OCIO Newsletter issue 18

Issue 18 • JAN 2015 SPOTLIGHT

Oracle Exadata for Banner/AIMSK C Cheung

Online course registration each semester is a system activity that demands tremendous computer

power. Processes, such as time-ticketing, have been in place for years to control the system

demand at an acceptable level. On the software side, tuning was also done regularly to achieve

optimum performance. As the student population and the number of courses increased over the

past years, the hardware was also upgraded timely. However, hiccups occurred in Semester B for a

few years since 2009.

Owing to the new Academic Reform in 2012 in Hong Kong, the University expanded her system

to allow open registration for more students to select more courses like Gateway (GE) courses. For

the sake of fairness, it is required to schedule more than 3000 students to do on-line web GE course

registration simultaneously. This further aggravated performance and capacity problem during

student on-line web course registration, affecting not only course add/drop and registration

service to students, but also the administrative offices using Banner.

To address the problem, existing system architecture was reviewed. Although traditional server

and storage upgrade was expected to get improvement, I/O performance would be limited by

traditional storage system. We had applied this approach for years, but the course registration

problem still prevailed. Inevitably other technologies needed to be explored.

We started in early 2013 to explore if Oracle Exadata could be a possibility. It is an engineered

based machine with hardware and software components integrated to improve performance and

achieve high availability for Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) and data warehousing.

In the evaluation process, we studied the literature of Oracle Exadata and IT report on the machine

by independent technology and market research company. We also called references from

INDEX

SPOTLIGHT

1 Oracle Exadata for Banner/AIMS

FEATURE

8 Staff Email – Reasons to Move Fast to MS Office 365

12 New CityU Portal

14 Flipped Classroom at City University of Hong Kong

18 Knowledge Management @ CityU

BRIEF UPDATES

7 New Issue of Network Computing

20 Wow! Free Wifi!? (A Fictional Story)

21 New e-Learning Webpage on MOOC

22 CityU Supports HK Government’s Wifi Initiative

FYI

3Rights Management System for Information Protection on MS Office 365

IT SECURITY AWARENESS SERIES BY JUCC

10 Intellectual Property

ITSM SERIES

4 ITSM Awareness Series (Part 1: Introduction)

STATISTICS AT A GLANCE

23 Help Desk Monthly Statistics

GLOSSARY CORNER

24 Shellshock & Poodle

NEWSLETTEROCIO

other universities using Oracle

Exadata for Banner. Stephen F.

Austin University (SFA) in the

USA went live with Banner on

Oracle Exadata in April 2012

to solve its course registration

problem. SFA can now support

up to 2,000 concurrent users

enabling students to register for

classes more quickly. Several

conversations with their IT

specialists were made to

understand the considerations

of moving to Oracle Exadata and

we got assured that it would

be a solution for us too. We

further conducted a proof of

concept (POC) for confirming the

performance levels demonstrated

meeting the University’s

requirements. The POC result

was positive and showed that the

system can handle 3,000 students

to do course registration

simultaneously, and there would

be up to 100 times performance

improvement in SQL reporting.

After intensive study and

discussions, it was decided to

acquire an Oracle Exadata for

supporting course registration at

reasonable performance when

thousands of students add or

drop courses at the same time.

In late November 2014, Banner/

AIMS database was successfully

migrated to Oracle Exadata

X4-2 Eighth Rack to prepare

for the Semester B course

registration in December. In

this course registration, AIMS

performed extremely well, with

1.5 to 3 times more registrations

done than before (see Chart 1),10

times faster processing and less system

busy pages observed (see Chart 2)

in the peak of concurrent student

registration. System was found busy

only in the first one or two minutes in

the peak. The system demonstrated

that it can greatly enhance the

database performance in Banner

system and thus raise the overall user

satisfaction.

Snap shots of performance report

(Figure 1) in last Semester A and

this Semester B (Figure 2) were

taken on 22 August 2014 and 31

December 2015 respectively. Before

the implementation of the Exadata,

the CPU was fully consumed and this

status lasted for 20 minutes. After the

implementation, it lasted only for 2

minutes. Students should have found

the course registration process much

smoother and quicker.

In addition to improving the course

registration performance, the

performance of other AIMS functions

are also enhanced; users (staff,

students, alumni and offices) can now

get instant response in most functions

within a second. Furthermore, other

enterprise applications can still be run

as usual during the peak usage period.

Before, other application user offices

were requested to avoid submitting

CPU/time consuming jobs during the

course registration period. In short,

Oracle Exadata has great potential to

improve jobs that demand extensive

data retrieval, query and reporting.

Figure 1: Performance before the implementation of Exadata

Figure 2: Performance after the implementation of Exadata

OCIO NEWSLETTER2

FYI

Rights Management System for Information Protection on MS Office 365Maria Chin

Data security on cloud services for email, social networking, etc. has always

been a concern to users. With the University email system for staff being

migrated to the cloud Microsoft Office 365 (“O365”) featuring Exchange

Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Team Site, etc., the University has

subscribed to the Right Management System (RMS) to provide extra

protection to staff email and files containing sensitive/confidential

information.

Currently under release preparation, the RMS will be

available to staff in their primary O365 accounts (same as

their CityU EIDs) where staff can encrypt email (message

and file attachments) with confidential/sensitive

information for email exchange.

The RMS can also be applied to the Library (folder) in the

O365 OneDrive and Team Site*. All files (MS Office and

PDF format) added to the Library with RMS enabled will

automatically be encrypted, hence sharing of files with

sensitive/confidential information amongst authorized

staff will be more convenient, and without the need

to encrypt file by file and for distribution of decryption password as

currently being done with the on-premises email systems and SharePoint

(CityUWiki). Further access restrictions to files, e.g. how long they can be

viewed by the targeted audiences, abilities for the targeted audiences

to print, download encrypted files etc. can be customized and applied

as desired to achieve optimal protection to files containing sensitive/

confidential information and in the meantime balancing their ease of

access and use.

The RMS is a Microsoft data encryption technology to assist users to secure

their data; nevertheless, staff should exercise care when using the RMS

by following closely the guidelines (to be available with the release of

the RMS). Departments/staff interested to pilot the RMS can contact the

Computing Services Centre (via the CSC Help Desk or email to csc@cityu.

edu.hk).

* Further read on O365 OneDrive and Team Site is available at https://support.office.com/en-nz/article/Start-using-your-team-site-OneDrive-for-Business-and-Newsfeed-to-share-documents-and-ideas-abeace23-ffb2-4638-944c-860a2484b4bb

The Exadata machine has high

availability (HA) feature that provides

an avenue for moving toward non-

stop AIMS services, thus enabling

us to provide better support to

alumni networking, admissions and

recruitment of overseas applicants, and

staff who may be working overseas on

different time zones. This HA feature

also facilitates applying Oracle and OS

upgrade to the machine without any

system down time.

Oracle Exadata has greater capacity

to host more databases in it if

applicable. This may bring savings to

the University on Oracle license. In

the past, new Oracle licenses had to

be acquired when a machine with

higher computing power or when

a new system that required Oracle

database was bought. Such licenses

are expensive. On the other hand, with

the Exadata hosting more databases,

we can patch, upgrade and monitor the

system in a consolidated fashion, thus

saving our database administration

efforts in the long run. It is planned to

migrate the database of Degree Works

to the new machine. The time taken

for generation of an updated advising

worksheet and degree audit report

for a student who has his/her courses

changed or course grades updated is

expected to be much shorter.

