Tips for Culmination and Finals Weeks
As you all well know, Culmination Week is upon us and Finals Week is on the horizon. For most of you, this will be a period of intense research, study and preparation. Typically, it will feature a significant reliance upon technology. CSIT is offering a few quick tips to assist you toward a successful Culmination and Finals Weeks.
1) Get your computer on the right wireless network:
Computers, tablets and phones should be using one of the NWU secured, authenticated networks, either NWU-wireless or NWU-wireless24. These networks are secure, encrypted and have full access to the available campus network bandwidth to the Internet. If you haven’t already joined your Windows, MacOS or iOS device to one of these networks, now would be a good time.
However, you can’t just select one of these networks as you might a home wireless network. In order to get your Windows, MacOS or iOS device properly configured and joined to NWU-wireless or NWU-wireless24, go to http://nwuwifi.nebrwesleyan.edu and follow the prompts. This site will configure your device and join it to one of the preferred wireless networks. If you’re using a Chromebook or an Android phone, we can send you instructions for manually configuring your device for the authenticated NWU wireless networks.
We recommend avoiding the NWU-guest network except as a temporary convenience. It is an unsecured, unencrypted network with limited bandwidth and does not have direct access to all NWU resources.
2) Connect Smart TVs, game consoles, streaming media devices to the NWU-media network:
Culmination & Finals Weeks are not all about work! You need some downtime, too, and that might mean watching some TV, streaming some video from your favorite service or gaming with friends.
The NWU-media network is available in residence halls for devices which are not designed to connect to an enterprise authenticated wireless network. To register you network devices, go to the CSIT home page at https://csit.nebrwesleyan.edu and find the “WiFi Media Access” link. This will get you to a web site on which you can register you device to join the NWU-media wireless network. You’ll need to know the MAC address of your device’s wireless network interface, but there is some help on the page if you need it.
Again, avoid using these devices on the NWU-guest network.
3) Remember that wired networks are also available in residence halls:
While wireless networking is often more convenient, NWU’s residence halls also provide wired network connectivity. If your room hosts a wireless access point (a white, rectangular box mount on the wall with blinking lights on the side), you’ll find four wired network jacks on the bottom of the access point. If your room doesn’t host a wireless access point, then the network jacks will be in a wall plate; they’ll be labeled “Data” and be orange black. Use a Cat 5e or Cat6 network cable to connect the data jack to your computer’s wired network interface.
4) Getting help and reporting problems:
Much as we would all like, technology doesn’t always work as we hope and expect. When you are having problems you need to know where to get those problems resolved rather than simply decry the shape of the universe.
You can report most problems through our online help request service called Footprints. Go to https://footprints.nebrwesleyan.edu or follow the “Support” link on the CSIT home page at https://csit.nebrwesleyan.edu . Enter your NWU username and password where indicated and create a new help request. Don’t worry too much about getting the Problem Type information just right; we’ll sort that out as necessary. Just give us as much information about your problem as possible.
During normal business hours, you can also reach out to the CSIT Office (Smith-Curtis 121) at 402-45-2341, leave a message on the Help Line phone at 403-465-7777 or just come in and talk to us. You can also reach out to WITS (Smith-Curtis 109) at 402-613-0156 or visit their web site at http://nwuwits.org .
We wish you a successful Culmination and Finals Weeks to cap your semester. Don’t forget that we’ll be here to help should you need us,
Steve