Office 365 - Collaboration Tools, File Storage, Virtual Office Hours, &More

By Lisa Efing-Guida, January 23, 2021

Did you know that as an Ithaca College faculty member you have access to more than 15 Microsoft applications and services that can help streamline your productivity, communication, and collaboration? Visit apps.ithaca.edu and click on the Office 365 Portal to check out the variety of applications available to you. You can also download the latest version of Office, Office 365 ProPlus, on your personal device, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneDrive. Ithaca-College-owned devices should have the latest version of Office already installed.

Here are some featured applications that can help you stay organized this semester:

  • Bookings – publish an office hours calendar, integrated with Outlook, and let students book virtual appointments with you through Teams or Zoom
  • Excel – create spreadsheets, model and analyze data, and explore pivot tables
  • Forms – create quick surveys, quizzes, and polls
  • OneDrive – manage your personal files, with automatic backup, version history, and the ability to access and share files anywhere, anytime
  • OneNote – create a digital free-form notebook that allows you to organize your notes in one central application, collaborate with your students using a OneNote Class Notebook, and use search to find content
  • Planner – create project plans within Microsoft Teams and assign tasks to members of the team
  • PowerPoint – enhance your slide show with PowerPoint Designer, and rehearse your presentations with Presenter Coach
  • Sway – create engaging, interactive presentations to share your story
  • Teams – chat and collaborate with other faculty, students, and staff, manage search committee work, or communicate with a research team (learn more about Teams below)
  • To Do – create personal to-do lists, track deadlines, view tasks from Planner, and manage your flagged email
  • Word – edit and collaborate on shared documents

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a desktop, mobile, and web-based communication and collaboration platform that brings together Office 365 applications and third-party tools into a shared workspace. Teams makes it easy for a group of people to work together in real-time around a topic or a project. Teams includes chat conversations, file sharing and collaboration, online meeting and web-conferencing, audio and video calling options, quick access to OneDrive, and more.

Please visit our IT Service Catalog to request a team.

Office 365 Accessibility

There are a variety of accessibility features and resources available through Microsoft Office 365. Here are some featured resources and items to explore:

Create a document in Word Online and experiment with a few of these tools today!

  • Home tab – use Dictate to convert speech into text
  • Review tab – use Translate to translate your text into a different language
  • View tab – use Learning Tools to hear your document read aloud, translate your text into another language, improve focus using line focus, and more

More Information

Contact the Business Productivity team to learn more about Office 365 applications and how they can enhance your team, unit, or department. Visit the Microsoft Support site for help and learning resources, and the Microsoft 365 Training site for video training tutorials.

If you have any questions, please reach out to the Information Technology Service Desk for assistance.

Information Technology Service Desk
ithaca.edu/itchat
servicedesk@ithaca.edu
607-274-1000
104 Job Hall