Furthermore, taking the opportunity in

implementing Oracle Exadata, a Banner

Disaster Recovery system is being set

up. This will mitigate the risk to the

University operation brought about

by system un-availability at a disaster

level. The system is targeted to be

available in June 2015.

City University of Hong Kong is the

first university in Hong Kong to adopt

an Oracle Exadata for her ERP, and it

took us only three months to install the

system and put it to production, thanks

to our capable and efficient Central IT

team!

Issue 18 • January 2015 3

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

ITSM SERIES

ITSM Awareness Series (Part 1: Introduction)By Chadwick Leung

The University’s Paperless Office

Service, being a highly mission

critical system, was selected as

a pilot service to be managed

following the ISO/IEC 20000 IT

Service Management (ITSM)

Standard. It is to ensure that the

service is managed following the

international best practice (for more

information on the Paperless Office

Service, please refer to the article

“HRO Work Simplification through

Paperless Office” in Issue #17 of the

OCIO Newsletter: http://issuu.com/

cityuhkocio/docs/ocio_newsletter_

issue_17).

Wikipedia explains: “ITSM is process-

focused and has ties and common

interests with process improvement

frameworks and methodologies

(e.g., TQM, Six Sigma, business

process management, CMMI). The

discipline is not concerned with the

details of how to use a particular

vendor’s product, or necessarily with

the technical details of the systems

under management. Instead, it

focuses upon providing a framework

to structure IT-related activities

and the interactions of IT technical

personnel with business customers

and users.)” http://en.wikipedia.org/

wiki/IT_service_management

Many teams within the Central IT

have been collaborating to bring

the ITSM standards into operation

in CityU. For colleagues who have

not been involved in the ISO/IEC

20000 implementation or other

readers who may be interested

in this transformation, this article

is to share the basic concepts on

how the standard works.

Change is InevitableIn our modern world, IT change

is inevitable and constantly

happening. In fact, the pace

of change is quite exponential

as more and more aspects of

business now rely on IT as an

enabler and driver for business

value. Consequently, changes in

how we provision IT service are

also more frequent. In general,

changes to IT services are driven

by changes in business strategies,

business directions and business

needs. Almost never, is change in

IT service provisioning driven by

technology lifecycle alone. These

ITSM standards guide a service

provider in managing IT changes

against changing business

strategies and needs. The first

step in any change or new IT

service is what ISO/IEC 20000 calls

the Design and Transition of New

or Changed Services (DTNCS).

Design and Transition of New or Changed ServicesThe whole of ISO/IEC 20000

consists of a set of processes

(bolded in below diagram).

The overarching process is the

DTNCS (highlighted in blue in

the diagram). DTNCS helps

organizations manage the

requirements of introducing new

IT services or changes to existing

IT services in 3 main stages – (1)

plan, (2) design and development,

(3) transition. The main purpose

of the DTNCS process is to ensure

that proper considerations

are made to the financial,

organizational and technical

impact that can result from such

change.

DTNCS is related to the other

processes at different stages to

form a coherent (or holistic) view

to manage and govern new or

changed services. The following

diagram depicts the interfaces

between processes at different

stages of an ITSM project, and the

operation stage is adopted by

following the best practice of ITIL

(IT Infrastructure Library for ITSM)

to manage IT services after the

transition stage.

The following explains the tasks

within the 3 stages of DTNCS and

the operation stage, some typical

deliverables of each stage are

listed:

PlanDuring the planning stage, a

proposed new or change to IT

service is first evaluated against

The ITSM Awareness Series of articles aims to raise awareness among CityU IT provisioning units (both Central IT and departments) and interested parties of the current best practice in IT service management (ITSM).

OCIO NEWSLETTER4

ISO 20000 Design and Transition of New or Changed Services ITIL Service Operation

Plan Design and Development Transition Operation

Service Delivery

Service Level Management and Reporting

Service Continuity and Availability Management

Budgeting and Accounting for Services

Capacity Management

Information Security Management

RelationshipBusiness Relationship Management

Supplier Management

ResolutionService Request and Incident Management

Problem Management

Control

Change Management

Configuration Management

Release and Deployment Management

various aspects which generally include

business needs, user requirements,

available resources, financial and time

constraints, and technology limitation.

This evaluates whether the outcome

(new or changed IT services) can deliver

values to business or customers within

the timescale and budget. Agreed

change will be managed as “project”.

DTNCS process must be used to manage

a change when it is classified under

certain criteria that are organization-

specific. Some typical criteria are:

- All new services

- Changes with potential high risk/

impact or expected high value to

critical services

- Changes with high cost and/or benefit

- Changes with long interruption to

critical services

Other changes outside the

organization-defined criteria are simply

managed through traditional change

management processes.

Deliverables:

- New or changed IT Service proposal

- Service removal proposal

- Project plan

Design and DevelopmentService Requirements

The first step in the Design and

Development of DTNCS is to define

the service requirements. Details of the

requirements will be gathered through

the following processes:

- Service Level Management and Reportingo Service level and catalogueo Service hourso Service request agreed time

- Service Continuity and Availability Managemento Support hourso Availability requirement in

percentageo Time to restore service during

incident

- Budgeting and Accounting for Serviceso Capital Expenditure (CAPEX)o Operational Expenditure

(OPEX)o Asset Management

- Capacity Managemento Storage requiremento Response timeso Backup requirement

Service Design and Development

Service design and development

will be carried out based on the

agreed service requirement.

This step will provide detailed

specifications on all related areas

within the requirements. This

aims to ensure the requirements

will be fulfilled and solutions will

be delivered accordingly during

the Transition stage. The following

are some typical areas within

the scope of service design and

development:

Figure 1 Interfaces between DTNCS and other processes


- Service Level Management & Business Relationship Managemento Operation levelo Roles and responsibilities o Human resources (training, skills

and competencies)

- Capacity Managemento Service monitoringo Infrastructureo Testing and deployment approach

- Information Security Managemento Information or data securityo Information or personal privacy

- Service Continuity and Availability Managemento Service high availability or

continuity provision

- Supplier Managemento Suppliers and contractso Support level

Deliverables:

- Functional / technical requirement

specification

- Service level requirements and plan

- Capacity requirements and plan

- Service Continuity and Availability

requirements and plan

- Cost model, charging scheme and

price book

- Information security requirements and

risk assessment report

- Service catalog update

- Service level agreement, operational

level agreement and supplier contract

TransitionThe following three control processes

will manage the service rollout and

deployment, including the subsequent

changes:

- Change Managemento Manage evaluation, scheduling

and approval of change requesto Manage unexpected outcome of

change/release deployment

- Configuration Managemento Manage the Configuration Items

(CI) registration and change via

Change Management processo Define relation between CIs and

relation between CI to service

- Release and Deployment Managemento Manage deployment of approved

new or changed serviceso Manage development and test

cycle

Deliverables

- Service report

- CMDB audit report

- Change and Release schedule and

report

OperationAfter a new service goes live, the

operation stage will also turn two

resolution processes into action from

preparation in the transition stage

- Service Request and Incident Managemento Handle service request and

incident in accordance to the

defined procedure and within

agreed service or resolution time

- Problem Managemento Identify root causes of incident and

produce proven resolutiono Prevent incident with the same

cause from reoccurrence

Deliverables

- Service report

- Knowledge base and known error

records

This article provides a very high-level

overview of ITSM and the DTNCS

process. For more information on the

individual stages or tasks, interested

readers can refer to:

- ISO/IEC 20000 – design and transition of new or changed services

http://blog.apmg-international.com/

index.php/2013/04/24/isoiec-20000-

design-and-transition-of-new-or-

changed-services/

- ITIL Processes http://wiki.en.it-processmaps.com/

index.php/ITIL_Processes

- ISO 20000 Sections and related ITIL Processes

http://wiki.en.it-processmaps.com/

index.php/ISO_20000#ISO_20000_

Sections_and_related_ITIL_Processes

Please stay tuned for Part 2 of this series

when we introduce the Configuration

Management Database (CMDB) – a

repository that acts as a data warehouse

to support ITSM. Contents in the

CMDB represent the IT assets as well

as the relationships among them. The

CMDB is an important tool to help

IT organizations understand how

critical assets are composed and their

relationships/dependencies with others,

and consequently facilitates better IT

service management.

OCIO NEWSLETTER6

“Issue #82 - December 2014” of the

Network Computing online magazine

from the Computing Services Centre

(CSC) is now available at: http://

wikisites.cityu.edu.hk/sites/netcomp/

BRIEF UPDATES

New Issue of Network ComputingComputing Services Centre

This issue contains the following

articles:

• Lync: How to Make Use of Unified

Communication

• Difficulties of Supporting Wi-Fi

• Learn at Your Own Pace with Lynda.

com

• IT Security Awareness - Protection

against Hacking - Technique / Tools


As announced in August 2014,

the Information Strategy and

Governance Committee (ISGC)

has endorsed the immediate

migration of the University email

system for staff from the on-

premises Microsoft Exchange

system (“Exchange”) to the cloud

Microsoft Office 365 (“O365”),

and the entire email migration

for all staff is to be completely by

June 2015.

Migration of all email in the

7,000+ staff email accounts

(primary and secondary

accounts) within a year might not

seems a difficult task; however,

when all staff need to find time

for email migration and to adapt

to a new email system, despite

the similarity of the two systems,

the time and efforts added up

has proven to be a challenge.

The Computing Services Centre

(CSC) will assist staff to migrate

their email from both the

Exchange and the JSMS (the

older staff email system) to O365,

and in order to streamline the

migration process, a department-

by-department schedule has

been worked out.

FEATURE

Staff Email – Reasons to Move Fast to MS Office 365 Maria Chin

The cooperation of staff to comply

with the planned migration

schedule for their respective

department is sought since

shuffling migration dates amongst

departments within a tight

timeframe will adversely affect staff

in departments involved in terms

of rescheduling; after all, it will be

impractical, if not impossible, to

find a date that can fit every staff.

Migrating to O365 - the Sooner the Better• Staff should note that migrating to

O365 at their earliest convenience

is to their advantage, since no

enhancement resource has been

allocated to the on-premises email

systems, meaning that neither

the systems nor the hardware

(servers, disks, backup) will be

upgraded. Both the systems and

the hardware are hence already

prone to software bugs, hardware

failures, security vulnerabilities and

attacks from hackers, and these

deficiencies will further deteriorate

with time. The software licenses

for the applications, anti-viruses,

etc. for the on-premises email

systems will expire after 30 June

2015, and without valid licenses

these systems must be shut down

and accounts/emails that have not

been migrated to the O365 will be

irretrievable.

• Staff can enjoy the added and

advanced features on O365, and

please see details in the FAQ at

http://www.cityu.edu.hk/csc/

deptweb/support/faq/email/

o365staff/features.htm.

• Apart from the advanced

features, the University has

recently subscribed to the Rights

Management System (RMS) on

O365, and with RMS, email and

files with confidential/sensitive

information can be encrypted

hence strengthening information

protection during email

communication and files sharing.

• Staff can enjoy the use of Microsoft

Office Pro Plus for their work which

can be downloaded from their O365

accounts. MS Office Pro Plus allows

each staff member free installation

of MS Office software on up to

a maximum of five PCs or Macs

used by the staff for work related

activities during their employment

at the University. Staff can also run

OCIO NEWSLETTER8

Office Mobile for

iPhone or Office

Mobile for Android

on up to 5 mobile

devices.

When and How to Migrate Email Accounts to O365?

The CSC is

contacting the

Departmental

Network

Administrators

of respective

departments/offices

to confirm the

planned migration schedule for

their departments. Departments

who have not yet been contacted

and wish to migrate sooner can

contact the CSC (via the CSC Help

Desk or email to [email protected].

hk) and the CSC will try to move

forward the planned date.

Prior to email migration, staff

should read the FAQ (http://

www.cityu.edu.hk/csc/deptweb/

support/faq/email/o365staff/

o365.htm), and upgrade

the operating systems and

applications on their PCs and

mobile devices to the latest

versions before the migration;

otherwise, they may not be able

to connect to O365.

On the date of migration, all email

accounts and email of all staff in the

department scheduled for migration,

even those for the staff on leave, will be

transferred to the O365. Staff from the

CSC will be on-site at the department

to provide technical support to staff

to configure the email clients (MS

Outlook) on their PCs to connect to the

O365. The O365 server information

will be available to staff using other

IMAP/POP3 email clients who can

then configure their own email clients

accordingly. Staff who are not in office,

on leave, etc. on the date of migration

and have missed the on-site support

from the CSC can follow the DIY steps

(item 3) in the FAQ (http://www.cityu.

edu.hk/csc/deptweb/support/faq/

email/o365staff/o365.htm), or contact

the CSC Help Desk or email to csc@

cityu.edu.hk for assistance.

Access Migrated Email and New Emails on O365 via OWAIt is worth noting that the email

migrated to the O365 and the new

email sent to you can always be

accessed conveniently from any web

browsers (via Online Web Access

“OWA”) at http://email.cityu.edu.hk/

notice/weblogon_o365um.htm (with

login instruction and URL to the O365).

The OWA enables staff to access their

old and new email right after email

migration even they have not yet

configured their email clients and

mobile devices to connect to the O365.


I. Background

Industry Story

Illegal downloading on campus can lead to hefty finesUnless the University of Oklahoma (“OU”) students are willing to fork over $750 for the latest Beyonce single, they might want to think twice before illegally downloading songs from the Internet via OU Wi-Fi.

The Recording Industry Association of America (“RIAA”) has been suing individuals for a minimum of $750 for each illegally downloaded song, according to the OU IT website.

OU IT is working with the RIAA by implementing the Affirmation of Compliance, a digital contract for OU users. When students register with the OU network, students agree to avoid copyright infringement while on the OU network, and in turn IT will investigate any questionable downloading through the network.

What is Intellectual Property?Intellectual property refers to a group of separate intangible property rights. It is a number of distinct types of creations and ideas for which a set of exclusive rights are recognised. These include trademarks, patents, copyright, designs, plant varieties and the layout design of integrated circuits.

Why is Intellectual Property important? Stealing a physical asset is obviously illegal. If you take an asset away without the owner’s permission, you are stealing his or her asset. In the other words, you try to take or use an asset without the ownership of the asset.

