I’m Kirk Kelly, the Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer here at PSU, and I want to officially welcome you to this term. While this Fall term is certainly unique for all of us, it has mobilized the energy of our staff to create and discover new ways to help you be successful in your educational pursuits.
I’d like to take this time to share a few tools and resources to help you remain connected and supported as you start this year, either in a remote or hybrid learning environment.
First, I want to talk about keeping you and your information private and secure. PSU has a tool available called Duo, it’s a Two-Factor Authentication tool, which we use Duo for short. With Duo, you can better protect your Odin account which will keep your D2L, Banweb, Gmail and other resources way more secure than if you don’t use this tool.
In addition to this security, another large added benefit of Duo is that your password will never expire (if you don’t use Duo, it expires every 180 days, about six months but if you do it will never expire during your time here at PSU and even after you’re gone).
In addition to that, if you take advantage of enrolling in Duo during this virtual Party in the Park event, we’re going to enter you into a drawing for some nice prizes, actually pretty awesome prizes I think. So that’s the second added benefit of signing up for Duo if you do that by October 30. To learn how to sign up for Duo, visit go.pdx.edu/duo.
Next, I’m excited to share a new tool with you that we’ve developed, it’s called PSU Class Time and it’s in Google Calendar. Starting this term, you can view the dates, times, room locations, and remote meeting links for your PSU classes through Google Calendar. We hope this tool makes it easier for you to keep track of your courses that you’re enrolled in, and convenient to find the details you need for your hybrid and remote classes. To see PSU Class Times in Google Calendar, visit cal.pdx.edu.
Next, I’d encourage you to check out PSU’s Virtual Computer Lab, or VLAB for short. With VLAB, you can use a personal device, such as your laptop, tablet, or smartphone, to connect to virtual computers here on our campus that run a variety of academic software applications, including MATLAB, Microsoft Office, ArcGIS, and more. You can access this software any time and from any location, without having to worry about purchasing it for your home devices. To learn more about the Virtual Computer Lab (VLAB), visit bit.ly/oit-vlab.
To help you stay connected, I encourage you to sign up for the PSU OIT Tech Talk newsletter, it’s monthly. You’ll learn more about technology services available for you at PSU, you’ll receive tips and tricks, and stay up to date with OIT news. So, another added benefit, by the way, if you sign up for this now during our virtual Party in the Park, your name will get entered into that raffle that I referred to earlier for Duo. So if you sign up for both you will double your chances of winning one of those prizes. So please take advantage of that. Subscribe to Tech Talk newsletter here.
Whenever you have questions about technology services at PSU, our OIT Helpdesk is here to support you. You can access that support online through our PSU Help Center, by chat, phone, or remote desktop support. To contact the OIT Helpdesk, visit pdx.edu/technology/support.
PSU’s students, thank you for choosing this institution. It is our pleasure to be able to offer you support, and we are committed, our OIT staff are committed, to empowering you through the use of technology. We are here to help make you successful and we wish you all the best at the start of this new academic year!