As the summer months provide a bit of downtime, we encourage all university and K12 employees to take this opportunity to perform a digital cleanup. Tidying up your digital workspace can improve efficiency and reduce clutter. Here are some best practices:

1. Clean Your Mailbox:

   • Delete unnecessary messages and empty the trash.
   • Organize your inbox with folders and labels.

2. Organize Your OneDrive:

   • Remove duplicate files and outdated versions.
   • Create folders to categorize your documents.

Important Reminder: Do not delete master copies or any documents your department needs to retain for litigation holds or retention requirements. If you're unsure about what to delete, please contact your dedicated data retention officer or supervisor for guidance.

Thank you for helping us keep our digital environment organized and efficient!

To promote continuous improvement, the IT Department will be making updates to the Solar Winds Service Desk (ramtech.samanage.com) over the next few months. Updates will be made to make the service catalog more user friendly, ticket fields more relevant, and improved routing to the appropriate technicians. Changes will be reviewed by our group of test users before they are made to the system. If you have any questions or experience problems due to any changes you see in the ticketing system, please call the IT Help Desk. 

Our Campus WiFi Improvement Project was completed June 2023. This improvement opportunity was identified in the 2022 IT CSAT Survey results. All wireless access points across the higher education campus have been updated. For the areas of improvement and to share feedback regarding the current experience, view the Campus WiFi Improvement page.

Additionally, our Internet Failover Project was completed July 2023. We now have the capability to switchover to a separate Internet connection if the main campus Internet connection is down.

As a result of Microsoft license changes announced in our March 2024 Technology Spotlight, users will experience the following changes on July 31st or shortly after.

1. Part-time, temporary, and adjunct employees will receive a reduction in their O365 license functions, such as the ability to download MS Office to personal computers. MS office can still be used via the web browser for these users. However, CIU and BLS full-time staff will still retain license features as they experienced before and will still be able to download MS products onto to personal computers licensed through their @ciu.edu or @benlippen.com email addresses.
   
   
2. Further storage restrictions as initially indicated in the March 2024 Technology Spotlight will be implemented in the future, which could potentially involve the limit of OneDrive storage sizes to 50GB per user.

We received questions about the upcoming Microsoft License Changes mentioned in the June Technology Spotlight. Due to new Microsoft license cost increases, some universities are selecting lower tier Microsoft licenses for adjuncts that do not include all of the features of the higher tier licenses. Adjuncts who are employed by multiple universities may also benefit from retaining higher tier Microsoft license from one of their employers that are not making any changes in their licensing model. A few articles below outline how some universities are adjusting to the Microsoft changes:

Microsoft License Transition @ Oklahoma University

Microsoft Licensing @ University System of New Hampshire

Microsoft 365 @ Ohio University

The Office of Information Technology has adjusted the technology budget to accommodate for the price increases for faculty/staff and students. We’ve taken that approach given the financial limitations of our technology budget. However, we will provide exceptions for adjuncts who need to retain the software download and other functions included in Microsoft’s higher tier license on a per request basis by their respective Deans. Adjuncts may follow the steps below to request an exception to retain a higher Microsoft license.

Microsoft License Exception for Adjuncts

1. Email helpdesk@ciu.edu to request that you retain a higher tier Microsoft license
2. Include the reason you need to retain the ability to download Microsoft applications on your personal computer
3. CC your respective Dean
4. IT will follow up with your Dean for approval and inform you of the exception approval if granted
1. Note: The cost for the higher tier license may need to be charged back to departments. We are still evaluating this based on the budgetary constraints.

For those who do not wish to request an exception or if your exception is not approved, below are alternative methods to acquire a Microsoft license that allows the download feature to your personal computer.

1. Adjuncts that are working for multiple universities may have the higher tier Microsoft license provided by their other employer outside of CIU. If so, adjuncts would not need to request an exception from CIU.
   
   
2. Adjuncts can purchase their own personal Microsoft license for $99/yr, $69/yr, or $150/one-time.
1. Buy Microsoft 365 Family & Personal Subscriptions, and Office 2021 - Microsoft Store

If you have any additional questions, please email helpdesk@ciu.edu.

For those who are not full-time faculty/staff or a student and previously used a downloadable copy of Office365 and have files stored on their computer (such as MS Word files), you may be concerned that you may lose those files if your personal downloadable feature expires. Note that your files should be fine. However, if you no longer are able to download the personal MS Office apps, you can perform one of the following to view or edit your previously created files.

1) Copy your local Microsoft files to your OneDrive folder in the cloud. Doing so will allow you to open and edit files using the online O365 apps that will remain active for everyone.

2) Purchase a personal subscription of Microsoft Office or request an exception to retain the personal downloadable feature and then renew the expired license on your computer. Your local files should be retrievable once a local copy of Microsoft Office is reinstalled on your computer.

If you have questions, please email helpdesk@ciu.edu.