Vice President for Information Technology Status and Activity Report for March 2024 Prepared by Timothy M. Chester, Vice President for Information Technology (VPIT) 1. Key Items for Faculty and Staff Meetings •
2024 UGA Technology Survey to be Administered: The Vice President for Information Technology will administer the annual TechQual survey for UGA students, faculty, and staff this semester. The campus-wide survey will be sent to a random sampling of students and employees. They will be asked to gauge the effectiveness of several technology services at the University, such as network connectivity, websites, administrative systems, and wireless service. The results of the TechQual survey are used to guide future IT initiatives at the University. For more information, contact Stacy Boyles at stacy.boyles@uga.edu.
2. Services for Students •
Work continues on more than $1M in campus wireless upgrades: Work is underway on more wireless upgrades in academic buildings and student housing across the Athens, Buckhead, and Griffin campuses. These upgrades are part of EITS’s work to continuously improve Wi-Fi connectivity and coverage to support teaching, learning, and student life. The $1.2 million a year project, funded by Student Technology Fees, includes wireless refreshments and redesigns in many buildings. Wireless upgrades have been recently completed for Correll Hall, Moore-Rooker Hall, Amos Hall, Benson Hall and Orkin Hall, as well as Cobb House, the Office of Service Learning, Treanor House and the Office of Global Engagement. Wireless upgrade work is ongoing in Ivester Hall and the J.W. Fanning Building. Technicians are also working on more improvements to other buildings and wireless spaces across campus; work for phase three is under way and expected to be completed next summer. For more information, contact David Stewart at stewart@uga.edu.
3. Services for Researchers •
GACRC buy-in program available for Fy24: The Vice President for Information Technology is continuing a program to encourage faculty to use the new cluster for the Georgia Advanced Computing Resource Center (GACRC). This program was offered in FY23 and has been extended to FY24 with an additional $250,000 commitment from the Vice President for Information Technology. For more information, including details about the buy-in program, please contact Dr. Guy Cormier, Director of Research Computing, at gcormier@uga.edu.
4. Other General Services •
Web standard hosting decommission deadline set for May 14: Web Standard Hosting, the free webhosting service for UGA-affiliated departments and student organizations was sunset in 2023 and will be decommissioned in 2024. Accounts that were unresponsive during this process and have been inactive for 2 or more years were deactivated on December 1, 2023. Over the next months, the Systems Engineering team will continue to work with users who still use Web Standard Hosting as their primary web hosting service to move to a new service before the end of the semester. All users must be off Web
VPIT Status and Activity Report for March 2024
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