What do the terms Datatel, Colleague, Benefactor, Aislin, and WebAdvisor mean?

• Datatel – Is the vendor that provides our administrative software applications that offices use for registering students, grading, payroll, accounts receivable, financial aid, fund raising, etc 
• Colleague – Is the name of the administrative software application provided by Datatel that allows offices to register students, handle grading, payroll, accounts receivable, financial aid, admission, etc.
• Benefactor – Is the name of a separate software application (also provided by Datatel) that handles fund raising and alumni records. 
• Aislin - Is the name we given our administrative server, the hardware that our administrative software applications (Colleague and Benefactor) run on.
• WebAdvisor – Is the name of the Web interface with our administrative software applications applications.  It is also provided by Datatel and gives students, faculty and staff easier access to all kinds of information.
  

Also note:  people sometimes use the terms Datatel/Colleague/Aislin/UI interchangeably when referring to our administrative system.

How do I gain access to the Administrative system?

Accounts are created on the administrative system on an as needed basis.  To get a new account have your supervisor submit a help ticket requesting access.

Once you have an account use Datatel’s User Interface (UI).  Look for the blue or red Datatel icon on your desktop or, if you have a Mac, use the Web UI link on the CS/ITS web page to connect to Colleague or Benefactor.

The administrative system is telling me to change my password. Why do I have to do this? How do I do this?

For security, passwords on the administrative system are setup to expire every 90 days. 

Fifteen days before your password expires you will begin to get a warning message when you login.  You can just return twice to ignore this warning and continue with the login.  If you’d like to change your password before it expires, enter “passwd” here and follow the instructions.  Once your password has actually expired you must change it before you can log in.

I’ve forgotten my password on the administrative system. Can someone tell me what it is?

Sorry no.  Passwords on the administrative system are encrypted so even CS/ITS staff cannot see what they are.  We can however perform a password reset for you.  The best way to request this is to submit a ticket on our help system requesting a password change.

My student workers need to work on the administrative system. Can I log them into my account or give them my password to use?

Sorry no.   It is a violation of Wesleyan’s computer use policy to share your password with anyone or let anyone else use your account, this includes student employees.  It is very important, especially on the administrative system where we have lots of private information, that we maintain security.  Never share your password with anyone or let anyone else use your account once you have logged in.

 We do create individual accounts for student employees who need to work on the administrative system.  Submit a ticket on our help system to request a student employee account specifying the access the student needs and the name of the student.

What is query on the administrative system and how do I get access to it?

Sometimes also called “the : prompt”, query is where staff go to perform ad-hoc reporting on data from the administrative system.  This does require knowledge of a special query language which we’ve trained select staff on in the past.   If you are interested in accessing query for ad-hoc reporting or would like more information, contact Computing Services, Mark Murphy (ext. 2254, mam@nebrwesleyan.edu).

When I login to Colleague I see a UT menu instead of the menu I normally have? How do I get my regular menu back?

When you login to the administrative system for the first time it automatically puts you in the UT application which is not where you normally work.  You will need to change applications.  To do this pull down the “Apps” drop down at the top of the page and select a different application (whichever is appropriate):

            HR for Human Resources application

            CF for Financials application

            ST for Students application

 This can get reset occasionally so even if you’re not a brand new user you may find yourself in the UT application. 

Can I email a report on the administrative system instead of printing it?

Yes, usually. 

If you’re running the report from a process on Colleague or Benefactor that uses the standard print screen enter “E” in the “Output Device” field instead of “P” or “H” and update and you’ll get an email screen where you can enter the subject of the email message and the addresses you want to send the report to.  And it will be emailed to these addresses instead of printing. 

I’ve saved something to the HOLD file on the administrative system (to transfer to my desktop computer). Where is this located?

The HOLD directory for Colleague is located here:  /data/coll18/production/apphome/_HOLD_.

The HOLD directory for Benefactor is located here:  /data/coll18/production/benefactor/_HOLD_.

What do I need to do to enter my own vouchers/payment requests on the administrative system?

The Business Office handles setup and training of individual access to vouchers and payments on the administrative system.  If you’re interested in doing this contact Ben Dahl (ext. 2183, bdahl@nebrwesleyan.edu).

How can I get budget reports emailed to me?

The Business Office manages all aspects of the General ledger accounts, including which accounts you can get via email.  If you’re interested in this services contact Diane Hawkins (ext. 7523, dhawkins@nebrwesleyan.edu).

How can I combine several sections of a course so that I only have to upload my notes once?

First, you'll need to choose one section that will become the "master." This is usually section one, but it doesn't matter -- just choose one that you'll use. Then, go into each other section and make it unavailable. To do that, go to the Control Panel and click on "Settings" under the "Course Options" pane. Click on "Course Availability," select "No," and click "OK." Doing this hides the section from the students so that they can't see it and won't accidentally go to the wrong section. Next, go to your master section -- the one that you didn't make unavailable -- and enroll all of the students from the other sections into it. (How do I enroll a student in a course?) Yes, you have to do this manually. It stinks, but saves you a bunch of work in the long run.

This works for combining any two sections -- they don't have to be the same class. For instance, you might want to combine a class and its related lab; same process.

When you combine courses, you are responsible for drops and adds.

How do I enroll a student in a course?

The short answer is: you don't. When the year starts, all of your students are already enrolled. After that, adds are processed automatically every night, so you really shouldn't need to enroll anyone manually.

In the unlikely event that you do need to, however, it's pretty easy. From the Control Panel, click on "Enroll User" in the "User Management" pane. Search for the student by last name, check the box next to their name, and click "Submit." Sometimes, the user doesn't appear when you search for them; here's why.

I followed your instructions to enroll a student, but I can't find them. Why not?

Chances are, the student is already enrolled in your course. Search for them using "List/Modify Users" in the "User Management" pane of the Control Panel. Many times, students are added automatically before an instructor gets a chance to, and Blackboard won't let you enroll the same student twice!

If you've double-checked that the student is, indeed, not enrolled in your course, make sure that you're spelling his or her name right, and that you're using the correct name. If the student started at Wesleyan and then changed his or her name, you might need to search using the older name. If you're absolutely positive the student isn't already enrolled, and still can't find them, submit a ticket.

How can I add a new instructor to a course?

Blackboard, in an effort to make the user experience as difficult and incongruous as possible, has made adding a new instructor fittingly unintuitive. First, you'll need to enroll the new instructor as a student. Once you've done that, click on "List/Modify Users" in the "User Management" pane of the Control Panel and search for the new instructor. Click on the "Properties" button next to their name. At the bottom, you can select their role in the course; change it to "Instructor" and click "Submit."

How do I add a student instructor to a course?

Once you've enrolled the user as a student, click on "List/Modify Users" in the "User Management" pane of the Control Panel and search for the user you want to make a student instructor. Click on the "Properties" button next to their name. At the bottom, you can select their role in the course. Here, you can choose which role you want the student instructor to have in your course. A quick rundown:

• A Course Builder can edit all areas of the course except for the gradebook.
• A Grader has full access to the gradebook, and can manage Assignments, Tests, and Surveys.
• An Instructor (that's you) can do absolutely anything to the course.
• A Teaching Assistant can also do anything to the course, but will not be listed as the instructor when the course is viewed.

You can make your student instructors whatever role suits you best.

How do I copy the content from an older course into a newer course?

Go into the source course -- i.e., the one that has the content in it -- and click on "Course Copy" under "Course Options" in the Control Panel. It will prompt you to enter the Destination Course ID, which is something like ORIG-101-01-SP-08. If you can't remember it, you can browse to find it. Check every box in the "Course Materials" section, but don't check the "Enrollments" box. Click "Submit." It will copy the course, but not instantly. Depending on the size of your course, it could take up to an hour. Feel free to grab a coffee, read some Proust, or otherwise pass the time while you're waiting.

When I login to Blackboard, I see about a billion courses listed from past semesters. Can you delete them for me?

No, but I'll do you one better. You can hide them from view, but still be able to access them if you need to. First, click on your "My Wesleyan" tab at the top of the page. In the "My Courses" pane, you'll see all of your courses listed. In the upper-righthand corner of that pane, there's a small icon that looks like a pencil. Click on it. You will now find yourself on a page that lists all of your courses, with several checkboxes next to each one. Go through and uncheck all of the boxes next to each course you don't want to see. Click "Submit" -- and voila! Your old courses are gone from view!

The good news is that you can still access these courses when you need to, e.g., migrate their content to a new course. If you click on the "Courses" tab, you can see that every course is still listed. This page also lists the course ID number (something like BIO-001-02-FA-05) so you can easily determine the section and session of those courses you teach every semester. (If you frequently teach the same course, you might also find it useful to rename the courses.)

At the end of each semester, we automatically make old courses unavailable to students, which hides the courses from them.

How can I rename a course to make the title more descriptive?

From the Control Panel, click on "Settings" in the "Course Options" pane. Click on "Course Name and Description." Change the name to whatever you wish -- bearing in mind that students will need to use the new name to identify the course -- and click "Submit."

How do I get a course I'm teaching added to my Blackboard site?

Blackboard courses are synchronized directly from the Registrar's databases, so you should ensure that the Registrar knows what courses you are teaching. They will be automatically added to your Blackboard page within 24 hours. You do not need to notify CS/IT, since we will not add your classes on demand.

How do I drop a student from a course?

