Resource Guide - CS Faculty

TSG Resource Guide - CS Faculty

This guide has information for Computer Science faculty. Please also refer to the General Information resource guide for additional information that is relevant to all users of Siebel Center. Getting Assistance Useful URLs Policies Office and Lab Space Conference Rooms Elock Access Visitors About TSG Miscellaneous Information Accounts Backups Calendars Computers Compute Clusters Email File Storage Multimedia Networking Newsgroups Phones Printing, Copying and Fax Remote Access Security Software Web Hosting Wiki Instructional Support Information Course Email Aliases Class Websites and Working Space Class Wiki Classrooms Exam and Advising Room I2CS Illinois Compass Instant Messaging / Chat Rooms Instructional Labs Rosters TA Consulting Rooms TA Service Rooms

Getting Assistance
TSG - Technology Services Group IT services for the Computer Science Department TSG Helpdesk - 2302 Siebel Center, 333-7408 http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/tsg/ userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu CITES - Campus Information Technology and Educational Services IT services for the UIUC campus CITES Help Desk - 1211 DCL, 244-7000 http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/ consult@uiuc.edu

Useful URLs
CS Department
URL or Wiki Space http://www.cs.illinois.edu/tsg/ http://cs.illinois.edu/ http://agora.cs.illinois.edu/ http://csil.cs.uiuc.edu/ http://i2cs.cs.uiuc.edu/ [CSIL:Current Semester Classes] [Business Office Space] [Faculty and Staff Space] [Faculty Discussion Space] Description TSG homepage CS Department homepage Agora - CS Department Wiki and Intranet Computer Science Instructional Labs homepage CS distance learning program homepage listing of current courses including time, place and instructor CS Business Office CS Faculty and Staff Information CS Faculty Discussion Wiki

CITES
URL http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/ http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/help/ http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/edtech/ http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/staff/ http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/instructors/ http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/researchers/ Description CITES (campus IT organization) homepage CITES Helpdesk CITES Educational Technologies CITES Resource Guide for Faculty and Staff CITES Resource Guide for Instructors CITES Resource Guide for Researchers

Campus
URL http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/ http://www.library.uiuc.edu/catalog/ http://www.cstores.uiuc.edu/ http://www.uiuc.edu/ricker/CampusMap http://www.uiuc.edu/ricker/PH http://nessie.uihr.uillinois.edu/ Description EWS - Engineering Workstation Labs University Library Online Catalog Central Stores - purchasing information for many items Campus Maps Campus People Directory NESSIE - University Human Resources self-service site

Policies
The TSG Policies page has references to published TSG policies, IT-related departmental policies and campus-related IT policies. Departmental policies are in the [Policies] space. The CIO also maintains a list of campus and university related IT policies at http://www.cio.uiuc.edu/policies/.

Office and Lab Space

All office assignments are made by the Associate Head, Mehdi Harandi. To request additional space or a change in space allocation, contact him directly. To report problems with an office (e.g. too hot), please email userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu. For keys to office furniture, see Erna Amerman in 2210 SC. Lab space allocations are reviewed annually according to the [Lab Space Policy]. A small space committee, consisting of a subset of the advisory committee, reviews faculty requests and makes recommendations to the department head. The committee's recommendations are based on priorities noted in the lab space policy.

For Grad Students

Most grad students are assigned office space in Siebel Center as of Fall 2006. See the [Graduate Student Office Space Allocation] page for the policy governing these assignments. Additional information about office space for grad students is in the "Office Space" section of the CS Grad Resource Guide. The Grad Student Office Space Phone Numbers page (restricted to CS faculty, staff and graduate students) lists the phone numbers in each grad student office area.

For Long Term Visitors and Research Staff

Long term visitors and research staff are typically assigned regular faculty/staff offices in Siebel Center. The space allocation request for long term visitors is initiated by filling out the long term visitor information form.

For Short Term Visitors

Short term visitors are not typically assigned regular office space. Two dedicated offices, 2235 and 2237, are setup for short term visitors. These rooms may be requested on the short term visitor information form. If one of these two rooms are not requested then you are asked to specify where the visitor will sit while they are at Siebel Center.

Office Security Please be sure to secure the door to your office when you leave. There have, unfortunately, been multiple cases of theft at Siebel Center from areas that were left open when no one was present.

