The self-service and support tool at it.wvu.edu/help may be unavailable 7-11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7 while Information Technology Services upgrades to a new version of the software. This may affect faculty, staff and students trying to create a ticket or search for information. This planned maintenance outage also may affect technicians trying to resolve tickets at wvu.teamdynamix.com.

Here are some of the changes that users will notice when the work is complete:

Some initial glitches have been resolved, so faculty, staff and students may now install the new Mac OS X operating system upgrade, El Capitan (version 10.11.1).

Apple released a patch Oct. 21 that improves the stability of both Office 2011 and Office 2016 when using El Capitan. Microsoft and Konica Minolta also have recently released updated their products so printers will now work effectively with El Capitan.

Students can now use Schedule Builder to create personalized class schedules quickly and simply. Available through STAR (under the Registration section), Schedule Builder improves your chances of getting a full schedule and graduating on time.

Just choose the classes you want to take in the coming semester and enter “breaks” in the time slots where you can’t take classes. Schedule Builder then automatically generates every possible combination of classes and shows schedules in a grid view with the times, locations and instructors.

WVU faculty and students are invited to register on a first-come, first-served basis for a one-day Big Data Workshop on Tuesday, Nov. 3 at the Chestnut Ridge Research Building in Morgantown. Participation is limited to 20 people, and the workshop will focus on topics such as Hadoop and Spark.

WVU High Performance Computing has been chosen to host the event at a satellite location by the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and XSEDE (Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment), a single virtual system that scientists can use to interactively share computing resources, data, and expertise.

Students will soon be able to use a new tool called Schedule Builder to create customized class schedules faster and easier, with less guesswork and risk of making a mistake. The tool also improves your chances of getting a full schedule and graduating on time.

Schedule Builder, which will be available this fall, lets you pick the classes you want to take in the coming semester and enter “breaks” when other obligations prevent you from taking classes. Schedule Builder then automatically generates every possible combination of classes and shows schedules in a grid view with the times, locations and instructors.

The eCampus Request System, electronic Student Evaluation of Instruction (eSEI) and several other services will be unavailable 7-9 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 18 for important maintenance.

Additional systems that may be unavailable are: Athletic Trainer Scheduling (ATSH); Author; AwardU; Enterprise Request App; and http://invam.wvu.edu/.

ITS is moving the downtown drop-off and pickup box for test scanning from Hodges Hall to the more convenient Mountainlair Service Center (copy center) on Monday, Oct. 12. Scanning software is also being upgraded so the same paperwork and reports are available at both the downtown location and the Evansdale Library.

This change was postponed until mid-term grades had been completed. The process for Student Evaluation of Instruction (SEI) is not changing. Get more information and instructions for test scanning.

Want to keep your private information PRIVATE? You’re your own best defense against hackers. Information Technology Services strongly suggests you have a unique password for each of your important accounts so that if one is compromised, the attacker won’t have immediate access to everything.

Don’t share your passwords with anyone, don’t use biographical details to create them, and don’t leave your password in an obvious location where it can be stolen, such as under your keyboard, or taped to your monitor or wall. If you write it down, lock it up.

Students and faculty are invited to attend two MATLAB technical seminars on Oct. 27-28, featuring a MathWorks engineer.

The Oct. 27 session, “Data Analysis with MATLAB,” is set for 2-4 p.m. in room 130 of Colson Hall. Learn how to acquire, analyze and visualize data through mathematical, statistical, engineering and scientific functions that support common technical computing workflows.

WVU faculty, staff and students will notice a slight change in the appearance of the eCampus login screen starting Sunday, Oct. 11.

To improve consistency across applications, users will now click on the blue Login button and see the same single sign-on page that is used for many other WVU applications. Previously, users entered their name and password directly on the eCampus landing page.