Month: October 2011

In a flash!

How–and Why–to Destroy Old Flash Drives

  • By Emmett Dulaney
  • 09/29/11

The value of the ubiquitous flash drives that many of us carry in our pockets or on our key chains is much more than the $10 we pay for them at the big box store. Rather, they’re worth as much as all the data they have ever held. A couple of instances involving Bowling Green State University and the Oregon food stamp program illustrate the danger  [click here to read the entire article] . . .

Securing the Drive You Still Use
It is strongly recommended that you protect the data on flash drives you still use in case they mistakenly fall into the wrong hands.

On the cheaper end, you can add passwords and encryption to the flash drives. While you can add many types of encryption, for considerably more than the cost of a regular drive, you can buy ones that already have these features from companies such as Kanguru or Kingston. While this is far from a flawless solution, it does add reasonable protection for the data should the drive fall into the wrong hands.

On the more expensive end, IronKey markets a line of flash drives secure enough for sensitive government use and more than sufficient for what most people are trying to protect. A password must be given to access the data and if you give the wrong password 10 consecutive times, the unit self-destructs. The case is waterproof and tamper-resistant: if you break it open, it self-destructs. Data is secured with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption that cannot be turned off.

from http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2011/09/29/How-and-Why-To-Destroy-Old-Flash-Drives.aspx?Page=1
Remember these drives are portable and that’s what the storage should be on them, not as permanent backup!

Not your ordinary fish tale!

1 comment

I have been asked many times what is that Starfish tab when I login to Blackboard and in past semesters I would respond it is a student performance tool being tested ECU on freshmen and transfer students.  Which it does!  But it is now available to all faculty to use to help “support student academic success”! 

When you click on the Starfish tab you will see your current courses you are teaching, students enrolled as well as a calendar area where you can set up office hours for students.

For more information on this tool click here or contact our office to set up training with the Starfish group! Click here for faculty guide.

Word, Blackboard – Test Creation made easy!

Click Here for a tech tip from Respondus on converting from Word – Do you use Microsoft Word to write test questions that include images, equations, tables, or other advanced formatting. The Import Questions feature in Respondus makes it easy to bring those questions into Respondus 4 intact and then publish them to a learning system.  Respondus is available to all faculty from ECU software downloads!  Contact OET for more information.