Elock Access
All CS faculty are given elock access to the following: all outside entrances including the south loading dock entrance classrooms conference rooms [CSIL] faculty/staff mailroom graduate student mailroom lunchroom reading lounge lecture hall all research service rooms all teaching assistant service rooms assigned TA consulting areas assigned research group / lab space areas any auxiliary data centers housing research group equipment assigned clerical's office assigned office Elock access is added for each users official i-card. The ID center is located in the Illini Union Bookstore. TSG can provide temporary ID cards in the event that you lose or forget your ID. Temporary cards are issued for a maximum of two weeks. In the case of forgotten ID cards, temporary cards are set to expire after one day. If you lose your official ID card, you must replace it as soon as possible. For additional information about elock access within Siebel Center, see the Siebel Center Door Access Policy.

Visitors
The business office requires paperwork to be completed for all official visitors to the department. A [number of forms] related to visitors are available on the business office website. It is especially critical that the necessary paperwork be completed if the visitors will require office space, be paid in any way or are from another country. Contact your faculty assistant or Debby Reynolds in the business office for assistance with visitors. Long term visitors require two to three months notice and short term require two to three weeks.

The Office Space section of this guide has information on space arrangements for visitors as well as links to the online forms that need to be filled out for visitors. The Networking section has some specific information on networking for visitors. Short term visitors are not provided with any computing or printing resources. What long term visitors receive depends on their particular status. Some additional information is on the CITES Guest Services page. A TSG resource guide for visitors is planned but has not yet been written. TSG fees may be required for some visitors. See the current fiscal year fee schedule on the Funding Model page for some information on what fees would be required. Contact the business office or the TSG manager with specific questions about potential fees.

About TSG
TSG is the IT support group for the department and provides the basic and advanced IT services necessary to support the leading edge educational and research missions of the department. The TSG homepage is at http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/tsg. The TSG staff directory has contact information for all TSG staff members. Non-emergency issues should normally be sent to userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu rather than directly to a TSG staff member. The Faculty Presentations page has the slides from presentations made in October 2005 and October 2006 by Chuck Thompson, the manager of TSG, to the faculty about the services TSG offers. The Funding Model page has information on the current TSG fees and some details on how the TSG funding model works.

Miscellaneous Information
Office supplies can be picked up at the outside window of the mail room. All questions regarding appointments or student employment should be directed to the Business Office in 2210 SC, 333-0195. Paperwork is required for University equipment to be removed from the Siebel Center premises for any reason. Email inventory@cs.uiuc.edu for assistance with the necessary paperwork. [Maps of Siebel Center] are available on Agora. These maps are restricted to CS faculty, staff and students. University policy prohibits making these maps publicly available. There are also resource guides for graduate students and undergraduate students. Resource guides for staff and visitors are planned but not yet written. Information on grad study space and undergrad study space is included in their respective resource guides. General information on parking on campus is available at http://www.parking.uiuc.edu/. For visitors, the department does have one space in lot B2 (which is directly across from the Siebel loading dock). Contact the admin office to reserve this space and get a hang tag for it. The parking deck that is directly north of Siebel has metered parking available on the lower levels. The Conferencing page has details on all video conferencing and teleconferencing options available in the department. There are five research area service rooms (2203, 3203, 3323, 4203 and 4323) each of which has a refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker and sink. These rooms also have printers and/or copiers for use by research groups.

Accounts
All CS faculty automatically receive accounts on the [CSIL] instructional lab systems. The [CSIL Facilities] page lists the names of the currently installed lab systems. Accounts may also be requested on the sal systems systems and on the [HAL Cluster] (the department compute cluster). Most faculty also have accounts on their grad students' systems and all other systems that belong to their research group. If you are teaching a course that is using the Engineering Workstation labs (EWS), you may also need an account on those systems. If you cannot login to the EWS systems, contact manager@ews.uiuc.edu.

Login Names and Passwords Login names on all CS systems match your NetID. The Passwords page describes all passwords currently in use within the Computer Science Department and also provides information on how to change them.

CITES introduced a new service in June 2007 that allows you to set security questions and answers for your NetID password. If you forget your NetID password you can now reset it yourself as long as you remember the answers to your security questions. All users are encouraged to set their security questions. Your security questions and answers should be treated as passwords. Do not write them down and do not share them with anyone. You can manage your security questions and answers at http://netidpassword.uiuc.edu/

Backups

The TSG Backups Service is available for use by research group systems. The service supports a wide range of operating systems and can also be used with laptops. It also provides backups of the DCShome service detailed in the File Storage section of this guide and all other central services maintained by TSG. Information on how to do restores is on the Performing Restores page. DCShome also has an additional feature for performing quick self-restores. See the section on Snapshots and Backups in the File Storage FAQ for more details. The cost of this service is fully integrated into the regular TSG fees.