While we enroll students automatically for you, we currently lack the ability to drop them from the course, so you'll need to do that yourself when a student drops, withdraws, etc. From the Control Panel, click on "Remove User From Course" in the "User Management" pane. Search for the student by last name and check the box next to their name. Type "Yes" (Note the capital "Y"! It's important!) in the box at the bottom and click "Submit."

How do I drop an instructor from a course?

This is just as much fun as adding an instructor. First, you have to make them a student. To do that, click on "List/Modify Users" in the "User Management" pane of the Control Panel and search for the instructor. Click on the "Properties" button next to their name. At the bottom, you can select their role in the course; change it to "Student" and click "Submit." Now that they're a student, you can drop them from the course as normal.

How do I use the Digital Dropbox and/or the Assignments feature? Which should I use?

The Digital Dropbox, a Blackboard feature that allows students to upload files for the instructor to grade, is slated for removal in a future release of Blackboard. What's more, there's a much better way to do things. Consequently, I'm encouraging everyone to move away from using the digital dropbox.

The dropbox is being replaced by the assignments feature. The major improvement is that the documents submitted via the assignments feature are categorized by assignment, whereas the dropbox is just one big wild and woolly repository for everything that gets handed in ever. That means that it's easier to find new submissions, and easier to correlate documents with their assignments. Furthermore, each assignment you create is automatically entered into the gradebook and, since each document is associated with an assignment, entering grades into the Blackboard gradebook is made even easier.

To create a new assignment, go to the Control Panel, and then to the content area you want to add the assignment to -- this is probably "Assignments." Normally, you'd click the "+Item" button. Instead, pull down the drop-down menu on the top right of the page next to the word "Select," choose "Assignment," and click "Go." At this point, you'll just add an item like normal, and click "Submit." (There are some new things in "Options," but you can generally just leave those alone.) If you use the gradebook, then you can set the number of points possible; if not, feel free to ignore that blank.

Once you've created the assignment, you'll see that there's a link under it called "View/Complete Assignment." When students click on that link, they're given a text box so that they can type in a response, and also the option to upload a file, e.g., from Excel.

Once the student has completed the assignment, it will be marked as completed. To view the assignments that have been finished, go to the gradebook. (You'll access them through the gradebook even if you don't use it.) In the column for your assignment, any student with an exclamation point has completed the assignment and awaits grading. Clicking the exclamation point will let you view or download the file and, if you want, enter a grade for it.

If you want to experiment, there is a test student account set up for this very purpose. If you search for a user called 'student' to add to your course, you'll find the account. To login, submit a ticket with the problem type "Blackboard" and ask for the password.

When I try to send mail to a class, I get an error that says "Unable to send email." Why?

Blackboard reports an email as failing if even one recipient can't be reached. That means that the message you just sent actually worked for most of the people in your class. Generally, we see this happen when there's a user who is no longer a student here, but is still enrolled in a Blackboard course. If you have difficulty determining who the student might be, submit a ticket and we'll help you out.

You're about to delete my two-year old course, but there's stuff in it I want to keep. How can I archive the course?

From the Control Panel of the course you wish to Archive, click the "Archive Course" link in the "Course Options" pane. Click the "Archive" button, and then click "Submit." When the process completes, you will get an email notifying you of such, and you can return to the Control Panel, click "Archive Course" again, and download the package that has been created.

How do I check my mail with Outlook or Entourage?

Here are some links to the instructions you'll need:

Outlook 2003 (PDF)
Outlook 2007
Entourage (PDF)

Note that the instructions for Outlook will not work with Outlook Express.

WesMail is currently the only supported email client for student or off-campus use. If you wish to use another mail client off-campus, you can try following the instructions above, but we can't guarantee that they'll work, and we won't support your configuration.

If you want to use another mail client, you can look at the instructions above and try to translate them. If they don't work, though, you'll have to use one of the several clients we support.

How do I create a folder in WesMail?

It's a little labrynthine, I'll admit. First, click "Mail" on the left sidebar, and then "Folders" at the top of the screen. Above your folder list, there's a drop-down menu reading "Choose Action:". Pull it down, select "Create Folder," enter the name of your new folder, and Bob's your uncle.

How do I add a contact to my WesMail address book?

There are several ways to add a new contact to your WesMail address book.

If you have an email from the person you want to add, you can click the green book icon next to the address in the From: field:

If you don't have an email from the person you want to add, you'll want to click on the small plus icon next to "Address book" in the left sidebar, and then on "New Contact":

From here, you can manually enter all of the contact's information.

How do I create a new contact group in WesMail?

To create a new group, click the plus icon next to "Address Book" in the left toolbar, then click "Add Group":

This will bring up a screen that will allow you to populate the group. First, specify a name. Then, select contacts from the lefthand pane. You can select more than one by holding down "Control" (on a PC) or the Apple key (on a Mac) and clicking:

Once you have selected a contact, you can click the right arrow button to move them to the righthand pane:

Contacts in the righthand pane will be added to the group.

If you add someone to the group and need to remove them, select them in the righthand pane and click the left arrow; this will move them back to the left side.

Once you have added all of the contacts you want to the group, click "Submit."

Groups can only be populated with contacts that are already in your address book. Please click here for instructions to add contacts to your address book.

How do I report mistakes by the spam filter?

Reporting spam that sneaks through our spam filter (and ham that gets caught) helps our spam filter get smarter by learning from its mistakes. In addition, messages you report are parsed and read by a human, who can make our spam filter smarter much more quickly. Best of all, spam that you report is automatically added to your blacklist and ham you report is automatically added to your whitelist. (More information on whitelists and blacklists.)

There are two kinds of messages you'll want to report: false positives and false negatives.

• False Positives are messages that were marked as spam, but which are legitimate messages.
• False Negatives are messages that were not marked as spam, but which are.

Reporting mail that is already marked as spam as a false negative won't do anything; your report will be rejected, in fact. Similarly, reporting mail that wasn't marked as spam as a false positive will be rejected as well. You should only report mail that was marked as spam as a false positive, and only unmarked mail as a false negative.

Note that not all unwanted mail is spam; spam is unsolicited. If you signed up for a mailing list that you no longer want to receive, you should unsubscribe from that list rather than reporting it as spam. This is both much faster, since our spam filter can be a slow learner, and much more efficient, since we no longer have to waste resources blocking emails that could simply not be sent.

To learn how to report messages, please select the mail client you use below.

How do I set up email forwarding?

In WesMail, click the little plus sign next to "My Account" in the left sidebar. Then click "Filters" in the menu that appears. Click "Forward" and you can enter your new email address in the box below -- perhaps "thank_heaven_im_retired@hotmail.com" or just "jrandom@nebrwesleyan.edu". If you want, you can uncheck the box that says "Keep a copy of messages in this account?" and you won't have to worry about your WesMail quota -- otherwise, when your NWU mailbox gets full, forwarding will start to fail.

Many people set up email forwarding before they leave NWU; your forwarding rules will remain in effect for one year after your account is deleted, giving you a way to gracefully transition to another email address.

How do I set up a vacation message?

After logging in, click the little plus sign next to "My Account" in the left sidebar. Then click "Vaction" in the menu that appears. Click the big red legend reading "disabled - click to enable" next to "Vacation," and then click "Vacation." The only fields you'll actually want to mess with are the last two -- "Subject" and "Reason."

You'll have to enable and disable the vacation rules manually. Luckily, disabling a rule is as easy as going back to the "Filters" page and clicking the green checkmark to the right of the rule name. Do not just erase your vacation message to turn it off; this will only put a blank vacation reply into place for you.

What should I do if I'm not getting email from a certain person?

First, make sure that the person isn't in your blacklist. Check this page for instructions on accessing and editing your blacklist.

If you're certain that the sender isn't in your blacklist, you'll need to submit a ticket. Please include the following information, or we'll be unable to troubleshoot the problem:

• The sender's email address
• The approximate date and time they sent you a message that did not arrive

Given that information, we should be able to find out why the message didn't come through.

What email lists exist? Who can send to them?

We have several mailing lists, which are updated automatically. These lists are:

In the case of 'students', your E-mail address must be included on the authorized senders list. For most other lists, anyone on the all.employees list may send to any of the employee (faculty/staff) lists. Occasionally, someone sends a message to all.employees or 'students' and they are not on the list of authorized senders. These messages are 'bounced' to the Administrative Systems Manager for approval or other action.

Mail sent to these lists should conform to all applicable policies and guidelines, including "Appropriate Use". Senders are responsible for message content, as the lists are not moderated.

We have regularly scheduled processes that update the E-mail lists. Although the list management software could support 'subscribe' and 'unsubscribe' functions, most lists are 'closed' - membership is determined by the update processes and individuals can neither subscribe nor unsubscribe.

Some of the lists are combined. For example, all.employees includes full-time, part-time, faculty and staff. The combined list is unduplicated, so that each address appears only once. Rather than send mail to 'all.faculty; all.staff' send to 'all.employees'. Anyone who happens to be included on more than one sub-list will appreciate not getting duplicate E-mails.

The student lists are limited to specific, authorized senders. Most other lists will accept mail from anyone on the all.employees list. Otherwise, most lists allow anyone on the list to send to the list. You'll generally just send to one of the lists.

Messages are limited to a size of one megabyte or less, so a text-only format is preferred.

When I leave NWU, can I take all of my email with me?

