The New Hopkins Portal

Last week, the TechBlog explained the new changes to the Hopkins email system. As promised, this week will handle the new Hopkins Portal layout, which is accessed using your JHED and password at my.jhu.edu. Let's get started!

First the layout of the login page has changed. What was once angular and monochromatic has become softer and more inviting, but the end goal remains the same: enter the information and access your resources. Seniors are veterans at this, and freshmen will soon realize how invaluable this interface can be when used efficiently.

The new Portal login page.

The old Portal homepage looked like this:

The old Portal Dashboard.

It was never the prettiest thing to look at, but it got the job done. On the left hand side were links to email, ISIS, W2 information, and general settings, as well as Blackboard and my JHU Profile. The Profile was a little used element of the Portal, but it allows any student to go in and add information about him or herself. For example, mine has an explanation of my chosen majors and what my independent research is focusing on. It's also the place to go to set up Emergency Alerts, which is the quickest way to be updated of a massive development on campus regarding the safety of the students. I'll talk more about this at the end.

On the top there were multiple headings that led to different tools. It doesn't make sense to describe them all here, since they all changed and the new system is significantly different from this one.

On September 3, every student's Portal Dashboard (home page) will look like the one shown below. If you choose to update your individual Portal before that, click the orange link in the yellow bar at the top of the old page. The screen will immediately change to one that looks like this one:

 

The new Portal Dashboard! Ta da!

On first impression, the design here is a major improvement over the last one. It looks more friendly, and the colors are not dreary (though blue and orange seem an odd combination for Hopkins to have selected).  The main section of the page is virtually identical, but the real differences are along the top and the left side options. The least appealing feature of the new page is the Hopkins sanctioned photograph in the top left corner. It shows the most recent photo of you to be put onto an official Hopkins page. For most students this will be the JCard photograph, but if you have worked at the Medical Campus, the Portal will automatically use that picture. Even if it's a bad picture, you cannot change it. This particularly rigid feature was found on the old page as well, but at least there you could choose to never look at it and hide it fairly well.

Despite this aesthetic inconvenience, the new home page is a step forward in modernity for the greater Hopkins community. In an effort to make the Portal homepage easier to navigate, Hopkins officials have combined like tools under headings accessible by the tabs at the sides, which serve now as umbrella headings. For example, instead of having a tab just for ISIS, it's now embedded in the Education tab, along with Blackboard and MyLearning. The HR tab contains information regarding W2 access and employee verification forms, and the Technology tab connects JConnect, MyJLab, and the Tech Store, among other things. It's worth it to take a few minutes and look around at all the tabs so you're not scrambling later to find something you need.

One of the most important things to note is that the myJHED tab that was formerly located on the top of the screen has now been moved to the side as an umbrella tab. It now allows easy access for students to register an alias, request a group ID, and enter the Spam Quarantine area.

The Library tab is a nice touch in that it takes the user to a page with all the links to the libraries included in the Hopkins Enterprise system, including the SAIS and the Welch Medical Libraries. The Students tab is a new feature that shows a compilation of all the links an undergraduate could ever need, including KSAS and WSE Academic Advising pages, Daily Announcements, and every student oriented office on the Homewood campus. Another nice touch is the column of links created to give students perspective on the city of Baltimore, and some visitor information on what to do and attractions to see.

As for the Dashboard page, this is different in the new version. Dashboard used to mean the central home page, but here it is pitched as "your private space within the myJH." Not much is known about it yet, aside from links to recent Hopkins press releases, but the myJH team assures its student body a plethora of exciting, new features to "make myJH even more valuable to you," the student. This blog will follow these updates in the future.

As for the Emergency Alerts, that option is the first one on the MyProfile umbrella tab on the left side. Click on it, type in your phone number, select your mobile carrier, agree to the terms and service, and forget about it. I strongly suggest that every student sign up for the service. While it's very helpful for dangerous situations, it also will inform you of a snow day, and you definitely don't want to be the only one showing up for a 9 am Orgo class after shoving through the snow.

How to reach the Emergency Alerts sign up page.

That's it for the TechBlog this week. Questions/rants/comments can go in the Comments section below. Until next week!

