There are several important changes taking place this spring that will affect many of our faculty and staff. These include faculty voting, accessing your payroll, vacation and sick leave information, and adding guests (non-employees) to log into conferencing or course management tools. We are also beginning to publicize the server name as cals.arizona.edu rather than ag.arizona.edu (although both names work). This document summarizes the changes; addresses of the various examples are listed at the bottom.

1. NetID -- this is the UA answer to move toward a single sign-on to all computer systems. It affects a few applications now -- Employee Link (Faculty Voting - February 21, 2003 begins the spring election period), WebCT, Caucus conferencing, and the Information Services Web of the Financial Services Office. It is in our best interest to have all our faculty and staff get NetID accounts. If you already have a u.arizona email account, that is the same name/password as the NetID. This does not affect college email accounts on the ag server; you retain 'yourname@ag.arizona.edu' as your email, and get the NetID for access to other computer systems. Andy Medina (gamedina@ag.arizona.edu) and Robert Armstrong (armstrng@ag.arizona.edu), as well as ECAT, can provide assistance and more detailed instructions on getting a NetID. Also, your departmental net managers will help. For further information, contact Robert MacArthur – robmac@ag.arizona.edu.

2. University Affiliates -- there are times when non-employees will need a NetID to log into some applications (such as Caucus computer conferencing or WebCT the course management system). Robert Armstrong (armstrng@ag.ariozna.edu) is the Cooperative Extension contact for getting such accounts. They need to be restricted to a real need and not just given out to volunteers or friends. For further information, contact Roger Caldwell – caldwell@ag.arizona.edu

3. Server name change -- since the college changed the name to CALS, we have had the cals.arizona.edu and ag.arizona.edu addresses both registered to go to the ag server. After discussions with the Executive Council, we are beginning to publicize the cals.arizona.edu as the preferred name, using it in all our printed publications and on-line references. The counties should follow a similar practice. Our server is also registered to accept the www in front of the name, but we discourage its use because of the longer address and unwieldy pronunciation. For further information, contact Gil Salazar – gsalazar@ag.arizona.edu

4. Web/Phone Conferencing - Cooperative Extension has long been using a system at the University of Illinois for conference calls involving a large number of people. We are expanding its use to other's in the college, and Illinois raised the price to $15.00/hour/site. However, they can now provide web pages to go with the audio. This allows slides to be shown or other web pages in a way that the computer at each site will automatically change pages to go with the call. To use this, contact Steve Crofts (scrofts@ag.arizona.edu) for the phone-only conferencing and Robert Lanza (lanza@ag.arizona.edu) for the phone and web conferencing. For further information, contact Robert Lanza – lanza@ag.arizona.edu.