Yes, but it's not fun.

Unfortunately, there's no universal representation of an email message in a file, so if I sent you all of your email in an archive, you'd be unable to open it. This means you have two options:

1. Forward each message you want to keep to a new account.
2. Copy-and-paste the content of each message into a Word (or other) document.

As you can see, both of these are mindnumbing drudgery, but this is one area in which the existing technology lags behind what users need.

How do I whitelist or blacklist a sender?

Our spam filter has the capacity to set up whitelists, which let you designate some senders whose emails to you will not be scanned, and blacklists, lists of senders whose emails to you will be outright rejected. This can be useful if you subscribe to any opt-in mailing lists, as they are frequently marked as spam. On the other hand, you might find that some spam is not blocked by our filter; you can add the senders to your blacklist to solve that problem.

To set up your whitelists and blacklists, log in to WesMail and click the little plus sign next to "My Account" in the left sidebar. Then click "Filters" in the menu that appears:

This will bring you to the filters page, where all of your email filters are listed:

Click on "Whitelist" or "Blacklist," depending on what list you want to add a sender to. Enter the addresses, one per line, in the large box. You'll probably want to keep the options at the top of the Blacklist as they are:

To remove an address from your blacklist or whitelist, simply delete their email address from the list. (The list is just a text box, so you can type -- and backspace -- in it as usual.)

In addition, you can click on the "Whitelist" and "Blacklist" links at the top and bottom of messages you view in WesMail. Reporting a message as ham will also automatically whitelist a sender; see how to report spam for more information on this.

How can I mark a message as "urgent" in WesMail?

The short answer is that you can't.

The long answer:

Marking messages as "urgent" is a nonstandard extension to email. It's implemented differently in different email clients, so a message marked urgent in Outlook might not show up as urgent in another client.

WesMail follows a very good philosophy: be liberal in what you accept, but strict in what you send. That means that it endeavors to understand all of the various competing systems of email urgency (of which there are at least three), but will not send mail with nonstandard extensions that may or may not be understood by different email clients.

Marking messages as urgent is bad practice anyway, since it assumes that your recipient uses the same mail client as you do. Since WesMail doesn't allow you to mark messages "Urgent," you'll have to simply have patience and faith that your recipient reads their email regularly.

How do I add or remove recipients from an email alias?

To manage your aliases, follow these instructions:

1. Log in to WesMail at https://webmail.nebrwesleyan.edu. You'll use WesMail to manage your aliases even if you prefer a different mail client (like Outlook or Entourage).
2. Click on the plus icon next to "My Account" in the lefthand sidebar. Click on the word "Aliases" in the resulting menu.

This will bring you to a screen that will list your currently owned aliases, and allow you to add more aliases (up to five). To edit an alias, select it from the drop-down menu and, select "Edit", and click "Submit."

To add recipients to the alias, enter their (or your) email addresses in the "Recipients" box, one per line. You can add as many recipients as you wish. To remove recipients, simply delete their addresses from the box. You can enter full addresses ("jdoe@nebrwesleyan.edu") or, for on-campus recipients, usernames alone ("jdoe").

To delete an alias, go back to the "Aliases" screen (from "My Account"), select the alias to delete, and the select "Delete" below it instead of "Edit."

Any changes you make may take a few seconds to show up.

If you try to edit an alias but can't find it in your list, please submit a ticket; you are probably not an owner of the alias.

More details on email aliases

How do I change my password?

You are highly encouraged to change your password periodically for security.

To change your password:

1. Login to WesMail
2. Click the plus sign next to "My Accounts" in the left toolbar
3. Click on "Password" in the resulting menu
4. Enter your old password and your desired new password

Passwords must be at least six characters long. They must have at least three "classes" of characters: upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols.

How do I set up an email alias?

Each faculty and staff member is given, in addition to their normal email address, up to five aliases they can use for other things.

These other things might include aliases for the department or office they work in (e.g., "admissions@nebrwesleyan.edu"), common misspellings of their name ("stpeirre@nebrwesleyan.edu"), their full name ("Tim.Holtzen@nebrwesleyan.edu"), or anything else.

To manage your aliases, follow these instructions:

1. Log in to WesMail at webmail.nebrwesleyan.edu. You'll use WesMail to manage your aliases even if you prefer a different mail client (like Outlook or Entourage).
2. Click on the plus icon next to "My Account" in the lefthand sidebar. Click on the word "Aliases" in the resulting menu.

This will bring you to a screen that will list your currently owned aliases, and allow you to add more aliases (up to five). To add a new alias, click "Add New Alias." This will prompt you for the address of the alias; if you wanted to make an alias to "Your.Full.Name@nebrwesleyan.edu", you'd just enter "Your.Full.Name". Enter a description for the alias, which is what you'll see in the drop-down menu on the first "Aliases" page.

To add recipients to the alias, enter their (or your) email addresses in the "Recipients" box, one per line. You can add as many recipients as you wish. To remove recipients, simply delete their addresses from the box. You can enter full addresses ("jdoe@nebrwesleyan.edu") or, for on-campus recipients, usernames alone ("jdoe"). Note that you can create aliases in this manner for which you are not the recipient. This is particularly useful for, e.g., student organizations that you sponsor. Since students cannot create aliases, you could create one for them.

To edit an alias, select it from the drop-down menu and, select "Edit", and click "Submit." To delete an alias, do the same thing but select "Delete" instead of "Edit."

Any changes you make may take a few seconds to show up.

Aliases are first come, first served, so be aware that someone else could take your preferred alias. If you believe that this has been done maliciously -- e.g., if someone else has taken your name as their alias -- please submit a ticket.

Conversely, if you try to add an alias that is already an existing email address -- for instance, if you tried to use "stpierre@nebrwesleyan.edu" -- the alias would be added, but it would not work. The original email address would continue to function normally. This ensures that you can't "steal" someone else's mail!

If you need to create an alias that can be edited by more than one person, please submit a ticket and we'll help you with that.

If you have a legitimate need to create more than five aliases, submit a ticket; you can't create them yourself, but we can create them for you.

I accidentally deleted my whole "Junk Mail" folder. Can you bring it back?

No, but you can. There's nothing magical about the "Junk Mail" folder except its name. Just create a new folder called "Junk Mail" (without the quotes, but with the capital letters just so) and filtering will continue as before.

I had something important in my Trash or Junk Mail folder, and now it's gone! Can you get it back?

No. We assume that "Trash" and "Junk" are just that, and those folders are liable to be purged at any time. Don't keep anything important in there, and be sure to cull your Junk Mail folder for real mail periodically as well.

I keep getting a message that says I've reached quota. I deleted a bunch of messages, but I still get it. What gives?

We allot students 500 megabytes and faculty/staff one gigabyte of storage for their mail; this is your quota. If you exceed this quota, you will not be able to receive messages. Unfortunately, when you delete messages, they just go in your Trash folder -- and still count against your quota! To empty your trash, just click on "Mail" near the top of the left sidebar, and then click "Empty Trash" at the top of the screen. If you're sure there's nothing in your Junk Mail you want to keep, click the "Empty Spam" button as well.

We do not grant email quota extensions.

I need another email address that multiple people can check.

NWU adheres strictly to a policy of one account per person and one person per account, so we do not grant additional accounts to anyone under any circumstances. Instead, you'll need to create an alias and have the mail directed to multiple pre-existing accounts.

I think someone is using my email address to send out spam!

Although we like to think of email as being technologically advanced, it's really just like postal mail. That means that email implicitly trusts the "from" address, just like the USPS trusts the return address on an envelope. It also means that anyone can put any "return address" they want on an email -- including yours -- and there's nothing we (or you!) can do about it.

Spammers figured this out a long time ago and have been using it ever since to disguise the true origin of their mail; since then, it's become so common that there's even a word for it: you've been "joe-jobbed."

As part of our spam-fighting arsenal, NWU takes steps to ensure that we're not accepting mail with a forged "from" address, and we've published data about our mail servers so that other people can do the same. But until everyone who runs a mail server -- and that's a lot of people -- addresses spam and joe-jobbing with the same rigor as us (and many other responsible companies and individuals), this will continue to be a problem.

If you believe that someone has actually broken into your account and is sending email from your account, then you should change your password.

Messages in WesMail are out of order. How can I fix this?

You're sorting your mail by something other than date. To sort your mail by date, just click the word "Date" above that column in WesMail:

If you still can't see your newest mail -- i.e., if your mail is now sorted backwards -- click the word "Date" again.

The spam filter keeps blocking messages from my dear Aunt Ethel, but not from refinance@stupid-spammers.com. What gives?

Blocking spam is a messy business, but you can make it better.

First, learn how to report mistakes our spam filter makes. That will help our filter learn and, in the long run, make it work better for you.

Next, check out this page to learn about whitelisting and blacklisting. With a combination of the two, you can make the spam filter work for you, not against you.

Can I access Huxley from off-campus?

You might be wondering what a question about Huxley is doing in an email FAQ. The reason is that you'll actually use WesMail to get to Huxley -- and here's how:

1. Login to WesMail
2. Click the plus sign next to "Huxley" in the left toolbar
3. Click on the drive you want to access -- Home, Misc, or Webdirs.

You'll now have a web interface to Huxley. It's not as slick as accessing it on campus, but it'll do.

