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Connectivity

Connect to WiFi on campus

Thursday, January 27th, 2022

 

The Wi-Fi network used to connect to the internet access is called eduRoam. Here we explain what it is, how to register and why it is necessary.

What is eduRoam?

eduRoam (education roaming) is the secure, world-wide roaming access service developed for the international research and education community. eduRoam allows students, researchers and staff from participating institutions to obtain internet connectivity across campus and when visiting other participating institutions by simply opening their laptop.

To connect to eduRoam and start using Wi-Fi on campus follow these steps.

 

eduroam available at Tygerberg

Tuesday, October 5th, 2021

TENET and the Western Cape Government, in partnership with Liquid Intelligent Technologies, have been piloting eduroam in four of the Western Cape provincial hospitals:

  • Khayelitsha Hospital
  • Tygerberg Hospital
  • Groote Schuur Hospital 
  • Mowbray Maternity Hospital

The continuation and expansion of this programme within the hospitals and into other hospitals depend on the provincial Department of Health seeing value in the deployment. Unfortunately it seems that the demand on these four sites has been lower than anticipated, which could mean that there’s a risk that the pilot will not be extended. 

We would like to encourage staff and especially students who are on placement within one of the four hospitals where the trial is available to make use of the eduroam facility.

Unfortunately, eduroam coverage isn’t (yet) ubiquitous, with only a few access points in each hospital carrying the network. Currently eduroam is available near the main entrances of each of these hospitals or close to staff areas.  In particular, it is likely to be found close to signage for Liquid’s own Free Public Wi-Fi (see image right)

Once connected, students should be able to get Internet access without the usual cap that applies to the public Wi-Fi in those locations.  

More on the use of eduroam can be found on our service catalogue.

 

 

To meet or not to meet …

Monday, October 4th, 2021

Due to the current working-from-home situation we are likely to spend more time either in a teams meeting or on a Zoom call. Those working from home might have experienced a sharp increase in the number of virtual meeting invites since lock down started last year.

 We are either bouncing from one meeting to the other or struggling to schedule meetings, trying to establish who’s available and who’s not. This might be a short-term overreaction to the lack of other communication channels and social contact, but it could get in the way of productivity and efficiency.

Productive meetings are ones where you need to share expertise and the topics discussed require synchronous collaboration – where people need to be live at the same time, if not the same place. It is also helpful if you are dealing with conflict or need to build closer relationships.

On the other hand, if there’s no clear outcome, the topics are irrelevant, the outcome could be delivered without a meeting or you have no active role except to listen, then you may want to decline the meeting invitation. Typically, if we look at meeting content 40% of meetings are not necessary at all.

If you accept meeting invitations by default, particularly those without an agenda, you are saying that what the other person wants to talk about is a better use of your time than your own work.

Declining meetings can be a challenge to existing meeting agendas and fixed ways of working, but discuss the necessity of a meeting with your meeting leader. This could open up a discussion in your team about which topics you need to discuss and which are not important. Below is an infographic decision tree which might help you or your colleagues reconsider scheduling a meeting.

Take this opportunity to improve your meetings, save yourself time and improve on working towards a productive environment.

SOURCE: https://www.wrike.com/blog/meeting-infographic-decision-tree/

[ARTICLE BY MANDY WANZA]

 

 

 

WiFi access via eduroam

Thursday, April 8th, 2021

Since the beginning of this year the MatiesWiFi service is no longer available for any staff or students for access to WiFi on campus. Instead you will be required to use eduroam for wireless connections. This change was mainly made to ensure better security. More information.  

To further improve security and comply to eduroam’s GEANT guidelines we had to implement a new security certificate. This certificate will lead to better performance and speed up the sign-on process in future.

If you connect and sign on to eduroam on a Windows device, depending on the versions, you will be prompted with a messages This will happen only once. Click on Connect and continue working as usual.  Similar messages will appear if you work on devices with Linux or Apple operating systems.

NB. Please take note that you need to enter your full sun email address when signing on to eduroam.

 

 

 

 

WiFi during load-shedding

Tuesday, March 16th, 2021

It seems we are never really done with loads-shedding and even though we try our utmost to prepare for the imminent interruptions, there is only so much we can do.

We realise that a stable internet connection in classrooms is vital for lecturers to stream academic content to students. In most university buildings we have generators in place to provide a backup for load-shedding. However, unfortunately we cannot guarantee uninterrupted supply of power. The reasons are as follows:

When load-shedding starts all network equipment loses power and the generator automatically kicks in. The network equipment will do a so-called “cold-boot” which can take several minutes. Subsequently it can take 10 minutes to 30 minutes (in some extreme cases) for the network to function optimally again.

Adding to this delay it could happen that network equipment will not recover automatically when the generator is activated. In these instances the network and WiFi will remain down for the whole duration of the load-shedding slot. 

Stabilising equipment and connections during load-shedding isn’t practically possible since the effort must be repeated once Eskom switches the power back on. However, we do have a monitoring system which checks for the equipment that does not recover by itself. 

In most cases WiFi and the rest of the network should be operational with the help of generator power after about 10 minutes. To ensure that the transition is seamless and network connectivity continues, it would be helpful if staff in the building could, after about 15 minutes after the generator started, check if the WiFi is active or not. 

 

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