Registration for in-person and online Brightspace workshops is now open to instructors, staff, and graduate assistants. All UWindsor courses will be in the Brightspace learning management system (LMS) in Winter 2023; the Centre for Teaching and Learning recommends instructors sign up early for training.

“The LMS implementation team has been working tirelessly to prepare the system and the supports to help instructors and students transition to Brightspace since the new LMS was announced,” says director Erika Kustra.

“With the Brightspace sandboxes opening ahead of schedule for instructors and departmental support staff, now is a great time to attend a workshop ahead of the rush. We want to help all instructors feel comfortable in the new system before the January 2023 start of classes.”

In addition to the synchronous workshop sessions, more training and support resources are available on the dedicated UWindsor Brightspace website, including FAQs, how-to documents, links to Brightspace’s self-paced guided online training and resources, and other help.

Information Technology Services will begin to migrate the last two years of courses without student data from Blackboard into the new LMS later this month.

Email questions about the implementation process and requests for departmental training to brightspace@uwindsor.ca.

The student centre’s Marketplace food court will open earlier than usual next week to provide coffee for its campus clientele.

The Marketplace will start serving Tim Hortons coffee at 8 a.m. Oct. 10 to 14, while other Food Services outlets — the Starbucks locations in the student centre and the Toldo Lancer Centre and the Tim Hortons Express in the Centre for Engineering Innovation — are closed for the week.

Campus food outlets will operate on this schedule for Reading Week:

• Bru in Alumni Hall, 4 to 10 p.m. Oct. 10 to 16
• U Club in Vanier Hall, 4:30 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16

and in the Marketplace:

• Hot line station, 4:30 to 7 p.m. Oct. 10 to 15
• Pasta station, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 10 to 13,
  11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 14
• Pizza Pizza, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 10 to 16
• Subway, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 10 to 14,
  10:45 a.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 15 and 16

Any locations not listed will be closed for Reading Week. Check details on the Food Services website.

It’s magical to see the night sky in high resolution, says physics student Jordyn Matthews. A co-president of the Physics Club, she volunteered Saturday for Stargazing at UWindsor, which invited the public to a campus parking lot to observe celestial objects with the help of local members of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

“This type of hands-on opportunity reignites my love for physics,” Matthews said. “We saw people with different levels of knowledge, from kids that were eager to see the craters on the moon to hobbyists prepared with their own constellation maps. I could feel the excitement in the air while participants rushed back in line for more telescope views.”

Certainly, 12-year-old Olivia Lewis shared that excitement.

“That was fun,” she said after a turn looking through a high-powered telescope. “I never saw Jupiter before. Did you know Jupiter has moons?”

Steve Pellarin, astronomy instructor in the physics department and past president of the Windsor branch of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, says the turnout was encouraging.

“Our best count shows that we had over 160 people visit our telescopes and enjoy the views of Saturn’s rings and giant moon Titan, Jupiter’s swirling storm clouds and the Galilean moons, swarms of craters and mountains in the moon’s highlands region, and a variety of star clusters and planetary nebulae,” he said.

“Visitors were also excited to see a spectacularly bright pass of the International Space Station almost directly overhead during our event.”

Pellarin hopes the event’s success will help to jump-start efforts to form an Astronomy Club on campus, and asks those interested to watch for more details after Reading Week.

Lancer men’s baseball will host a lot of W’s this weekend in the Ontario University Athletics far west regional tournament. Joining Windsor at the Libro Field in Amherstburg are teams from Western, Waterloo, and Wilfrid Laurier universities.

The round-robin stage will feature these games:

Friday, Oct. 7

• 10 a.m. Windsor vs. Western
• 1 p.m. Laurier vs. Western
• 4 p.m. Laurier vs. Waterloo
• 7 p.m. Windsor vs. Waterloo

Saturday, Oct. 8

• 11 a.m. Windsor vs. Laurier
• 2 p.m. Western vs. Waterloo

With the top two finishers playing for the regional championship at 5 p.m. Saturday.

The champion will go on to compete in the provincial tournament Oct. 15 and 16.

In the first half of 2022, more than 6,300 phishing attempts were reported, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. The centre estimates this accounts for only five percent of actual incidents.

Phishing attempts are increasingly common and take various forms, including email, text, call, and voicemail, all trying to compromise the University’s data and individuals’ personal information. By being on the lookout for signs of phishing, the UWindsor community can protect itself from these cyber-attacks that seek to steal accounts and confidential information.

“The University’s data is threatened daily by cyber criminals trying to gain access,” says Marcin Pulcer, interim executive director of Information Technology Services.

“What may appear to be helpful or responding to an urgent email or text could pose dire consequences to the organization. We ask that our campus community think twice before supplying access to UWindsor information and sharing personal information. It requires a vigilant team effort.”

IT Services suggests five tips to avoid getting phished:

1. Evaluate the request details.
   Is the message unusual or unexpected?
   Is there urgency?
   Does it ask you to open an attachment or link you were not expecting?
   Are you asked to log in or supply personal information on a form or website?
2. Examine the sender’s name and email address carefully.
   Is it from a public email like “gmail.com” or another free email service instead of an organization or business?
   Is it from someone who does not usually regularly email you?
3. Review the message.
   Are there spelling errors, bad grammar, or odd formatting?
   Does it have an ambiguous or missing signature?
   Do the graphics look off?
   Are they asking you to switch to a different communication tool?
4. Check any links in the email.
   When you hover over the links, are the web addresses suspicious?
   Are the characters correct or are they lookalikes?
5. For scam calls, beware of a request to access your computer.
   Do they want to connect to your computer via remote desktop?
   Do they request to share your login information to an online account?

We often trust messages coming from within our organization or from a reputable company. If you think the message may be legitimate, but you answered yes to any of the above questions, contact the sender through a different communication channel to verify it — do not respond to a potential hacker.

Otherwise, report the message to spam@uwindsor.ca or contact the IT Service Desk at 519-253-3000, ext. 4440.

Find examples of phishing messages on the Cybersecurity Awareness website.

Led by IT Services, Cybersecurity Awareness Month efforts highlight cybersecurity issues relevant to the UWindsor community. More information can be found at uwindsor.ca/cybersecurity.

Temporarily located on the lower level of the Leddy West building, the Law Library is once more offering evening and weekend hours.

Beginning Tuesday, Oct. 11, it will open to patrons:

• Monday to Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 10:50 p.m.
• Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:20 p.m.
• Saturday 11 a.m. to 4:50 p.m.
• Sunday 1 to 10:50 p.m.

The library will host an all-day drop-in session for law students on Tuesday, Oct. 11, to kick off its return to evening and weekend hours. Stop by, say hello, see the space, and grab some snacks or a drink, while supplies last.

Library staff will also be collecting items for the Campus Food Bank and welcome all donations of non-expired, non-perishable foods.

A clothing drive by UWindsor members of the Golden Key International Honour Society is aimed at supporting those in need, but could reward one lucky donor.

The local chapter is extending its drive for donations to the Homelessness and Housing Help Hub to the wider student body, says president Saher Zaidi, a social work major.

“It’s such a great opportunity to support those in need as Thanksgiving approaches,” she says. “The hub, with a mission of improving the social welfare and quality of life for its clients, reports it is in major need of men’s socks and underwear.”

Contributions should be dropped off between 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. at the hub, located in the former Windsor Water World at 400 Wyandotte St. East.

To encourage participation, the club is offering a $25 Amazon gift card to a random donor. To qualify, submit a photo of your donation to gkey@uwindsor.ca.