Guidelines for Mass Mailing by CSC/ITSU
In order to conduct departmental business, departments may need to generate electronic mass mailings of officially-required notification information. Such mass mailings may be accomplished either by generating temporary, up-to-date, mailing lists or by other means of collecting addresses to reach the target audience. If not sent correctly, official mass mailings have the potential to disrupt email service for tens of thousands of campus system users.

These Guidelines pertain to request of sending mass mailings by CSC/ITSU. Read the details at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/csc/about/massive-mail.html. for details.

Trouble Shooting Recent Problems with the Campus-wide E-mail System (Mailserv)
It has always been our commitment to avoid system failures and to put high priority on repairing any problems that may, in spite of this, occur. So we regret the system failure that occurred between 7:30am July 8 - 12:00am July 9. We would like to extend our sincere apology for any trouble caused to users by this failure.

The breakdown of our e-mail system was a result of the combination of several hardware and software problems, which caused failures in the file systems including the backup file system to take over. The long downtime was due to the time needed to rectify the hardware and software problems and to rebuild our huge file systems.

Staff from the Computer Services Centre/ Information Technology Service Unit and the engineers from the vendor (ASL) worked for long hours and as quickly as they could to rectify the problems causing the system failure.

Details of this event can be read at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/csc/network/app/email/990714.html.

New Student Academic Results Enquiry and Reporting System for Staff Users
Farewell to difficulties involved in examining, preparing student grade reports and preparing results lists such as merit lists for the determination of scholastic awards!

A new Academic Results Enquiry System has been installed as a client/server application for academic departments to enable them to access the academic results of their students. Academic users can sort and filter the course grades, term GPA, year GPA, and cumulative GPA of students and compile tailor made reports.

A Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol is employed to secure data retrieval using the Internet. Data is highly secure because users have to register their IP address on the Firewall for authorised access to the service.

Multi-media Authoring Stations in User Area
Multimedia productions are a particularly useful presentation media for courses requiring interactive or are skills based. We now have two multi-media authoring stations, a PC and a Macintosh, in the User Area. Through these stations, you can process your pictures using photo and picture processing software, or use the audio-visual editing and production facilities. Typical uses might be to produce a video clip of a field trip, or to edit photographs, or add a sound tracks to a video.

You may also store a copy of the finished multimedia product on a recordable CD with our CD-Rewritable Disk Driver. Edited multimedia works can also be published on the iHome server and shared with other Internet users online.

Visit http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/csc/services/userarea/multimedia for more information.

Postgraduate Enquiry System for Status and Results of Theses
Postgraduate students can now check, through the Web, the status of their thesis as it is being processed by the Graduate Studies Office. Signing on to this system will require your student ID number and Campus Wide E-mail System password. This will provide access to a wide range of information, including submission dates, the thesis title, receipt of processing fee, assignment of external/internal examiners, and the grading of the thesis. Furthermore, you can receive updates of any follow-up actions required after submission of the thesis at various stages of assessment.

Start by pointing your browser to: http://grsntb.grs.cuhk.edu.hk/grs/thesis.

New Postgraduate Hall Network Connections to be Completed in September
We regret that the ResNet project for the New Postgraduate Hall (Issue 6) has been delayed due to a delay in the handover of the premise by the construction company. For security reasons, we have had to postpone the installation of network equipment.

It is a high priority for us to extend our ResNet connections to the wonderful new postgraduate hostel next to the University stadium. We have undertaken to complete the installation as soon as possible and keep inconvenience to hostel residents minimal.