Calendars
The main department calendar is displayed on the front page of http://cs.illinois.edu/, the video wall and at [facstaffinfo:Faculty and Staff Information]. You can view the calendar directly at http://illinois.edu/calendar/Calendar?calId=2654 and an RSS feed of calendar events is at: http://illinois.edu/calendar/RSS?calId=2654. The calendar is implemented in the Campus Toolbox and includes event specific calendars. Information about creating calendars or having events added to the department calendar is available at Calendars. The Conference Rooms page has a summary of all Siebel Center conference rooms that includes links to the calenders for each conference room. The Classrooms page has a similar table that includes links to the calendars for each classroom. These calendars are all maintained on the campus Microsoft Exchange server. The links go to publicly accessible web-versions of the calendars. Note that the official classroom calendars are maintained by the campus Office of Facility Management and Scheduling (FMS). TSG keeps the department's versions up-to-date with at least recurring reservations (i.e. scheduled classes) but does not guarantee that the department's versions have all adhoc scheduled events in the classrooms. The department standard for personal calendars is Microsoft Exchange. All faculty and staff are strongly encouraged to use Exchange for their personal calendars. This greatly eases the burden on faculty assistants when scheduling meetings.

Computers
Faculty are required to provide their own computers and also computers for their research assistants. The department provides computers for grad students not working as RAs who are assigned office space in Siebel Center according to the policy and procedure documented on the [TSGPRIV:Grad Student Computer Distribution] page. TSG staff are available for consultation on all computer purchases. Additional computers used by faculty research groups may be installed in either the group's assigned research lab space or in one of Siebel Center's auxiliary computer rooms. Servers and other computers that are not actively accessed from the console are strongly urged to be installed in an auxiliary computer rooms. The Auxiliary Computer Room Usage Policy details the available computer rooms and the procedures and policies regarding installing equipment in these rooms. Information on the operating systems that TSG currently supports is available on the Systems Services page. This page also provides an overview of the hardware services that TSG offers. As of Fall 2007, the primary fully supported operating systems are Windows XP, Mac OS X, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora Core. See the Systems Services page for the complete listing, including version limitations. TSG does not endorse any hardware vendor. However, Dell has been the primary vendor in use within the department for sometime. With the exception of compute clusters, TSG makes a best effort attempt to support computers from all vendors.

Do not pay for Red Hat Enterprise Linux with new systems purchased for research or instructional use. The department has a site license that fully covers Red Hat. The department is also has access to most Microsoft operating systems for free for research and instructional use.

Due to resource constraints, both facilities and staffing, additional restrictions and requirements exist for compute clusters. These restrictions are detailed in the Compute Cluster Support Policy. Before including funds for a cluster in a research grant proposal as well as before purchasing a cluster on any source of funds, it is critical that the manager of TSG be consulted with. Failure to do so could result in a cluster not being able to be installed and/or supported.

Compute Clusters
A number of compute cluster options are available to CS faculty. Please contact userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu if you have any questions about the following resources or if you have any other questions about compute clusters. The department has its own 250 node compute cluster, [HAL], that is available for use by CS faculty, staff and students. The [HAL Accounts] page has information on account eligibility and how to request an account. The architecture group has its own cluster of approximately 100 nodes. Use of this cluster is restricted to members of the architecture group. If you believe you are entitled to access, contact userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu for contact details. The Turing cluster is a large cluster of consisting of 768 dual-processor Apple Xserves as of July 2007. CS faculty are eligible for accounts. Contact turing-accounts@cse.uiuc.edu to request an account. NCSA has multiple large clusters. The NCSA Allocations and Accounts page has information on how to apply for time on the NCSA

clusters. There are a number of other clusters of varying size within the department that are currently dedicated for use to the faculty who built them. Before including funds for a cluster in a research grant proposal as well as before purchasing a cluster on any source of funds, it is critical that the manager of TSG be consulted with. Failure to do so could result in a cluster not being able to be installed and/or supported. Please read the Compute Cluster Support Policy for more information.

Email
Faculty are eligible for email accounts, aliases and mailing lists. Spam filtering is done using a campus service.

