessary changes to your document
Click “Save”–this will update your document on your desktop and in Box

Visit www.success.box.com for more information and useful tips on Box Edit.

Filed Under: Web Applications Tagged With: box, box edit, box.olemiss.edu

New Search Application is Better than Ever

December 4, 2012 by abscott

New Search application retrieves 13 different kinds of results.

Sai Kiran Vudutala is a computer science graduate student whose goal was to make searching the university’s website better and easier. The new Search application, available on the UM home page, is better than ever. Until now, it was often difficult to find specific things on the UM Website because the old search relied only on Google’s results. One could spend hours trying to enter just the right words hoping to find what they were looking for. Or they could use one of the half-dozen specific directories to find something specific. The new UM Search application, however, is a one-stop shop for any kind of information you may be looking for.

The old old search application used the Google Custom Search Engine which “crawled” the olemiss.edu domain every few days. Though it was very responsive, the results were limited to content that was found on our website. It didn’t include structured and detailed information existing in the campus databases. The new Search application uses key words to categorize information into 13 different groups.

Campus Organizations: groups and organizations on campus with links provided to their respective websites

Committees: current committees on campus along with the committee members

Buildings & Landmarks: places on campus with links included which direct the user to the interactive Campus Map. The map shows the type of building or landmark, a picture of the building or landmark, the address, occupants, and amenities.

Courses: current UM courses with links provided where more information can be found regarding requirements. Courses can be searched by course name or number.

Departments & Offices: campus departments and offices along with location, contact information, and links to each webpage

Graduate Programs: graduate level programs at the university including emphasis availability with links provided to each respective page for more information

People: Faculty & Staff at the university with links provided for more information about each person including their contact information, location, degrees, committee memberships, areas of expertise, biographies, awards, and their home pages if available. Specific people can be found using numbers, names, emails, offices, and/or titles.

Policies: university policies including the creed, employment regulations and other important university information with links provided for additional information

Technology: any university technology such as procurement, development, security, educational, and personal technology

UM Website: articles and webpages that relate to the keywords searched

Undergraduate Minors: current undergraduate minors available with links provided to the respective minor’s page on myOleMiss where a description of the minor, educational and course requirements can be found

Undergraduate Majors: undergraduate majors that relate to the keywords searched with links provided to the respective major’s page on myOleMiss where a description of the major, educational and course requirements can be found

Quick Links: entities that don’t quite fit in with the other categories…for example, information and links regarding the museum, the credit union, graduation, and the libraries on campus

Sai Vudutala has done a great job with the new Search application. It is easier than ever to find the information you need when you need it. One may even find the “Doorknob to the Universe” by searching the Ole Miss website, whereas before, a friend would have to lead you to it by foot… at night.

Filed Under: Web Applications, Website

Request Your UM Transcript From a Mobile Device

July 27, 2012 by fmathew

Transcript requests have recently been added to the mobile-friendly version of the myOleMiss portal. Students can conveniently request official and unofficial transcripts on their mobile devices by visiting myOleMiss and selecting the request a transcript link in the list of mobile friendly myOleMiss services available to them.

This service is consistent with the transcript request service in the full version of myOleMiss:

You cannot request a transcript if you have holds on your records.
You can choose from an address on file to have the official transcript sent to or specify a different address.
The fees applicable to official transcripts and having transcripts faxed to you are the same.
You can download an unofficial transcript to your mobile device.

Filed Under: Mobile, Web Applications

WebMail for Students Moving to UM Google Mail

March 15, 2012 by Deetra Wiley

Figure 1. Poll Results from UM community in support of moving student email to Google.In June 2011, a committee was formed to consider a University of Mississippi (UM) partnership with Google to offer Google Apps for Education to students. Google Apps for Education offers email, document creation, calendar services and home pages to use in private and collaborative projects.