New Hopkins email system

Well, fellow students, we are approaching the end of August, which means that we’re about to start another exciting school year with some significant changes all around campus. Construction on Malone Hall is progressing well, North Charles Street is completing the final stages before the street is reopened, and the new biology labs have finally been opened and they are ready to go. Internally the campus has changed as well: Aramark has been replaced as the food provider by Bon Appetit, and the campus dining options and lounges have been completely renovated with new stations and services. The worst part is Einstein’s Bagel Bros. is gone, but judging from the food at Levering, we’re not going to miss it for long.

This is what CharMar looked like a month ago, but no pictures have been posted since. They're clearly hiding something amazing. From https://www.facebook.com/HopkinsDining

Another difference between this year and last year is the renovations to the Hopkins websites that are happening in every department and office associated with Johns Hopkins. They are everywhere, and the place where they are most noticeable is within the Hopkins portal. We’ll talk about the changes to the dashboard and home page next week, because today is going to focus solely on the Johns Hopkins email system. 

What it used to be.

On June 17 Johns Hopkins switched its email provider from Outlook 2010 to Office 365, and while the transition has been smooth for some, others have expressed displeasure at the change in the email. Personally, I always used the ending @jhu.edu. If you are like me, then you probably had no issues with forwarding Outlook email to your Gmail or Yahoo accounts. If you instead used the ending @live.johnshopkins.edu, however, you’ll need to know that this ending has changed. The implications of this are your Gmail won’t accept mail that isn’t from the address listed on the options page, and mail that used to reach your Hopkins mail account just bounces back. 

What it is now.

The new ending, for the record, is @jh.edu.It's pretty simple and short, unlike the cumbersome @live.johnshopkins.edu domain.

As you can imagine, the login page for Outlook also doesn’t work anymore. The old address, login.live.com, is still accessible, and you can still enter your Hopkins ID and password, but it will only take you to the storage space you were afforded with the original Live@edu account. This means the SkyDrive and cloud storage space is still available to you, but your email is not. To access your email without traveling through the portal, the new address is outlook.office365.com. The login page for this email looks identical to the ones for the portal, but it does open directly to the familiar Outlook email system. 

The login page for the email system and the new JH Portal.

You can also prevent yourself from ever looking at Outlook again, if you are so inclined, since you can easily forward your email to another interface, such as Gmail. To do this, just go to the top right corner of the Outlook mail screen and make the drop down menu appear. Click “See All Options,” then click the tab at the top of the middle section of the page called “Connected Accounts.” You can choose to connect your two email accounts, so you can access all the information from both and send from either email address by using only one interface, or you could choose to simply forward email from Outlook to the other.  Of course, if you want to use the portal to access your email, ISIS, Blackboard, and other Hopkins sites and keep the other mailbox separate, that’s fine too. It really depends on what you want, and it’s great that the system is flexible enough to give you choices. 

Where the See All Options tab is in the upper right corner.

One of the best advantages to this upgrade is the increase in email storage space in Office 365. While Outlook only permitted a maximum of 10 GB of email data, Office 365 is equipped to handle 25 GB per user of space. SharePoint Online is also the cloud storage system, reserving SkyDrive for the independent Microsoft account now associated with live.johnshopkins.edu. This upgrade has not been completed yet, and will happen independently at a later date.

Lastly, to set up the Office 365 email on your mobile phone requires a bit of cellular gymnastics. Some phones will accept the JHEDID@jhu.edu and password, and start working immediately. Androids and iPhones also require the name of the server, and there are three different servers that could satisfy this requirement. For more information on these servers, you can go here, but in general one of these should work for your mobile phone.

POP 3 Server Name: outlook.office365.com, Port 995 SSL

IMAP4 Server Name: outlook.office365, Port 993 SSL

SMTP Server Name: smtp.office365.com, Port 587 TLS

For more information on the email system in general, the link is here. Hopefully this has alleviated any concerns that you’ve had with the new email system, but if you have any comments, please leave them below. Until next time!

Hydrostatic Equilibrium

In honor of Earth Day 2013 on April 22, this week's article will be all about new developments related to the entire Earth. And what an exciting time this is for that kind of planetary science!

Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) announced last week that they had discovered two planets orbiting the K sized star Kepler-62 that could be completely covered in water. Liquid water.

Why is this such a big deal? Normally the temperatures and lack of atmospheres in space prevent water, should it exist at all on that planet, from melting into its liquid form. For there to be any possibility of sustainable life and possible habitation by humans one day, liquid water must be present. And here are two planets who have nothing but oceans full of the liquid orbiting a sun a little bit smaller and cooler than our own sun. Granted, the size and distances of the planets indicate that there is a huge greenhouse effect in their atmospheres to keep the water from freezing, but it's still awesome.