Accounts
All faculty are eligible for a Microsoft Exchange account issued by the department. These accounts can also be accessed from any IMAP-capable client or via a web interface. Faculty may choose any of five quota levels: 200MB, 500MB, 1GB, 2GB, 5GB. While any level may be selected we ask that a quota level not be chosen that is far in excess of current usage. For example, if you currently have only about 500MB of email, then the 1GB or 2GB would be appropriate but not the 5GB quota level. The Microsoft Exchange Service page has additional information about these accounts. Exchange accounts are typically created for all faculty. Due to an issue with the way Exchange handles email addressing it is strongly recommended that you do not have an Exchange account unless you do intend to use it as your primary UIUC email account. However, use of the Exchange account by CS faculty is strongly encouraged as it also facilitates participation in a common calendaring solution. You may also choose to use your CITES Express email account. Express is solely an email account while Exchange also provides calendar, contacts and task list functionality. As of the Fall 2006 semester, faculty quotas on Express were 150MB with some additional space available upon request. Few CS faculty currently use Express. The direct address of the Exchange accounts is NetID@ad.uiuc.edu and the direct address of the Express accounts is NetID @express.cites.uiuc.edu. Do not advertise these addresses. Instead, advertise either NetID@uiuc.edu or NetID@cs.uiuc.edu as described in the next section. Advertising the direct addresses of the email accounts makes it difficult to redirect your email if you later need to use a different email service.

Aliases
Two aliases, NetID@uiuc.edu and NetID@cs.uiuc.edu are available to faculty which can be pointed to any email account they choose to. Both need to be forwarded to an account that is checked regularly. The choice of which alias to use is left up to the individual faculty member. The @uiuc.edu version will not change even if your affiliation on campus happens to change. The @cs.uiuc.edu version ties you to the department rather than just to campus.

NetID@uiuc.edu
This is the official campus email address and is the address that all official email from campus will be sent to. See CITES Email on Campus and Your Email Address and the Email Redirection Service pages for more information about it. Your @uiuc.edu alias will cease to work one year after you completely leave the university. Use the UIUC Electronic Directory Editor to set where your NetID@uiuc.edu email is forwarded to. Common settings: Exchange: NetID@ad.uiuc.edu Express: NetID@express.cites.uiuc.edu

NetID@cs.uiuc.edu
As part of the @illinois.edu transition, individual email aliases (NetID@cs.uiuc.edu and NetID@cs.illinois.edu) will no longer be created. Existing NetID@cs.uiuc.edu addresses will eventually be retired. Your NetID@illinois.edu is now your official campus email address.

Mailing Lists
The Mailing Lists page provides details on how to request both simple and managed mailing lists.

Spam Filtering

CITES Spam Control (CSC) does an excellent job of filtering out unwanted junk email. If you are having any problems at all with SPAM to your UIUC email accounts and have not yet activated your CSC account, you are strongly encouraged to do so.

As of Fall 2006, new faculty are automatically signed up for CITES Spam Control and placed in the Cautious Personal Spam Policy. Faculty who still have a lot of spam get through the filter may wish to consider switching to the Cautious Plus policy. For information about all available policies, see the Overview of Spam Control.

File Storage
All faculty are given DCShome accounts. DCShome provides home directory and web space for all CS faculty, staff and students. Additional information about the service is also in the File Storage FAQ. Features of note include: 3.2GB quota for faculty (with some increase available upon request) 1.6GB quota for RAs, 800MB quota for TAs, 400MB for all other grad students accessible as Windows share \\dcshome.cs.uiuc.edu\grad Unknown macro: {backslash} NetID from any system on campus Mac OS X and Linux systems can also access this share public_html directory in accounts is the document root for: [http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/homes/]NetID/ The Backups section of this guide has information on backups of DCShome as well as TSG's service offering for backing up research group systems. Another file storage option is CITES NetFiles service. As of Fall 2006, faculty quotas on NetFiles were 500MB with some additional space available upon request. NetFiles has a guest ticket mechanism that can be useful for exchanging large files with off-campus users. The NetFiles guest tickets are documented at http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/netfiles/tickets.html.