In June 2011, a committee was formed to consider a University of Mississippi (UM) partnership with Google to offer Google Apps for Education to students. Google Apps for Education offers email, document creation, calendar services and home pages to use in private and collaborative projects.

In September 2011, the committee requested input from the university community on this initiative. The survey results (Figure 1) showed an overwhelming desire to pursue Google Apps for Education as the replacement for UM Webmail. Soon after, the Office of Information Technology (IT) began preparations for this initiative.

UM Students

Beginning on March 19, 2012, UM will provide each student with the ability to opt in for a Google email (Gmail) account. For students, the new UM Gmail account will be a replacement for the current UM Webmail account. Although this account will be hosted with Google, it will have the “go.olemiss.edu” extension rather than “gmail.com.” The UM Webmail account, WebID@olemiss.edu, will continue to work for a while. Once students opt in to UM Gmail, any email sent to WebID@olemiss.edu will be automatically forwarded to WebID@go.olemiss.edu.

Beginning on July 9, 2012, any remaining student accounts on UM Webmail will be automatically migrated over to UM Gmail. Similar to the early adopters, any email sent to WebID@olemiss.edu will be automatically forwarded to WebID@go.olemiss.edu.

Further, for new student accounts created on or after March 19, only a UM Gmail account will be created. These students should only use WebID@go.olemiss.edu for email correspondence.

UM Employees

On March 19, 2012, faculty and staff may also sign up for UM Gmail. Instead of a replacement, this will be an additional account for UM Gmail and other Google apps, leaving the UM Mail (Exchange) account to be used for official UM correspondence. UM Gmail accounts are being made available to employees so they can use Google Apps for Education in their roles as instructors and students.

Why UM Gmail?

The major advantages are that Gmail offers substantially more disk space than UM is able to offer, and Gmail offers better support for mobile devices,” says Kathy Gates, Chief Information Officer (IT). “We anticipate that these two features will be highly appealing and may lead to more students using their university-assigned email accounts.”

All Gmail accounts will have 25 gigabytes of personal storage space. There is a 1 GB limit on the storage of files that are not in the Google docs format. Examples would be PDF or JPEG files. Fortunately, files can be converted to Google file formats during the upload and save process.

What About Security?

For everyone, the UM Gmail password will be the same as your existing WebID password. During the UM Gmail sign up process, a password reset will be required to meet the Google password requirements (e.g., 8 characters). You can read about Google’s security and privacy statement online or review Google’s Public Policy Blog.

More Information

More information is available at http://go.olemiss.edu. For questions and assistance, contact the IT Helpdesk at 662-915-5222 or helpdesk @olemiss .edu.

Filed Under: Email, UM Google Mail, Web Applications Tagged With: Email, Google Mail, UM Gmail

New Event Calendar

February 25, 2012 by Robby Seitz

Last week a new Event Calendar was rolled out for the university community. It may look similar to the old one on the outside, but underneath it is fundamentally different.

There are so many online calendars on the market that it is worth explaining why we chose to build a new one. There are two aspects to advertising an event on the Web. One is to have it listed in a calendar where everyone can find it. The other is to let people know there’s something on the calendar to see. We had applications for both of those, but there was nothing linking them. A person would have to submit all the necessary information for an event to be put on the calendar, and then submit it all again through a different process in order to tell people about it. The errors and delays caused by this necessary redundancy compounded the difficulty. And, frankly, our campus calendar lacked many events that people would expect to find on it, due mainly to these difficulties.

To avoid additional time entering duplicate information, we chose to combine the two processes. An event would be its own announcement. The new calendar is run by UM Today, our one-stop announcement delivery system. When an UM Today administrator enters an event announcement, she is presented with new fields for date, time, location, and sponsors so that all the pertinent information is gathered at one time. Once submitted, the event immediately appears on the Event Calendar, and the announcement for it will appear in UM Today for the specified period prior to the event date. So today you can submit an announcement for an event in the fall, and by setting the “validity dates” correctly, it will start being announced in UM Today up to 21 days prior to the event. And since announcements can be pushed to the Bulletin Board, it will also appear on the UM home page at the same time.

