NEWS

Invitation to SSCC Computer Orientation

SSCC staff will offer a hands-on computer orientation session for new members arriving this fall on Wednesday, August 28, 10:00AM - 11:30AM. The session will be held in 3218 Sewell Social Sciences Building. We want to extend an invitation to any SSCC member who might also like to attend. Maybe you've been a member for a while but haven't used your account much, or maybe you arrived mid-year and didn't get a one-on-one orientation. Whatever the reason, you are welcome. Just visit our training page to register so we can have materials ready for you.

New Sociology graduate students have already been invited, but if you know of other new arrivals—post docs, faculty, staff, visitors—please make sure they know about this opportunity.

Stata 13 Upgrade Discount Extended

If you missed the deadline for the Stata 13 upgrade volume order, Stata Corporation has been kind enough to make the discounted pricing (over 50% off in most cases) available through August 18th. If you have your own copy of Stata and want to upgrade, email stataupgrade@ssc.wisc.edu for information on how to order.

SSCC's Fall Training Schedule

Looking to get a head start on the fall semester? The SSCC is holding training sessions on Stata and R in the last week of August. Once the fall semester begins we will offer Stata training again (including a new Workshop on publication-quality tables), plus SAS, WordPress, Matlab, NVivo, and more! Dates for some of these courses are still being finalized.

Visit the training page today to register for August classes, and visit again after August 12th for the full fall schedule.

Reserving the Computer Classroom for Fall Semester Courses

Now is the time to reserve the 3218 classroom or mobile lab for your fall semester class, before your spot gets taken by someone else. Fill out the web form to make reservations. Visit our Instructional Support web page for more information about the 3218 classroom and the mobile lab. If you have any questions, contact Caitlin Tefft (ctefft@ssc.wisc.edu or 2-0862).

Even if you do not need to reserve the classroom or lab, you can arrange for your students to have access to SSCC's drop in labs (3218 and 4218 Social Science) for doing their homework. Caitlin can help you with this as well.

Doug Hemken (dehemken@wisc.edu), statistical computing specialist for SSCC, is available to help students with homework and class projects. You can also arrange for Doug to come to your class and provide instruction on statistical software. Doug's office is in the 4226 office suite and his phone number is 2-4327.

Upgrading to Office 2013

If you have a University-owned Windows PC that logs into the SSCC's domain (PRIMO), you can easily upgrade to Office 2013 using SSCC's Software Center. See the Knowledge Base article for instructions.

Changes to SAS and SPSS Availability

In case you've missed the announcements in the last two SSCC News:

• 32-bit SAS on Winstat will be removed on August 30. 64-bit SAS, which is the default, will be the only version of SAS on Winstat. This change will affect you if you import Excel files into SAS or have catalog files that were created using 32-bit SAS.
• SPSS on Linstat was allowed to expire July 31. SPSS data files created on Linstat are compatible with Windows, and syntax files will only require minor changes (for example, referring to V:\ rather than /project).

Visit May's SSCC News for details.

A New and Improved VPN Service

We are pleased to announce that we're adopting the newly-upgraded campus VPN service—the new service is faster, more secure, and has better mobile compatibility than the SSCC's existing VPN service.

For those unfamiliar, a VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows a device to connect to the SSCC network as if it were in the building regardless of its location. This gives you access to network drives and printers. It also allows you to use services that are restricted outside of the university (like many library databases).

To get started using the new campus VPN you can follow the steps in our Knowledge Base (KB) article Connecting to the SSCC Network via VPN. If you've previously mapped drives using the old VPN service you may need to follow the KB article to remap them. You can continue to use the old VPN service for a while but it will be phased out eventually since there are security weaknesses on the horizon.