Summer 2009
Director’s Message: UF IT
The value of IT is predicated on how well it supports teaching and learning, research and scholarship, engagement of external clients and management of the institution. As IT evolves and communities of use continue to expand and grow in unexpected ways, so do the opportunities and challenges for the use of IT in support of the University mission.
The open letter from Interim CIO Chuck Frazier in this newsletter summarizes the most recent strategic planning effort and action plan for UF. Its purpose is to capitalize on IT investments, including the reallocation and reorganization of resources. In particular, a strong emphasis is placed on governance and engagement, leading to increased participation by the university community. Through this reorganization UF IT will realize more of the transformative benefits of IT.
Interim CIO’s Open Letter
In life, we seldom get to choose the problems we must face, their timing, or pace. I think it is safe to assume that nobody asked for the biggest economic downturn since the great depression and that nobody reading this newsletter wished to see Florida among the states hardest hit. We got both barrels anyway. Our cuts in IT at the central level were very substantial at $900,000. Cuts in distributed IT were all determined at the unit levels. I do not have a summary measure of those cuts, but I understand they were substantial too. But bad as the cuts were, I admit that I frequently worried that they would be worse. More »
Security Reminder
Viruses often spread by exploiting security bugs for which fixes are available. Your work computer has probably been set up to automatically download security updates, but what about your home computer or laptop?
The "Stay Updated" page in UF’s Information Technology Security site has instructions for setting up some common Operating Systems (Windows, Mac OS X), but don’t forget about programs you may have installed yourself. Most of them can be set up to notify you when an update is available. This will generally appear under a menu called "Options" or "Preferences."
Email Forwarding Policy Change
Because of improved spam handling capabilities and student preferences, students may now forward their @ufl.edu GatorLink email address to any valid email address, on or off campus. Official correspondence is sent to students via the GatorLink email address, so the process of changing forwarding to an off-campus service requires the student to respond to a verification email which is sent to their intended forwarding address. A free Gatorlink mailbox continues to be provided to students. Special circumstances may lead individual colleges or units to establish restrictions on the use of email by their students. These restrictions would be enforced at the local level. More »
New Help Desk Services
Starting this Summer B, the Help Desk is offering a new Laptop Drop-Off Service. Faculty, staff and students were previously required to stay at the Help Desk until their laptop was repaired. These clients now have the option of dropping their laptops off with the Help Desk if the problem reported falls under a specific set of issues. More »
2009 Provost E-Learning Initiative Courses Selected
The Provost E-Learning Initiative seeks to further improve the quality of learning and the learning experience for students, as well as to facilitate the teaching process for faculty. To achieve this, the Provost envisioned a series of course offerings for undergraduate students using pedagogical best practice and transformation of education using information technology. More »
UF Adopts Sakai to be New E-Learning System
After an 8-month evaluation process, the University of Florida has selected the open source Sakai course management system to be the new course management system. By choosing an open source system, UF joins a growing trend among colleges and universities. More »
TA Development Workshop Series
This fall the AT Teaching Center and the Graduate School will once again conduct TA Orientation followed by our TA Development Workshop series. The two-day orientation for teaching assistants begins August 17th and is required for all new TA’s. The series of approximately 20 professional development workshops – taught by professors from various UF departments – will help all teaching assistants improve their teaching skills. More »