Vice President for Information Technology Status and Activity Report for May 2020 Prepared by Timothy M. Chester, Vice President for Information Technology (VPIT) 1. Key Items for Faculty and Staff Meetings •
Critical IT Services for Business Continuity: To assist students, faculty and staff in teaching, learning and working remotely, EITS has compiled a list of Critical IT Services for Business Continuity. Normal University business and classes can be disrupted by events and unforeseen circumstances such as weather, natural disasters, or health concerns. In many cases, faculty and staff may continue to teach and conduct business remotely using technology resources available to everyone at UGA. Resources include Zoom, eLC, Blackboard Collaborate and more. A list of these resources can be found at https://eits.uga.edu/continuity/. This page will be updated as more information becomes available.
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UGA sees marked increase in Zoom usage for remote work: Since UGA went to online instruction and remote work, there has been a drastic increase in Zoom usage. Between March 30 and April 17, UGA units spent a total of about 15.6 million minutes on Zoom. Some of the biggest increases in usage were on Thursdays during this time period, when UGA units frequently surpassed 1 million minutes of Zoom meetings hosted total. Zoom is an online meeting tool that makes teaching, learning and working remotely easy, and is free to all UGA students, faculty and staff. To begin using Zoom, visit zoom.uga.edu.
2. Services for Students •
EITS Support for Spring and Summer terms: In order to support a successful completion of the Spring semester and continuation of May and summer sessions, EITS is supporting multiple time sensitive efforts to accommodate and prepare for changes to processes and requirements impacting information systems supporting Student and Financial Aid areas. These efforts include allocation and distribution of CARES Act funds to students, Student System updates to accommodate the shift to online courses for the summer terms, implementing adjustments to support the shift to online New Student Orientation, an adjustment to student fee assessment rules and the allocation and processing of student refunds and implementing Student System updates to accommodate Department of Education changes to student federal grants and loans. For more information, contact Ilir Hasko at ihasko@uga.edu.
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EITS to participate in online orientation: In early April, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions announced they will move all activities related to 2020 New Student Orientation online. Orientation will be conducted through a mandatory module process, where students will be taken through a series of videos, information pages, and links to resources to help them learn about campus. EITS plans to share information about campus technology resources for new students through one of these modules. In addition to formal orientation activities, we are also updating our New to Campus website to include information for new students about using Zoom to complete orientation activities, a PDF copy of our Getting Started Technology Checklist and FAQs about on-campus resources we typically answer at an in-person orientation. For more information, visit newtocampus.uga.edu. Incoming students and units participating in orientation who have questions about using Zoom or other campus technology can always contact our Help
VPIT Status and Activity Report for May 2020
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