Quick Guide to Technology Services for Faculty and Staff

Quick Tech Help

How to use the technology in your classroom: What's in my classroom?

How to get other kinds of tech help:

Support for Faculty & Staff in Technology

ITS User Services

Provides all computer, digital mobile device, media, network, and telephone resources at Canisius.

Committed to the Ignatian value of service, ITS staff work hard to supply Canisius University users with the best in digital tools, resources, and options available.

COLI

Assists faculty, students, and staff with distance education needs and enhancing teaching, learning, and administrative projects through innovative use of internet technologies.

The Help Desk

Faculty, students, staff, and administrators may email or call the ITS Help Desk for all technology-related issues. The Help Desk is staffed during business hours with knowledgeable full-time ITS employees who can handle technology questions about desktop computing, departmental equipment and software purchases, as well as networking, telephones and reports of system outages. Questions that cannot be answered by Help Desk staff are referred to appropriate ITS or COLI personnel, who respond to clients' inquiries as soon as possible. Help Desk staff monitor and promptly respond to email at helpdesk@canisius.edu.

For faculty and staff, the best Help Desk location for "walk-in" service is Horan-O'Donnell 016. At the library circulation desk is a Help Desk station which is generally for the benefit of students, although staff there can also answer many questions for faculty and staff as well.

Emergency Remote Teaching

If you are compelled to move your classes online, either for a few days or for a longer period, see our Guides for Emergency Remote Teaching.

Computer Accounts

At Canisius, your login credentials, a username and password, give you access to a broad array of internet resources and services, as well as networked computers on campus. Digital accounts are automatically created for all new employees, as soon as their employment has been processed by the Human Resources Department. With your username and password, you may log into our campus portal (MyCanisius), electronic mail, our learning management system, a variety of research and teaching tools, and online services for administrative systems, including human resources functions and faculty advising.

ITS calls this "Single Sign-On," or "SSO." One set of credentials gets you everything you need. But since you have fewer passwords to remember, you are encouraged to change your password regularly on the web at http://www.canisius.edu/passwordreset. ITS offers helpful tips on creating passwords for maximum security. If you need assistance with your password, please call the ITS Help Desk at x8340.

ITS will never request that you email your Canisius Password, and if you receive such a request, it is not genuine. In general, beware of phishing or other online scams.

Where should I begin?

If you have your Username and Password, log in at "MyCanisius," https://my.canisius.edu. This is the campus web portal, a one stop site for news and campus resources that faculty and staff use every day. After you log into the portal, on the lefthand side of the screen under "Launchpad" you'll see links in collapsible menu-trees to your faculty (Exchange/Outlook) email, Banner Self-Service, Desire2Learn, library account, and more. With your mouse, you can drag any particular resource from the launchpad up to the "Favorites" area, so that these links will be available to you immediately after you log in.

Accessing Email

All faculty and staff use email accounts (including a digital calendar, address books, and other tools) provided through Microsoft Exchange. You can access this email account from any web browser via outlook.canisius.edu, or using the "Email" link within the Portal. But much better is to manage it through Microsoft Outlook client, installed on Windows or Mac PCs. ITS installs Microsoft Outlook on Canisius-owned faculty and staff computers.

Students, by contrast, use email accounts provided through a Canisius-branded version of Gmail. However, both student and faculty accounts send and receive emails addresses in the form username@canisius.edu. If you were a student at Canisius University, know that you will now need to use Exchange for your email as your old student Gmail account is not fully functional.

All faculty and staff email is subject to the Canisius Email Retention Policy posted in the MyCanisius portal.

D2L (Desire2Learn)

Desire2Learn (D2L) is Canisius University's Learning Management System. To access D2L, log into my.canisius.edu and click on the Desire2Learn link within the portal. You can find a lot of tutorial information at our D2L support page.

Turnitin, a toolset for teaching writing and academic integrity, is now available directly in D2L dropboxes.