Multimedia
For detailed information on the multimedia services offered by TSG, see the Educational and Multimedia Services page. The Faculty Presentations page has the video and slides from a presentation Drew MacGregor made about these services on April 9, 2007 at a faculty lunch. Services include: classroom and conference room support multimedia studio and capture facilities Siebel Center Digital Signage lecture recording and live event support video conferencing and teleconferencing video production for research groups

Networking
No pre-registration is required to use the Siebel Center wireless networks. Instructions on how to use these networks are on the TSG Wireless Networking page. The wired jacks in the Siebel Center public spaces, conference rooms and classrooms are all on the CITES QuickConnect service and can be used by anyone with a valid UIUC NetID. Registration is required to use the wired networking jacks in the office areas. From the Offices, Research Labs and Cubicles section of the Wired Networking page:

The following information is required to register a computer on the wired network in Siebel Center. This information can be emailed to userhelp@cs.illinois.edu or delivered to the TSG Helpdesk in 2302 SC. 1. Your name and UIUC NetID 2. Your Professor's name / research group 3. Where you are going to connect the computer to the network. This includes room number, cubicle number (if applicable) and, if possible, the Ethernet jack number. The jack number will be written near the jack and look something like H2WCP4-33. 4. Indicate whether the computer is personally-owned or university-owned. University machines will have an inventory barcode sticker on them. Please include this inventory number if available. 5. Your preferred hostnames for the computer. Please indicate first and second choices. We need to name the computer to put it on the network. This will be your DNS hostname: your_hostname.cs.illinois.edu We will try to assign your requested hostname but a fallback alternative is a good idea. Some hostnames are reserved or not available for all registrations. 6. Your wired Ethernet MAC address (sometimes called a Physical Address or Hardware Address). This is a 12 hexadecimal digit number, usually written on the network card itself, or the bottom of the laptop, or detectable from the operating system. Windows users can run "ipconfig /all" from the command prompt; Unix users can use "ifconfig -a". Be sure the MAC you include is from your wired card! Networking registrations are processed within one working day. You will receive email confirmation when the registration is processed.

See the main Networking page for additional information about the Siebel Center network. Information on network access for visitors is on the Guest Networking Access page. Faculty can create up to two personally sponsored guest accounts on their own that work with the DCSnet wireless network and QuickConnect services. These accounts are good for up to three days. If more than two accounts are required, if WPA wireless access is required or if the accounts need to be good for more than three days, email userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu.

Newsgroups
TSG runs a Usenet news server named news.cs.uiuc.edu that provides discussion groups for many CS courses. Note that a login and password that is unique to this service is required to access the service. The news.cs.uiuc.edu page has additional information about this service including information on how to set your password for the service. The class.cs### newsgroups are created automatically before the beginning of each semester with any content from previous semesters being removed. Additional department-related discussion groups such as cs.general, cs.undergrad.general and cs.grad.general are also available. See the Newsgroup Listing page for a complete list.

Phones
All faculty phone lines have long distance and international calling enabled as well as caller ID. Faculty and staff are required to have voicemail enabled as well. TSG provides faculty and staff with phones that include caller ID displays and message waiting lights for the voicemail systems. See the Telecommunications page for more information about the provided phones and voicemail. The [Support Personnel] page lists the phone numbers for faculty, staff, and departmental offices and facilities. The Grad Student Office Space Phone Numbers page (restricted to CS faculty, staff and graduate students) lists the phone numbers in each grad student office area.

Printing, Copying and Fax

A list of available printers and copiers is on the [TSGPRIV:OLD Printing, Copying and Scanning] page. This page also has information on how to determine your copier PIN code. All faculty, RAs and TAs have access to the B&W printers and copiers in the research service rooms and TSG Helpdesk. The TSG Helpdesk also has a color printer and wide-format plotter. Access to the wide-format plotters is restricted. Email userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu to request access. Instructors and TAs also have access to the printers in the TA Service Rooms. Per-page billing is not done for any printing and copying. However, usage is monitored for abuse.

The [CSIL] labs also have printing available but it is not free. See the [CSIL Printing] page for additional details. Faculty should avoid printing directly from the instructional lab systems. Each faculty assistant has a fax machine in their office. Contact your faculty assistant, or their backup, if you need to send or receive a fax.

Remote Access
Information on connecting to CS systems from off-campus is on the Remote Access page. The CITES VPN is the most common reference needed. See also the Firewalls page for information on ports that may be blocked from off-campus access.

Security
Information on computer and networking security can be found on the CITES Security and TSG Security pages. Pay special attention to CITES Security's Your Responsibilities page. Included in the suggestions on this page are: Change your mindset (you do need to be concerned about security) Patch frequently Install antivirus software This is required by the University's Information Security Policy. Be careful with passwords Use SSH Use encryption Useful security tools available from CITES include antivirus software and Password Vault (a secure mechanism for remembering passwords).