To edit a file, for instance, click on it to download it to your hard drive, and edit it there. Then, when you're done editing the file, click the "Browse" button in the upload box at the bottom of the page. Find the file you edited, click "Upload File", and you're done!

What is Huxley?

Huxley is the campus file server. It provides students, faculty, and staff with a place to store important files. The advantages of using Huxley are that it is:

• Network accessible. Any file you put on Huxley can be accessed from any computer on the planet with an Internet connection. That means that you can work on the same project from any computer lab or office on campus, from home, or from an Internet cafe in Ulaan Baatar.
• Centrally located. When you store a file on Huxley, you don't have to worry about what computer you put it on; it's always on Huxley.
• Backed up. Huxley is backed up nightly to another computer, and weekly to tapes that are taken off-campus and stored securely, which means that we can recover from serious disasters, or simple mistakes.
• Robust. Huxley is actually a cluster of machines, so if one goes down, Huxley stays up. If you store your documents on your personal computer and it goes down, your documents are down, too.

Huxley serves three volumes:

• The home drive stores personal documents. You should keep documents on Home that are personal or private. The Home drive also stores personal web pages; everyone has a folder in their Home drive called "publichtml"; anything you put in that folder will be made available on your website. The Home drive is usually the H: drive on PCs.
• The misc drive stores documents for departments, offices, or groups. You should keep documents that will need to be shared extensively among your department or office on the Misc drive. The Misc drive is usually the E: or M: drive on PCs.
• The webdirs drive stores web pages for departments. It's usually the I: drive on PCs

How do I connect to Huxley on campus?

Please follow the appropriate instructions below to connect to Huxley on campus.

Can I access Huxley from off-campus?

You'll actually use WesMail to get to Huxley from off-campus. Here's how:

1. Login to WesMail
2. Click the plus sign next to "Huxley" in the left toolbar
3. Click on the drive you want to access -- Home, Misc, or Webdirs.

You'll now have a web interface to Huxley. It's not as slick as accessing it on campus, but it'll do.

To edit a file, for instance, click on it to download it to your hard drive, and edit it there. Then, when you're done editing the file, click the "Browse" button in the upload box at the bottom of the page. Find the file you edited, click "Upload File", and you're done!

What is my quota on Huxley?

The following text is taken directly from the Network Storage Policy.

Default Quotas

A network storage quota is composed of two parts: a soft quota and a hard quota. When a user exceeds the soft quota, he or she will start to receive messages that warn him or her of it; a user is not allowed to exceed the hard quota, and any data that is saved in excess of the hard quota will be discarded. Most programs will inform the user that there is insufficient disk space if this happens.

The soft quota for all students will be 1 Gigabyte (Gb); the hard quota for students will be 1.1 Gb. The soft quota for faculty and staff will be 10 Gb, and the hard quota will be 11 Gb.

Quota Extensions

Students will not be granted quota extensions; there will be no exceptions. Employees may be granted a temporary extension to their soft and hard quotas given extraordinary circumstances. These extensions will not be granted for more than two weeks and will be given only at the discretion of the Unix Systems Administrator. The size of the extension will be determined by the same according to the perceived needs of the requestor.

Quota Notification

If a user exceeds his or her soft quota, the system will send him or her weekly emails until the situation is remedied. Most programs will alert the user if, when saving, the hard quota was hit and the data was truncated, but we cannot guarantee that this will happen.
Web Space

Students are granted web space on the NWU student server separate from their network storage. The soft quota for this space is 100 Mb; the hard quota is 110 Mb.

Faculty and staff are granted web space on the NWU web server separate from their network storage. The soft quota for this space is 300 Mb; the hard quota is 330 Mb.

Departments may be granted web space on the NWU web server upon request. There is no quota for this space; however, it should not be used for personal websites.

Is Huxley backed up?

Yes. All of the documents stored on Huxley are backed up nightly. Backups are kept for at least six weeks.

Can I access Huxley via FTP or SFTP?

No. For security reasons, we do not allow access to Huxley except by mapping the drives on-campus or via Wesmail off-campus.

How can I restore a document from last night's backup of Huxley?

You can now do restore most documents on Huxley from backups yourself!

If you need to restore a document from your Home drive, first go into your Home and look for the folder called "snapshots." Go into that folder, and you'll find a perfect "snapshot" of what your Home drive looked like last night at midnight. You can just drag the document(s) you need to restore from "snapshots" back into your Home drive.

If you need to restore a document from Misc or Webdirs, you'll find a "snapshots" folder in the root of those drive. Inside that, there's a perfect snapshot of the drive last night at midnight. You can again just drag-and-drop files from the snapshot back to the real version.

The snapshots are all read-only, so you don't have to worry about blowing away backed up data. And they have the same access controls as the "real" drives, so you don't have to worry about snoopers, either.

If you need to restore a file from a backup older than one day, please submit a ticket.

How do I put an academic department or office website on Huxley?

First, you'll need to access the Webdirs drive of Huxley. Webdirs is structured like the Misc drive, so there are folders for departments, offices, etc. Find your folder, and simply copy your website documents into it. Your site will be live immediately!

See the Web Development FAQ for more information.

How do I put my personal webpage on Huxley?

1. Create and save your page using a program of your choosing (e.g. Dreamweaver, Frontpage, BBEdit, Emacs, Notepad, etc). Ensure that you have a file called "index.html", "index.htm", or "index.php". This will be the page people are automatically taken to when they visit your site.
2. Access your huxley Home (H:) account.
3. Copy the web page files you saved into the folder called "publichtml".

The content you placed in your publichtml folder will be immediately available on your website. For students, your website will be http://students.nebrwesleyan.edu/students/username; for faculty/staff, it will be http://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/people/username. If you do not have an "index.html", "index.htm", or "index.php" page in your publichtml folder itself (not in a subfolder), your site will not work. If you are a student and this is a new site, it will take a few hours for it to get listed on the student directory page (http://students.nebrwesleyan.edu/students.php). You must have a page called "index.html", "index.htm", or "index.php", or your site will not be listed. Obviously, content on your web page must obey the guidelines and regulations set forth in the "Policy on Appropriate Use on Computer Resources" and the "Policies for Nebraska Wesleyan's Presence on the World Wide Web". Students must also adhere to the policies in the 'General Student Policies and Procedures' and 'Code of Student Conduct' documents, which can be found in the front of your student planner. See the Web Development FAQ for more information.

Can I Buy Computer Merchandise on Campus?

The Computer Services Micro-Store (located on the first floor of Smith Curtis, room 121 – hours of operation are MWF 8am-12pm and 1pm-5pm) sells a variety of merchandise including, but not limited to: 

Different Media Storage Options                         
Digital Video Cassettes
Flash Drives                                                     
Ethernet Cables       
Print Toner/Cartridges                                        
Surge Protectors
24 Hour Olin Computer Lab Keys
Extension Cords

The Micro-Store is happy to collect pricing estimates on equipment as well as purchase equipment not already in the store for customers.

Cash and Checks Only, no Credit or Debit Cards.

Can I Checkout Computer Equipment on Campus?

How can I synchronize my WesMail calendar with Outlook (or vice-versa)?

This document describes how to set up WesMail to synchronize calendars, contacts, and more with Outlook. At this time, Outlook is the only sync client we support, although we may be able to support other clients in the future.

First, download the "Outlook Sync" program from https://www.forge.funambol.org/download/. (You'll be asked to enter your contact information, but you can skip that step.) Once you've downloaded that to your desktop, close Outlook, and then run the installer to install the sync program.

Open Outlook again, and there will be a new menu in the menu bar: the "Funambol" menu will appear between "Actions" and "Help". ("Funambol" is the slightly strange name of the sync program.) Pull down the "Funambol" menu and select "Options".

Click the "Account" icon on the left of the Options window. For "Location," enter https://webmail.nebrwesleyan.edu/horde/rpc.php Enter your username and password as well:

Click the "Sync" icon on the left. Ensure that all of the boxes under "Items" (Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes) are checked. Check the box labeled "Synchronize every" and choose a reasonable time span. (The default, 15 minutes, will probably work for most people.)

Click "OK" to close the Options window.

You should now have a window with a big "Sync All" button. Click it!

You may be asked if you want to continue with a full sync; click "Yes."

It may take a while -- especially if you have a lot of calendar events -- but eventually, you should have a nice column of check marks denoting that the sync has succeeded:

Congratulations! You've just synchronized your WesMail address book and calendar with Outlook, and they'll stay synchronized, too. Contacts and events you add in one will show up in the other, and things deleted in one will disappear from the other.

If you have any problems with this setup process, or with ongoing synchronization, please submit a ticket.

What Computers Have the Software I Need to Use?