However, when it comes to any intangible assets stored in the information systems or shared on the Internet, such as e-books, graphics, software, it is usually not an easy job to identify their ownership. To protect such intangible assets or avoid unauthorised usage, it is important to understand the concept of intellectual property and the relevant regulations protecting it.

II. Management

Identification of Compliance Requirement on Information Security

Management should identify the following types of intellectual property before planning the strategy to safeguard intellectual properties.

• University-owned Intellectual Property

Many universities are now expected to interact more with industries as well as governmental and non-governmental organisations in consultancy, research contracts and commercialisation of inventions, innovations and research findings.

As a result, more collaboration between universities and external bodies increased the universities’ productivity of intellectual properties and their reliance on these properties as a source of income.

If the intellectual properties are stolen, the potential income from the properties will be deteriorated or even lost, which can lead to very high economic loss as well as reputation damage.

• Non-university-owned Intellectual Property

Non-university-owned intellectual properties may impose adverse impact on universities’ intellectual protection objective if the usage of such properties is not well regulated.

Some universities may run single-user licensed software on most of their computers. Some computer vendors may even sell hardware to the universities with software pre-installed but without appropriate licences.

Using unlicensed software without the permission of the vendors can pose the universities at a risky position to be sued and penalised. This can incur a very high compensation or litigation cost if universities fail to identify and rectify such violations timely.

Responsibilities of Management

• Establishing Intellectual Property Policy

The establishment of Intellectual Property Policy can protect both the rights of the students and researchers, and the intellectual property itself.

The policy should address how members in the universities should create, identify, maintain, safeguard and protect the intellectual properties owned by themselves or the universities.

• Implement Information Security Intellectual property protection

is part of the overall information security within the universities’ network.

IT Security Awareness Series by JUCCWith an aim to enhancing the IT security awareness of the CityU community, the KPMG was commissioned by the Joint Universities Computer Centre (JUCC) to prepare a series of articles on IT security and they will be adopted and published here for your reference.

Intellectual Property

OCIO NEWSLETTER10

The reason is that, in many circumstances, intellectual properties are part of the critical data held within the universities’ information systems. In other words, strong protection of intellectual property requires well-established information security policies and procedures.

A good example is the implementation of logical access controls. Management should make sure that the access to information assets with intellectual properties is only assigned to the staff members or students based on their specific job functions or study needs. This control is able to prevent intellectual properties from being used by unauthorised users.

Therefore, strong implementation of information security in the University is crucial to keep intellectual properties away from malicious thieves.

• Appoint Security Officer Any potential violation of the security

of intellectual properties should be reported to the right person in the Management group. A person, like an Information Security Officer, should be assigned to supervise the overall security status of the university’s information systems and assets, including intellectual properties. He or she should also be responsible for the governance and implementation of the information security policy.

• Asset Inventory Tracking The inventory of all information

assets such as workstations, laptops and CDs with student personal information owned by the

universities should be continuously tracked and maintained. An asset inventory should be created to record the asset details and the respective asset owners. This can help to prevent information assets involving intellectual properties from being accessed or possessed by un-intended personnel like ex-staff members of the universities.

• Promote Awareness and Education Management should consider

raising the awareness of intellectual property protection by organising trainings for its staff and students. This can align their expectation and help to better protect the universities intellectual properties.

On the other hand, the training should also put emphasis on the avoidance of using unlicensed software or unauthorised duplication of information assets with intellectual properties. Well-received trainings can effectively lower the possibilities of intellectual properties infringements and the consequent

litigations.

III. General User

Responsibilities of General Users

General users may not be aware that they are actually playing an important role with regards to the protection of the intellectual properties as well as prevent the corresponding infringements.

• Manage your intellectual property Any general users such as students,

researchers and faculty staff can be an owner of intellectual property. They should be aware of

their intellectual properties, and manage their rights relevant to their intellectual properties. For instance, they should consider reserve some or all rights to copy or republish their work, and transfer only those rights to the publisher whom you have agreed to use your work to conduct their

business.

• Do not use unlicensed software Staff members and students should

observe the universities’ acceptable usage policies by not installing any unlicensed software on campus workstations / laptops. In addition, universities may consider deploying Software Asset Management (“SAM”) solutions for monitoring any installation of unlicensed software.

• Do not illegally duplicate intellectual property

General users may duplicate intellectual properties like DVDs for personal use if they have purchased from the owners or universities have bought the licences for them. However, using the duplicated copies for commercial distribution or sharing with others who possess no valid licenses is not allowed.

• Do not use P2P software to share copyright material over the Internet

Although the use of P2P software provides an efficient way to search and exchange material over the internet, people often use the P2P software to download copyright material such as music, movie over the Internet. This kind of activities is illegal and may cause law suits with copyright owners or their agents such

as BayTSP, Inc.


With the University’s migration

from Blackboard to Canvas

as our unified learning

management system (LMS),

we have replaced the previous

e-Portal that was built on top

of the Blackboard platform

with a brand new “CityU

Portal” (www.cityu.edu.hk/

portal).

The new portal was designed

and coded in-house through

a collaboration of technical

staff from the three Central

IT units – the OCIO, the CSC,

and the ESU, and supported

by contribution of ideas from

content owners and users. The

project began in July 2014 and

Version 1 of the portal was soft

launched in early December

2014. The new CityU Portal

extended the functionality

of the previous e-Portal as a

one-stop information gateway

for staff and students. The

new portal totally replaced

the e-Portal starting from

January 2015 to align with

the full adoption of Canvas in

Semester B.

The project involved several

key development tasks –

enriching the user experience,

revamping the information

architecture, redesigning the

user interface, and designing

FEATURE

New CityU PortalK H Tam

a new .NET single-sign-on

module.

For example, the user

experience has been enhanced

by providing a more flexible

and controllable user interface

to consolidate the most useful

or popular services for staff

and students, categorized by

service types. In the portal

homepage, users have access to

our core IT systems, password

management services as well

as our news and the academic

calendar. The CityU Portal

search bar allows users to

quickly find any protected

CityU Intranet webpages and

CityU SharePoint “wikisites”

that the user has access rights

to view. Also, depending on

your role, you may access the

tabs specifically designed for

staff or students, where you

can find additional teaching

and learning services, facilities

booking services, and other

useful services provide by

various offices.

For the information

architecture, the project

team thoroughly analyzed,

rationalized, and re-

categorized the existing

content, and created a new

information architecture

design that is more intuitively

ConclusionWhile enjoying the benefit from the information technologies, universities should pay sufficient attention to the protection of intellectual properties by implementing adequate information security mechanisms. General users should follow the policies and procedures established by the universities when using the intellectual properties and be alerted on any possible infringements.

Reference:http://thedartmouth.com/2011/08/16/news/Cyber

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

http://www.wipo.int/uipc/en/guidelines/pdf/ip_policy.pdf

http://www.ipd.gov.hk/eng/pub_press/publications/cpr_ed_e.pdf

http://www.csoonline.com/article/217964/intellectual-property-security-don-t-lose-your-head?page=1

http://www.cio.com/article/22837/How_to_Avoid_Intellectual_Property_Theft_?page=2&taxonomyId=3089 http://www.riskvue.com/articles/fs/fs9911.htm

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/services/faculty/protect_ip.html

http://www.dartmouth.edu/copyright/peer2peer/

http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/itsc/about/p2p-risk.html

Copyright StatementAll material in this document is, unless otherwise stated, the property

of the Joint Universities Computer Centre (“JUCC”). Copyright and

other intellectual property laws protect these materials. Reproduction

or retransmission of the materials, in whole or in part, in any manner,

without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, is a violation of

copyright law.