Additional features are already planned, including a method of displaying sponsored events directly in the sponsors’ websites. Expect to see further improvements over the next several weeks. Please let us know if you have ideas to make it better. And, by all means, be sure to add events to the Event Calendar–It’s where people are looking.

Filed Under: UM Today, Web Applications, Web Site

IT’s Errol Sayre Featured in the SAP Community Network

November 10, 2011 by Deetra Wiley

Errol Sayre

As noted in an earlier TECHNews article, the University of Mississippi’s (UM) Office of Information Technology (IT ) is a ramp-up site of a new technology from SAP, SAP NetWeaver Gateway (NG). As part of this ramp-up, Errol Sayre, Systems Analyst III, was part of the project team that delivered an iPad application for UM Admissions Counselors. These counselors travel to high schools and other educational institutions throughout the United States to meet prospective students who are interested in attending the University of Mississippi.

The counselors wanted to be able to query admissions and prospective student data while on-site without the bulk of a laptop. The IT project team developed a native application using Objective C that interfaces with NetWeaver Gateway to retrieve data from our SAP ERP system. This allows the counselors to quickly search for prospective student information by their student attributes and school. In addition, corresponding screens from the myOleMiss portal were incorporated into the app using a general purpose Web browser that Sayre built into the application.

Sayre’s article is entitled Consuming NetWeaver Gateway Services in iOS. The SAP Community Network (SCN) is SAP’s professional social network, and is used by SAP customers, partners, employees and experts.

Filed Under: Blogs, Uncategorized, Web Applications, Web Site Tagged With: Netweaver Gateway, SAP Community

IT’s Chris Reichley Featured in the SAP Community Network

October 21, 2011 by Deetra Wiley

The University of Mississippi (UM) Office of Information Technology (IT) is an early adopter of a new technology from SAP, NetWeaver Gateway. As part of this project, Christopher Reichley, Systems Analyst and Associate Director of IAEGS, attempted to consume a Gateway service using PHP from an Apache Web server and encountered performance issues with the OData library. He found that the OData library was not optimized for use with common security practices on a Web server, and he was able to enhance this library to allow it to function better with these security practices. “Without the fixes and changes,” says Reichley, “the service was taking 14+ seconds to return a search. With the changes, it is only a second or two.”

The changes were communicated to SAP in one of the weekly conference calls that the project team holds, and Chris was asked to write a blog article for the SAP Community Network (SCN). His article is entitled Consuming SAP NetWeaver Gateway OData Web Services Using PHP.

The SAP Community Network is SAP’s professional social network, and is used by SAP customers, partners, employees and experts.

Filed Under: Blogs, Web Applications, Web Site

Never Miss the Bus

April 14, 2011 by sshakya1

Oxford University Transit buses are now GPS enabled for real-time tracking, and riders can get bus schedule information using their computers or smart phones. Riders can now stay on schedule, plan their travel, and never miss a bus again.

NEXTBus map show realtime location of O.U.T. buses

Screenshot of Live Bus Schedule Links

The O.U.T. buses’ real-time transit information is made available by NEXTbus, a transit management solution provider which uses satellite technology and advanced computer modeling to track vehicles on their routes. NEXTBus can estimate vehicle arrivals with a high degree of accuracy. On their site, you can even see mapped bus positions updated constantly.

While we have had overlays of the bus routes available on the campus map for a while, we have now added links to this live information also.

Mobile Campus Map

NEXTBus Mobile

Our mobile campus map has links to the mobile version of the NEXTBus app. This version determines the closest bus stops to your location, and then it displays the arrival times for those buses. For the mobile site, direct your smart phone to m.olemiss.edu and choose Campus Map. The Live O.U.T. link is at the bottom.

Filed Under: Mobile, Web Applications, Web Site Tagged With: Campus Map