Current Configurations - Software (Fall 2007)
 
Mac Labs ­ MRLC / Olin 132

-MacOS X (10.4x ­ Tiger)
-iLife ¹06 (iMovie HD, iDVD, iTunes, iPhoto, iWeb)
-MS Office OS X (2004)
  (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access)
-Adobe Creative Suite 3
(Dreamweaver CS3, Flash CS3, Fireworks CS3, Contribute CS3)
(Photoshop CS3, Illustrator CS3, InDesign CS3)
-Adobe Reader v 7.0
-Safari v 1.3
-Firefox v 1.0.5
-Fetch  v 4.0.3
-Fugu v 1.2.0
-Terminal SSH
-Flash Player  v 7.0.24
-RealOne Player  v 10
-Windows Media Player  v 9.0
-Shockwave   v 10.1.1.4
  
Course Software ­ Mac Labs

-BBedit Lite v 6.1
-Inspiration v 7.6
-EasyGrade Pro 3.6
-iLife ¹06
-Mathematica 5.2
-Geometer¹s Sketchpad ­
-JES 3.0.5 ­
 
 
MRLC/Olin PC Windows Labs

-Windows XP Professional (Service Pack 2)
-Microsoft Office 2003
  (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access)
-Adobe Creative Suite 3
(Dreamweaver CS3, Flash CS3, Fireworks CS3, Contribute CS3)
(Photoshop CS3, Illustrator CS3, InDesign CS3)
-Adobe Reader v 7.0
-Internet Explorer v 6.0.2
-Firefox 1.05
-SSH Secure Shell Client     v 3.2.9
-SSH Secure File Transfer Client v 3.29
-Macromedia Flash Player  v 7.0
-RealOne Player   v 10.
-Windows Media Player    v 10.0
-Macromedia Shockwave v 10.1
-Sophos antivirus
-DeepFreeze desktop protection
 
Course Software ­ PC Labs

-MDL Chime  (Internet Explorer)
-PDB-viewer (Deep-View)
-IR Spectroscopy v 5.3.0 ­
-NTNMR V 1.1 ­
-GaussView 3.09 ­
-Gaussian 03W D.01 ­
-MicroCase Curriculum Plan 2005-2006
- SPSS 15.0 for Windows
-World Development Indicators 2000
-ExplorIt 4.7 ­
-ExplorIt -IR
-DNR Garmin 5.1.1 Extension for ArcView ­
-ArcExplorer 9.1 Java Edition
-Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2003 ­
-COMPASS /ESL Internet Version
-COMPASS/ESL 3.2.4
-Mathematica 5.2
-JES 3.0.5 ­
-PeachTree Accounting 2004
-QuickBooks Pro 2005
-Inspiration 7.6
-Macromedia Captivate 1.0
-ArcGIS v 9.1
-Microsoft Project Professional 2003
-Unicorn Workflows
-DINE Healthy 5.0.1
 
 
Lab Hours
MRLC Labs have the same hours with the Library
Olin Labs have the same hours with the building hours; 24-hour access
requires electronic keys obtained from the Computing Services office SC121.
 
Lab Reservations
MRLC Labs are reserved through the Registrar's Office at ext. 2243.
Olin Labs are reserved through the Math/CS Office at ext. 2233

*** 24 hour Olin computer lab keys can be purchased from the Computer Services Micro-Store(located in SC 121).  Price is 10.00 plus tax.  Wesleyan ID is required to purchase 24 hour lab key.***

Where can I get computer support in the Lincoln area?

CS/IT does not support personal computers. Here is a list of suggested support providers in the Lincoln area.

ACE Rent-to-Own at 5501 Holdrege St. Ste. 2, rents laptops weekly for $29.99 or $39.99. No credit check or down payment. Phone number is 402-466-2323.

DISCLAIMER: This information is provided for your information only and is, to the best of our knowledge, accurate as of the date posted. No claim is made, however, that this is either complete or exhaustive. Neither Nebraska Wesleyan University nor CS/IT intend any endorsement of the businesses listed here.

How do I get an NWU account?

Your NWU account will be created automatically for you. You should not contact CS/IT to get an account created.

• Faculty and staff accounts will be created when they are added to payroll.
• First-year and Transfer students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will have accounts created before they register for classes for their first semester.
• New students in University College will have their accounts created after they register for classes.
• Returning students in both the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and University College will have their accounts created after they register for classes.

In no case is it necessary to contact CS/IT to get an account created.

When your account is initially created, you will receive a letter explaining some of the things your account gives you access to and how to activate your account.

How do I activate my account?

When your account is first created, it is not active yet, and you can't use it for anything until you activate it.

Activating your account is a very simple process, though. Click on Activate Your Account, and enter the username and activation code you were given when your account was created. (These codes are distributed in different ways depending on your role at NWU; if you didn't receive such a code, please come visit CS/IT and we'll give you a new one.)

Once you've logged in with your activation code, you'll be prompted to enter a password and, optionally, an alternate email address:

The alternate email address will only be used in case you ever forget your password and need to reset your password.

Your password must be at least 8 characters long, and must contain at least three different types of characters, where the types are uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and symbols.

Click "Submit" on that page and your account will immediately be active with the password you specified. You'll now have access to the full range of services we provide.

How do I change my password?

Changing your password every so often is very good practice, and we highly encourage you to do so regularly. Follow these steps:

1. Login to WesMail
2. Click the plus sign next to "My Accounts" in the left toolbar
3. Click on "Password" in the resulting menu
4. Enter your old password and your desired new password

Passwords must be at least eight characters long. They must have at least three "classes" of characters: upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols.

If you have forgotten your password and cannot log in to WesMail, you may still be able to reset it using the instructions here.

What do I do if I've forgotten my password?

You can reset your password automatically, if either:

1. You entered an alternate email address when you activated your account; or
2. You have filed an alternate email address with us since your account was created

If either of these is the case, then you can click on Reset Your Password and enter your username:

A password reset code will be sent to the alternate email address you gave. Follow the instructions in the email message to complete the process. Your password is not reset until you've followed those instructions!

The instructions will instruct you to go to https://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/csit/account/reset/reset and login with your username and your new password reset code:

You will then be able to enter your new password:

If neither of those is the case -- i.e., if we have no alternate email address on file for you -- then you will need to visit us in person at one of these locations:

• CS/IT, Smith-Curtis 121. Open 8am-12pm and 1pm-5pm Monday-Friday
• University College Offices, Burt Hall South. Open 8am-12pm and 1pm-5pm Monday-Friday

After you've gotten your password reset, you should file an alternate email address with us so you can reset your password online next time.

What does my NWU account give me access to? What doesn't it give me access to?

Your NWU account gives you access to:

• Huxley
• Email, including WesMail
• Blackboard
• The campus network, including the residence hall network and wireless
• Computer labs
• Library resources, including full-text databases

Your NWU account does not give you access to:

• Aislin, the administrative system. You must submit a ticket to get access to Aislin

When will my account be deleted?

The answer to this question varies wildly depending on your status with the university. Roughly speaking:

• Accounts for former faculty and staff will be deleted when they are removed from payroll.
• Accounts for former students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will be deleted at the beginning of the first semester during which they are absent from NWU.
• Accounts for former students in University College will be deleted after they are not enrolled for a year.

Related questions

• Who gets an NWU account?
• Can I keep my NWU account after I graduate?

Who gets an NWU account?

NWU accounts are reserved for current faculty, staff and students, and faculty emeriti. We do not grant accounts to University contractors, guests, community members, former students or staff, or anyone who is not a current student or employee or the university, or a faculty emeritus.

For events being held on campus, full-time employees of NWU can request a temporary guest account.

Related questions

• When will my account be deleted?
• Can I keep my NWU account after I graduate?

Can I keep my NWU account after I graduate?

No. NWU accounts are reserved for current faculty, staff, and students, and faculty emeriti. We do not grant accounts to alumni.

• When will my account be deleted?
• Who gets an NWU account?

Can I have more than one NWU account?

No. We maintain a strict one-account-per-person and one-person-per-account correlation, and under no circumstances whatsoever will we grant you a second account.

You may be able to attain the same results, though, with either an email alias or a guest account. If you need help or guidance, please submit a ticket.

How do I add or change my alternate email address?

Users who have had their accounts created since May 2008 will have had an opportunity to list an alternate email address with us so that they can take advantage of self-service password resets. If your account was created before May 2008, or if you didn't enter an alternate email address when you activated your account, you can still add an alternate address; or, if your other email address has changed, you can update it, too.

First, login to WesMail. Click the small plus sign next to the "My Account" item in the left sidebar; in the resulting menu, click "Alternate Email." Enter your new alternate email address in the blank, and you're good to go!

How do I get the password of a guest account I requested?

If you've requested a guest account, but lost the password information, simply return to the Guest Account area of the CS/IT website and use the "View Info" link:

This will bring up the original guest account information page.

How do I help someone reset their password?

A few select users on campus have the power to reset passwords for other people. If you believe you need to have this ability, please submit a ticket with the Problem Type "Password/Account" and Category "Email/Huxley/Blackboard."

If you have this ability, you can help students and faculty reset forgotten passwords.

If someone has forgotten their password, and they did not record an alternate email address with us, then they will have to visit you in person to get their password reset. Never reset a password over the phone; no amount of Q & A can verify their identity. You should always check their photo ID in person.

Once you've ascertained that the person is who they claim to be, you can log in to the CS/IT website (use the CS/IT Login link at the bottom of the left sidebar) and click on Reset A Password in the left sidebar. Enter the username, and it will generate a password reset code. (Or, if appropriate, an account activation code; the system is smart enough to figure this out on its own, though, so you don't need to worry about it.) Print the resulting page and give it to the user.

When you reset a user's password, their old password will stop working. So even if they remember their password afterwards, they still have to go through the process of resetting their password.