Software
The department provides Adobe Acrobat for all faculty and also pays for department site licenses for Matlab, Mathtype and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Most Microsoft operating systems and development tools are available for free through the MSDNAA program. With the exception of Microsoft Visio and Project which are available through MSDNAA, none of the Microsoft Office tools are available for free (although campus pricing does make Office available at a very steeply discounted price). No other commercial software is provided for free by the department. Faculty must purchase on their own any other software, including Microsoft Office, that they need. For more expensive packages, please contact userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu before making a purchase. TSG can assist with determining if a site license perhaps already exists elsewhere on campus or if other arrangements can potentially be made to obtain better pricing. The TSG Software page has complete information on software that is available to CS faculty, staff and students. This includes a listing of what software is currently covered by department site licenses, details on Microsoft Office pricing and a description of the MSDNAA program that provides most Microsoft operating systems, development tools, SDKs and applications for free to CS faculty and students. Additional information on available software can be found on CITES software page and at the CITES Software WebStore.

Web Hosting
Personal Homepage
All faculty have a generic homepage on http://www.cs.uiuc.edu under the "Directory" hierarchy that is maintained by the department. To request changes to your generic page, email userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu. Space is also provided for a personal homepage, the URL of which is [http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/homes/]NetID/. This space is provided on the DCShome service that is described in the File Storage section of this resource guide. Use of this space for a personal home page is strongly encouraged but not required. Faculty may choose to host a personal homepage elsewhere (e.g. on a server in their research group). Faculty are provided with www.cs.uiuc.edu URLs that they can use to point to whichever homepage they choose to. These URLs are useful for advertising, allowing the real location of the homepage to change without breaking what has been advertised. By default, these URLs are setup to point to faculty's generic department homepage. Contact userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu if you wish to have them point to a different location (e.g. a homepage hosted on DCShome). All faculty have [http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/]NetID and [http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/]~NetID. In addition, if a faculty members NetID is not their last name, then versions with NetID replaced by lastname are also created. For example, Prof. Longishname, who has the NetID notlong, would have the following four redirected URLs available for their use:

http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/notlong http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/~notlong http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/longishname http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/~longishname

Class Websites
See the Class Websites and Working Space section of this resource guide for information on the centrally provided options for hosting class websites. Use of this space is strongly encouraged but not required. If you do choose to host your course website elsewhere, please notify userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu of the location so that the generic class URLs of [http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/class/cs###/]can be updated to point to this location. Only these generic URLs are advertised on http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/ and http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/classes.php (a complete listing of courses and their websites for the current semester). The purpose of advertising only these generic URLs is to help ensure that it is always easy for students to find the homepage for any given course.

Research Group and Special Purpose Websites

Research group websites can either be hosted on a group's own server or on a central server managed by TSG. For the research group server option, a group can choose to manage it themselves or have TSG manage it. Two options are available on the central servers managed by TSG. First, for very simple websites, the website may be hosted on a server that runs multiple websites. In this case, a file share would be provided for making updates to the site. For more complex sites, TSG can provide a virtual server dedicated to the website. A file share can still be provided from this virtual server for ease of maintaining the site but research group members would also be allowed login access to the virtual server, if needed. TSG's preferred hosting environment is Apache running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is also possible to arrange for management of IIS web servers as well. Contact userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu if you wish to discuss any of these hosting options or if you wish to discuss other possibilities.

Wiki
Agora is the department wiki. The Wiki software used is Confluence from Atlassian Software Systems. Local documentation about Agora is available in the Agora space on Agora itself. The slides from a presentation made to the faculty about Agora in October 2006 are available on the Faculty Presentations page. Each "space" on Agora functions as an almost independent wiki. Each space can have its own look and feel and its own access controls. Each user who is logged into Agora will see only those spaces that their account has been given access rights to. For spaces they do not have access to, they will not be able to tell that those spaces exist.

Be sure to log in to Agora and not just browse as an anonymous user. There is quite a bit of content that is restricted to members of campus, the department or particular groups of users (e.g. faculty). If you do not login, you will not be seeing information that may be important to you.

