June/July 2006 (Vol. XIII, No. 5)

• Information Resources will charge for password resetting effective FY2007
• SAS and SPSS courses offered by Biostatistics Division
• UT Southwestern University Hospital staff: We are your library!
• Information Resources: Intranet Portal is underway
• Find grants funding using COS
• News from the Information Resources Call Center
• Library acquires Faculty of 1000 Medicine
• New MyChart features are now available
• Library offers subscription to images.MD
• Support for Sophos 4.x ending; upgrade soon
• Exam Master Online now available to UT Southwestern

Rather than put a trademark symbol at every occurrence of trademark names, we state that we are using the names only in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringements of the trademark.

To modify your Information Times subscription settings or to receive a password reminder by email, click on Subscribe to Information Times.

Information Resources will charge for password resetting effective FY2007

Information Resources (IR) has successfully implemented the online Self-Service Password Resetting Application to allow users to reset their own Southwestern ID or OAS passwords in the event the passwords are forgotten or locked. However, some clients still prefer to call the IR Call Center to request password resets.

To accommodate these clients, IR will implement a charge plan to fund staffing needs. Effective Sept. 1, 2006, the following password resetting rates will take effect:

• Each campus department or division (identified by its code in OAS/HRMS) will be allowed 100 free Southwestern ID or OAS password resets requested by phone within a single year.
• When a department or division exceeds its annual limit of 100 resets by phone, a $20 charge will be assessed for each additional call made to the IR Call Center to resolve a Southwestern ID or OAS password issue.
  • Departments will be notified when they approach the limit.
  • Departments can monitor their status from statistics published monthly on the IR home page at http://UTSouthwestern.edu/ir . (See the "IR monthly call statistics" link in the Frequently Needed Links section.)
• The charge for every onsite visit from a desktop technician to resolve a password reset issue will be $50.

What can you do to keep your department's password reset/unlock costs down?

• Be prepared. Set up your secret questions in the Self-Service Password Resetting Application now. Then everything will be in place for you to reset your own Southwestern ID or OAS passwords if you forget or lock them. (See the "Accounts & Passwords" link in the Frequently Needed Links section for quick details about setting up your secret questions, a link to an e-learning home page, etc.)
• Use a unique, easy-to-remember password for your Windows workstation, and don't synchronize it with your Southwestern ID password. A high percentage of password reset calls to the IR Call Center arise when a client synchronizes his Windows workstation password with his Southwestern ID password and then changes his Southwestern ID password without making a matching change on his Windows workstation password.

For more details, see the "Workstation password considerations" link on the Accounts & Passwords page mentioned above.

Remember to practice good computer protection techniques. 

• Don't store unencrypted passwords in an easy-to-find location just to avoid password charges. The loss of confidential or sensitive data because someone found your password list under your keyboard tray would incur far more costs than a simple $20 or $50 password reset/unlock.
• Review other computer protection techniques. (Click the "Computer Protection" button on the IR Home Page.)

SAS and SPSS courses offered by Biostatistics Division

The Division of Biostatistics in the Department of Clinical Sciences announces several courses for SAS (Statistical Analysis Software) and SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) in the upcoming months. These courses are designed to assist campus researchers in gaining expertise in performing data analysis for scientific studies.

Brief descriptions of the upcoming courses are as follows:

• SAS: Part I — SAS for Microsoft Windows is a commonly used statistical tool for analyzing scientific and clinical data. However, it is not an easy program to use at first without some initial instruction. This course provides an introduction to data management techniques and common statistical procedures, and a number of hands-on examples are demonstrated. Some of the statistical techniques discussed in this course include t-tests, analysis of variance, correlation, regression, graphics and non-parametrics. Some computing experience and basic knowledge of statistics is assumed for persons taking this course.
   
• SAS: Part II — This course is a frequently requested follow-up course to SAS: Part I. Topics covered in this course include data cleaning and verification techniques; reading data through the DDE procedures; creating data sets from procedure output; do loops, arrays and lookup tables; combining, interleaving, stacking and transposing data sets; creating HTML and PDF output using ODS; and introduction to SAS macros. Statistical procedures discussed include advanced ANOVA models, logistic regression, survival analysis and sample size estimation.  Note: A prerequisite to taking this course is attendance in SAS: Part I or familiarity with SAS programming.
   