A single copy of the materials available through this document may be

made, solely for personal, noncommercial use. Individuals must preserve

any copyright or other notices contained in or associated with them. Users

may not distribute such copies to others, whether or not in electronic form,

whether or not for a charge or other consideration, without prior written

consent of the copyright holder of the materials. Contact information

for requests for permission to reproduce or distribute materials available

through this document are listed below:

[email protected]

Joint Universities Computer Centre Limited (JUCC),

Room 223, Run Run Shaw Building,

c/o Computer Centre, The University of Hong Kong,

Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

OCIO NEWSLETTER12

FEATURE

New CityU PortalK H Tam

organized, allowing easier and

faster access to information.

The portal is also intelligent,

and automatically remembers

individual user preferences in how

much information he/she wants

to be displayed, thus providing a

personalized user experience while

reducing information clutter.

The user interface was totally

redesigned using a “keep it simple”

philosophy while adopting the

latest in Web technologies and

standards. The CityU Portal was

designed with both desktops

and mobile devices in mind, and

was coded using responsive Web

technology that allows the CityU

Portal to automatically optimize

itself to fit different screen sizes

and orientations. You can access

the portal and its services anytime,

anywhere, across all platforms,

including desktop, mobile phones,

and tablets. Aesthetic wise, the CityU

Portal follows a modern “flat” design

while adhering strongly to University

branding. To provide a cleaner looking

user interface, carousels are used to

consolidate “banners” while maintaining

functionality of highlight new events/

activities.

This new platform will allow us to better

integrate with our major systems,

including AIMS, so that users can

access to various services more easily

without logging in multiple times. The

Portal leverages the existing “red door”

login form for Active Directory (AD)

authentication. And a new .NET single-

sign-on (SSO) module was created for

seamless sign-on to LDAP-based AIMS.

Also launched together with the

CityU Portal was the re-designed

CityU Work Desk menu, which

can be accessed by clicking on

the “Work Desk” icon on your

desktop.

New versions of the CityU

Portal will be launched in 2015

with additional services and

functionality to make it even

more useful and personalized.

Please try out the new CityU

Portal and, as always, Central

IT welcomes any comment or

suggestion you may have to

improve our applications to serve

the University better.

Figure 1: CityU Portal Figure 2: CityU Portal in mobile phone


What is Flipped Classroom?In a traditional classroom,

students are taught passively

in front of a chalkboard for

an hour or more and then

homework is assigned to students

for application of the taught

skills. Research has shown that

students’ attention span usually

lasts less than 15 minutes in

such a submissive learning

environment [1]. In addition,

timely help may not always

be available when students

are working independently on

their assignments. To reach a

compromise between learning

effectiveness and learning

experience, teachers are

recommended to keep students

engaged and provide them with

feedback promptly.

Flipped classroom [2][3][4], which is

any attempt to alter the order of

teaching and learning activities

in the traditional classroom

approach, has become a popular

pedagogical practice in recent

years. Perhaps, the term “blended-

learning”, which is a simpler form

of flipped classroom, may ring

a bell. Blended learning [5] also

permits learners certain autonomy

over their learning time, place,

path or pace as semi-learning

processes are conducted online.

Such re-arrangement of learning

process and order aims at

improving learning effectiveness

and efficiency with a closer

monitor of study progress by

offering extra pre-class studies

in exchange of fewer after-class

assignments.

Why Flipped Classroom?We all want to improve the

quality of learning within certain

restrictions in time and space.

The good old “60-minute plus”

lecture simply does not work

for the current generation of

university students. It is sensible

to include formative assessment in

class so as to maximize students’

engagement. Simultaneously,

moving the lecture outside the

class can free class time. Students

can then seek for vacant time

to benefit themselves in active

problem solving as a group or

individually with immediate

support from the teachers and

tutors.

Among students with flipped

classroom experience, roughly

half of them agreed or strongly

agreed that their learning had

been enhanced and they felt more

engaged in class, according to

e-Learning Survey for Students

2014 [6]. In the teacher’s version

of the same survey [7], two-

thirds of the staff respondents

revealed their adoption of flipped

classroom in their courses.

Among this population, 68%

concurred with the improvement

in student engagement while

44% acknowledged the reusing

of learning materials at ease. In

a nutshell, flipped classroom

enriched students’ learning

experience by improving the

quality of class hours without

taking extra time from students

and teachers.

How does CityU support Flipped Classroom?CityU has been dedicated to

providing the best learning

environment with the following

provisions:

Learning Management SystemsLMS, from WebCT, Blackboard

to Canvas, helps transcend the

barriers of traditional classrooms.

From distributing pre-class

learning materials, conducting

in-class activities, to reviewing

learning process, everything

can be initiated from the LMS

automatically without the need

to request. The teaching and

learning process is streamlined

by utilizing available built-in tools

and third party apps. Further

information can be retrieved from

Instructure Canvas – CityU’s new

LMS.

• Get to know Canvas

http://vimeo.com/35336470

• Canvas Interface Overview

http://vimeo.com/69658933

FEATURE

Flipped Classroom at City University of Hong KongCrusher Wong, Patrio Chiu, Angel Lu

OCIO NEWSLETTER14

Echo360Thanks to its rapid development,

Echo360 evolves from a lecture

capture tool to a full-fledged

e-learning solution suite. Mini video

lectures, student presentations,

livecast, video file import, and

much more can be facilitated by

any Echo360 software installed

computers in the designated venues.

Read more about new pedagogies

supported by Echo360 at http://

go.cityu.hk/echo360.

DEC Labs and GE LabsDEC Labs and GE Labs are designed

from the ground up with the aim of

supporting group work and hands-

on activities, which are essential in

a flipped classroom. Furniture was

installed with flexibility in GE Lab

Room 1 (P4801) to allow easy group

interaction and space reallocation.

While in GE Lab Room 2 (P4907), a

60-inch touch screen monitor, as well

as the sophisticated Echo360 Capture

System, is equipped to offer a

splendid presentation experience to

lecturers and students. Furthermore,

students can take a hands-on

approach on the latest technology,

such as 3D Printers, 3D Scanner,

Scanning Electron Microscope etc.

More information on the GE lab can

be found at http://www.cityu.edu.hk/

edge/ge/lab.htm.

Wi-Fi & BYOD for Mobile LearningCityU has had a long history in

support of campus-wide Wi-Fi

since 1997 to promote a bring-

your-own-device culture. With

mobile learning apps introduced

in 2011, lecturers and students

have attained effortless access

to Wi-Fi and BYOD enabled

classroom assessment,

information search, field study

with geographic positioning and

a collection of learning artifacts

with their smart devices and

computers.

