Tomorrow's the last day on the job for Ruth Kropf, supervisor of the university's health services. She's held that post since 2001, and before that served as the department's "information nurse" for 13 years. "She has provided leadership and support to the clinic team on a daily basis, as well as through some challenging times such as SARS and H1N1," a colleague says. "She has managed and balanced multiple tasks and programs, including the annual TB and Flu clinics, and has been instrumental in the implementation of electronic medical records within the clinic." Kropf officially retires September 1.

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How not to lose confidential data

“Privacy breaches make headlines!” says Jason Testart, the university’s director of information security services — and that’s never a good thing.

Says a memo this week from Testart (right): “With the start of the fall term right around the corner, many faculty and staff are finding themselves handling personal information belonging to a whole new group of students. Names, contact information, student ID numbers, student assignments, and marks are all examples of personal information that members of the university are expected to keep private

“Here are some things that you can do to keep information, stored electronically, private and secure.”

• Think about where you store information. “Ideally, keep sensitive/ personal information on a file server located in a secure campus location. If you need to store such information on a laptop or off-campus, then you need to make use of encryption.  IST offers full-disk encryption software for university equipment, and your local IT support provider should be able to help with employing the appropriate encryption technology for your needs.”
• Only keep the information you need. “Set aside some time every term to purge old email and files that you know you don’t need. Use Waterloo’s records retention schedules for guidance.
• If accessing your computer or files from off-campus, use the campus VPN service.
• Do not share your passwords with anyone.
• Update the software on your computer. “There is software available for Microsoft Windows users that can help.”

Sometime in the fall, Testart adds, IST will be offering a Skills for the Electronic Workplace course on Working from home using your PC that will include a more detailed look at security tips and tools to help you keep information safe.

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Just a few other notes on a Monday

Work to install new light poles around the ring road is continuing, and much of the circumference now temporarily has a double set of poles, the old black ones and the new silver ones. The crew with the cherry-picker are coming up to a ticklish part of the job, says Gary Kosar of the plant operations department: "On Monday [that's today] there will be short lane closures to unload the concrete poles. On Tuesday the left turn lanes exiting the University on both Columbia Street and University Avenue will be closed for short periods of time to allow for installation of concrete lamp posts."

The Universiade, otherwise known as the World University Summer Games, has been taking place over the past few days at Shenzhen in China's Guangdong province, just north of Hong Kong. Waterloo's presence at the games is largely in the Canadian golf team, which features Devon Rizzo, a management sciences student and star of the women Warriors. Carla Munch, Rizzo's coach for the Warriors, and Dave Hollinger, head coach of the Waterloo men's program, are on the golf coaching staff at the games.

Communitech, the umbrella organization for local high technology companies, held a "Techvibe" recruitment event Thursday at the Waterloo Inn, in part to highlight opportunities for individuals whose jobs at Research In Motion are coming to an end. Several hundred people came by, and it's worth while just as a snapshot of the Waterloo Region tech sector to quote the full list of companies who were announced as taking part: Desire2Learn, Sybase, Fibernetics Corp, Accelerator Centre, Christie Digital, Client Outlook, Dean Group, Descartes, Covarity, Google, Virtek Vision International Inc, The Economical Insurance Group, Unitron Hearing Ltd, Manulife Financial, Will Pwn 4 Food, ANTVibes Inc, I Think Security, InfiniDy Corp, Sun Life Financial, POHSA, ODScore, Agfa HealthCare, IMS, Enflick Inc, Skybound, Xylotek Solutions, Nuvation, Brock Solutions, EA Games, well.ca, Virtual Causeway, Crawford & Company, PEER Group, Kik Interactive, Equitable Life, Lone Wolf Real Estate Technologies, McAfee, Inc, BOOM Digital Media Group, Trustwave and eSentire Inc.

And . . . a small correction to last Tuesday's Daily Bulletin comes from Stephen Murphy of the department of environment and resource studies: "The photo of Josh Diegel and Justin Gaudon is more likely from the series of ERS courses at Huntsville, as they were taking those courses rather than ENVS 200 (my grad student Colin Yates, as one of the EcoSim principals, was there demonstrating the tool). This is an understandable conflation because the EcoSim tool was used in several of the Waterloo Summit Centre for the Environment at Huntsville courses as well as being used in ENVS 200."

CAR

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