Although these reset codes are not passwords, they're still sensitive, and are subject to many of the same controls as passwords:

• NEVER send a password reset code via email. Email is a fundamentally insecure medium, and a password or code sent via email should be considered compromised.
• NEVER give out a password reset code over the phone. You cannot check ID over the phone; even verifying personal information is insufficient.
• NEVER send a password reset code via postal mail without ID checking. Letters are routinely delivered to the wrong recipients. Multiple people live at the same address. It's not possible to verify that the password was delivered to the correct person. If you have to send a code via mail, you must send the envelope via certified mail with ID checking.

How do I request a guest account?

Before requesting a guest account, please carefully read the Guest Network and Computer Account Policy. That document explains CS/IT's stance on guest accounts, our liability and yours, and lays out the requirements for requesting one.

Once you have read that document, to request a guest account online, Go to the CS/IT website and click on "Guest Accounts" in the bottom of the lefthand navigation menu. You'll be prompted to enter your NWU username and password. Once you're logged in, click "Request a guest account" to request an account. You will see a form that looks like this:

Enter a brief description of the users of the guest account, and select when you want the account to be available. The account will be activated at precisely the moment you select, so if you want some time to test the account before your event, be sure to build that in to your request.

When you submit that form, you'll have to agree to a contract that makes you responsible for the conduct of your guests and indemnifies the University. Agree to that, and you'll go a guest account information page:

You can print this page off and give it to your guests. If you lose it, you can return to the guest account area and use the "View Info" link to return to it:

Note that the account is not yet active! Specifically, it is in the status "Await Approval," which means someone from CS/IT still has to approve the request. (See a list of guest account statuses.) When the account request is approved, you will receive an email notifying you.

Assuming the request is approved, the account will be enabled for the period you requested. After you are done with the account, you must submit a list of the users of that guest account, or you will be unable to request other guest accounts.

Guest accounts are given on a per-event basis, not on a per-attendee basis. In other words, we will not create individual accounts for multiple guests at the same event.

How do I submit a list of users of a guest account?

Once you have used a guest account, you are required by the guest account contract to submit a list of the users of that guest account. If you do not do this, you'll be unable to request other guest accounts in the future.

To submit the user list, go to the guest account area of the CS/IT website; if you need to submit a user list, you will have a guest account in the "Await User List" status:

Click on the "Supply User List" link. This will bring up a page where you can enter the names and addresses of everyone who received the guest account credentials (even if they didn't log in). So, for instance, if you write the guest credentials on a white board in a conference room, everyone who enters that room must be listed.

Submit your list of users, and it will be sent to CS/IT for approval. If you have filled it out incompletely or incorrectly, we will contact you for more information.

What do the guest account statuses mean?

A guest account request can be in one of eight states, as reported in the account listing:

The states are:

• Await Approval - The request has not yet been approved by CS/IT.
• Before Start Date - The request has been approved, but it's before the start date you listed, so the account is not yet active.
• Active - The account is fully active.
• Await User List - The guest account is finished; you now have to submit a list of the users of the account.
• Await User List Acceptance - You have submitted a list of users of the account; someone from CS/IT must now accept the list.
• Completed - The guest account is finished, you have submitted a list of users, and we have approved it. All is well in the world.
• Not Approved - The start date of the account has passed without approval from CS/IT.
• Unknown - An error has occurred. Please submit a ticket.

Can't you just come out and fix my computer?

No.  Nebraska Wesleyan and Computing Services and in particular are responsible for the network up to the plate on the wall.  Any maintenance or repair of your computer is your responsibility.  We can test the network connection at the plate for you but if it works there we are not required to fix your computer to make it connect.

Hey! I pay $XX,XXX a year to go here you should be providing me with XYZ service!

Contrary to popular belief on the part of the students.  How much tuition you pay has little to do with the resources allocated to Computing Services in order to provide services to students.  In fact it actually costs Wesleyan more to have you here than what you probably pay in tuition.  If you really feel that you need a service like improved wireless, or online gaming etc. I suggest that you and a bunch of other students that feel strongly about the issue get together in an organized fashion and approach the VP's of the University.  You should express to them how important your issue is and suggest that  they allocate resources around an initiative for your issue.  Complaining to individuals within the Computing Services department will have little if any impact.

How can I tell if I have a valid network connection?

On most windows systems goto Start->All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt. Then run the following command on your computer:

ipconfig /all (note the space between the "g" and the "/")

Under "Local area Connection" you should have an entry called "IP Address"  the address should be of the form:

10.15-23.1.x

If it starts with 169 you do not have a valid connection.  If it starts with 192.168 you may have your network information hard coded and you need to configure your computer properly using the instructions here or you are the victim of a rogue DHCP server and should report it using the instructions here.

For Mac OS X you can run a similar command by going to Applications->Utilities->Terminal and then running the command:

ifconfig -a (note the space between the "g" and the "-")

Under the section that starts en0: you should have an entry called "inet" that has the IP address as described above.

How come I can get to Off Campus websites but not On Campus sites?

A couple of things can cause this.  First check your network setting and make sure you are set to "obtain DNS server addresses automatically".  Make sure that you don't have any proxys setup in internet explorer or Firefox.  Check to make sure that you don't have any spyware/adware installed on your computer.

How come I have to keep logging in?

The authentication system checks periodically to make sure that your computer is still connected to the network.  If your computer isn't connected it logs you off.  The power save features on many computers shut down the network interface in order save electricity.  This essentially takes your computer off the network and so you get logged off.  You can resolve this by changing the power save features on your computer to not power down the network interface.  In windows go to the "Local Area Connection" properties window click on the "Configure" button and select the "Power Management" tab.  Uncheck the box "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

How come it takes so long to get an answer when my internet doesn't work?

Because we have hundreds of students in the residence halls and one person in computing services that deals with all the networking issues.  Especially during the first few weeks of a new semester this individual is completely overrun with requests.  This person also has responsibilities that are not related to helping students get connected.  In fact getting students connected falls very low on the priority list.

How do I connect my router/wireless access point to the network?

You don't.  Students are not authorized to connect these devices to the network.  Students are only allowed to directly connect a computer to the network in their room.

How do I download software to fix my computer if I can't get on the network?

Lot's of students get caught in this chicken and egg situation.  They need to download a program like Antivirus software but can't do it because the virus has hosed their network connection.  The solution is really simple.  You have to go old school and use Sneakernet.  Get a thumb drive or blank CD-R.  Put on you sneakers and walk down to the lab.  Download the software you need and save it to the thumb drive or burn it to the CD-R.  Walk back to your computer and install the software from the CD or thumb drive.  Problem Solved.

I went away and while I was gone my Internet quit working. What did you do?

Most likely nothing.  The most likely cause is an issue with your computer.  If you took your computer home or to some other network you probably either changed your network settings or had some program or spyware change them for you without your knowledge.  If your computer stayed here while you were gone you probably got something installed on it that has broken it.  If you usually leave your computer on and turned it off while you were gone what you installed probably didn't take effect until you booted back up when you returned.

My Internet doesn't work with or without the cord.

Yes well my car doesn't work with or without the gas.  If it didn't work with the cord it is very unlikely that it would work without the cord.  Given that there is little if any wireless coverage in the residence halls you should always try connecting with the cord.

My computer works on someone elses network why doesn't it work here?

Most other networks especially wireless networks at coffee shops and restaurants don't implement any kind of security.  That means that if your computer has been hijacked by spyware or a hacker it may work just fine on those networks but not on ours.  It is also possible that the network settings required for that other network differ completely from ours and you should be changed to those appropriate for our network.

What does "Page Cannot be Displayed" mean?

The "Page Cannot be Displayed" error message in Internet Explorer means almost nothing.  It states a fact but gives you absolutely no information at to why the page cannot be displayed.  If you report the "Page Cannot be Displayed" message as an error to Computing Services they will almost certainly be unable to help you without further information.

What is Internet Connection Sharing(ICS) and why do I have to turn it off?

Internet Connection Sharing and Internet Sharing are features in their respective operating systems that allows the computer to act as a network router and DHCP server if it has two or more types of networking devices. These devices could be Ethernet cards, modems, or Firewire (IEEE 1394) ports. If Internet Connection Sharing is actively running while the computer is connected to any part of the University's network, that computer and other computers nearby may lose all connectivity to the network. If you have been previously connected to a home network, know that Internet Connection Sharing was used in your previous network setup, or suspect you have done something to turn Internet Connection Sharing on please follow the instructions on the page here to disable it before connecting your computer to the University network.

What is interface bridging and why do I need to disable it?

Bridging is a configuration in which interfaces on your computer bound together such that any traffic seen on one interface is echoed or retransmitted on the other interface.  These interfaces can be ethernet cards, wirelesscards, modems, etc.  It essentially turns your computer into a network hub or access point.  This kind of configuration is common in home networking configurations where you wish to make your notebook act as an access point so that other computers can connect through the internet through yours.  However if bridging is actively running while the computer is connected to any part of the University's network, that computer and other computers nearby may lose all connectivity to the network.  Therefore if you have any reason to believe that interfaces on you computer may be bridged you must follow the instructions here to disable bridging.

Whats a DHCP server/rogue DHCP server?

