EITS Status and Activity Report for November 2012 Prepared by Timothy M.

Chester, Vice President for Information Technology 1. Announcements for Faculty and Staff Meetings Recent Information Disclosure. The Vice President for Information Technology deeply regrets the recent disclosure of personnel information that affected 7,847 current and former employees. Letters to the affected individuals were sent via first-class mail to each individuals last known mail address, beginning on October 17, 2012. Individuals affected by the disclosure are being provided with credit monitoring, free of charge, and should call the EITS help desk if they have questions and to confirm whether their information was disclosed. The help desk can be reached at (706) 542-3106. The VPIT is available to student, faculty, or staff groups to answer questions and hear concerns regarding this incident. Lynda.com Online Training Now Available. After the completion of testing with key University personnel, EITS is pleased to release Lynda.com to all students, faculty, and staff. Lynda.com provides an online video-based library of over 1300 courses on topics such as business and productivity software, design and communications software, and general IT support. Lynda.com can be accessed by browsing to http://lynda.uga.edu. For more information about all of the online training resources available through EITS, browse to http://eits.uga.edu/learning_and_training. Decommissioning of the Sakai Platform. Given the Universitys adoption of Desire2Learn as its next-generation learning management system (LMS), the test deployment of the Sakai system will be taken offline, effective June 30, 2013. While there are no official courses being hosted via Sakai, EITS is aware of several offices that are using the Sakai LMS to organize and distribute documents. Individuals who currently have access to Sakai will be contacted by the end of the calendar year and provided with recommendations for replacing their use of Sakai. Individuals who would like to begin this conversation now are encouraged to contact Shawn Ellis (spellis@uga.edu).

2. Support for Student Technology Services New Printing Kiosks for Students. EITS is piloting a new printing technology for students, faculty and staff, which will be available throughout several locations on the main Athens and Health Sciences campuses. Building on a kiosk model, the new stations will provide a cloud-based printing solution that will allow customers to print documents from any location for later release from any print kiosk. Users can print from their workstations or laptops, as well as from their mobile devices with the iPhone and Android apps. Printing from a print kiosk will be available at the same low cost $0.06/page that printing customers pay today. Ten kiosks will be available throughout the main Athens and Health Sciences campuses after the Thanksgiving break. Colleges and units wishing to adopt this solution for their locations should email Shawn Ellis for more information (spellis@uga.edu). Development of UGA Student Mobile App Begins. With the arrival of Director of Web and Mobile Technology David Crouch, EITS has begun working with SGA President Will Burgess and the Student Government Association to develop a new mobile application featuring UGA technology services for students. This app will be built as an extension of
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EITS Status and Activity Report for November 2012

the MyUGA portal, and is based on major technology upgrades to the portal that are ongoing, and are anticipated to be available in 2013 for the UGA community. Griffin Campus goes Paws-Secure. The rollout of the ubiquitous secure Wireless network service, Paws-Secure, continues across the UGA campuses and it has now been extended to the campus in Griffin. By using Paws-Secure, students, faculty, and staff at this campus have access to the same Wireless network service that is in operation at other UGA campuses. This expansion of Paws-Secure is in response to community feedback expressing a desire for standardized Wireless Internet service across all UGA facilities.

