Category Archives: Student Computing

FXB G11 opens as computer classroom

We are pleased to announce that FXB G11 has opened for the spring and summer semesters as a computer laboratory with seating for 38 students.  Each seat is equipped with a laptop, hardwired network connection, and the full suite of software available in any computer laboratory.  A laser printer has been added to the room.

The room is available both as a computer classroom and for general student use between scheduled classes.

This room replaces Kresge 213 which has gone offline for renovations along with Kresge 201, 210, 212, and 213.  This is the first of a two phase complete renovation & redesign of all the second floor classroom space in Kresge building.

Website Outage (Resolved)

Early this morning beginning at approximately 2:30 am, the HSPH main website began experiencing intermittent outages.  Our vendor had scheduled an overnight maintenance window to upgrade our cloud database solution.  The upgrade both took longer than expected and had a greater impact than expected.

As of 8:10 am, the issue was resolved.  All websites are fully operational.

 

Monthly Maintenance Window: Thursday, January 15

UPDATE: All updates were successful and systems are fully operational.

On Thursday, January 15th, we will be performing our normal monthly system maintenance to all servers and network gear.

The maintenance window will last from 7PM to 1AM.

The following services will be unavailable from 7:30PM – 8:00PM:

  • Landmark Networking. All PCs at Landmark will lose network access. Please shutdown all PCs and Network Printers before 7PM.

The following services will be unavailable from 7PM – 1AM:

  • ALICE
  • MyHSPH Portal

The following services will have one or two small outages:

(You can continue to work, but may have brief pauses while services restart)

  • Accellion File Transfer service
  • File and Print services
  • ICF File services
  • ICF Print services
  • NetStorage
  • Kanaka
  • Powerfaids and NetPartner
  • Wasabi

The following services will be unaffected during the maintenance window:  

  • ALICE Development/Testing systems
  • HUIT ICEmail (Outlook) system
  • Web Server (main www.hsph.harvard.edu site)

Please contact our Helpdesk at (617)432-4357 or email [email protected] for any questions or concerns you may have regarding this information.

Upcoming maintenance dates:

  • 2/15/2015 – Moved to Sunday
  • 3/15/2015 – Moved to Sunday, to accommodate Academic Calendar
  • 4/9/2015
  • 5/17/2015 – Moved to Sunday, to accommodate Academic Calendar
  • 6/11/2015

Relocation of Helpdesk on Wednesday, January 14

UPDATE: The Helpdesk has been relocated back to Kresge LL15.

Due to to maintenance in the Kresge Lower Level, the IT Helpdesk will be temporarily located in FXB G2 tomorrow, Wednesday, January 14th, from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

FXB G2 is at the foot of the main stairs going from the FXB atrium to the ground level.

All walk-in, phone and email will be handled from this location.

The IT Helpdesk will be back in the Kresge LL15 suite at 8:00 AM on Thursday, January 15th.

Course Video Maintenance Window on Saturday, January 10

Update: updates were successful and Mediasite is fully functional.

On Saturday, January 10, our course capture partner will be making upgrades to our course capture server between the hours of 1 am and 5 am.

Access to HSPH course videos (Mediasite) may become unavailable for brief periods during this scheduled maintenance window.

Winter Recess Computer Support

The Department of Information Technology will be providing phone support hours to assist the community with computer issues during the winter break.

Phone support hours are as follows:

Wednesday, December 24: closed
Thursday, December 25: closed
Friday, December 26:  10 am to 1 pm
Monday, December 29: 10 am to 1 pm
Tuesday, December 30: 10 am to 1 pm
Wednesday, December 31: 10 am to 1 pm
Thursday, January 1: closed
Friday, January 2: 10 am to 1 pm

Emergency phone number:
617-520-4774 (617-520-HSPH)

Walk-in service will not be available from December 24th through January 2.  The Helpdesk will reopen for walk-in service on Monday, January 5 at 8:00 am.

Please note that all core systems (e.g., email, network, web servers, server rooms) are monitored throughout the break by IT staff.  These systems are monitored 24/7/365.

We wish everyone a happy and safe holiday break and look forward to working with you in 2015.

Thank you,
HSPH Department of Information Technology

ALICE and MyHSPH Maintenance Window Scheduled for December 28

UPDATE, December 29: All updates were successful and systems are fully operational.

A maintenance window/outage has been scheduled for the ALICE and MyHSPH Student Information Systems (SIS) between 9:00am and 5:00pm on Sunday, December 28, 2014.

This maintenance window will be used to install vendor-supplied software updates to our SIS.  Our continued updates allow us to keep features, functionality and security up to date.

The following systems will be affected:

  • MyHSPH portal features
  • ALICE Self Service for Students and Faculty
  • Internet Native Banner (Administrative users)

You will still be able to access unaffected services such as email, course iSites, the HSPH Events calendar, NetStorage and more by visiting the current portal address:

https://my.sph.harvard.edu

If we are able to complete the work sooner than anticipated, we will notify all users when the systems are again available.

We appreciate your patience during this very important upgrade process.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Student Information Systems group at [email protected].

Monthly Maintenance Window: Thursday, December 11

UPDATE: All updates were successful and systems are fully operational.

On Thursday, December 11, we will be performing our normal monthly system maintenance to all servers.

The maintenance window will last from 7PM to 1AM.

The following services will be unavailable from 7PM to 1AM:

  • Landmark 4th floor networking.  All PCS will lose network access.  Please shutdown all PCs and network printers before 7 pm.

The following services will have one or two small outages:
(You can continue to work, but may have brief pauses while services restart)

The following services will be unavailable from 7pm – 10:30pm:

The following services will be unaffected during the maintenance window:  

Please contact our I/T Helpdesk at (617)432-4357 or email [email protected] for any questions or concerns you may have regarding this information.

Upcoming maintenance dates:

  • 1/15/2015
  • 2/12/2015
  • 3/15/2015 – Moved to Sunday, to accommodate Academic Calendar
  • 4/9/2015
  • 5/17/2015 – Moved to Sunday, to accommodate Academic Calendar
  • 6/11/2015

New Staff Addition: Erin Chadwick

erin-chadwick

Erin Chadwick, an Emerson College senior, has joined the Media and Educational Technology Services (METS) team as a video production intern.  Erin is helping HSPH with improving the quality of course captures this fall.  She works in our the central control room in the Kresge building using our new MediaSite course capture system and our remote cameras in Synder Auditorium (G1), Kresge G2, and Kresge G3.

Erin will be monitoring some of our classes and framing the lecturers.  This work has made our course recording more watchable and improved the overall student experience.

Erin is a film production major, with a particular interest in experimental film.

Erin works Monday and Wednesday mornings.

Please join us in welcoming Erin to the Harvard School of Public Health.

Website Outage (Resolved)

This morning from 9:12 am, the HSPH website stopped responding due to an issue with our web application firewall.  The web and server team quickly resolved the issue with our cloud vendors restoring access to the site by 9:32 am.

At 1:23 pm, there were additional related issues at our cloud hosting provider.  These were resolved at approximately 6:00 pm.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by these outages.