Remember when you where going though the instructions for setting up your computer.  You did read them didn't you?  In the instructions you were told to set your computer to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS server address automatically".  A Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol or DHCP server is where your computer gets that information from automatically.  Basically your computer when it starts broadcasts a request for network information and the DHCP server answers with the requested information.  A rogue DHCP server is one that was setup by someone other than Computing Services.  Rogue's usually take the form of a router or wireless access point that some student has illicitly connected to the network.  Unfortunately these devices are usually not configured to hand out the correct network information.  If your computer broadcasts it's request for information and one of these rogues answers it, your computer will receive invalid network information and you won't be able to get to the Internet.  We have had entire residence halls taken off the network by this until we could track down the rouge and shut it down.  This is why students are not authorized to connect routers and wireless access points to the network.

Why I can't get to XYZ web site?

This usually happens for one of two reasons.  First,  if the web site is running on a non standard port it may be blocked by security.  Look at the URL/Address of the web site that you are trying to get to.  Does it have colon and number in the address after the top level domain?  Something like this:

http://www.xyz.com:8080/

If so this is what has happened. 

In rare cases this can also be caused by a routing issue at Windsteam our upstream ISP.  This usually happens with international sites or after Windstream has performed a network upgrade.  It these cases it may be difficult to get the issue resolved because the problem lies with software or hardware not under the direct control of Computing Services.

In either case you should fill out a help request and list the exact URL you are having trouble with.

Why can't I get wireless in my residence hall room?

We have very limited wireless coverage in the residence halls.  Chances are you are outside of the range of one of the Welseyan wireless access points.

Why can't I play game XYZ on the Network.

The short answer is because the security that we have in place to protect you while your connected to our network probably blocks it.  Since online gaming doesn't support any academic purpose that we are aware of we are disinclined to make changes to our security infrastructure to acomidate it.

Why can't I use my webcam/skype?

Our security probably blocks most webcams and Internet phone services.  Since these functions do not to our knowledge support any academic purposes for students we are disinclined to alter our security infrastructure to support them.  One service we have seen work in the past is the Yahoo messenger video chat.  However Computing Services takes no responsibility for the functioning or lack there of of the service.

Why can't I use xyz peer to peer program?

Our security probably blocks it.  Since to our knowledge most peer to peer programs don't support academic purposes we are disinclined to change security settings to allow it.  In fact most peer to peer programs are used to exchange illegal copies of copyrighted works so we are further disinclined to make any changes.

Why can't we get the Wesleyan Network in the Greek houses?

Because Greek houses are not Nebraska Wesleyan property.  They may be approved student housing but then so was my parents house when I was a student and no one expected Wesleyan to provide network services there.  Networking in the Greek houses is strictly the responsibility of the house and it's chapter.

Why does the network in my building keep going up and down?

Probably because some other student in your building is running a rogue DHCP server.  When your are having trouble open a command prompt on your computer by going to Start->All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt. Then run the following commands on your computer:

ipconfig /all (note there is a space between the "g" and the "/")

and

arp -a (note there is a space between the "p" and the "-")

Then open a help request and paste the output of those two commands into it.  This information will help us find the offending individual and pummel them appropriately.

Why doesn't my Internet Work?

You might as well ask me "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" What I can tell you is that there is a 99% chance that it is your computer that is the problem. Over the past 7 years aside from rogue DHCP servers we have only had a handful of problems that were related to the network. Most of those where related to damage done by students to the jacks in the wall. You should run through the Instructions for Connecting to the Internet to check your settings and make sure they are correct. You should also check that you have a valid network connection. If you do your problem is probably related to spyware or viruses on your computer.  You can download software to help you with those from our downloads page.

Why is the Internet so slow?

First remember that you are sharing the campus Internet connection with the other 4000+ users of Wesleyan resources.  You can check the Internet Traffic Report and see if you happen to be accessing at a time when load happens to be high.  Most likely however it is not the Internet that is going slow but your computer.  We have seen student computers so loaded with spyware that when they were connected to the internet the spyware used up all the students bandwidth causing other pages to time out.

You have to fix my computer so I can do my homework!

Actually no we don't.  While it may be convenient for students to have their own computers connected to the network it is not a requirement.  In fact there is no requirement that a student have their own computer at all.  We have labs available in all the residence halls except the town houses.  We have labs available in the library that are open until midnight when the library closes and Labs in Olin which are open 24 hours.  Even if the labs are busy during certain parts of the year your problem simply boils down to a need for proper time management and scheduling to avoid the labs peek hours.  It means that you can't put off writing your paper until the last minute you have to think and plan ahead to figure out when your going to get it done.

How can I print to the printer in the lobby of my townhouse?

The printers which have been installed in the townhouses are only accessible through the campus network.  You can print directly to the printer in your townhouse from your computer, but you must first configure your computer to make it aware of the device.  This is called "adding the printer" to your computer.

Select the set of instructions for adding a printer to your computer which is appropriate for  your computers operating system:

Do the townhouse printers support duplex printing?

No.  This model of printer does not support duplex printing.

How do I put my personal web page online?

1. Create and save your page using a program of your choosing (e.g. Dreamweaver, Frontpage, BBEdit, Emacs, Notepad, etc). Ensure that you have a file called "index.html", "index.html", or "index.php". This will be the page people are automatically taken to when they visit your site.
2. Access your Huxley Home (H:) account.
3. Copy the web page files you saved into the folder called "publichtml".

The content you placed in your publichtml folder will be immediately available on your website. For students, your website will be http://students.nebrwesleyan.edu/students/username; for faculty/staff, it will be http://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/people/username.

If you do not have an "index.html", "index.html", or "index.php" page in your publichtml folder itself (not in a subfolder), your site will not work. These filenames are case sensitive; in other words, "Index.html" or "INDEX.HTML" will not work; the filename must be all lowercase.

If you are a student and this is a new site, it will take a few hours for it to get listed on the student directory page (http://students.nebrwesleyan.edu/students.php). You must have a page called "index.html", "index.htm", or "index.php", or your site will not be listed.

WARNING: Everything that is placed in the publichtml folder will be accessible to EVERYONE. Keep this in mind and take caution when placing files into the publichtml directory.

Obviously, content on your web page must obey the guidelines and regulations set forth in the "Policy on Appropriate Use on Computer Resources" and the "Policies for Nebraska Wesleyan's Presence on the World Wide Web". Students must also adhere to the policies in the 'General Student Policies and Procedures' and 'Code of Student Conduct' documents, which can be found in the front of your student planner.

How do I put my academic department, office, or student group website up?

First, you'll need web space for your group. If your group doesn't already have a web folder, please submit a ticket and we'll create it for you.

Next, you'll need to access the Webdirs drive of Huxley. Webdirs is structured like the Misc drive, so there are folders for departments, offices, student groups, etc. Find your folder, and simply copy your website documents into it. Your site will be live immediately!

If you are uploading a student group site, you must include a file called "index.php", "index.html", or "index.htm" in the root of your web folder (i.e., not in any subfolders) in order for the site to be listed on the Student server at http://students.nebrwesleyan.edu/group_list.php

How do I get web space for a department, office, or student group?

To request a web folder for a department, office, student or other group, please submit a ticket.

Personal web space is automatically created for everyone; see How do I put my personal web page online?

I don't like the web address I've been given. Can I have a different one?

We will happily change the web addresses of student group sites and academic department and office sites.

Many people want an address that looks like http://department.nebrwesleyan.edu or http://www.myniftysite.com; we only grant those requests to academic departments and offices, and then only under extenuating circumstances. Please submit a ticket if you feel that you can sufficiently justify your request for such an address. If you want to use your own domain name, we will need to register it for you but you will need to pay for it.

What is the address of my website?

For students, your website will be http://students.nebrwesleyan.edu/students/username; for faculty/staff, it will be http://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/people/username.

Student group pages can be found at http://students.nebrwesleyan.edu/group_list.php

Web sites for academic departments, offices, etc., are a bit more complicated. Let's say you're designing a website for the Phrenology Department. When you put your website on Huxley, you'll go to the "depts" folder, and then to "phrenology." In that case, your address would be http://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/depts/phrenology. If you have a question about this, or can't find your website, please submit a ticket.

Can I use PHP in my website?

Yes. All NWU-hosted websites support the use of PHP.

Can I use Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, Java Server Pages, or other server-side technologies in my website?

No. PHP is the only supported server-side technology for NWU-hosted web sites.

How can I make a web page served securely?

These steps require creating a file called .htaccess (note the period at the beginning of the filename). If you will be using Dreamweaver on a Mac to do this, please see How do I make Dreamweaver on a Mac play nice with our web server?

If you use a web application that requests a username and password, you should make the traffic to and from that page encrypted, so that no one can intercept it and read your password. Doing this requires two steps:

1. In the same directory as the page you want to be secure, create a file called .htaccess. Note that the filename starts with a period; that's important!) In that file, enter something like this:

   
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^foo.html$ https://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/path/foo.html [L,R=301]


   In the fourth line, change 'foo.html' to the name of the file you're making secure, and the URL to the secure URL. For instance, if you want to force people to access http://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/foo/bar.php securely, you'd change the third line to:

   RewriteRule ^bar.php$ https://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/foo/bar.php [L,R=301]

   Here, note that the start of the URL is https, not just http.

2. Change all of your links to the page to start with https instead of http

If you want to make all of the pages in a given directory served securely, change the third line to:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/path/$1 [L,R=301]

The part before the $1 should be the address of the directory.

Due to security requirements, this only works for pages with an address that starts with "www.nebrwesleyan.edu". Other pages -- for instance, those starting with "students.nebrwesleyan.edu" -- will complain if you try to force them to be served securely.

How do I make a page only available to NWU people?