• Introduction to SPSS —SPSS for Microsoft Windows is a highly recognized, referenced statistical data analysis tool that is very popular with a number of researchers. An interactive menu-driven program, it contains most of the statistical tools researchers would need in analyzing results from scientific studies. This course introduces users to data entry and manipulation and basic statistical data analysis. Participants leave with the expertise to not only enter and import data into SPSS but also to perform commonly used statistical data analysis techniques on that data. Statistical techniques covered in this course include t-tests, analysis of variance, correlation, regression, graphics and non-parametrics. Some computing experience and basic knowledge of statistics is assumed for persons taking this course.

Each course costs $200, payable by check or IDR, and includes two, three-hour sessions.  All classes are held in room E1.403.  The schedule for the upcoming courses is as follows:

To register for these courses, call the biostatistics division at 214-648-3681.  Please note: Other classes are scheduled occasionally as the need arises; callers are encouraged to inquire.

In addition to offering these courses, biostatistics also offers a site license for both the SAS and SPSS programs, which allows users to obtain a copy of these programs at a highly discounted rate. The SAS license is $200 per year, and the annual SPSS license is $240. Please call for additional information.

Biostatistics faculty members also collaborate with other UT Southwestern faculty on a number of research projects. For more information on courses or to arrange to meet with a statistician, call the division at 214-648-3681.

UT Southwestern University Hospital staff: We are your library!

Now that the St. Paul and Zale Lipshy hospitals have been merged into UT Southwestern University Hospitals and are fully part of UT Southwestern, full privileges at the UT Southwestern Library are available to all staff in both buildings.

What do "full privileges" include?

• From on campus or off, you can access the vast electronic resources offered by the Library: online journals, databases, online books and much more. Find these resources on the Library's home page at http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/library.
• Get help with your medical information questions by calling the Library's information desk at 214-648-2001. Press option "0" to be connected to the desk immediately during our regular business hours.
• Our librarians offer free literature searches, personal consults and answers to your information questions. To request service, call 214-648-2003 or click on "Ask a Librarian" on the home page.
• Our free classes will increase your information skills. See the class list under "Classes" on the home page.
• You can check out eligible Library materials - e.g., books, audiovisuals and PDAs. Laptops are available for in-Library use.
• You are eligible for other services as well. See the "Library Services" list on the home page.

To get to the Library's home page from the campus home page, click on "Library" (under "Campus Services"), and then click on "Library Intranet" (under "Quick Links").

Information Resources: Intranet Portal is underway

Development of the "Intranet Portal" — UT Southwestern's internal communications Web site — is progressing and incorporates many features that users indicated were important through feedback collected from the campus community.  The feedback was then analyzed and evaluated by the Intranet Taskforce.

The Taskforce is chaired by Kirk Kirksey, Vice President for Information Resources.   Voting members include Dr. Carol Croft, Dr. Charles Ginsburg, Dr. Harold Garner, Laurie Thompson, Dr. Leon Avery, Peggy Bailey, Philip Schoch, Stacey Rychtyk, Suzan Younger, Trish Smith and Dr. William Behrendt.  Non-voting members include Dr. Hal Lindholm, Shane Closser, Pamela Sternweis and Susan Hudnall.

The table below shows the results of the analysis done by the Taskforce.  If you have comments or questions about the Intranet Portal, or if you would like to provide additional input, please contact Kirk Kirksey (kirk.kirksey@utsouthwestern.edu) or Shane Closser (shane.closser@utsouthwestern.edu).

Rankings from Intranet Taskforce

Find grants funding using COS

Researchers and scholars use COS (formerly "Community of Science") to access information on grants, fellowships and awards from national and international funding organizations (e.g., profit, nonprofit, public, private and governmental). COS is the "one stop shopping resource" for funding information, with listings of grants worth more than $33 billion.

The services offered by COS and available to UT Southwestern users include:

• Search COS Funding Opportunities (you can save these searches)
• Create and receive funding alerts (you can run alerts weekly)
• Use the COS Workbench to manage your COS activities

Several recent enhancements include:

• Track up to 100 funding opportunities on your COS Workbench
• Save COS Funding Opportunities searches as alert searches
• Save up to 20 alert searches
• Receive weekly emails for searches that you identify specifically

To access the resource, click on "COS Grants Funding" under "Science Reference" on the Library's home page at http://www4.utsouthwestern.ed/library.  The resource is available from any computer on the UT Southwestern campus without logging in.

However, to access the resource from off-campus or manage Funding Alerts from either on- or off-campus, users will need to register for an account with the COS Workbench and create a username and password.

For more information about COS, contact Kay Chapa, education librarian, by email at kay.chapa@utsouthwestern.edu or by phone at 214-648-2085.

