The fake messages have a sender address of Maggie.Monett@fwisd.org and a greeting along the lines of 'DEAR University of Oxford EMAIL OWNER'. We know that some people have already been fooled and have given away their password. This puts their emails at risk of being deleted by an intruder and the University at risk of being blacklisted when spam is sent by the intruder. If you did respond to the message with your password, please change it immediately and let us know what happened through an email to phishing@it.ox.ac.uk
User awareness is a key defence and we would encourage you to always be vigilant. More details are available at www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/email/phishing/ and www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/email/fake/.
The Banbury Road Help Centre will close for Christmas at 12:00 noon on December 24th and will re-open at 8:30 am on January 2nd, 2013. Please visit the Online Shop for details of deliveries before Christmas. The Hardware Repair Service will be taking in new jobs again in the New Year. The drop-in Help Centre and phones will close at 12:00 noon and emailed queries will receive a response before Christmas if they arrive before 11:30 on December 24th. Merry Christmas!
The IT Services Help Centre at Banbury Road is looking for post graduates to work on our Help Desk as Computing Assistants. Do you like people? Do you have a knack for explaining technical topics in plain English? Please click on the news item title for more details of this part-time job.A reminder about our earlier announcement. The deadline is approaching...
The Oxford Nexus services are always trying to develop and improve. Please help the Nexus Team to prioritise future improvements by visiting The Nexus Improvements Page and voting for your favorite improvements. We can't promise that your choices will all be selected, but your vote will count when we work out what we can do next. Vote as many times as you like. Your votes will be counted as they stand at midday on Tuesday 16 October 2012.
If you would like to suggest completely new functionality, please consider using the suggestion form.
From getting started with Twitter and Facebook Pages, to making LinkedIn work for you and disseminating your research via social media. This term our 'engage' programme will offer you everything you need to explore digital tools and strategies for academic networking, engagement and impact. Visit the website for details of workshops, training and guest speakers.
OUCS merged with two other Oxford University IT departments on 1st August 2012 and is now part of IT Services. Much information will remain available on this website for the time being but please do click the title of this item to see the new IT Services website.
Oxford University is merging its three central IT providers (OUCS, Business Services and Projects and the ICT Support Team). The official change date is 1st August and at that point all three will cease to be known as their current names and all will be called IT Services. The actual integration of the units has started already and will continue over some months. From a customer point of view there will be no major change on 1st August. Service changes will be carefully consulted upon and announced and changes will be timed not to disrupt major or critical University activities.The Oxford Nexus services are always trying to develop and improve. Please help the Nexus Team to prioritise future improvements by visiting The Nexus Improvements Page and voting for your favorite improvements. We can't promise that your choices will all be selected, but your vote will count when we work out what we can do next. Vote as many times as you like. Your votes will be counted as they stand at midday on Tuesday 16 October 2012.
If you would like to suggest completely new functionality, please consider using the suggestion form.
On Thursday 21st June a red carpet reception will be held to celebrate Oxford's innovative use of IT in teaching and learning. Winners will receive prizes in categories such as 'Technology for outreach and impact', 'Innovative use of technology in the classroom, 'Student IT Innovation' and 'Best Infograph'. This event is invitation only. However, you can follow the proceedings online through twitter (@ltgoxford and #oxtalent2012 ) and via the OxTALENT 2012 web page.
Artweeks is the country's biggest open studio event with more than 500 free exhibitions across the whole of the county. Amazing art is available to view or buy in a huge variety of different locations. This year OUCS invites you to enjoy a range of beautiful and inspiring pieces within the department's converted Victorian houses. Come and explore the exhibition between Monday 14th May - Friday 18th May 2012, 11.30am - 1.30pm.
On Friday 9th March OUCS held, what Electronics Weekly proclaim to be, the first introductory course on Raspberry Pi, a revolutionary computer designed to encourage kids of all ages to experiment with electronics and programming. It's USP is a fully featured computer the size of a credit card, sold at less than £30. Slides from the seminar are available on Slideshare. A recording of the session will be released over the coming weeks on the Oxford Podcasts web site.
OUCS is one of the early pioneers in the HE Open Education Movement, so for Open Education Week we have plenty to be proud of. OpenSpires has released over 1300 podcasts under an open licence for reuse, whilst the Oxford Text Archive are opening up hundreds of texts from Shakespeare to C18 medicine as e-books. Projects such as Ripple, Triton and OER Impact have made available workflows and research for those who want to get started in OER. Currently Politics in Spires, Great Writers Inspire, WW1 Centenary: Continuations and Beginnings and Europeana 1914-1918 are collecting together OER under themes to support teaching and learning across the board. The purpose of Open Education Week is to raise awareness of the open education movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide. Participation in all events and use of all resources is free an open to anyone.
Join the festival of reading by exploring the literary resources offered by OUCS. The Oxford Text Archive preserves electronic literary resources for use in Higher Education, many of which are available for download as e-books. Our Great Writers Inspire project is assembling a substantial new body of open content with a literary theme, focused on engaging new students. The First World War Poetry Digital Archive and The Old English Coursepack are open access sites, offering texts, contextual resources and tutorials.