For all kinds of Wi-Fi services

provided by the Computing

Services Centre on campus, in

Hong Kong and at other partner

institutions around the world,

please visit http://go.cityu.hk/wifi

QualtricsProvided that there is sufficient

authentic input from students’

feedback, classroom assessment

is always an effective way to

evaluate students’ comprehension

and induce students’ curiosity.

Qualtrics supplements LMSs,

which are designed mostly for

summative online quizzes, by

allowing lightning feedback

collection from students without

authentication. One can find out

more about Qualtrics at http://

www.qualtrics.com/university/

QR Code / Short URLAdjustments on in-class activities

according to the real time

feedback is a key component of

a flipped classroom. By adopting

short URLs (Uniform Resource

Locator) and QR (Quick Response)

codes, students are able to launch

an exercise promptly on their

mobile devices. A short URL

simplifies a traditional long URL to

a less trivial address for easy web

navigation while a QR code simply

eliminates the need to type in any

URLs by scanning the embedded

URL in a QR code to start their

web-surfing.

The Short URL service of CityU is

available at http://go.cityu.hk for

all users while the CityU QR Code

generator is coming out soon.

CityU Google AppsGoogle apps have been popular

cloud based services. CityU

Google Apps help to tighten

security by providing a dedicated

Google Apps domain with

branding. Integration with

LMS also enables co-creation of

documents for learning activities.

Virtual Classroom ToolsWeb conferencing system was

adopted to conduct classes online

for courses with specific needs.

When Echo360 Listcast supports

a limited one-way learning

experience, the conference feature

with Canvas satisfies the need of


a virtual classroom system by

providing a full set of tools to

create an interactive online

learning environment with

multi-media communication

tools. Find out more at http://

vimeo.com/79260576

Office365 Application SuiteOffice365 (O365) SharePoint

Online provides Facebook-like

newsfeed to communicate in

social network style. Instead of

an official e-learning platform

like Blackboard or Canvas,

it allows students to take

the lead for their learning

activities without instructors’

supervision. Such practice

helps develop students as

self-directed life-long learners.

Currently, all students have

O365 accounts and all staff

will enjoy the same service

soon. Apps such as Yammer

and Lync online will also be

made available in 2015. Please

visit http://www.slideshare.

net/Microsofteduk/o365-

education-e-book-final-version

for an overview.

How May You Start Running Flipped Classroom?This table attempts to help you

flip your classes by identifying

the teaching and learning

activities.

TEACHING & LERNING ACTIVITIES

FACILITIES USED POSSIBLE ACTION(S) BY COURSE INSTRUCTORS

Pre-class Self-learning LMS • Distribute key reading materials• Search the web for video contents and

provide access to students

Echo360 • Record your own mini-lecture video and release to students via LMS

In-class Exercises LMS Online Quizzes Qualtrics QR Code / Short URL

• Ask students to bring their mobile devices with browser, LMS apps and QR code scanner installed

• Conduct classroom assessments to collect immediate feedback from students via LMS or QR code

• Adjust the progress of class based on feedback collected

• Include summative assessments to keep students engaged

DEC Labs GE Labs CityU Google Apps LMS Assignment Tool LMS Peer Assessment Tool

• Facilitate discussions and group work• Ask students to complete mini-group

projects and present their results• Recommend students to record their

findings by co-editing a Google document• Collect mini project artifacts and report via

LMS• Supervise students to peer evaluation

Echo360 • Capture class activities for reference

Post-class Assignments

Echo360 • Recommend students to review class capture or mini-lecture videos

LMS Mobile App Echo360 Video Booths

• Assign study projects to individuals or groups

• Request students to collect artifacts and store on LMS

• Recommend the use of mobile apps for field studies

• Request students to record their presentation at video booth in Library or GE Lab

• Enable peer assessments

Synchronous Virtual Classes

Virtual Classroom Tools

Echo360 Livecast

• Introduce virtual meetings with students to supplement physical meetings

• Enable guess lectures without the need of traveling

Social Learning Community Building

O365 SharePoint Online

Facebook WhatsApp

• Encourage students to build their own learning community

• Allow self-directed learning

OCIO NEWSLETTER16

Showcase of Successful Flipped Classroom Pedagogies With high success rate and

encouraging results across

different departments adopting

flipped classroom on our campus,

the learning and teaching process

has been made more fruitful and

meaningful. Professor Douglas

R. Vogel (retired Chair Professor

of Information Systems) has

been actively employing flipped

classroom to foster effective

student learning by time-shifting

student presentations. Professor

Lilian Virjmoed (two-time winner

of the Teaching Excellence Award)

formerly with the Department

of Biology and Chemistry (BCH)

has utilized mobile devices in her

courses to facilitate classroom

assessments and field studies.

Students with “outstanding”

grades in Commercial Law courses

have increased after Dr. Avnita

Lakhani’s integration of flipped

classroom since 2012.

Through the perspectives of

Professor Jane Prophet from the

School of Creative Media, flipped

classroom is an indispensable

pedagogical practice to engage

students’ view as extra effort

can be spent on discussions

and applying the knowledge

in tutorials. Alternatively, more

collaboration and classroom

interactions have been achieved

with flipped classroom in Dr. Bin

Li’s (Department of Linguistics and

Translation) courses. Dr. Terence

Cheung from the Department of

Information Systems, Dr. Ray C.C.

Cheung from the Department

of Electronic Engineering and

Dr. Sylvia Kwok Lai Yuk-ching

from the Department of Applied

Social Studies strongly adhere to

learning and collaborating around

the clock without geographical

boundaries. Details of their

successful implementation of

flipped classroom can be referred

to in previous issues of the OCIO

Newsletter at http://issuu.com/

cityuhkocio.


Thomas Davenport, a pioneer in

knowledge management (KM), defines

it simply as “the process of capturing,

distributing, and effectively using

knowledge.” At CityU, knowledge

management is encompassed in the

University’s Paperless Office Strategy,

which defines an overall architecture

and a set of technology platforms to

share knowledge online and reduce

paper consumption. For a university,

KM means providing effective means to

capture, organize and share knowledge,

such as university or departmental best

practices, guidelines, and procedures as

well as policies, and standards.

Central IT categorizes knowledge into

3 different tiers, depending on how

dynamic or ephemeral the knowledge

is, and provide appropriate set of

technologies to support KM activities:

• Archival Knowledge – the least

dynamic of the 3 categories,

representing permanent historical

records. This includes personnel

records and personnel decisions,

financial records, research

outputs, etc. At CityU, we use EMC

Documentum as our Enterprise

Content Management (ECM) system

to archive and manage knowledge

contents in a secured environment.

Currently, close to 2 million pages

have been archived into our ECM.

In addition, the University Library

maintains an Institutional Repository

(IR) as an archive of our intellectual

outputs, such as thesis, papers, and

reports.

FEATURE

Knowledge Management @ CityUOffice of the CIO

• Operational Knowledge – this

represents knowledge sharing

and knowledge management to

support daily operational needs.

For example, KM portals to collect

and share administrative policies,

guidelines, and practices as well as

documents, papers, and minutes,

etc. These knowledge portals can

be at the department, school,

college, or institutional level. For

day-to-day, knowledge management

needs, CityU has an Intranet Portal

for institutional-wide knowledge

sharing. The CityU Portal provides

single sign-on to all our enterprise

applications. In addition, the

University provides departments

with Microsoft SharePoint sites as

departmental KM portals. Most of the

University’s various committees also

have SharePoint sites for knowledge

management and paperless meetings.

