ICTC Forums

ICTC Forums have been scheduled for the following dates in Darwin Katherine and Alice Springs.

Dates	Time	Region	Location
13/11 Tuesday	3.15pm - 4.30pm	Darwin	Old Innovate 1 Lab Ludmilla Primary School
14/11 Wednesday	3.15pm - 4.30pm	Katherine	Macfarlane Primary School
15/11 Thursday	3.15pm - 4.30pm	Palmerston	Palmerston High School Staff room
19/11 Monday	3.15pm - 4.30pm	Alice Springs	Alice Springs High School Library

We have also scheduled a teleconference briefing for other locations on Tuesday 20/11/2007 from 3.15pm – 4.30pm. ICTC’s choosing to join the conference call, should email onlineservices.deet@nt.gov.au and request the conference call details.

Secure Remote Access for P; Drives and Shared Folders

We are pleased to advise that a new Secure Remote Access Service has been implemented, which allows teachers and school staff to access files on their P: drive and the shared public drives on the school server from the Internet. The service requires the installation of a digital certificate on the remote computer to ensure only authorised users can access the school server. The easiest method of installation is by loading the digital certificate onto teacher laptops when they are connected to the school network. It is also possible to copy the certificate onto a USB memory stick or DVD and manually load it onto home based computers although this is quite complex.

Instructions on how to load the digital certificates and configure secure remote access are presented at: http://staff.deet.nt.gov.au/quickfind/it_web/remote_access_ntschools.shtml.

Notes: 1: This service is only available for school staff and should not be extended to students.
2: When a user initiates a secure remote connection to a school all other network services including the internet will be disabled.

Create Distribution Lists in Microsoft Outlook for your School

The NT Schools email service has been upgraded to allow schools to create shared email distribution lists. Shared distribution lists are similar to address books, and can be created to define groups of teachers, staff or students in your school. These can then be used as a single email address for sending information only relevant to that group.

Click here to view a detailed overview of this service and instructions for creating and using distribution lists.

ICTC Mail Lists

ITSD have commenced sending emails to ICTC’s via the AllICTC’s global group in the NT Schools mail address book. This global group replaces the ICTC-Broadcast list.
As it is not possible to unsubscribe from the AllICTC Global Group (membership is automatic when you select the ICTC role in NTSchools ePass), this address should not be used for general ICTC communication.

ITSD are investigating providing a Sharepoint Forum to replace the ictc@lists.latis.net.au service, however this may not be available until early 2008. Until then, please continue to use the existing service.

Return of Optima Laptops Allocated to Teachers

All Optima laptops allocated to teachers should have been returned by now. If you have any remaining in your school can you please contact IT Services to arrange their return.

SPAM Email Protection

On Thursday 1st November, Editure implemented additional protection to reduce the number of SPAM emails that you may have been receiving recently. Please advise clint.andrews@nt.gov.au if you are still receiving a large quantity of SPAM emails.

Recent research indicates that spam increases significantly around September, which corresponds to the start of school holidays in the US. In 2007, SPAM actually accounted for over 94% of all emails worldwide.

End of Year Server Shutdown

As the school year comes to an end, some schools may wish to consider shutting down their server equipment over the school holiday break. The shutdown and power-up processes are summarised below.

Steps to ensure successful shutdown:

Steps for power-up:

For full details of the shutdown procedures please see www.ict.schools.nt.gov.au/computers_networks/fact_sheets.shtml

Movement of Computers with Middle Years Changes

The computers supplied by the Department under the NT Schools upgrade in October 2006 were allocated based on a ratio of 1 computer for every 10 enrolled students. When year 7 students move from primary schools to the middle schools at the start of 2008 there will need to be a corresponding transfer of the Dell computers. The number of computers to be moved from each primary school will be calculated from the year 7 enrolment in Term 4 divided by 10 with the number rounded down for increments of 5 or less students and rounded up for increments of 6 or more students.

The transfer arrangements will only apply for the Government middle schools being established in Darwin, Palmerston, Katherine, Tennant Creek and Nhulunbuy. For Darwin based transfers, IT Services will identify the number of computers required from each primary school and arrange for their redistribution to the middle schools based on their year 7 enrolments at the beginning of term 1. Schools in Katherine, Tennant Creek and Nhulunbuy will be asked to make their own transfer arrangements based on the numbers calculated by IT Services.

New Schools IT Services Contract

The new contract for school IT support services with CSG services has been finalised and preparations are now being made to transition to the new contract which comes into effect on the 28 December 2007. The new contract will offer a range of additional features that will improve the quality and reliability of services to schools.

The key areas of enhanced services are:

DEET “Expression of Interest” (EOI) Website – Access from Home

For instructions on how to access the Expression of Interest site from outside the DEET Corporate or NTSchools networks, navigate to url: http://staff.deet.nt.gov.au/quickfind/it_web/doc/eoi_online_access.pdf

Secure FTP Access to Kite Web Servers for External Web Developers

The NTSchools web server; http://www.schools.nt.edu.au/ was recently relocated into the schools core infrastructure to provide increased security. However, this resulted in external web developers being unable to upload schools modified web pages.
To resolve this issue, IT Services have provisioned a secure FTP access service. Documentation for this service is located at url: http://staff.deet.nt.gov.au/quickfind/it_web/doc/setup_filezilla_for_ftp_access_to_kite.pdf.
If your web pages are located on Kite and you use an external web developer, then please provide them with these instructions.

Additional Features for the NTSCHOOLS (“Kite”) Web Server

The Kite Web Server for http://www.schools.nt.edu.au/ is a Linux server running apache web services. The services it provides are described at www.ict.schools.nt.gov.au/computers_networks/schoolswebsites.shtml
Recently, we added the ability to manage MySql databases via phpmyadmin.

If you have a requirement to create a MySql Database, then please log a job with Editure stating the database name and the NTSchools Username who requires access to phpmyadmin.

Editure will create an “empty database” and assign an account name to your database.

Your schools web developer will need to logon using http://phpmyadmin.ntschools.net and your MySql account to configure/set-up the Sql Database. Note however, that access is restricted to within the NTSchools network.