There has been a continuous stream of lost people asking for information about the University Openh Days running today and tomorrow.

Basic information:
The starting point and “Information Hub” is the Central Lecture Theatres
Presentations in A1 – A3, plus department tours
Open Day web page
Programe
Events Timetable

Jack

ICTS have advised us that there is a major problem this morning with people not being able to login. I haven’t had any reports of this, and perhaps it hasn’t affected us. However, if you do get reports, ICTS are aware of this and are regarding finding a fix as urgent.

Peter K

Hi Everyone

Beth noticed that our etxts mentioned a $1.00 a day fine rate for recalled items, rather than the $3.00 actually charged. To fix this I’ve altered one of Margaret’s scripts. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but Margaret is sick at present. If you are alerted to anything strange with recall etxts sent after 12.45 pm today (Tuesday) please let me know – or indeed, if you notice the change hasn’t worked.

Thanks, Peter K

Within Horizon, and HIP, we have a number of locations. One of these is ‘a’. It used to be called ‘Restricted Loans’, last year became ‘Library High Demand’, and is now called ‘UC Library’.

This is an empty location – with the new High Demand process we no longer catalogue items into the ‘a’ location. But it remains important because our public Catalogue (HIP) uses ‘a’ as its home location. This doesn’t affect how you search or use the Catalogue, although it could; it was just historically useful.

SirsiDynix have introduced a mobile app called BookMyne. This also needs a home location but, unlike HIP, the location name displays. Our existing location names imply (incorrectly) that you were searching just part of the Library e.g. Law Library, Library High Demand, Education Library.

To get around this we have renamed the ‘a’ location to UC Library and we will point BookMyne to this location.

Peter K

ICTS are planning a change next Friday 29th of June (6.30 am) which they hope will improve internet access. After the change, most campus internet traffic will be sent via a different process – some planning was required hence the lead time in doing this.

Fingers crossed.

Peter K

For several days we have been having problems with international web sites. Sometimes they are fine, but not always. Symptoms can include:

– very slow to load
– blank screen although the page reports loading reports ‘done’
– not all elements load (so you may get part of the page, but not all)
– error messages e.g. stating compression is not supported
– etc.

This seems to be a problem only with international sites and the more complex the site e.g. LibGuides, the more obvious the problems are. LibGuides is a particular problem because we edit the pages but with poor connectivity this can cause problems.

I have also seen problems with Multisearch (although not so often and it is a simpler site), and a number of other sites.

I discussed this informally with ICTS last week and they knew they had a problem. One fix they tried just made things worse and I sense they are reluctant to try too much until exams are over (which is close). However, I have also lodged a formal request via the Service Desk because the problems are severe enough that it needs to be recorded in their system.

Peter K

ICTS are working on fixing access.

Peter K

Hi Everyone

The automated recall program continued to run during the snow closures, but Horizon notices were not run while we were closed so notices did not go out. When they went out this morning, it meant that some people received less than 3 days to return recalled items; in some cases today’s notice required return by tomorrow.

We promise 3 days notice and don’t want to create problems for weekend staff. As a consequence the due date of these recalled items has been extended to Monday.

There isn’t an automated way of advising borrowers of this, but at least it should reduce the chance of them being fined in a way they would see as unfair.

Peter K

This is just for information, as it is primarily an IT issue – but you may be asked about it.

From the end of this week, wireless access will be blocked to those with a negative balance in their UC account. Previously, most wireless access has not been blocked when this happened. For those of you interested in the technical stuff, the ICTS announcement follows.

Peter K

Wireless users authenticating using EAP-PEAP (~85% of wireless users use this method) are still being allowed to connect to wireless even if they have a negative balance. This change will prevent these users from connecting to wireless.
Wireless users automatically get Internet access once connected to wireless and are charged for wireless traffic over 5GB/day. Due to the lack of negative balance check on EAP-PEAP connections some users are accumulating charges when their balance is negative. This change will prevent these users from connecting to wireless network until they top up their account. This change to the wireless RADIUS servers brings wireless in line with other chargable services such as printing as well other methods of connecting to wireless.