There are some issues with immediate Earth to planet communications though. For one, the planets are larger than the Earth we love; Kepler-62f is 40% larger and Kepler-62e is 60% larger. Researchers are at this point are unable to determine the mass of the planets because their compositions aren't known. This means we don't know if this planet would have any raw materials needed for technology or even life to evolve, since all the rock and metal would be below the surface. It is possible that some life may exist under the ocean's surface, but there would be no fire or access to metals (the pressure would be too great).

Still, the idea that there are two planets in the habitable zone is very useful information for scientists. For one thing, it's the possibility of other life that drives us forward. Second, it could serve as a second home for us (once we get over the increase in gravity thing). Third, studying other planets is just cool. How often have we discovered a planet completely covered in liquid water? Including these two: twice.

Unfortunately, looking at the planets through the Kepler telescope is probably as close as we'll ever get. The planets orbit a start that is 2,700 light years away from us in the Cygnus constellation, so there's no way to get there quickly. If anything this means that we need to take care of the planet we have now because the closest rescue boat is almost 3000 parsecs away, and that's too far for us to be saved. What would Earth look like with only water?

On that note, we wish everyone a happy Earth week!

Hopkins Baja Team Scores Big

The STS team is no stranger to modeling, but usually we're not the ones building the objects we model. The Hopkins Baja off-road vehicle building team, however, made the leap from computer model to 2D sketch to actual kick-butt vehicle. It's hard to think they do this every year, and even harder to think they have the time to put into this, but it's the payoff at the end of the year and the thrill of racing the vehicle that drives them.

Spending weeks pulling all-nighters in Latrobe and Krieger basements, the Baja team slowly but surely built up their vehicle with no directions and only a chance at glory. The light at the end of the tunnel? A competition kicking off on Thursday, April 18 at Tennessee Tech University, which is the final competition of the semester. The final event of the year is a race at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. Each competition features a four-hour race over a complete dirt course.

How did the team do it? During the January Intersession, the team bent and molded 20-foot chrome alloy steel bars obtained from an aircraft supply company into a 370 vehicle frame, then added the pedals, wheels, gearbox, gas tank, and a 10-horsepower Briggs and Stratton model engine. They didn't build the tires, seat, engine, or shock absorbers, but everything else is 100% Hopkins engineering made.

The 15 person team worked tirelessly on this design for months, testing, cutting, and measuring every piece of machinery before putting it into the final object. While some teams they'll compete against have Ph.D. students and engineering professors helping them with the design and construction, the Hopkins team received little, if no, input at all. They alone designed the smallest and lightest vehicle ever constructed here, and they have high hopes for the future competitions.

Hopkins typically does well at these competitions, using placing within the top 10 out of over 100 teams. This year, with the improved design and removable gas tank (designed with easy fill-up at pit stops in mind), the team is hoping for a top 5 finish at the race. If it breaks down afterwards, hey, that doesn't matter, the deed is done. The best part is the team can always just rebuild it.

Why are they doing this? It's certainly not for grades, since there are no professors involved here. Andrew Kelly, senior mechanical engineering student and this year's Captain, explains it elegantly: “I do it because I love cars. I love the small details and seeing the whole project come together. It just consumes you.”

We are wishing you luck at your competitions this year! Go Hopkins Baja!

Coursera and You

You may remember reading some Newsletter articles last year about a service called Coursera that had recently joined forces with Hopkins. The article went on to describe how Coursera would open learning up for thousands of people with the click of a mouse button. Johns Hopkins was now part of elite institutions who were making strides to share knowledge with everyone via the internet, and everyone seemed happy.

Yet no one talks about it anymore. Until now.

When arriving at the page of Coursera, thumbnails of available courses jump out at you, and suddenly a Duke course on neuroscience is sharing a space with a statistics class at the University of Nanjing. You can search for classes by topic or by school name. The complete list of participating universities and colleges is under the top tab "Universities" (where else?), and by clicking on any name, the website takes you to the complete list of courses offered by that school.

