Thanks to all of you who took the time to fill out the MISO survey of technology and library services at MIIS.  Overall, approximately 70% of you responded and, as promised, we want to share the results with you.

A full report on the technology portions of the survey can be accessed here. A similar report on the library portions of the survey will be forthcoming during the summer.

Here are some highlights of things we learned:

(1) Overall, MIIS faculty, staff and students report a moderate level of satisfaction with most aspects of technology.  Those areas that received the lowest ratings (slightly below the 3.0 threshold of satisfaction) from faculty were (a) input into computing decisions and (b) Moodle. Staff also expressed a lower level of satisfaction with input into computing decisions. Student satisfaction was above the 3.0 threshold for all areas.

As a result of this survey, we know that we need to work on involving more members of the campus community in computing decisions.  We also need to work harder on communicating information about technology, the one area where both MIIS and Middlebury fell consistently below the threshold of satisfaction.  These will be priorities for the coming year.

The issues around Moodle are a little more complex.  It is not clear from the survey results whether the reported dissatisfaction has to do with the design or functionality of the application itself, or the underlying performance of the network.  We will be doing further research to try to arrive at a better diagnosis of the problem.

(2) Network speed and stability are of paramount importance to all constituencies. As many of you know, we are in the midst of a project led by Middlebury staff to improve these services, and hope to complete the project this summer. Other services of critical importance (Banner, email, SPAM filtering) are also centralized at Middlebury; survey responses concerning these services have been made available to our Middlebury colleagues, and will be the subject of joint discussions this summer.

(3) It was no surprise that the survey showed MIIS faculty, staff and students to be intrepid early adopters of technology.  All constituencies at MIIS reported use of a larger overall number of technologies for academic purposes than their counterparts at Middlebury, as well as a greater interest in learning digital and social media tools. This is both good and bad:  it points to the important role of innovation in our academic culture, but it also creates challenges for a small staff to support an increasing and ever-changing constellation of technological tools.

(4) Last but not least, those who made use of various technology service-providers on campus reported a high level of satisfaction with the quality of our front-line staff (consistently above the 3.0 threshold). Thanks to all of those staff for their dedication and efforts to “be the solution,” sometimes in the face of very limited resources.

In summary: We learned that we need to continue to work with Middlebury colleagues on the performance of our network and core technology services; that we have issues with Moodle requiring further exploration; that we need to become increasingly nimble and versatile to keep up with the evolving needs of a dynamic group of constituents; and that we need to place much greater emphasis on communication in both directions — providing information to members of the community, and offering opportunities for input into technology decisions.

We will be working over the summer on strategies for addressing these priorities, and  hope that we can count on you all for your continued feedback.  I invite all of you to respond with your input, either by commenting on this post or by emailing Amy McGill directly.

Why Can’t Someone Send to My Exchange Account?

Once in awhile you may find that someone calls and tells you that they sent you email, but that it got returned to them for no apparent reason. We all know that we have to be careful about adding specific words to our email, or sending out too much email to the same person, in order to not look like we are “spamming” them, but sometimes it is not all that obvious when one of our simple messages gets returned for no apparent reason.

Hidden Factors: When this happens there can be “hidden” factors involved that are in play. Often the person sending the message is not at fault, but instead the organization they are working for may have some issue, such as a computer on their network that has been compromised with a virus and is sending out thousands of spam messages. These spam messages often pass through the same network gateway (shared IP address), which make everyone on that network look as if they are sending spam also. This is called having a “poor IP reputation”.

Barracuda Reputation: Many organizations like ours use active spam filter appliances, that perform multiple tests against each incoming email, and reject some messages outright if they fail one of the tests. Most notably, each incoming message has its sending IP address tested against a central list of known IP addresses with “poor reputations” for previously or currently sending spam. The same type of lists exist for domain names that have poor reputations. If someone sending you email has a shared IP address or shared domain name that is on a reputation list somewhere, their message to you will likely be returned as undeliverable.

What To Do: Unfortunately, our Barracuda filter treats some spam conditions like “poor IP reputation” as very serious, and simply returns the message to the sender without notifying you that the message was denied. Even if you set up a Barracuda quarantine box, and set your spam capture score very low, this type of message will never end up in your quarantine box. They are simply rejected outright by Barracuda. If you discover that this has happened,  you need to do one of the following.

1. Ask the sender to resend the message again, but this time have them send it to a personal email account, such as your Yahoo or Gmail account to ensure their email is actually able to send mail to someplace other than your Exchange account.

2. Have the sender check the return message they got to see if there is an explanation as to why the message was returned (ask them to check for the words, virus, IP reputation, RBL or blacklist, etc.). If they find any of these indicators, they need to check with their own network administrators for help getting their shared IP address off of any blacklists.

3. Consider placing the sender’s full email address in your private “white list” found under your Barracuda quarantine setup at http://go.middlebury.edu/spam . If you have not already set up your quarantine box on the Barracuda, you may want to take a few minutes to do so. Instructions for adding to your white list can be found at http://tinyurl.com/middspam .

Additional Help: You may search for more information on the above subject, by typing “IP reputation” or “barracuda spam list” into your web browser search field. For further assistance setting up your Barracuda quarantine box please contact the ITS Help Desk at x6656 or at HelpDesk-MIIS.

You will soon be seeing some minor changes in the online directory. Instead of a single name field, you will see separate fields for first and last name, and you will also be able to filter your search by type (faculty, student, etc.) The new version also allows you to browse a list by letter of the alphabet.  If your search returns multiple options, you will be able to see all of them in a compact list, rather than having to scroll through a series of full entries.  If you click on the name you are looking for, you will then see the full entry.

As we look forward to a “soft” launch of the web site (visible only on campus) on September 1, you may be interested in knowing how you can customize and personalize the new site.  Here is a post from Middlebury’s web makeover blog that clarifies the options that will be available.  (As Middlebury develops these functionalities, they will be applied to the MIIS site as well.)