IT Services News Archive

Service Notices

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News Items

November 2011 - Student email services

For the attention of returning students

Following the successful migration of all student email to Live@edu over the summer, IT Services will start to delete old student mailboxes from 1st November.

All the emails from your old University Exchange mailbox have already been transferred to your new Live@edu email account, so you won’t lose any emails.

Calendar and contacts were not transferred, so if you need anything from these folders you’ll need to copy them to your new Live@edu account before 1st November. There is a partly automated process to help you transfer your contacts at: https://register.wlv.ac.uk/getcontacts.asp.

If you’re not yet using Live@edu, you can find details at www.wlv.ac.uk/studentemail.

October 2011 - Updates to IT services over the summer

The summer is already fast becoming a fading memory. If you’ve been away from the University for any length of time recently, you may have missed some of the changes that have been made to the IT systems and services for both staff and for students. The summer is traditionally an extremely busy period for IT Services, and this year has been no exception.

News about changes made to IT systems and services over the summer

Please feel free to contact Matthew Green with any questions you might have about any of the summer work at m.a.green@wlv.ac.uk.

NEW software download service

Some software is available for students and staff to download and use for free on personally owned devices as part of our licence agreements, including F-Secure anti-virus software.

The following software is available to download from www.wlv.ac.uk/its/downloads.

  • F-Secure
  • SPSS
  • Minitab

 Coming soon

  • Asta Powerproject
  • Solidworks

July 2011 - Mitel Telephone System will be switched off on Friday 22nd July

We will be turning off the City campus Mitel telephony system during Friday 22nd July following several years of progressive transfer of telephone handsets from Mitel to the Cisco IP telephony system. All other campuses were fully converted to Cisco last year.

According to our records, all handsets have been converted, but if you think we have missed a telephone, please note that some original non-Cisco telephone handsets are in fact working on the Cisco system. If you are unsure whether a phone has been converted to Cisco, please ring the IT Service Desk on ext. 2000 from the phone in question as soon as possible. They will confirm whether it has been done and if not we will replace it as soon as possible. We can divert your calls until it is done if required. 

Any remaining City Campus phone that has not been converted after Friday's switch off will be dead with no dial tone. If you need it to be made live again, please accept our apologies and contact the IT Service Desk on ext. 2000 with the following information:

  • phone number affected (if known),
  • location,
  • description for the phone and directory entry,
  • contact detals for the person we should arrange the replacement with.

Speed Dials

We have transferred several hundred speed dial numbers (usually 4 digits starting with a 6 used to dial mobiles) to the CISCO system. However, there are a large number that have not been transferred as they appear to be out of date and not used.

If you have a speed dial number, please try it as soon as possible after Friday. If it does not work, again please accept our apologies, and contact the Service Desk on ext. 2000 with the following information:

  • your speed dial number,
  • the number it sends the call to,
  • your name and department.

If the switch off causes any other problems for you, please contact the IT Service Desk on ext. 2000.

A history of the University telephone system over the last 20 years

Before 1991 this institution had an expensive and complex fragmented mixture of telephone exchanges scattered across individual buildings and sites. Most of these had individual switchboards and separate BT phone numbers. Some people on City South had 2 phones on their desks, one on an internal only system confined to City South, the other could have calls put through to it from the switchboard for City South. You couldn't make an external call without going through the switchboard for the building you were in. A call to Finance in the Molyneux from MA building would often count as a BT local call put through the Molyneux switchboard.  The switchboards had a total of around 30 lines scattered in threes and fours, with twelve on 321000. There were also a scattering of individual BT external phones in offices, but most rooms had no phone at all.

In 1990, IT Services were given a budget to unify all the sites and building telephone systems into a universal system allowing us to have one switchboard for the institution, Direct Dial In for every staff phone, and every extension could dial every other extension without going through a switchboard. After a year-long project we switched over to the Mitel system over a weekend in 1991. The system has reliably provided phone services to over 3,000 extensions across all campuses for the last 20 years. The Science Park will still have a Mitel phone exchange for its commercial tenants, but University staff who are at the Science Park as tenants are already on Cisco IP telephony.

May 2011 - IT Security Notice

The Sony PlayStation member’s site has recently been attacked by hackers wishing to acquire personal details of members. It appears possible that personal data and credit card information may have been compromised during this attack and exposed members to potential security risks.

The University of Wolverhampton IT Security advice to staff who have a Sony PlayStation or Qriocity member account is as follows:

  • Change your University Staff Account password if you have re-used your Staff Account password as your Sony PlayStation or Qriocity account password.
  • Ensure you closely monitor your credit card account to spot any fraudulent payments. Notify your Bank immediately any suspicious activity is noticed.
  • User details from the Sony PlayStation member accounts are openly available on the internet black market. Be especially suspicious of any phishing attempts via telephone, email or postal services which may be directed towards you in the next few months, either at home or at work.

The majority of staff should be unaffected by this security breach at Sony. However those who have been affected should ensure they maintain good IT security behaviour to reduce the personal risk of accounts being exploited for malicious or criminal purposes.

April 2011 - Maintenance work on 'wolfradiolan' wireless network and Residencies networks

On Thursday 28th April some essential maintenance work will be carried out on the 'wolfradiolan' wireless network and Clean Access. This means that:

  • The network in the Residences on all sites will be unavailable from 0900 to 1400.
  • The 'wolfradiolan'  service will be unavailable from 1300 to 1400 throughout the University. 

We apologise for the inconvenience.

March 2011 - ITS Service Catalogue

IT Services have published a Service Catalogue which lists all the services that we provide for the University. It provides a quick and easy way for you to find out about these services, together with links to further information and advice on using them. We hope you find it useful, so please have a look and send us your comments.

January 2011 - Wireless Printing Service

Wireless printing is now available. This means that you can print to the MFDs (Multi Function Devices) using any device connected to the University's wireless network. Students need credit in their PCounter account to use this service and the costs are the same as printing from a University computer. For staff using a University laptop, the cost will be charged to the same cost centre as standard printing. More information about using wireless printing.

December 2010

Firesheep - wolfradiolan security notice

Firesheep is a new extension for Firefox that enables people to snoop on unencrypted traffic over unsecured wireless networks. If you use any web browser to access certain sites on an unencrypted wireless network such as “wolfradiolan” or public hotspots then you could be at risk of having your privacy compromised. Find out more and what you need to do