Do you know - the Campus E-mail System will no longer be available to students in Q4 2011?

All students are reminded that the new PolyU Connect service, which is a new life-long e-mail, communication and collaboration platform for use by our students, alumni and retirees, will replace the existing Campus E-mail and Webmail service as the official communication channel with students in Q4 2011.

Activate Your PolyU Connect Account to Win an xBox 360

All students are therefore strongly advised to activate your new PolyU Connect account NOW if you have not yet done so. This is to allow yourself time to familiarize with and enjoy the very rich services of this new e-mail and collaboration platform.

So, ACTION NOW to: 

• Log in to your PolyU Connect account and change the initial password to activate the service, AND ALSO;
• Forward your Campus E-mail account to your PolyU Connect account
  
  

TO WIN AN xBox 360!

Your login ID and the initial password have already been sent to you via your Campus E-mail account in April.

3rd xBox 360 Winner

For students who have already activated your PolyU Connect account, click the Xbox 360 below to see if you are the lucky winner of this month:

If you have any enquiries or need assistance regarding the PolyU Connect service, please contact the ITS Help Centre at 2766 5900.

Do you store data on your mobile phone? Do you surf the Internet with your mobile phone? If your answer is ‘YES’, you need to take data security of your phone seriously.

Do the following:

• Don’t leave your mobile phone unattended.
  
  
• Enable password protected screen and change the password regularly.
  
  
• Minimize the storage of data on mobile devices.
  
  
• Encrypt your files if possible.
  
  
• Do not open messages from unknown sources.
  
  
• Turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when not in use. Do not use unknown Wi-Fi connections.
  
  
• Install anti-virus software on your devices and keep the definition files up-to-date.
  
  
• Scan the apps before installation.
  
  
• Remove your browsing history, cookies and cache regularly.
  

Be a Smart Mobile Phone User -

Geotagging vs Privacy

You take a picture of your friend’s new home and post it on Facebook using your mobile phone. What would happen? Now all your Facebook friends can find out where your friend lives.

Why? Most people don’t realize that  automatic geotagging takes place on their mobile phones and the feature is enabled by default on most mobile devices.

What is Geotagging?

The storage of location based data inside images, in the form of Latitude and Longitude, is called Geotagging. It means tagging your photo with the geographic location.

How to turn off Geotagging on your mobile phone?

iPhone (iOS 4.x)

• Go to "Settings" and select "Location Services". You can then find a list of apps which can access your GPS coordinates
• Disable the geotagging feature of the apps

Google Android

• Start your camera application and go to "Settings" of your camera application
• Turn off the “Store Location”

Blackberry

• Start your camera application, press the "Menu" button and choose "Options"
• Set "Geotagging" to "disabled"

Each year, ITS will, in partnership with the Students' Union, invite vendors to make special offers on notebook PCs to our students, staff, and alumni. The Notebook Ownership Programme has long been well-received by the PolyU community and over 16,000 notebooks / netbooks were sold during the exercise last year. 

Same as before, this year's notebook programme will commence in August. After thorough evaluation and comparison on the configuration, functionality, discount level, etc. of various brands, the notebooks of two vendors, Lenovo and Acer, have been selected for this year's programme.

Details of the programme, including model and price information, road show and purchase period, etc. will be announced as soon as they are finalized.

The annual renewal arrangement of the Microsoft Campus Agreement, a centrally funded site-licensing programme which provides PolyU departments and colleagues with ready access to a list of commonly-used MS software, has been finalised.

Same as in the previous year, the new agreement covers a one-year period up to 31 May 2012 and is administered through Microware Limited. Staff members can enjoy free use of a bundle of popular MS software on university-owned PCs for work-related purposes. Departments are also licensed to install the Campus Agreement software on computers in their open-access laboratories on campus for student use.