For simple departmental sharing of

documents, the University provides

Office 365 SharePoint Online.

• Dynamic Knowledge – this

represents knowledge sharing that is

highly transient and dynamic, such as

knowledge sharing within a course

or team. This type of interaction is

best done using social media. At

References[1] Khan, S. (October 2, 2013). Why

Long Lectures Are Ineffective.

In Time. Retrieved August

4, 2014, from http://ideas.

time.com/2012/10/02/why-

lectures-are-ineffective/.

[2] 7 Things You Should Know

About Flipped Classrooms.

In Educause. Retrieved

August 4, 2014, from http://

www.educause.edu/library/

resources/7-things-you-

should-know-about-flipped-

classrooms.

[3] Flipped Classroom - The

Flipped Classroom Infograhic.

In Knewton. Retrieved

August 4, 2014, from http://

www.knewton.com/flipped-

classroom/.

[4] Flipped teaching. In Wikipedia.

Retrieved August 4, 2014, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Flip_teaching.

[5] Blended learning. In Wikipedia.

Retrieved August 20, 2014,

from http://en.wikipedia.org/

wiki/Blended_learning.

[6] Results of e-Learning Survey

for Students 2014 at City

University of Hong Kong.

Retrieved August 4, 2014, from

http://go.cityu.hk/q0ncwm.

[7] Results of e-Learning Survey

for Teachers 2014 at City

University of Hong Kong.

Retrieved August 22, 2014,

from http://go.cityu.hk/yjmpyl.

OCIO NEWSLETTER18

FEATURE

Knowledge Management @ CityUOffice of the CIO

CityU, our teachers and students

share dynamic knowledge through

social media capabilities found

in our learning management

system (LMS) as well as through

University-provided Google+ or

Office 365 Team Site, which provide

a Facebook-like interface.

Technology Platforms Based on the previous classification

and depending on the nature of

the data, content, information, or

knowledge being shared, different

technology platforms will be

leveraged to balance cost versus

functionality and security needs. The

following diagram highlights some

of the platforms CityU uses at the

institutional level to satisfy these

different needs.

In addition, CityU provides

technology platforms to various

departments and individual for

information or knowledge sharing

needs, such as paperless meetings

and departmental KM portals

for academic departments and

administrative units, or team-project

knowledge-sharing/collaboration

and document sharing for staffs/

students.

Overcoming Information SilosCityU overcomes information silos

between various departments

and units by providing them with

a standardized departmental KM

portal for KM activities, i.e. Microsoft

SharePoint. Central IT provides

individual SharePoint KM portal to

each school, college, department,

and administrative unit, so that

staffs within each of the dept/units

can share documents, practices,

procedures, guidelines, policies,

etc. internally within the dept/unit.

In addition, various committees

within the University each gets a

SharePoint portal as well. Since the

platform is standardized, staff with

membership in multiple SharePoint

sites can easily find documents

across sites through the built-in

search engine. Because of the search

capability across SharePoint sites

(provided user has access privilege)

even though knowledge is organized

according to organizational

structure and committees, they are

not separate “silos.” CityU has been

using MS SharePoint as its standard

departmental KM portal platform

since 2008.

KM in Central ITFor Central IT, besides the standard

Sharepoint KM portals, we have

other systems to support the

specific needs of managing our

IT best practices and knowledge

sharing. Firstly, our Paperless Office

service, which is the overarching

project for KM, has been ISO 27001

certified since early 2013, and

we are in the process of getting

it ISO 20000 certified as well.

Consequently, our best practices,

guidelines, procedures, and policies

relating to IT security and service

management for paperless office

service are comprehensive, well-

documented and shared within

our KM portal. In addition, our IT

security practices are implemented

as use cases in our SIEM (built using

HP ArcSight ESM) which was first

deployed in 2011, with subsequent

yearly enhancements to expand its

scope. Our service management

best practices and operational

knowledge are coded into our IT

Service Management (ITSM) system

and shared. The ITSM provides a

convenient means to capture, store,

and access knowledge to enhance

our user services, i.e. supports a KM

cycle.


Summer is here and many students,

faculty and staff would be going

on vacations and trips. What’s

more exciting than to find free wifi

in a foreign country, or is it? Here

is a fictional story of what might

unfortunately happen.

“Mike is a student at CityU and loves travelling. Being a Generation Z person, Mike loves to use social media to share photos and statuses. This year Mike decided to travel to Eastern Europe before his final year in the coming 2014/2015 semester. Mike knows from his CS-major friends that there are many hackers throughout Europe, so he is particularly careful within using free wifi while travelling.

Today Mike is in Moscow, Russia to see the famous and the Red Square. After taking loads of amazing photos, Mike was very eager to share them on facebook. It was his lucky day; Mike saw a Starbucks nearby. He was not sure if this Starbucks offered free wifi but was hopeful. Eagerly,

BRIEF UPDATES

Wow! Free Wifi!? (A Fictional Story) Andy Chun

he checked the list of network names. Sure enough, there was a “free Starbucks wifi” network! Since this is a famous brand, he was confident that the wifi was safe. He immediately connected to the network and logged into his facebook account. After sharing his photos and chatting with friends on facebook, WhatsApp, and other social media accounts, Mike decided to use the free computer terminals at the coffee shop to check his Gmail and CityU email on a larger screen.

Little did Mike know, but a young couple sitting in a dark corner of the cafe were actually hackers. They were watching his every move and grinning and laughing all the way, because they were also watching each and every one of his online activities. The network Mike logged into was not really from Starbucks. It was set up by the two hackers to impersonate a free wifi from Starbucks. This particular Starbucks actually did not offer any free wifi in the first place! Once Mike connected to the fake free wifi, the hackers injected a malware to his smartphone and took

control of it. They saw everything Mike did online and showed him some fake pages as well. The hackers quickly collected all Mike’s logins and passwords to the online accounts that he accessed. In addition, the computer terminal that Mike used to check his emails was previously hacked by the same couple earlier and had a malware installed. Each and every key stroke that Mike typed were logged and sent back to the hackers.

Upon returned home, to Mike’s surprise and shock, he found that payments worth tens of thousands were credited to his paypal account. Unfortunate for

Mike, he used the same passwords for most of his online accounts, including paypal and CityU accounts. His trip to Europe turned out to cost Mike a lot more than he expected. Sadly for Mike’s friends, they had been receiving fake mails in Mike’s name that contained viruses and malwares. Also sadly for CityU, since the hackers had Mike’s CityU password, they were able to breach our systems and opened up channels for future advanced targeted attacks.

Here are some hints to help you

safeguard yourself:

• Turn Off Auto-Connect to Wifi! Some smartphones or tablets

automatically connect to a wifi

hotspot if you have connected to

one with the same name before.

Unfortunately, hotspot names can

be faked. Make sure you turn off this

automatic feature when travelling.

Creative commons photo via Flickr user Bernt Rostad

OCIO NEWSLETTER20

• Use HTTPS and Private Browsing! Make sure you use HTTPS and activate

private browsing mode instead of

HTTP when using the web. HTTPS

encrypts your connection, while HTTP

sends plain text that any hacker can

see. In private browsing mode, your

browsing history and data are cleared

when you close the browser.