Occasionally, you'll want to put up a page that's only accessible to people with an NWU account. To do so, create a folder that will be access-controlled; it's only possible to do this on a per-folder basis, not on a per-file basis.

These steps require creating a file called .htaccess (note the period at the beginning of the filename). If you will be using Dreamweaver on a Mac to do this, please see How do I make Dreamweaver on a Mac play nice with our web server?

Inside the folder that you want to protect, create a file called .htaccess (note the period at the beginning of the filename) and add the following to the file:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "ldapauth"
AuthzLDAPAuthoritative On
AuthzLDAPMethod ldap
AuthzLDAPProtocolVersion 3
AuthzLDAPServer ldap.nebrwesleyan.edu
AuthzLDAPUserBase ou=People,o=nebrwesleyan.edu,o=isp
AuthzLDAPUserKey uid

require valid-user

Now, anyone requesting a document from that folder will have to login.

Sometimes, that's not enough. Consider, for instance, that we grant guest accounts, so this doesn't ensure that the person requesting the document is an NWU student or employee.

To ensure that only students, faculty, and staff can access your documents, replace the last line (require valid-user) with this:

AuthzLDAPGroupBase ou=Groups,o=nebrwesleyan.edu,o=isp
AuthzLDAPGroupKey cn
AuthzLDAPMemberKey memberUid
AuthzLDAPSetGroupAuth user
Require group faculty students

To limit access to just faculty/staff, remove the word "students" from the last line; to limit access to just students, remove the word "faculty". If you want finer-grained access control -- a short list of users, for instance -- please submit a ticket.

How do I make Dreamweaver on a Mac play nice with our web server?

For most things, Dreamweaver works just fine, whether on a Mac or a PC. But for some of the more advanced features we provide -- like making a page only available to NWU people or serving a web page securely -- Dreamweaver on a Mac needs some tweaking to work well with our web server.

You'll need to change a single setting. Fire up Dreamweaver, pull down the "Dreamweaver" menu in the upper lefthand corner, and select "Preferences". Select "Code format" in the left pane. Change "Line break type" in the right pane to "LF (Unix)". Click OK to exit preferences, and you're done! Now you can use Dreamweaver to access the advanced features that require .htaccess files.

There is no need to make these changes if you aren't going to edit .htaccess files.

Can I use a MySQL database for my website?

Probably. We currently have MySQL database capabilities set up for all personal pages and for student groups; we hope to have MySQL capabilities for academic departments, offices, and other employee group sites soon.

Students wishing to use MySQL for their personal websites or for student group websites they administer should visit the request form at http://students.nebrwesleyan.edu/mysqlreq.php

Faculty and staff wishing to use MySQL for their personal websites should visit http://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/is/mysqlreq.php

Please see Why does my MySQL website only work half the time? for important information about using MySQL in our environment.

How do I administer my MySQL database?

You will use the web interface at http://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/db/

Once you've logged in, click on your username in the left panel; this will select your database and let you modify it as you need.

When you initially requested your MySQL database, you were given a password to use. If you've forgotten that password, please submit a ticket.

The application we use for MySQL management is called phpMyAdmin; you should check the online documentation if you encounter a problem.

How do I request a MySQL database?

While we once had an automated MySQL database request form, it saw very little use. To request a database for personal or group use, please submit a ticket.

What host is my MySQL database on? How do I connect to it in PHP?

Your MySQL database lives on a host called 'db'.

To connect in PHP, you'll want to do something like this:

$dbh = mysql_connect('db', 'username', 'password') or die("Could not connect: " . mysql_error());

You will receive your username and password when you request a database.

How do I make a folder writable by a web application?

You don't. For security reasons, we do not allow web applications to write files. If you need to use an application that stores data, you should use a MySQL database instead.

Some applications use web-based installers that require write access by the application; in this case, you should ask for configuration help on the application's mailing list or message board. Someone will probably be able to give you a basic configuration file that you can modify for your needs.

What is Web Advisor?

WebAdvisor is a Web interface that allows faculty and staff easy access to academic and other information at Nebraska Wesleyan.

What can I do via WebAdvisor?

There is a lot for faculty and employees to see and do via WebAdvisor.  Here is a sampling of what is available:

 For Faculty to do: 

• Record that you’ve met with Advisees for Registration

• Enter Grades

• Enter student midterm progress

• Update bank account for expense reimbursements

For Faculty to see:

• Class Rosters

• Advisee schedules, grades and academic progress

• Graduation Candidates

• Majors/Minors Listing

• Pay Advices

• Student Addresses

• Faculty/Staff Extension List

• Budget information

For Staff to do:

• Enter hours worked on timesheets

• Approve timesheets

• Update bank account for expense reimbursements

For Staff To See:

• Pay Advices

• Sick and vacation leave

• Student addresses

• Faculty/Staff Extension List

• General Ledger budget info

For a more complete listing of what's available via WebAdvisor see What You Can Do Via WebAdvisor (faculty) or What You Can Do Via WebAdvisor (staff) pages.

What username and password do I use to login to WebAdvisor?

Log in using the same username and password you use to read your email or access Huxley (the campus file server).

How do I get access to my advisees or advisees for the department/program I’m chair/director/administrative assistant of?

The Registrar’s office manages advisors and department chair/administrative assistant access to advisor information on WebAdvisor. To request access, contact the Registrar’s office (ext. 2243; registrar@nebrwesleyan.edu,).

Why can't I see the classes for which I'm the instructor this term on

Instructor information comes from the administrative database,
as given to the Registrar's Office by the department chairs/program
directors. If you are not listed as the instructor, have your department
chair/program director contact the Registrar's Office (465-2243; registrar@nebrwesleyan.edu) to let them know the course section(s) you are teaching.

My Address, phone, etc. is incorrect on WebAdvisor. Who do I contact to correct this?

The Human Resources office maintains address and other demographic data for faculty and staff which is displayed on WebAdvisor. To report incorrect information, contact Sandy Ferrell (ext. 2120; sjf@nebrwesleyan.edu,).

Can I link directly to a specific WebAdvisor workflow in an email or Web page?

Yes you can.  Here is an example that links directly to the Web Bellbook workflow on the Employees Menu.

http://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/WebAdvisor/WebAdvisor?TYPE=P&PID=ST-XNWU02A&...

If you click on this link it will first take you to the WebAdvisor login screen and then directly to the Web Bellbook workflow.  There are a couple of pieces you can change to point to whichever WebAdvisor workflow you need:

The "CONSTITUENCY=WBEM" section tells it to use the employees menu as the menu to go back to and style of the page (colors, etc.).  Use:

• WBFC for the faculty menu
• WBST for the student CLAS menu
• WBCE for the students UC menu
• WBEM for the employees menu

The "PID=ST-XNWU02A" section tells which workflow process to link to.  In this case it's the web bellbook.   The best way to find a process name to use is to:

1. Pull up the WebAdvisor menu the workflow you want is on.
2. Pull down the view menu and choose source (or page source if your usingFirefox).  This pulls up the pages htlm source code.
3. Then pull down the Edit menu and choose find .
4. In the search bar enter the name of the process you are looking for (e.g
5. . Web Bellbook).  This will take you to the line in the source code for this workflow.
6. Scroll left and you should find the PID= part of the code which will hav
7. e what to use here.

 If you can't find the process name please use our help system to submit a request  (using a problem type of "WebAdvisor").

You can use the link as above in a plain text email message.  Or if you're sending a html email or including it on a Webpage you can put the href code syntax around it to make it into an html link.  Here's what this would look like again using the link to Web Bellbook:

<a href=" http://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/WebAdvisor/WebAdvisor?TYPE=P&PID=ST-XNWU02A&... Go Directly to Web Bellbook <a>

How do I get access to my GL budget accounts via WebAdvisor?

The Business Office manages all aspects of the General ledger accounts including who can access which accounts via WebAdvisor. To request access, contact Diane Hawkins (ext. 7523; dhawkins@nebrwesleyan.edu).

What is Web Advisor?

WebAdvisor is a web interface that allows students to access their academic, financial and general campus information at Nebraska Wesleyan.

What Can I do via WebAdvisor?

There is a lot you can do and see with WebAdvisor. Here is a sampling of what’s available:

To Do:

• Register for Classes

• Validate

• Accept your Financial Aid award Letter

• Complete time sheet for campus employment

To See:

• Grades

• Academic Analysis

• Monthly Bills

• Student/Faculty addresses and phone numbers

• What course will transfer

• Pay stub for student employment

(Note: Graduate and Wesleyan Advantage students may not need use of all of these features at this time - Register for Classes, Validate or Complete time sheets.)

For a more complete listing of what's available via WebAdvisor see What You Can Do Via WebAdvisor (CLAS students) or What You Can Do Via WebAdvisor (UC students) pages.

My Address, phone number, or other demographic data is incorrect on WebAdvisor. Who do I contact to get this corrected?

The Registrar’s Office maintains the address and other demographic data on students which is displayed on WebAdvisor. To report incorrect information, contact the Registrar’s office (465-2243; registrar@nebrwesleyan.edu,).

I’m going to be away from home over break. How can I get my mail forwarded to the address where I’ll be staying?

You can use WebAdvisor to let the mail center know where you want your mail forwarded over winter or summer breaks. Use the “Sum/Wint Brk Address Change” screen and enter the address and the dates you will be at this address.