News from the Information Resources Call Center

Extended "prime-time" hours

The Information Resources (IR) Call Center supports the UT Southwestern community 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  However, effective June 1, 2006, extended "Prime Time" hours have been added.

"Level One" support — i.e., Help Desk analysts located at the Data Center — is now available from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. every weekday (Monday through Friday).  Calls made to the IR Call Center phone (214-648-7600) are routed to analysts during these service hours.

Calls received outside of the service window (i.e., 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.) are answered by campus operators who will route issues directly to IR's "Level Two" support team:  PC technicians.  The technicians will then return calls within 15 minutes.

Remote desktop assistance services

In many cases, the IR Call Center can now offer you a "house call over the network."  With your permission — and only during the time we're talking with you on the phone — we can either take control of your PC and perform certain tasks for you or show you how to perform them.

The process is one you initiate from the Mednet Menu.  You can terminate it any time you want.  If you have not done so, the analyst will terminate the session at the end of your phone call.  Please do not initiate Remote Desktop Assistance until the analyst says it's OK to begin.

Next time you call the IR Call Center at 214-648-7600, ask the analyst about Remote Desktop Assistance.

Library acquires Faculty of 1000 Medicine

The Library now offers an electronic subscription to Faculty of 1000 Medicine, a "next generation" literature awareness tool that provides a useful way to identify and keep up with quality medical literature.

Faculty of 1000 Medicine comprehensively and systematically highlights and evaluates the most interesting papers published in the medical sciences, based on the recommendations of more than 2,000 of the world's leading medical researchers and clinicians.

Faculty members select, rate and comment on two to four of the most interesting papers they read each month, providing a consensus map of the latest medical literature. Customization features and search facilities then keep users updated with the latest evaluations.

Faculty of 1000 Medicine is a sister product to Faculty of 1000 Biology, to which the Library also subscribes.  Faculty of 1000 Biology highlights and reviews papers published in the biological sciences, based on the recommendations of more than 1,000 leading researchers.

Some of the features of both products are:

• "My F1000 Medicine" or "My F1000 Biology" displays the most recently selected papers in your fields of interest.
• "Email Alerts" send you weekly, biweekly or monthly notices tailored to your areas of interest.
• "Advanced Search" runs and stores simple or sophisticated searches.
• "Current Top 10s" lists the best, classic and most viewed papers across the whole of medicine for each faculty.
• "Hidden Jewels" gives most viewed papers from less obvious journals.
• "Linking" links evaluations to PubMed and PubMed Central, and free full-text links are included for papers published in BioMed Central journals.

Note: Some features may require a brief registration process.

Faculty, staff, students, residents and fellows of UT Southwestern Medical Center as well as employees of UT Southwestern University Hospitals may access this resource by clicking on the following links on the Library's home page at http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/library:

• "Faculty of 1000 Medicine" under "Medical Reference"
• "Faculty of 1000 Biology" under "Science Reference"

New MyChart features are now available

MyChart is our patient's personalized online health source to securely access portions of their UT Southwestern electronic medical record.  Patients of all UT Southwestern clinics using the electronic medical record are eligible to enroll. All clinics will be participating by the end of 2006.

On May 1, several new features were installed during a MyChart upgrade.  Specific features are:

1. Patients may request, cancel, reschedule and confirm appointments from MyChart.
   • Patients can select from a list of providers they have either seen within the past 18 months or are scheduled to see in the next six months.
   • Appointment requests and cancellation messages are routed to an electronic clinic scheduling pool ("InBasket" in Epic) and are filed in a "MyChart Appt Req" folder.
   • Schedulers can call the patient to confirm or reschedule the patient's preferred appointment request with a MyChart message.
   • Once a patient confirms an appointment from MyChart, the appointment drops off of the "Epic Confirm Appts" report. We suggest that patients confirm at least 24 hours in advance, but the report is up-to-the-minute.
   • When an appointment is canceled in MyChart, the patient's "Epic Appointment Desk" is updated to reflect the cancellation.
      
2. The patient will receive appointment reminders seven days prior to their appointments, continuing until their appointment day.
   • MyChart patient messages may be generated to communicate a new test result, an upcoming appointment or any other important information.
   • When a message is initiated, the patient receives an e-mail message to their personal email address — which was provided during the MyChart enrollment process — that informs them of a new message in MyChart.  The e-mail contains the hyperlink for patients to launch directly into MyChart to review this message.
      
