Issue 10, October 22, 2018 - Grand Valley Lanthorn

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GRAND VALLEY

A L L E N D A L E & G R A N D R A P I DS , M I C H I G A N ST U D E N T- R U N P U B L I C A T I O N S // P R I N T · O N L I N E · M O B I L E // L A N T H O R N . C O M

M O N D A Y, O C TO B E R 2 2 , 2 0 1 8 // VO L . 5 3 N O. 1 0

POLICE

Gone phishing: GVPD addresses email scam BY LAUREEN HORAN ASSOCIATE1@LANTHORN.COM

the football game, but more importantly a sense of motivation to out-fundraise Saginaw Valley through the annual charity competition,” Mattler said. A number of events are planned for the week, including a corn maze fundraiser on Friday, Oct. 26 as well as a Pie Day. “We have events we use [every year] along with new events,” Engler said. “Some returning events are our Pie Day where volunteers get a pie tin filled with ‘pie cream’ rubbed all over their face for a small price paid for by friends, roommates and pedestrians walking through the

After a recent email scam floated around to students at Grand Valley State University, the Grand Valley Police Department and IT HelpDesk is warning students to watch out for phishing, the fraudulent collection of personal information via email. Last week, some students received an email recruiting for a personal assistant job. The email gives a job description, wage information and other seemingly legitimate details to garner student interest. However, after responding to the message, many students caught on quickly that something wasn’t right. “(GVPD) received several calls last week from students regarding this scam,” said GVPD Captain Jeff Stoll. “The scammer wanted to send students a check or deposit and then have them use it to purchase gift cards and then send back to the scammer.” While most students saw the red flags, Stoll said that one unlucky student is now out $300 thanks to the deceptive interaction. While it’s good to report these crimes, there is only so much that can be done to solve the situation. “It’s unfortunate, but cybercrime is very different from physical crime,” Stoll said. “We funnel a lot of these phishing emails up to the FBI... they have an internet crime database they can use to analyze these cases and take further action from there.” There are a lot of different red flags students can look for so they don’t fall victim to a scam, according to Sue Korzinek, associate vice president and chief information officer of institutional technology. “Emails that ask for personal information or send you to a form to enter personal information is always a scam,” Korzinek said. “Emails that have a sense of urgency for you to do what they are asking (are also phishing).” While you can block the email addresses that these come from,

SEE BOV | A2

SEE PHISHING | A2

DELICIOUS: A donor delivers food to the Replenish Food Pantry in the Kirkhof Center. The pantry was selected to be the charity of choice to receive funds during this year’s Battle of the Valleys fundraiser. Replenish’s main goal is to assist students on campus who struggle getting food. GVL | SHEILA BABBITT

GV, Saginaw Valley showcase fundraising rivalry with Battle of the Valleys BY JAMES KILBORN JKILBORN@LANTHORN.COM

E

ast versus west, Cardinals versus Lakers, Grand Valley versus Saginaw Valley. Grand Valley State University’s Student Senate is kicking off the 2018 Battle of the Valleys this week in preparation for the upcoming rivalry game occurring on Saturday, Oct. 27. Although the football game is often the focus during the week, the rivalry extends beyond the goal lines, as both schools are competing to raise funds for charity organizations within their communities. This year’s funds go toward

the Replenish Food Pantry, an on-campus charity tasked with assisting students who may be struggling with food insecurity. Student Senate VP of Campus Affairs Carter Engler sees the events as an opportunity to bring students, faculty and alumni closer together and demonstrate how generous GVSU is in supporting local charities that help those within the region. “This game is so important because we are rivals — not just because of the differing names, but each team plays a hard ball game and brings in a great fan base and school spirit moral boost,” Engler said. “This particular rivalry is significant because

since it’s the most talked about and attended game, both schools have agreed to make the very best of this event by using the publicity to gain a better connection between students, alumni, local businesses and the surrounding community to fund raise for their own charity of choice.” Student Senate Executive VP Morgan Mattler said that although the football rivalry has existed for much longer, the charity competition has become increasingly competitive, with both schools eager to beat the other when it comes to fundraising. “There is a different feeling on campus during this week, as there is both anticipation for

INCLUSION

Blackboard Ally provides resources to improve accessibility BY NICK MORAN NEWS@LANTHORN.COM

Many students may not have noticed the small, grey arrow added next to files in Blackboard over the summer, but for the nearly 1,600 students with documented disabilities on campus, it may make a world of difference. The visibly subtle change comes as part of an additional tool added to Blackboard called Blackboard Ally, which has been increasing the accessibility of files since its first semester with a full student body this fall. Blackboard Ally is a tool that works in conjunction with Blackboard to analyze files and convert them into a variety of accessible formats to better support students with disabilities, said Associate Director of eLearning and Emerging Technologies Eric Kunnen. Through faculty accounts, the tool also provides educators with resources to view the current accessibility ratings of their materials, as well as tutorials to raise their ratings. “Blackboard Ally is an accessibility solution to help faculty and students understand and

get insight a to the level of accessibility in the content of their courses,” Kunnen said. “Also, as an institution, it gives us insight globally as to how are we doing for an accessibility standpoint across all of our courses from a compliance standpoint. The third piece is providing students with unique ways of accessing content in an alternative format.” Kunnen said that Ally keeps in mind Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 AA when creating alternate formats, which is an industry standard. The application also follows the 2021 Strategic Plan which supports utilizing new technology, Blackboard and promoting inclusivity. In meeting all of these requirements, Kunnen also said faculty don’t need to change the way they upload files to Blackboard — Ally passively creates a variety of formats. “Ally in general is a pretty unique application,” Kunnen said. “On the market, there’s a lot of accessibility checkers for web content, but I’m not familiar with many solutions that check files that are uploaded SEE ACCESSIBLE | A2

HELPING HAND: Blackboard Ally was recently added to Blackboard to increase accessibility of the thousands of documents GVSU courses host every year. This fall was the first semester Ally was used by a full student body. COURTESY | BLACKBOARD

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