Agora supports spaces for a wide range of activities ranging from department information to instructional use and multiple research functions. The Directory of Agora Spaces is an incomplete list of the spaces that exist on Agora but it does serve to provide a good overview of the varied uses that Agora supports. See the Requesting an Agora Space page for details on how to have a new space created. All CS faculty and staff can also create, on their own, a personal space. Personal spaces work just like regular spaces but belong to individual users. The People Directory provides a listing of all users on Agora who have already created personal spaces. All information posted to Agora can be access via RSS. For more information about RSS and how to use it with Agora, see the following three pages: Getting Started with RSS Creating RSS Feeds of Agora Content Using your Agora space as a blog

Instructional Support Information

The information in this section is about the IT and facilities resources available in support of CS courses. Course Email Aliases Class Websites and Working Space Class Wiki Notes About I2CS TAs

Classrooms Exam and Advising Room Illinois Compass Instant Messaging / Chat Rooms Instructional Labs Rosters TA Consulting Rooms TA Service Rooms

Course Email Aliases

TAs may request a generic course-related alias by emailing userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu. Generic aliases for instructors have not typically been provided in the past. However, one can be created if requested. Example alias: cs125ta1@cs.uiuc.edu TSG maintains aliases for each course that send to all TAs for the course. These aliases are automatically updated by TSG. They are also filtered by CSC for viruses and spam. Any message sent to these aliases that is determined to be either a virus or spam is automatically deleted. Example alias: ta125@cs.uiuc.edu TAs or instructors may request that an alias be created that includes all students enrolled in the course. Unless requested, these aliases will not be created. As with the ta###@cs.uiuc.edu aliases, any messages sent to these aliases that is determined to be a virus or spam is discarded. Example alias: cs125@cs.uiuc.edu

Class Websites and Working Space

Central storage space is provided for all CS courses to use for class websites. This space is described in detail on the Class File Storage page. A listing of all current courses, including links to the course websites, is at http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/classes.php. Courses may also now choose to host their course website on Agora.

Public vs. Private Course Materials Storage Please pay careful attention to the access rights difference between the /home/class hierarchy and /home/class-private hierarchy as defined on the Class File Storage page. All content under /home/class is viewable by EVERYONE with a valid CSIL account. While only content under the public_html directory is web-accessible, all other content in the /home/class hierarchy is accessible from any CSIL client. The /home/class-private hierarchy is PRIVATE. For each course directory only the instructor and TAs have access to it. This is where confidential materials such as grades should be stored. NOTE: Prior to the Fall 2007 semester, the /home/class-private hierarchy was named /home/ta. It was renamed to clarify its intended use.

Two URLs work for the current semester's instance of the class websites (using cs225 as an example):
http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/class/sp07/cs225/ http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/class/cs225/

The first URL will continue to reference the Spring 2007 instance of cs225 even after the Spring 2007 semester has ended. The second URL will change each semester to point to the current semester's instance of the course.

If your class website is not going to use the storage space provided by TSG, please email userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu with the URL of where the course will be hosted instead. The two www.cs.uiuc.edu links will be changed to point to that URL so that the two addresses students are familiar with still work.

In addition to the class website space, private space is provided for each course that is accessible only to the course TAs and instructor. Private class materials should be stored in this space which is documented on the Class File Storage page.

Class Wiki (Agora Space)

Courses wishing to use a Wiki may request a space on Agora. These spaces may have anonymous rights enabled so that anyone can view the

site. It is strictly forbidden to enable anonymous write access. The groups csg-fa##-cs### and csg-fa##-ta### where "fa##" is the semester (fa, sp, su) will be created and maintained to allow content to be restricted just to students in the course or the course staff. See the User and Group Permissions in Agora page for more information about access controls in Agora. A template is available for courses wishing to use Agora as their class website. Please see the documentation for the course template for additional details.

Classrooms
Siebel Center has a 200 seat lecture hall (1404), 5 ~50-seat classrooms and 3 ~30-seat classrooms. The department also still heavily utilizes 1310 DCL (100 seats) and 1320 DCL (200 seats). The classrooms page has detailed information on the available classrooms, what technology is installed in each and information on how to schedule them. See the Classroom Support section of the Classrooms page for information about reporting problems with the classrooms. Important Notes about Classrooms and Lecture Halls All classrooms and lecture halls (Siebel Center and DCL) must be scheduled through FMS as described in the Use and Scheduling section of the Classrooms page. While the Computer Science department does have scheduling priority for these rooms it no longer fully controls their scheduling. All of these rooms are regulary used by other units on campus. Failure to reserve a room may result in your being bumped. Do not use conference rooms for class sections. Reserve a classroom or the [Group Collaboration Lab] in 0224 SC. Also available for use is the [Computer Based Teaching Lab] in 0220 SC.