What isn't readily apparent is the information about what Coursera is. This is a system that partners with universities to offer short courses over a period of a few weeks intended to supplement courses taken for credit at a school. While most schools don't give credit for Coursera classes, a student will receive a certificate of accomplishment upon satisfactory completion of a class. Different standards apply to different classes, of course, but the one thing common to them all is that no class costs any money. That's right: completely free. Plus it looks good on resumes because it shows you pursue independent learning (or so I hope).

The sign up page on the Coursera website.

Signing up for any class is as easy as creating a Coursera account. By doing so you give the usual information about email and such, but you also sign the honor code and general website policy. One of the first policies is each person gets one account, so be careful! After you sign up for an account, you'll be able to register for any or all of the courses. Most require you to watch a short (less than 20 minutes) lecture on the skills you'll need for the next project or the next step in the curriculum, and then you'll be told an assignment for the week. Some of these assignments are graded by the instructor, but most are going to be peer-reviewed. This means that someone from Brazil could be grading a Kenyan's work, which is awesome for global teamwork. So long as you have internet, you can take a Coursera class. It's that easy.

After you create an account, you'll sign in here.

The author has already signed up for a few courses, one of which is on making small games using the Python computing language, but she hasn't yet completed one. When it happens I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. As for the actual technology behind the lectures, it is probably like the virtual classroom environment seen before with Elluminate Live. Nevertheless it is sure to be quite the learning experience for all involved.

The courses that I'm currently enrolled in. Sounds like fun!

What are you waiting for? There are Hopkins (and Princeton and UCSD and...) classes to take! Free, interactive, collaborative, and useful--it doesn't get better than that. 

Distance Learning at Hopkins

Despite the snow that graced Baltimore on Monday, summer is most definitely on its way. Hopkins has already sent our brochures advertising its plethora of Summer 2013 term courses, broken down into intense sessions either on campus or online.

Online? How can I take a Hopkins math course online? How does my homework get graded? What's going on?

All of these are good questions. Yes, it's really online. Yes, it is really a Hopkins math class, and you will get credit for it. If you are a Hopkins student, you have a Blackboard account that you can log into with your JHED. The course is structured through that interface, but also through a distance learning software that allows your instructor to write on a screen and have that information display on yours. Your homework is uploaded through Blackboard, just like lab reports and other homework assignments. In fact, it is very clean and very reliable (especially when you can go back and re-watch entire lectures before a test!).

http://www.elluminate.com/Services/Training/Elluminate_Live!/?id=418

The Elluminate Live icon. Cute, right?

The software used for distance learning courses is Elluminate Live, a service that "rents out" conference rooms and classrooms in virtual space (vSpace). It started out independent, but soon was acquired by Blackboard, Inc., which Hopkins uses. This is a very clean, easy system that allows for collaboration between large groups of people at the same time. To use Elluminate, you must be able to access the room, which is why the Blackboard site comes in handy. The instructor will post a link to the course calendar, and when a student clicks on it, it will go to the vSpace. If the instructor wants to record the lecture, the link will later become a link to the recording. Since this is all done within Blackboard, there is no confusing change from site to video, and it's easier for students to access.

What the basic screen of Elluminate Live looks like when first logging in. The instructor's notes will show up on the main screen on the right.

The mechanism of learning comes through the virtual classroom environment, which allows students to "raise" their hands, ask questions directly to the class, answer poll questions, etc. It's still a Hopkins class; the only difference is it's on your computer in your room or in the library. The instructor can speak into a microphone on his end, and so long as your audio is fixed correctly, you can hear him and respond with your own microphone. The notes for the class appear in the main screen, and it's basically like a chalkboard where the notes can be saved in a PDF format. Instructors can upload documents directly to the site, as can you (the student) when you need to submit homework. Simply scan your homework in and submit it as a PDF through the site.

The participant window shows the commands you are in control of, such as the ability to raise your hand, answer a poll, or use the microphone to ask a question. If you need to step away for a bit, just let the classroom know so they don't call on you.

As the students, you of course have to know how to participate in the class. That's why there are widgets for you to use in case you have a question, want to answer a poll, or need to step away for a minute. You can also use the chat feature privately to send messages to one or a selected few users.

This is not to be confused with the virtual classroom experience that some universities, Johns Hopkins included, are now using to offer their classes to more students. That is the next blog article. Until then, in case you were thinking of taking a math or science course online over the summer through Hopkins, this is what it would look like.

Cheers!

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