Software Coverage

The software products covered under this year's Agreement are essentially the same as those of last year:  

• MS Windows Operating System (OS) Upgrade
• MS Office or Office for Mac (including MS Publisher)
• MS Core Client Access Licence (CAL)
• MS Project Professional
• MS SQL Client Access Licence (CAL)
• MS Visual Studio Professional 

Special Usage Right

Media for Installation

Following the success of the PolyU Information Security Week in May, an Information Security e-Exhibition and e-Quiz have been launched in early June. The e-Exhibition extends the University community's access to the security information displayed on the exhibition boards beyond the Security Week.

Participation in the e-Quiz will challenge users on the adequacy of their information security knowledge and at the same time try their luck in the lucky draw to receive handsome prizes including iPad 2, buffet dinner coupon, iPhone charger, USB thumb drives ranging from 4 -16GB, etc.  

PolyU students who have activated their new PolyU Connect account, and forwarded their Campus E-mail to the new account on or before 15 June will also have the chance to be the prize winners.

Click HERE to see if you are one of the lucky winners.

Launch of PolyU Council e-Document System (PCDS)

In support of environmental conservation, the University Council has taken on board an initiative towards paperless meetings. To support this initiative, a new application has been developed to enable all Council Members to download, read and store the Council documents using iPad or notebook.

The University’s e-mail facilities are provided to the PolyU community in support of their teaching, learning, research, administrative and communication needs. The PolyU Electronic Mail Policy is drawn up to define the standards of acceptable use of the University e-mail facilities.

The Policy covers the following areas regarding the use of the University e-mail facilities: 

• access to e-mail
• official University e-mail account
• standards of acceptable use
• use of e-mail for PolyU business
• use of e-mail for personal use
• preventing the spread of malicious software
• e-mail backup
• structure of e-mail
• security, privacy, integrity & confidentiality
• action in the event of a breach of the standards of acceptable use
• legal consequences of misuse of e-mail facilities

As communicated earlier in our Newsletter, the Policy has been conveyed to Departmental Computer Liaison Officers for consultation, presented to the University’s Information Services Steering Committee (ISSC), and announced for  open consultation to solicit feedback, comments and suggestions from users. The comments/suggestions have been duly reviewed and incorporated as appropriate.

Please Click here to view the PolyU Electronic Mail Policy.

Back up Your Important Data and Activate and Use Your New PolyU Connect E-mail Account

The University will continue to provide graduates with access to the central IT facilities and services for 62 days (two months) after confirmation of their eligibility for graduation.

If you are graduating this summer, you will be individually notified via e-mail of the expiry date of your NetID and the associated central IT facilities and services available to you. The University has adopted a new email service, PolyU Connect, which is a life-long e-mail, communication and collaboration service provided to all students as well as alumni.

Click here for more information about PolyU Connect.

As your NetID will soon expire, please be reminded that you will need to backup your required  data on all the systems including Campus E-mail and WebMail, University Portal, myWeb and myStore, WebCT, etc. before the service expiry date. All data will be deleted after the expiry date and will no longer be recoverable.   

Since your Campus E-mail account will also soon expire, you are strongly advised to activate your PolyU Connect account immediately AND start to set an auto forward in your Campus E-mail account to forward all new incoming e-mails to your PolyU Connect account.  Click here for the steps to do so. As for the 'old' e-mails in your Campus E-mail account which you would like to keep, you may manually forward them to your PolyU Connect account for retention.

Please note in particular that your PolyU Connect account include a 25GB web storage service, named SkyDrive, whereby you can  store and retrieve your documents/files anywhere over the Internet.

It is recommended that you can backup the data stored in the University Portal, myWeb, myStore and WebCT that you wish to retain to this web storage service.  Click here for the guide of using SkyDrive.

If you have any enquiries regarding the expiry date of the central IT facilities and services, the backup of data or the PolyU Connect service, please contact the ITS Help Centre at 2766 5900.

Training Workshops

You may view the full list of workshops offered in July and make online enrolment via the Staff IT Training Workshop Enrolment System. You will be notified instantly of the enrolment results.

Online Courses

Please click here for the detailed description of each course. To enrol, please complete and return the web-based proforma reply and you will be informed of the enrolment results in early July via e-mail.

Enquiries: 4566