Technical Requirements

Students are expected to meet the minimum technical requirements (found in your MPH Welcome Packet under Technical Requirements) for taking online courses in the program. Please be aware that there may be specific software requirements for certain courses in your program. In addition, it is expected that you be able to:

Computer Skills

• Turn on, restart, and shut down a computer, its monitor, and its printer.
• Have consistent and stable access to the internet.
• Launch applications (programs), quit, and switch between programs.
• Use a standard keyboard to type, erase text, and move the cursor.
• Use a spell checker.
• Use a mouse to open, close, minimize, and move/resize windows and menus on the desktop to activate commands, reveal menus, and move (drag) screen elements.
• Use a scroll bar.
• Create, rename, and delete folders and directories to organize files.
• Find, open, copy, move, rename, and delete files.
• Find files by switching views and conducting keyword searches.
• Select multiple files or folders.
• Understand how to insert and remove a pen/flash/thumb drive, or external drive.
• Save and retrieve files from storage devices such as a hard drive, CD disk, thumb (pen), or external drive
• Understand how to work in the cloud including using collaborative documents, saving files, uploading files, downloading files, and organizing files.
• Print files.
• Create/print accessible pdf files.
• Create accessible PowerPoint presentations (or equivalent).
• Create a spreadsheet.
• Zip (compress) a folder/file.
• Access or change network settings to connect to the internet via wifi, Ethernet, or other network connection.

Word Processing

• Create, save, delete, and print a new, accessible document using a word processor such as Microsoft Word.
• Locate an existing word processed file, and edit and save changes to that file.
• Cut, copy, and paste text within and between documents, or to another location.
• Understand and use auto word wrap.
• Save a word-processed document in .RTF or HTML format.
• Format and change text formatting such as font style and size, and paragraph alignment.

Internet Skills

• Access the World Wide Web using a browser such as Firefox, Safari, or Chrome.
• Download and install browser plug-ins for common software applications.
• Manage routine browser issues and settings (clear browser history and cache, manage pop-ups, and manage mixed content, including secure and non-secure items, and accept embedded multimedia content).
• View a specific site by entering a URL (Internet address) for example, http://www.google.com
• Use the “Bookmark” or “Favorites” feature of your browser to create, access, maintain, and manage a list of web pages.
• Use an Internet search engine such as http://www.google.com to find specific information on the web.
• Copy bookmark/favorite/URL/hyperlink to a word processor or email.
• Open, save, and upload Adobe Acrobat files (PDF files), word processed files, and images in various formats.

Email Assessment

• Use an email program such as Outlook to send, receive, reply to, forward, and search email messages.
• Attach a file to an email message, and open and save incoming email attachments.
• Print/save/store/organize information in folders, and delete and retrieve email messages.
• Use the “address book” email feature to store contact information, and create and maintain “groups” to facilitate sending a message to a group of people.