February 15, 2019 Newsletter

All OIT staff are invited to join an expert trainer from Canvas and a member of the LMS admin team for two hours of Canvas training (plus time for questions) on February 26th at 8:00 – 10:00 AM. The focus of the first hour will be basics of getting around Canvas, specifically at what you need to know to develop a training or Professional Development (PD) course. The second hour will be looking at building an effective PD or training course. We will be available for an additional half-hour afterward to answer any questions you may have. If you have a specific topic in mind, please contact Brandon Poulliot or indicate when you register.

Whether you can come for the entire session, drop in a bit late, or even just make the time we've set aside for questions, register and come when you can. FREE coffee and donuts at all sessions before noon! 

Our Telecom team is excited to announce the testing of Cisco Unity Connection Web Inbox - the self-service portal for your voicemail needs! Access your voicemail, reset your PIN, turn your alternate (vacation) greeting on or off, all through the convenience of the web!

To access this service simply visit the Unity website through your on-campus connection or VPN and use your UCCS credentials, if prompted. Once logged in, users can listen to and delete voicemails from the main page. Clicking on the “Settings” option will launch a new tab where you can reset your PIN, adjust your message playback speed (which affects playback speed of messages listened to through the phone), and adjust some greeting settings. At this time, the ability to record greetings over the web is not currently available.  Visit our knowledge base for further instructions. 

Please note, that only the users themselves are able to log in and a delegate will not have access to their accounts. Please send feedback to helpdesk@uccs.edu.

Outdoor wireless coverage is here, and the Wi-Fi team could not be more excited! Over a year in the making, phase one of this large-scale project is close to 100% completion.

Wireless coverage can already be found in many areas indoors throughout campus. This includes classrooms, lounges, labs, meeting halls, cafes, residence halls, etc. The Wi-Fi had been wanting to expand this coverage outdoors for quite some time, but it has taken a lot of planning and design work, as well as securing funding. The team has deployed a few outdoor wireless access points around campus, most notably during recent large-scale construction projects such as the Village at Alpine Valley, the ENT Center for the Arts, as well as adding coverage to the field above Alpine Garage. While the outdoor coverage in these areas has been a warm welcome, the Wi-Fi Team wanted to really expand upon outdoor coverage along some of the more highly trafficked areas on campus.

At approximately 550 acres and growing, the UCCS campus isn’t exactly small. Although the Wi-Fi Team would love to implement wireless coverage across the entire campus, that just is not fiduciarily a reasonable goal. Rather, during this initial phase of rolling out increased outdoor coverage, the team really wanted to focus on areas of high use, high travel, and high need.

The team started by looking at all the major walkways and sidewalks, all the major roads, the locations of major quads and outdoor spaces, and all the areas in between. The team had to pare down the initial phase to meet budget and infrastructure constraints, and was able to develop a plan they feel will best benefit the campus and its users.

This initial phase of implementing outdoor wireless will cover approximately 5000 linear feet of walkways and sidewalks (that’s almost 17 football fields!), in addition to providing coverage to many of central campus' popular quads and open spaces including West Lawn, Telluride Quad, El Pomar Plaza, and Cragmor Green.

Phase one of implementing the Outdoor Wireless Project will provide coverage: beginning at the north end of the Rec. Center and continuing south along Mountain Lion Way towards Copper House, continuing along the pedestrian spine towards and along West Lawn, continuing along the spine between the Library and Engineering, hopping over the UC atrium and continuing along the pedestrian spine between Centennial Hall and Dwire Hall, then continuing in front of Main Hall and ending at Cragmor Hall. Coverage also includes the sidewalks in front of EPC, the Library, and the UC along Regent Circle, as well as the sidewalks and bus stop area in front of Centennial Hall. 

After some internal testing on Thursday, February 7th, the Wi-Fi team began to publicly test-pilot the section from the Rec. Center to the west doors of the UC. They started to broadcast the production campus wireless networks (UCCS-Wireless and UCCS-Guest) through the outdoor access points in these areas. Users on campus should already see this on their phones, laptops, and other wireless devices have wireless signal in this pilot area.

The team is currently wrapping up the final install and testing of the remaining access points and hope to begin live pilot testing these in the upcoming weeks. They will continue to test, monitor, and fine-tune settings, and the team encourages feedback from users. 

When all is said and done, the project will have deployed 40 new outdoor access points in a combination of pole, building, and bollard mounts. The Wi-Fi Team truly believes this initial phase of implementing outdoor wireless coverage will help cover some of the most highly utilized and trafficked areas on campus.

The team hopes to secure future support and funding to implement more phases to install even more outdoor wireless access points. Their hope, with future phases, will be to increase outdoor coverage to other highly utilized areas. Other areas in their sights include more of the most common walkways and green spaces, the areas between Cragmor Hall and University Hall, and future growth and expansion in the area between West Campus and Central Campus.

We regret to inform you that due to technical issues, we will be pushing back the start of the 12 for 12 Campaign. We are confident we will be ready on April 8, 2019!

What is the 12 for 12 campaign? 

• This means, starting April 8th, the next time you are prompted to change your password it will need to be at least 12 characters long, but with no special characters required.
• 12 character passwords will not have to be changed for 12 months!
• This is an opportunity to switch from “passwords” to “pass-phrases” making them easy to type and remember.

Note: You will not need to change your password on April 8th.  Just change your password when you normally would.  All passwords that are required to be changed between today and April 8th will still follow the existing rules.

Contact the OIT  Security Team if you have any questions or would like to learn more.