Vice President for Information Technology Status and Activity Report for August 2022 Prepared by Timothy M. Chester, Vice President for Information Technology (VPIT) 1. Key Items for Faculty and Staff Meetings •
2022-2023 Strategic Directions and Priorities: Earlier this summer, Dr. Timothy M. Chester, Vice President of Information Technology, presented his Strategic Directions and Priorities for the coming year to EITS. Major initiatives and new projects cover several areas, including academics, research, and business processes. Our Student Information Services team will be a key player in the two-year rollout of an improved “Course in Program of Study,” functionality, which will automate the process for ensuring federal financial aid is properly applied only to courses on a student’s degree plan. Our research support teams in networking, systems operations, and the Georgia Advanced Computing Research Center (GACRC) will be working on upgrading the SAPELO2 cluster to better support computational research and provide additional capabilities for new faculty hired under the University’s artificial intelligence and machine learning hiring initiatives. Our teams supporting PeopleSoft HCM and Finance will serve as a resource and key influencer to the University System of Georgia (USG) as they evaluate our readiness to join the State of Georgia’s next-generation Cloud ERP initiative. Other initiatives include supporting the development of the University Council’s new standing committee on IT; searching and installing new leadership over faculty research and the Office of Institutional Research; and working with the STF advisory committee and other groups to continue to provide one-time and base budget support for IT services and systems that facilitate nextgeneration teaching and learning environments. The complete document of strategic priorities can be found on our website, https://eits.uga.edu/about/2022_priorities/.
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Athena access restricted to on-campus or through VPN: Off-campus access to Athena has been limited to reduce the chance that someone on the Internet exploits a known software defect introduced by the software’s supplier and developer, Ellucian. On July 20, 2022, the University of Georgia received a notification of this defect from Ellucian. There is no evidence that the software defect has been exploited at UGA or elsewhere. Out of caution, EITS has limited Athena access to on-campus users, or off-campus users who use the Remote Access VPN or the vLab service until the defect has been resolved. For information on how to access Athena off-campus, visit the How to Access Athena OffCampus page (https://eits.uga.edu/stories/how_to_access_athena_off-campus/). Students, faculty, and staff on campus and behind the campus firewall should be able to access Athena as normal. For support and assistance using these services, individuals can contact the EITS helpdesk at helpdesk@uga.edu or 706-542-3106. Real-time updates on the status of this issue are available at https://status.uga.edu.
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Fall Network Maintenance set for Sunday, October 23: Prepare for a fall network maintenance on Sunday, October 23. This maintenance is being conducted on a Sunday to accommodate our extended campuses which hold classes on Saturdays. Network maintenances are necessary to continue to support the network, allowing EITS to provide ample bandwidth and Internet capacity to the University in the future. Such a maintenance is performed twice a year, during which campus Internet and campus information systems are usually inaccessible. For questions, contact Rayid Tartir at rayid@uga.edu.
2. Services for Students VPIT Status and Activity Report for August 2022
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