In Challenging Times, Challenging Technologies

Posted by Pablo Molina at 9:53 AM - Categories: Announcements

In challenging times, technology helps most campus departments and processes become more efficient. Pioneering technology services like digital class recordings, web conferencing services, and online exam delivery provide us with academic continuity for an H1N1 swine flu pandemic or other emergencies that may keep students and faculty away from the campus. These technologies give us more flexibility to conduct our activities and they can help us reduce our carbon footprint.

Ahead of us we have many exciting new initiatives. Behind the scenes, we will continue to improve on the new student information system for the University, MyAccess, and our new Cisco Voice-Over-IP phone system. We will replace most of the aging computer servers in our data center with green technologies like virtualized servers.  In a few months, we will adopt some of the technologies just released or about to be released by Microsoft: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 and Exchange 2010.

With the sponsorship of Dean Aleinikoff and in wide consultation with faculty, staff, and students, the Communications and the Information Systems and Technology departments are working on the web site redesign to overhaul the online presence of the institution. Our goal is to provide reliable, easy-to-use web services to community members and over one million annual visitors from all over the world. Disability compliance, search engine optimization, information security and privacy will continue to be key characteristics of our web presence. Behind the scenes, a new content management system must accommodate the plurality of views and work methods of our web contributors. 

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Privacy and Technology Conferences

Posted by Pablo Molina at 9:47 AM - Categories: Announcements

These are some of the privacy and technology conferences in which I am involved in the near future. Feel free to participate, share this information with interested people, and write about these events in your blogs and publications.

• Hispanic Technology Council in Washington, DC, October 29-31,2009, http://www.hitecglobal.org/
• Privacy conferences in Madrid, November 3-6, 2009,http://thepublicvoice.org/events/madrid09/ and http://www.privacyconference2009.org/privacyconf2009/home/index-iden-idweb.html
• Internet Governance Forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, November 15-18, 2009, http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/

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Technology Retreats

Posted by Pablo Molina at 2:27 PM - Categories: Announcements

The annual Law Center staff technology retreat takes place on June 3 from 9:30am to 11:00am in McDonough 200. A light breakfast buffet helps to promote attendance. The session is an overview of technology trends.
For faculty members, the Law Center faculty technology retreat takes place on June 4 from 11:00am to 12:00pm. It starts with a discussion of Macs vs. PCs in Hotung 2000, followed by lunch and an overview of technology trends in the Hotung Dining Room from 12:00pm to 1:30pm.

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Annual Technology Survey

Posted by Pablo Molina at 10:16 AM - Categories: Announcements

In 2008, 349 students answered the questions of the annual technology survey. Please show that you care about making the Georgetown University Law Center a better place and take a couple of minutes to answer a handful of multiple choice questions, with or without comments, by clicking on http://www.law.georgetown.edu/forms/?formid=269. In 2001, I founded the Law CIO Group for technology officers from the top law schools in the US and the UK. This year some of these schools are adopting the same survey questions as Georgetown Law so that we can compare results. The survey is critical to encourage school administrators to support technology initiatives benefitting the students. It also provides team members with student feedback and helps ups improve technology services. The survey closes on Friday, February 6, 2009, at 2:00pm. I also would like to encourage faculty and staff members to provide direct feedback by email, over the phone, or in person to any member of the technology team.

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Another computer threat

Posted by Pablo Molina at 10:09 AM - Categories: Announcements

Millions of Windows computers worldwide are being infected with the Downadup or Conficker computer worm. The worm infects computers located on the same network or through the use of infected USB drives. Thousands of faculty, staff, students, and visitors who connect their computers to our campus networks may be at risk of contracting the worm. To be safe, please follow our advice of patching your computers regularly and using up-to-date antivirus software. As usual, our Technology Reference Desk is ready to help those who would like to learn how to take care of their computers.

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Technology Initiatives and a Word of Caution

Posted by Pablo Molina at 10:44 AM - Categories: Announcements

I would like to share with you the news about two major technology initiatives impacting the Georgetown University Law Center Campus in the near future. The first one is the upgrade of our student information system. The student information system is used by students to register for courses and to check grades, by faculty as one of the many ways to contact the students in a course, and by staff members to conduct academic administration tasks. After years of planning and preparation, several components of the new system will go live at different points in time during the 2009 calendar year. Expect disruptions. The second major technology initiative is an ambitious web site redesign process which will culminate with a new web presence for the institution in the summer of 2010. Elissa Free in the Communications department and I are managing the process and welcome your comments and suggestions via the webmaster@law.georgetown.edu email account or in person. Finally, I would like to remind all community members to remain vigilant about information security and privacy issues. In spite of the success of our spam management service and firewalls in blocking most fraudulent messages and attacks, online theft, identity theft, phishing scams, and data leaks are threats to all Internet users.

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Privacy Policy

Posted by Pablo Molina at 7:40 AM - Categories: Announcements

On April, 28, 2008, the Georgetown University Law Center hosted a panel of European Parlament representatives and professor to discus Emerging Privacy Issues Between the US and EU: Bridging the Transatlantic Gap. Watch the video of the session at http://www.law.georgetown.edu/webcast/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=557 The United States and the European Union are confronting many common privacy challenges - promoting trust and confidence for Internet commerce, developing safeguards for behavioral targeting and search histories, security breach notification and identity theft. There are also areas - identification requirements, border control and passenger record transfers - where national security requirements appear to conflict with privacy laws. The panelists discussed current efforts to address these challenges. Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center Sophia in't Veld, Member of European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (Netherlands) Baroness Sarah Ludford, Member of European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (United Kingdom) Alexander Alvaro, Member of European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (Germany) Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, Member of European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (Netherlands) Ignasi Guardans Cambo, Member of European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (Spain) Adam Levitin, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center

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