• Use Two-Factor Authentication! Some software, such as Gmail,

provides free two-factor

authentication. What that means is

that besides your password, it will

require another means to authenticate

BRIEF UPDATES

New e-Learning Webpage on MOOCE-Learning Team (OCIO)

To assist our colleagues in creating MOOC courses, the

e-Learning Team (OCIO) created a new webpage with

links to lots of useful online resource information from

what is MOOC to best practice in creating a MOOC

course. The webpage is located here:

http://www.cityu.edu.hk/elearn/mooc.html

Colleagues interested in offering a MOOC course should

contact Dr. Crusher Wong (OCIO), head of the e-Learning

Team.

you, such as a SMS message to your

phone. Even if hackers get hold

of your password, they will not be

able to access your account; unless

they also stole and hacked your

phone .

• Confirm the Network Name! When using free wifi, make sure

the name of the network is the

real one. Just because a network is

called “free Starbuck wifi” does not

necessarily mean it is real. Names

can be faked.

• Do Not Use the Same Password on Multiple Sites! This is obvious.

If one of your accounts is hacked,

then all your other accounts on

other systems will be vulnerable.

• Do Not Use Share Profile Between Sites! Some sites allow you to set

up an account using another site’s

authentication. For example, you

can set up an Instagram account

using your profile from facebook.

This increases your vulnerability,

because if any of those sites get

hacked, all your other accounts will

be vulnerable as well.


BRIEF UPDATES

CityU Supports HK Government’s Wifi InitiativeS K Tsui

BackgroundTo advance Hong Kong’s position as

a highly connected city in the world

by stimulating the development of

public Wi-Fi service in Hong Kong,

the Office of the Government Chief

Information Officer (OGCIO) of the

Government of the Hong Kong

Special Administrative Region has

officially launched the Common Wi-Fi

Brand “Wi-Fi.HK” in August 2014.

City University of Homg Kong (CityU)

has joined the scheme in December

2014 and the network ID (SSID)

“Wi-Fi.HK via CityU” is available at the

following locations to allow free Wi-Fi

access for visitors inside the CityU

campus.

Use Instruction1. Visit a venue that has joined the

“Wi-Fi.HK” scheme.

2. Check that the device you are

using is Wi-Fi enabled. Turn

on Wi-Fi function, select the

Network ID (SSID) with “Wi-Fi.HK”

at the beginning, and then click

“Connect”.

3. Open your web browser, read and

accept the “Terms & Conditions and

Disclaimers” displayed.

4. Start free surfing.

You may visit the web site http://

www.wi-fi.hk for more information

and search for the participating

organizations and hotspots available

in Hong Kong.

The Podium (4/F), Academic 1

The Podium (4/F), AC1

學術樓 (一), 4樓

Lecturer Theatre 1 - 18 演講廳 LT1 – LT18 4/F AC1

學術樓(一), 4樓

Lecture Theatre 401 演講廳 LT401 4/F Amenities Building

康樂樓, 4樓

Chinese Garden, University Circle

中式花園, 城大廣場

City Express, City Chinese Restaurant, and City Top

城大食坊, 城大中菜廳, 城峰閣

5/F, 8/F, 9/F Amenities Building

AC2 Canteen 3/F AC2

學術樓(二), 3樓

Delifrance

Store #1 Covered Terrace, 3/F Cheng Yick Chi Building

Covered Terrace,

鄭翼之樓3樓

Store #2 3/F AC3

學術樓(三), 3樓

Multi-media Conference Room

多媒體會議廳 4/F Cheng Yick Chi Building

鄭翼之樓, 4樓

Multi-Purpose Rooms 多用途活動室 4/F Amenities Building

康樂樓, 4樓

Multifunction Hall 1, 2 and 3, and common rooms at the ground floor of each Student Residence’s Hall

學生宿舍多用途禮堂及各大堂地下活動室

Best practice of Using Wi-Fi ServiceOnce your Wi-Fi device has

connected to any wireless

network, you are exposing

yourself to potential attacks.

Therefore, network security and

data protection is extremely

important, especially when you

are using public wireless hotspots.

You may want to visit the Infosec

web site of the Hong Kong

Government (http://www.infosec.

gov.hk/english/yourself/wireless.

html) for tips on using the wireless

network.

OCIO NEWSLETTER22

Call SupportSeptember to December 2014

Problem Type DistributionSeptember to December 2014

STATISTICS AT A GLANCE

Help Desk Monthly Statistics

Total calls

Total calls

Helped on Phone

Problem Type


Editorial BoxOCIO Newsletter Advisory Board Dr. Andy Chun (OCIO) Ms. Annie Ip (OCIO) Mrs. W K Yu (ESU) Mr. Raymond Poon (CSC) Mr. Peter Mok (CSC) Ms. Maria Chin (CSC)

Publishing Team Ms. Noel Laam (CSC) Ms. Annie Yu (CSC) Ms. Joyce Lam (CSC) Mr. Ng Kar Leong (CSC) Ms. Kitty Wong (ESU) Ms. Doris Au (OCIO)

For Enquiry Phone 3442 6284

Fax 3442 0366

Email [email protected]

OCIO Newsletter Online http://issuu.com/cityuhkocio

GLOSSARY

IT Security from WikipediaAndy Chun (ed.)

Shellshock, also known as Bashdoor, is a family of security bugs in the widely used Unix Bash shell, the first of which was disclosed on 24 September 2014. Many Internet daemons, such as web servers, use Bash to process certain commands, allowing an attacker to cause vulnerable versions of Bash to execute arbitrary commands. This can allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access to a computer system. Analysis of the source code history of Bash shows the vulnerabilities had existed since approximately 1992.

The first bug causes Bash to unintentionally execute commands when the commands are concatenated to the end of function definitions stored in the values of environment variables. Within days of the publication of this, intense scrutiny of the underlying design flaws discovered a variety of related vulnerabilities.

Attackers exploited Shellshock within hours of the initial disclosure by creating botnets on compromised computers to perform distributed denial-of-service attacks and vulnerability scanning. Millions of attacks and probes related to the bug were recorded by security companies in the days following the disclosure. The bug could potentially be used to compromise millions of servers and other systems, and it has been compared to the Heartbleed bug in its severity.

POODLE, attack (which stands for “Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption”) is a man-in-the-middle exploit which takes advantage of a clients’ fallback to SSL 3.0. If attackers successfully exploit this vulnerability, on average, they only need to make 256 SSL 3.0 requests to reveal one byte of encrypted messages. Bodo Möller, Thai Duong and Krzysztof Kotowicz from the Google Security Team discovered this vulnerability; they disclosed it in September 2014.

To mitigate POODLE attack, one way is to completely disable SSL 3.0 on the client side and the server side. Google is planning to remove support of SSL 3.0 from their products completely, and Mozilla will also disable SSL 3.0 in Firefox 34. Microsoft has published the security advisory to explain how to disable SSL 3.0 in Internet Explorer and Windows OS.

This article uses material from Wikipedia. The Author(s) and Editor(s) listed with this article may have significantly modified the content derived from Wikipedia with original content or with content drawn from other sources. The current version of the cited Wikipedia article may differ from the version that existed on the date of access. Text in this article available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

OCIO NEWSLETTER24

Documents

OCIO Newsletter issue 18