June 19, 2020 Newsletter

Announcements

Save the Date: Bytes

Faculty, Students, and Staff are welcome to join the Business Intelligence Team on July 7, for Bytes.
Location: Bytes Team
Time: 2 p.m. - 3 p.m.

Media Services Department  to move to University Marketing and Communications

While their physical proximity to OIT will not change, effective July 1, the Media Services Department will report directly to University Marketing and Communications. The new reporting structure will continue to streamline marketing efforts across campus. 

 
CAB changes

Katie has officially taken over CAB. Please see the "files" section of the CAB channel within the Office of Information Technology Team, for the newly implemented Change Windows schedule, as well as any other updates. 
 

Before returning to Campus

Before you return to on-campus work, the mandatory training of "CU: COVID-19 Return to Campus-UCCS"  must be completed.

We are excited to welcome the following team member: 

Ashley Pitts began her position as Data Integration / ETL Systems Analyst on June 8.

OIT kicked off their 100 days of automation initiative, on May 18.  The Operations team, within OIT, has been using Ansible to automate many of its processes over the last two years.  Ansible automation allowed OIT to deploy new sites, in about 30 minutes, for virtual commencement, SGA elections, remote desktop finder, and the Chromebook laptop deployment.

Building on that success, services will continue to expand and be offered to other departments.  "Ansible has allowed us to go from a few hours of work to deploy a Linux system to about 10 minutes with just a few clicks. The overall goal is to save money on staff time, deploy systems in a more consistent manner, improve services to campus, and do more with current resources" says Eric Schneider.  Ansible is an open-source project that is freely available to download and use.

For more information or questions, please contact the Help Desk. To leave feedback about these or other services, we encourage you to do so here. 

With the need to social distance in the fall, OIT, in conjunction with Facilities and the FRC, have been working on solutions to ensure that students can learn wherever they are, which means in the classroom or remotely and do so safely.  This means that faculty may need to use tools they have never used before to teach, such as Microsoft Teams or WebEx for synchronous lectures, Panopto or Stream for recorded lectures, and other digital whiteboarding tools. 

OIT has turned on the webcams and microphones on the all-in-one computers in the classrooms to facilitate recording.  The podium computers also have a touchscreen, which allows them to be used as a digital whiteboard, so students both in the classroom and remote can see what the instructor is writing. 

If you would like to schedule a visit to Osborne and see how to use the technology, within these classrooms, please sign up at: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0544a9ae23aafa7-general

OIT, with the assistance of the Project Management Office, has been hard at work to bring the Campus several new services for Fall 2020. Within the next few weeks, new and the following initiatives will be posted online for Faculty, Staff, and Students to view. 

• Download the NEW UCCS ModoLabs App – This app will connect the UCCS community to the ins and outs of campus! Students will be able to find out where their classes are, log in to the student portal, and be directed to various campus resources, including Mobile Ordering and Mobile Queuing.
• NEW Mobile Ordering and Mobile Queuing – In an effort to improve social distancing, UCCS dining services will be providing Mobile Ordering at four locations throughout Campus. Also, several other campus organizations and buildings will require “Mobile Queuing,” meaning that individuals will be required to schedule an appointment in advance, to in-person services.
• NEW Lion OneCard and Online Photo Submission – The Lion OneCard has gotten a makeover!  Incoming students will be the first to obtain these new contactless cards.  To help with social distancing students will be able to upload their photo, for their card, online.