Google Apps: Cloud Storage, Sharing, & Collaboration

All Canisius University Faculty (& Staff) have a Google Apps for Education Drive Space. This is a special Canisius-branded version of Google's popular Drive (available with private Gmail accounts), with additional features particularly useful for teaching and collaborating with colleagues.

Faculty and staff have private space on the H: Drive, a network-attached storage resource.

AI and Academics

COLI maintains a guide to help faculty consider AI in course and assignment design.

Teaching Online

The Center for Online Learning & Innovation is the University's primary support office for faculty teaching online and hybrid courses. We offer on-campus workshops and meetups, online tutorials and self-paced training, and a five-week mini-course to help professors prepare to teach online, and improve their proficiency. You can find COLI's faculty development resources for teaching online in the COLI Wiki

Campus Directory

The Canisius University directory of phone numbers and email addresses is easily accessible here. A link can also be found on any official Canisius web page by clicking on the Campus Directory link in the footer of the page

Media Services

The Media Center provides comprehensive support for faculty in a wide variety of audiovisual technologies for classroom use, course content development, special events, and more. To learn about classroom projectors, microphones, video studio recording, and much more, check out their online guide.

Visit our What's in my classroom? page to learn about your classroom, or what classrooms are available on campus. This includes extensive tutorial information for classroom technology. During business hours (daytime,) if you need assistance while in class, contact the ITS Help Desk at x8340, and press "1".

WiFi Access

Wireless networking is available in all academic buildings on campus. For information on setting up your own computer or device for wireless network access, please see Wireless Networking at Canisius or stop at the Help Desk.

Printing

ITS maintains a flexible printing system that allows most jobs to be printed on any of several printers conveniently located around campus. See our guides to printing and printers available here in our wiki space.

Phone

Here is documentation for setting up your office phone. The unity CUCM support document contains important information for the initial setup of your phone.

Zoom: Web Meetings and Conferences

For supporting web meetings and conference, Canisius University makes Zoom available to faculty and staff. Zoom is a simple, easy-to-use web meeting application. See our Zoom guide for instructions and to request a a Pro account.

Productivity Software Support

Faculty and staff can request installation of several licensed applications on their Canisius-owned Windows or Mac PCs, and can suggest that ITS purchase software essential to University business. Microsoft Office is available for both the Mac and Windows platforms, and consists of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook and on the Windows side, Access. Many Adobe software products, such as Acrobat Professional, Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash, are available.

In general, ITS and COLI recommend the Chrome browser for most things you do on the Web, although it's a good idea to have an additional browser on your device as well.

Faculty and Staff should consult COLI, or call the Help Desk at x8340 to discuss their particular needs, potential projects, or just general inquires concerning what is possible with information or web-based technologies for teaching, research, or office productivity.

Network Drives

All Canisius faculty and staff have access to network drive space. This can be helpful for accessing files from multiple (desktop or laptop) computers. See our instructions for network drives.

Wordpress

Canisius ITS maintains a WordPress multi-user instance. Faculty and staff can request the creation of a WordPress site hosted by the University within this instance. This is useful for professional profiles, a website for initiatives, or collaborating with students to create a web resource.

Wiki (Confluence)

Canisius ITS maintains a Confluence instance, which is a wiki. This page is a wiki page! Departments, programs, initiatives, committees, and offices can create wiki pages as a simple web location to distribute information. Email helpdesk for details.

Surveys and Data Gathering

For conducting advanced surveys or data gathering forms, Canisius has Google Forms within our Google Drive license, as well as licenses for Qualtrics and RedCAP. See our Surveys and Data Gathering Options for details.

Policies

You should access Canisius University computer facilities only with an account (username) which has been issued to you. Please protect your password and change it regularly (http://www.canisius.edu/passwordreset.) Unauthorized copying of software is illegal.

Everyone has a right to protect his or her own information and a responsibility to protect that of others. Additionally, as an educational institution, Canisius University is bound by various regulations concerning educational records, health records, and personal financial information.

To see Canisius Information Technology Services policies, see chapter 4, volume II of the Canisius University Policy Manual.