3. Support for Academic and Administrative Computing NOLIJ Imaging System Rollout Begins Campus-Wide. Over the past three years, University offices in admissions and financial aid have invested in building a foundation to support document imaging, retrieval, and archiving as a part of their processes. Now, in partnership with EITS, this platform (named NOLIJ pronounced knowledge) is being made available to the entire University community as a central, standard platform for departments. Over the upcoming eighteen months, NOLIJ will be expanded to other offices as a part of the ConnectUGA/Banner implementation, as well as to offices in the Faculty Affairs and Finance and Administration divisions. To inquire about the use of this platform in your department, please email Greg Topp (gtopp@uga.edu). Qualtrics Web Survey Tool Available to Students, Faculty, and Staff. Through a partnership between the Vice President for Information Technology, Franklin College, Terry College, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and other campus units, a campus-wide license for the Qualtrics Web Survey tool has been made available for use, free of charge, to UGA students, faculty, and staff. The tool has an easy point-andclick interface, over 80 different question types, a library of surveys and questions, branching questions, a survey tracker to remind respondents, flexible reporting, and unlimited customer support. Units desiring to use Qualtrics should contact their local departmental IT staff. For more information on Qualtrics, please point your Web browser to http://wiki.eits.uga.edu/help/index.php/Qualtrics. Two-factor, Hardware Token Authentication for Sensitive Systems. In response to the recent information disclosure, which stemmed from unknown perpetrators using the MyID and password of a current employee, the University is assessing the impacts of deploying two-factor, hardware based authentication as a means of further protecting access to information systems that contain sensitive information. As the disclosure investigation continues, the Administrative Systems Advisory Group (ASAC), convened by University Controller Holley Schramski, will be working with the Information Security Office and functional owners to consider both the advisability and associated policy implications of adopting this manner of accessing critical University information systems.

4. Support for Research UGA Awarded Grant from Amazon.com to Investigate Cloud Services for Supporting Faculty Research. EITS was awarded a $5,000 grant for Amazon.com cloud computing services in response to its proposal to investigate the use of cloud services by faculty engaged in computational research. With these grant funds, faculty members working through the GACRC will have access to Amazons services to support specialized types of computations, particularly the use of HADOOP when analyzing Big Data. There will be a campus event for faculty on December 5th to highlight Big Data efforts at UGA. Faculty
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EITS Status and Activity Report for November 2012

interested in participating in this investigation or event should email Shawn Ellis for more information (spellis@uga.edu). Search for a GACRC Director Near Completion. The search advisory committee charged with identifying finalists for the position of director of the Georgia Advanced Computing Resource Center (GACRC) has completed on-site interviews with three finalists. A hiring announcement for this position is expected in November.

5. Core Campus Infrastructure Assessment of UGA Networking Support Options Begins. The Vice President for Information Technology has engaged the services of a third-party consultancy, Goldstein & Associates, to assess the feasibility, desirability, and best practices associated with campus network services. The goal of this engagement is to assess UGAs current model for charging for network services against best practices, and to make recommendations on a new model that would provide a more stable base of support for the campus network. Through this engagement, Goldstein & Associates has interviewed several key constituencies, including representatives from colleges and administrative units, and the consultancy will work within a similarly comprised advisory group in preparing its recommendations. Additional Disaster / Continuity Investments for UGA Data Centers. The redundant UGA data center located on the north campus has received several critical upgrades during the past month, designed to increase the capabilities and resiliency of this site. This included a new backup power generator, as well as the installation of other systems. The north campus data center contains redundant equipment designed to ensure that UGAs communication infrastructure can continue operating if primary systems in the south campus data center are unavailable. These upgrades have been completed through a partnership with the Facilities Management division.

6. Did you Know? EITS Participates in USG Procurement Expo. On October 15, 2012, Assistant CIO Lynn Wilson gave a presentation at the USG Procurement Expo on EITS major projects for 2012 2013. The purpose of this forum was to discuss opportunities for University contracts targeted to small and minority-owned vendors. UGA Presentations at Rock Eagle Conference. Employees from the University of Georgia delivered nineteen presentations at the annual USG Computing Conference at the Rock Eagle Center. These presentations were on a variety of topics, ranging from system administration and Web development to strategic planning and IT leadership. Eighteen employees presented at these sessions. iPhone and iPad Upgrades Cause Internet Spike. The University of Georgia experienced its highest one-day use of Internet capacity on September 19, 2012, as students, faculty, and staff rushed to upgrade their iPhones and iPads to iOS 6 the latest version of the Apple mobile operating system. The mass downloading of these upgrades caused Internet usage to increase by over 40% at one point in the day, to a total usage of approximately 3.6 Gb. Despite this sustained and heavy use, the service quality on UGAs 10 Gb Internet backbone was not degraded in any way.

EITS Status and Activity Report for November 2012

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