Exam and Advising Room

The department has a dedicated room, 1212 SC, that can be used for make-up exams. Contact the Academic Office in 1210 Siebel Center to schedule it.

I2CS
The Illinois Internet Computer Science (I2CS) program is the department's Internet delivery of graduate level classes for a degree and/or credit hours. Additional information and resources (checklists, email form letters) can be found on the [instruction section] of the [I2CS student gateway].

I2CS TAs
I2CS TAs are assigned special duties in addition to regular TA responsibilities. They are the primary contact for each class for the distance learners. As such, effective communication with the students is critical. I2CS TAs are required to attend lectures and operate recording equipment. I2CS TAs are also required to attend meetings to discuss the progress of the I2CS classes (these are more frequent at the start of the term, and reduce in frequency as the semester progresses). I2CS TAs will be contacted by CS staff to inform them of training times and to provide other instructions. Currently there is no set training time to learn about recording equipment. TSG staff will attend the first few lectures for your class to show them the process. If you have any technical questions about the I2CS program, please contact Drew MacGregor.

Illinois Compass
Illinois Compass is an enterprise learning management system based on WebCT Vista. While few CS courses currently use Illinois Compass, it is available to be used. Illinois Compass is the only electronic gradebook service currently generally available for use. A number of CS course TAs and instructors do use Compass solely for this one function. TSG has no administrative control over Compass, as it is a CITES Educational Technologies service. To request a Compass space Manually adding users to Compass

Instant Messaging / Chat Rooms

A Jabber Instant Messaging Service is now available for use. This service provides secure instant messaging and chat room services. Chat rooms can be used for online discussion and review sections. Access is allowed for anyone with a valid NetID.

Due to potential legal issues involving laws such as FERPA, the use of any other instant messaging service for communicating with students is strongly discouraged.

Instructional Labs
CS courses use both the department's own [CSIL] facility and the college's EWS facilities. The class listing at http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/classes.php notes which courses are assigned to which lab. Please make sure that your students are given the correct information as to which lab they need to use. All courses that have fairly generic computing support requirements are assigned to the EWS labs. Courses needing more specialized support are typically assigned to CSIL. See the [CSIL Facilities] page for current list of labs and installed equipment and resources available in the CSIL labs. Note that the DCL CSIL labs closed permanently at the end of the Spring 2006 semester. CSIL requests should be sent to userhelp@cs.uiuc.edu. The EWS Instructor Guide has references to most information that instructors should need to know about the EWS labs. If your course is going to use EWS, you need to register it at https://www-s.ews.uiuc.edu/ews-s/classreq/. EWS also has teaching labs that can be reserved by instructors using the form at http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/ews/resrv/.

If your course is assigned to the EWS labs and is going to use those facilities, be sure to register it using the above URL.

Rosters
TSG makes class rosters available via the web at https://webapps.cs.uiuc.edu/services/rosters/. Pictorial rosters are available online and text versions can be downloaded. Pictorial rosters may not be updated until shortly after the semester begins.

TA Consulting Rooms
Because TAs now have their offices located in research areas of the building, common consulting rooms have been setup to be used for meeting with students during office hours. The workstations installed in these rooms allow anyone with an active [CSIL] account to login to them.

These rooms should normally only be used during office hours. They should not be used as a second personal office.

Fall 2008 TA Common Room Assignments NOTE: The DCL offices do not have elock. See the staff member in 2210 SC to get physical keys. Room L422 & L424 DCL 1261 & 1262 DCL 244-6262 Office Phone # Course Assignments cs101 cs105

0207 SC

244-0526

all 400 and 500 level courses

333-1463

0209 SC

333-0377

cs210, CS357, CS373

0211 SC

265-6592

cs173

0212 SC

244-5619

cs231 & cs232

0214 SC

244-5973

cs241 & cs242

0403 SC

265-9212

cs125 & cs225

TA Service Rooms
Additional printers for TAs are available in 1272 DCL and 0210 SC. Access to these rooms is restricted to TAs and instructors. Preference should be given to the printers in these rooms when printing course materials. Both of these rooms also have a computer installed with a high-speed scanner and a Wacom tablet. These stations can be used for scanning in course materials and doing electronic grading.