Mission: Possible

Improve Your Skills for Free

OIT underwrites several licenses to access Element K’s online self-study tutorials on topics ranging from MS Office products to database design, programming, networking, Web development, and more. Students, faculty, and staff can take the self-study courses for free, but have no access to the instructor-led courses. Since you will share a license with other users, the site will not remember which courses you have taken. The site is available from computers on campus (including residence halls) and to off-campus users if they access the Internet through the University. ElementK also has a Resource Center section. Students can access online books and look up information such as how to link a graphic using HTML code.

www.oit.umd.edu/pt/alternatives.html

One-Stop Shop from page 2

Q: What progress have you made so far?

Leith: We conducted focus groups consisting of high school students, parents, current students, and basically anyone you can imagine, to ensure that the end users are driving the changes. So far, we have defined the business requirements for the e-business environment (common login, custom interface, messaging, tracking, etc.) as well as the lower level processes for the admissions process. The output is a requirements document that is currently in the hands of the technical team.

Spam from page 1

Why is it increasing? The spam problem will get worse because it costs spammers almost nothing to market their products or services using e-mail programs. At the same time, spammers are getting more clever in sending e-mails that are difficult to trace or block. Their techniques of gathering addresses have also become more sophisticated.

Why doesn’t the University stop it? The mission of the University is to share information. OIT does not want to block e-mail messages based on their content because it could be violating the principles of academic freedom, privacy, and the First Amendment.

What is the University doing about spam? The University Directory is set in a way that pro-tects the e-mail addresses of faculty, staff, and students so that spammers cannot get them. Furthermore, Project NEThics has exerted considerable effort lodging complaints with ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) where spam mail originates. It also provides additional resources for coping with spam.

How can I fight it?
• Do not reply to spam messages. Delete them instead.
• Use a bogus or fake e-mail address, if asked for one, when you have to register for a Web site.
• If your e-mail address is published on a Web page, remove it. You can find whether your e-mail address is published by searching for it at www.google.com.
• Posting to Usenet newsgroups and subscribing to unmoderated discussion lists makes you vulnerable to spammers.
• Use filters, but be careful not to “overfilter” legitimate messages.

For more information on spam:
Project NEThics: www.inform.umd.edu/NEThics/resources/factsheets/spam.html
OIT Help Desk: www.helpdesk.umd.edu/documents/0/412/