3. The patient may send messages to their clinic's nurse pool by selecting their provider from a list in the "Contact Your Clinic" option.
   • Patients can select from a list of providers they have either seen within the past 18 months or are scheduled to see in the next six months.
   • "Contact Your Clinic" messages are triaged like telephone encounters via existing nurse pools from "MyChart Pt Msg" folder in InBasket.

Through MyChart, patients may view their test results, current medications and health issues lists, review past and future appointments, request prescription refills, view reminder messages for upcoming appointments, initiate appointment confirmations or cancellations, send secure messages to their health care team and access health education materials.

Library offers subscription to images.MD

The Library has purchased a subscription to images.MD, an online encyclopedia of medical images with more than 48,000 images from more than 90 collections ranging from allergy to urology.  This resource is available to faculty, staff, students, residents and fellows of UT Southwestern Medical Center as well as employees of UT Southwestern University Hospitals.

Each image in images.MD is accompanied by detailed and informative text contributed by more than 2,000 medical experts. To locate images, users may either browse the image database by specialty or collection (e.g., Fungal Infections, AIDS, etc.) or search by keyword or image type (e.g., table, photograph, etc.).

Authorized users may also:

• Create an individual image library.
• Personalize the image collection.
• Add, edit, or delete text or add personal notes to images using My Slides software.
• Email images to colleagues.
• Create Microsoft PowerPoint presentations of personal slide sets.
• Order CD-ROMs of presentations.

Some features will require a brief registration process to set up a personal account.

To access this resource, just click on "images.MD" under "Medical Reference" on the Library's home page (http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/library).

Support for Sophos 4.x ending; upgrade soon

If you still have the Sophos 4.x Remote Update icon in your System Tray, it's time to upgrade to Sophos 5.x.

Sophos Anti-Virus 5.x is available at no charge from the Mednet Menu (see Software Installers | Sophos).  It is also available at no charge from the Web.  Visit the Information Resources home page at http://utsouthwestern.edu/ir, click on the Mednet & GroupWise button, and then click the Downloads link at the bottom of the left navigation bar.

A Sophos Anti-Virus 5.x CD is also available for $6.50 from the University Stores if you wish to use Sophos at home.

The InterCheck and Remote Update features that were separate in Sophos Anti-Virus 4.x are combined in the 5.x version, and the only icon that will show in your System Tray will be the new Sophos AutoUpdate icon.

Special Notes:

• Full instructions for installation and configuration of Sophos Anti-Virus 5.x are available on the Web.  From the Information Resources home page, click the Computer Protection button and then click the Sophos link.
• Your existing Sophos Anti-Virus 4.x Remote Update will not install the 5.x version.  You must do the 5.x installation.
• Windows 95/98 users must uninstall Sophos 4.x manually before installing 5.x.
• The scheduled scan feature is disabled by default when you install the 5.x version, but you can create new scheduled scans if you wish.
• The Sophos 5.x AutoUpdate feature runs as a "service"; you do not have to be logged into Mednet. If your computer is booted and in Restart Mode, the AutoUpdate feature will continue to function hourly.
• Computer protection is vital to the safety of your equipment and your data. Review other computer protection methods when you click on the Computer Protection button mentioned above.

Exam Master Online now available to UT Southwestern

The UT Southwestern Library has purchased institutional access to Exam Master Online, a recently updated, online USMLE and board preparation and review tool that provides access to thousands of basic and clinical science questions.

Access to the Web-based testing interface is made available for UT Southwestern faculty, staff, students, residents and fellows and for employees at UT Southwestern University Hospitals.

To access the site, just click on "Exam Master Online" under "Medical Reference" on the Library's home page (http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/library). Users are required to register with the system before taking exams and reviewing exam blocks, and the site may only be used from on-campus computers or through Virtual Private Networking (VPN) software.

Once an account has been set up, the system will be able to track not only users' personal information but also any examinations and/or study reviews that they take online. Registered users may view their results and create new exams and review sessions based on their academic needs or weak areas.

The site allows for quick and easy navigation and provides students with the ability to create very customized practice exams and study blocks. It now closely matches what is actually used on the USMLE exam and includes the ability to attach notes to each question.

The Library offered a free trial to this resource beginning in April 2006. All authorized users who used the system during the free trial will continue to have access to all exams taken to date.

As this resource is intended primarily for our primary clientele, we will be periodically reviewing the list of registrants. Individuals who are not affiliated with UT Southwestern or whose eligibility cannot be verified will be denied access. In the event that access is denied by mistake, please be sure to contact Jon Crossno, resource development librarian, at jon.crossno@utsouthwestern.edu or 214-648-2562.