If you did not get a place on one of our free Leap Year courses today, you can still learn something new on your extra day this year. Be inspired by some of the greatest writers of all time, learn to meditate, or take romp through the philosophy of the mind. Our Oxford Podcasts have over 3000 talks, lectures and ePubs to choose from.
The University has achieved a 4.8% reduction in carbon emissions Jan-Mar 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. OUCS is actively supporting the implementation of the University's Carbon Management Strategy by offering the Green Desktop Computing Initiative; building the University Shared Data Centre, consolidating servers using virtualisation technologies; and supporting the use of communication technologies, reducing the need for travel.
To discuss these find out more please visit: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/greenit/index.xml.ID=desktop
Researchers from the OUCS Learning Technologies Group have authored a report on the impact of Open Educational Resources. Findings highlight the need to support learners and academic staff alike in the referencing and the reuse of online resources.
The report was commissioned by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), and authored by by Liz Masterman and Joanna Wild. It can be downloaded at: http://bit.ly/okzU8Qf.
On the 28th June, OUCS will host the 10th Oxford University OxTALENT awards to celebrate creative use of technology for learning, teaching, impact and outreach. Awards will be presented for categories including: Best use of WebLearn to Support a Course or Programme of Study; Student Podcasting; Academic Podcasting; Best Digital Research Image and Best use of IT for Outreach and Impact. Attendance at the event is by invitation only, however if you do not have a ticket to grace the red carpet you can see the winners revealed via on the OxTALENT event page or through following tweets from @LTGOxford.
OxFile is a web service that supports the exchange of large files with people inside and outside of Oxford University, and is fast and simple to use.
We are grateful to everyone who helped test this service, and hope that it will prove useful for people needing to exchange files that are too large to send by email, WebLearn, or SharePoint.
People who wish to read more about the service should visit https://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/services/oxfile.xml.
Artweeks is the country's biggest open studio event and this year OUCS invites you to enjoy a range of beautiful pieces within the department's converted Victorian houses. We also have a selection of free gifts to give away each day!
 | A new report - OUCS in 2010 - is now available. This review summarises and celebrates the continuing achievements by OUCS staff in delivering high quality reliable services, supporting the Information Technology needs of the collegiate University as cost-effectively as possible, and adjusting to new demands. |
Shakespeare's entire First Folio, including original spelling, is being made available to download for free, as Oxford University becomes one of the world's first universities to add ePubs to iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store [www.itunes.com]. This has been made possible with the expertise of staff here in OUCS and the Oxford Text Archive.
To read the news item in full click on the title above.
  | As part of OWL Phase 2, to introduce wireless networking in public areas across the University, OUCS has come to an arrangement with the Oxford Radcliffe Hospital Trust to allow access to OWL and Eduroam wireless networks from all their internal wireless network access points. Whether you work in the hospitals or have the misfortune to be a customer, you can access the internet in all hospital public areas. Click on the title to check details of how to access and any credentials needed. |
Don't cancel your meetings because you can't travel: as long as you have a internet connection, you can use WebEx to run your meetings from wherever you are. You can share presentations, documents, applications or even your desktop with participants at the University or across the world.
For more details visit www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/webex or email webex@ox.ac.uk.
This photo by Simon_sees has a CC licence.
OUCS News is now available online as a PDF document and an XML web page.
Don't cancel your meetings because you can't travel: as long as you have a internet connection you can use webex to run your meetings from wherever you are. You can share presentations, documents, applications or even your desktop with participants at the University or across the world.
For more details visit www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/webex or e-mail webex@ox.ac.uk.
This photo by Söring is released with a CC licence.
Owing to the high risk of security vulnerabilities in modern websites using HTTP and HTML technologies, OUCS is leading the way in protecting the University's websites by moving to the more secure Gopher protocol.
While support for Gopher is missing in some modern browsers, users can access the site using Firefox at gopher://gopher.oucs.ox.ac.uk/. Users with less-capable browsers may access the site using a gateway.
The HTML version of the OUCS website will be phased out in favour of the Gopher version over the next six months.
Image licensed under CC-BY-3.0 from Wikipedia.
In these financially challenging times good economic news is a rarity. NSMS have bucked this particular trend. Charges for NSMS services will be held at the 2009-2010 level for 2010-2011. In addition, the pricing model has been simplified to further reduce any administrative overhead to our clients. Please contact nsms@oucs.ox.ac.uk for more details.
OUCS is hosting an Artweeks exhibition by members of staff between 8-15 May 2010 (Mon-Fri 4-8pm and Sat 11-4pm) at 13 Banbury Road. The idea behind Artweeks is to create an Oxfordshire Visual Art Festival where the public is invited to enjoy visual art away from the formality of a gallery setting, in a relaxed environment and with direct access to the artists. Entry to the OUCS Artweeks exhibition is free and open to anyone so why not come and see the the output of some talented geeks (and non-geeks)!
Because of the bad weather, OUCS is operating at reduced staffing levels today (Wednesday) and the building will close at 5.30pm.
Because of the bad weather, OUCS is operating at reduced staffing levels today and the building will close at 5.30 on Friday 8th.
