During the COVID-19, unemployment numbers have been rising and more people are looking for work. Some people have unknowingly gotten involved in breaking the law. According to the article from Idaho News 6 linked below, police found thousands of dollars worth of stolen merchandise in a garage belonging to a homeowner who thought he was renting space to people working on a reshipping job.
The article warns that malicious actors post legitimate looking “work from home” help wanted or job openings on places like social media, message boards and even job posting sites. These ads will claim the work will be easy, pays big, and can be done from home. The malicious actor uses stolen credit cards to purchase goods and has the victim reship the items. In fact, the malicious actor is using the victim as part of a money laundering operation.
The article encourages readers to stay safe while job searching, to make sure that the employer has a readily available phone number for human resources, and has a company website. Scammers on the other hand usually will communicate through email or messenger only and are very secretive about the work, their business, and what the employee will be doing. The article also warns against paying upfront fees since malicious actors will often ask for fees for background checks or other pre-employment checks.
For more information, please check out:
https://www.kivitv.com/news/bbb-watch-for-work-from-home-scams
]]>SkillSoft Spotlights focus on just-in-time online learning that supports you in navigating complex challenges in personal and professional life, helps you to increase your effectiveness, and to improve your relationships. Each course is 30 minutes or less and is curated to provide tools, strategies, and practices to accelerate your success.
This week's spotlight course is The Art of Staying Focused.
The Art of Staying Focused (30 min)
Even if you know what's important to do, losing focus can stop your progress. No matter who you are or what job you do, focusing at work can be hard. Even with great schedule management and organizing skills, it's easy to get off track if you're not careful. In this course, you'll learn how to stay focused and stay on top of your schedule. You'll learn strategies for dealing with focus challenges and distractions at work. You'll also find out how to beat fatigue, manage your time, and decline work-related requests. And you'll explore how to adjust your focus to deal with change, and how to regain focus when you've lost it.
Once logged in, simply type the name of the course in the search bar.
Need Login Assistance? Email hrtraining@umbc.edu to set up your account and to help with login difficulties. UMBC faculty and staff accounts are set up within 1 month of hire.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Visit our UMBC SkillSoft page for information on UMBC’s curated role and topic-based certificate tracks as well as professional industry certifications that align with SkillSoft courses.
SkillSoft Spotlights focus on just-in-time online learning to help you more masterfully manage yourself personally and professionally, improve your effectiveness in managing your work, and support you in skillfully leading your teams. Each course is 30 minutes or less and is curated to provide tools, strategies, and practices to accelerate your success.
This week's spotlight course is Positive Atmosphere: Establishing a Positive Work Environment.
Positive Atmosphere: Establishing a Positive Work Environment (26min)
A positive workplace is paramount to your organization's long-term success. As a manager, you play a key role in establishing a positive work culture, and noticing when negativity takes the place of positivity. As a leader, you can foster a positive work environment by communicating honestly, respecting, supporting, engaging others, and maintaining a good attitude. This course will introduce you to best practices for creating a positive work environment. You'll learn the benefits of establishing a positive and engaged workforce, its characteristics, and concrete steps to create one. You'll also explore how to recognize the signs and impacts of negativity, and how to take corrective action if necessary to engage employees.
TO LOGIN:
Using Internet Explorer or Google Chrome, Login to SkillPortusing your FULL UMBC email address for both the username and password boxes.
Once logged in, simply type the name of the course in the search bar.
Need Login Assistance? Email hrtraining@umbc.edu to set up your account and to help with login difficulties. UMBC faculty and staff accounts are set up within 1 month of hire.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Visit our UMBC SkillSoft page for information on UMBC’s curated role and topic-based certificate tracks as well as professional industry certifications that align with SkillSoft courses.
As part of our ongoing commitment to security, the Unix Infrastructure group will be conducting its quarterly system patching on Saturday, May 23rd and Thursday, May 28th. While many of the systems will be patched without any service disruption, there are some systems which require the downtime of key services. The schedule below outlines which key services will be offline and for how long.
Saturday, 05/23/2020 between 9am and 11am(most systems will only be down for a short period during this time):
Thursday, 05/28/2020 between 4pm and 10pm (most systems will only be down for a short period during this time):
Please let us know if you have any concerns or questions.
Thanks!
Tim Champ
Manager of Unix Infrastructure
UMBC DoIT
]]>From: IT Desk Update <mwelch5@corning-cc.edu>
Date: Wed, May 13, 2020 at 7:16 AM
Subject: UMBC AlertKindly Update your Phone number to avoid being locked out of your email account, Kindly follow the URL below to proceed to setup
The UMBC Instructional Technology Update is provided by the Division of Information Technology for students, faculty and staff. If you have questions or need help, please consult the Blackboard Help FAQs or directly at www.umbc.edu/blackboard/help. You can also contact the Technology Support Center at 410.455.3838 or submit an RT (Request Tracker) ticket via the myUMBC Help Menu or directly at my.umbc.edu/help.
HEADLINES
What’s New
Academic Continuity
May 4-8 PIVOT webinar recordings available [myUMBC login req’d]
Training & Professional Development (view all events)
End of Semester Sprint (5.13)
Bb Collaborate (5.13)
VoiceThread Essentials (5.15 & 5.19)
Panopto Essentials (5.15, 5.19, & 5.21)
Blackboard Essentials (Part I - 5/18 / Part II - 5.20)
Ultra Essentials I & II (5.21)
Other DoIT News
As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:
Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources
Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
Request a consult with instructional technology staff
Based on higher than expected turnout for last week’s prototype of the Planning Instructional Technology for Online Teaching (PIVOT) Live webinars, DoIT is offering a monthly repeat of the five 60-minute webinars in five days approach on the following dates (up to 100 people can participate, but registration via myUMBC is required).
July 20 to 24 at 10 a.m. (canceled)
The PIVOT webinars will include the following topics:
Organizing & Designing an Online Course
Active Learning Strategies
Engaging Students & Building Online Community
Reconceptualizing Online Assessments
Supporting Students and Monitoring Progress
As a reminder, last week’s webinars on these topics were recorded and available on the original announcement and DoIT’s Academic Continuity site (a PIVOT site is also under development). The recordings will also be paired with key instructional technology FAQs to form the basis of PIVOT Solo, which is designed as a totally asynchronous, self-paced to enable a more deliberate approach to online teaching than was the case in Spring 2020.
Last week’s turnout for the first prototype of the PIVOT webinars included the following:
We had 1,030 registrations with 764 attendees for one or more sessions (72 people attended all 5 sessions and accounted for 360 attendees).
There were 263 unique participants during the week, 122 of whom are teaching this summer, which was our most pressing need.
To date, we've received 100 survey responses from the 263, and 77% rated the webinars as helpful, 8% not-helpful.
As discipline-specific or cohort-based plans develop within Colleges, DoIT will use the PIVOT webinars & PIVOT Solo “playlists” to support such groups, which will inform the synchronous and asynchronous approach of PIVOT + that was previously announced.
In addition to new monthly offerings of PIVOT during the summer, DoIT’s Instructional Technology team has also announced focused training in Blackboard Essentials, Collaborate, Panopto, and VoiceThread, which were popular topics throughout the week. To learn more, visit DoIT’s training site at doit.umbc.edu/training.
As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:
Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources
Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
Request a consult with instructional technology staff