W 7/18/18: Shibboleth Authentication Service briefly unavailable

Richard Gordon

IT staff will be performing maintenance on UD’s Shibboleth Authentication Service on Wednesday, July 18, at 5:30PM. The outage should last 30 minutes or
less.

The most heavily used UD systems that use Shibboleth for authentication include

  • UD WordPress (sites.udel.edu)
  • Verify my FAFSA
  • UD TIAA portal
  • Agilent Technologies research lab organization tool (my.ilabsolutions.com).

For further information, contact the IT Support Center by calling (302) 831-6000, emailing consult@udel.edu, or filling out a Help Request form.

UD PeopleSoft instances & UDTime down for maintenance: June 8-10

Richard Gordon

PeopleSoft maintenance

All PeopleSoft instances at the University of Delaware will be unavailable while required maintenance is performed from 10:00 p.m. Friday June 8, 2018, through Sunday June 10, 2018.

  • During the maintenance, all PeopleSoft instances will be unavailable:
    • UDFinancials
    • UDSIS
    • PSHR.
  • Due to this weekend’s maintenance, the reporting instances of the databases (FiRPT, SARPT, and HRRPT) will not be refreshed on Friday night and Saturday night . They will be refreshed on Sunday night (June 10).
  • On Saturday, June 9, at approximately 10:00 p.m., production web applications will be unavailable for about one hour.
    • This outage will affect all applications on udapps.nss, including Web Forms, WebReg, My Finances, My UD Settings, Request for Leave, Make-a-Gift and other apps and forms.
    • Guest and parent logins will also be unavailable during this period on Saturday.
    • CAS logins with PINs will be unavailable during this window as well.

UDTime maintenance

UDTime will also be down for maintenance starting at 10:00 p.m. on Friday June 8, 2018. While UDTime is down, the Request for Leave Web Form will also be unavailable.

Candidates for AVP, IT Strategic Operations, coming to campus

Richard Gordon

Three finalists for associate vice president, IT strategic operations, to present at public forums, May 29, June 5 and 6.

Three finalists for the position of associate vice president for Information Technologies (IT) strategic operations at the University of Delaware will visit campus and speak in public forums starting Tuesday May 29, according to Sandra Millard, Deputy University Librarian and chair of the search committee.

UD faculty, staff and students are invited to attend the finalists’ presentations scheduled for

  • Tuesday May 29, 10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
  • Tuesday June 5, 10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
  • Wednesday June 6, 11:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. (note later time).

All three forums will be held in Kirkbride Hall, room 204.

Prior to the presentations, background information on each of the candidates will be available at a website that UD students, faculty and staff can access with their UDelNet IDs and passwords. The website also will include recordings of each public forum and an online feedback form for gathering comments. The feedback form will close at 5:00 p.m. on Friday June 8.

The search committee has been working during the spring 2018 semester to identify excellent candidates for this new position, which reports to the Vice President for Information Technologies.  For more details, see the job description on the secure website.

“The associate vice president for IT strategic operations will play a key role in determining how information technology is used all across the University, not just within central IT,” Millard said. “Our committee has identified three exemplary candidates for this critical leadership position, and I encourage the campus community to attend the forums to learn more about each candidate and provide us with feedback.”

Members of the search committee include Peggy Bottorff, associate provost and chief of staff, Office of the Provost; Sharmayne Burns, assistant dean, finance and administration, College of Earth, Ocean & Environment; Michael Evans, director of computing operations, Lerner College of Business and Economics; Sandra Millard, Deputy University Librarian and Chair, Search Committee; William Totten, systems programmer IV, IT Network & System Services.

 

Selected UD students to complete annual ECAR survey

Richard Gordon

The University of Delaware is participating in the 2018 EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR) Student Technology Survey.

UD is one of about 200 member institutions of EDUCAUSE, a professional higher education technology association, that asks a random selection of students to participate in a survey that covers topics like technology use and support services. The data from the anonymous survey provides UD and other EDUCAUSE institutions with valuable information about how students on our campus and across the country use technology, allowing us to adjust our technology services accordingly. 

If you are one of the 3,465 UD undergraduate students selected to participate in this survey, you will receive email with a link to the survey in early April 2018. Information Technologies encourages your participation to help provide important research data for the higher education information technology community.  The survey closes on April 20, 2018.

For more information, contact the survey team at ecar-survey@udel.edu.

2018 Secure UD Training available this week

Richard Gordon

Our community and our University are targeted by hackers every day. Cybercriminals are looking for any way to exploit our systems or steal our research data, intellectual property, and personal information. Our collective security depends on our individual actions: each of us has the power to protect ourselves, each other, and our institution from cyberattacks.Secure UD logo

Secure UD Training is a security awareness resource for University employees. It empowers employees by equipping them with the knowledge and skills to protect themselves, our community, and our University from cyber risks. Its modular, online, self-paced design makes it easy to complete during lunches or between emails, and the skills it cultivates are applicable throughout your life, whether at home, in the office, or abroad.

Secure UD Training has been updated and improved for 2018 and will be released this week. This year, you can expect

  • an updated Learner Dashboard, which displays your available training and important messages
  • updated, interactive training modules
  • a new training curriculum design
  • the ability to “test out” of specific modules by demonstrating your knowledge
  • greater account security through the University’s two-factor authentication (2FA) service.

2018 Secure UD Training is organized into two phases that group training modules into shorter, more convenient chunks:

  • Phase I of 2018 Secure UD Training will be released this week and will remain available through the spring semester 2018 and summer 2018 term.
  • Phase II will be released in October 2018 and will remain available through the fall semester 2018 and winter 2019 term.

Each phase of Secure UD Training includes about 10 featured modules (or about an hour of training) plus access to our more extensive training library, including resources about securing your family and home. The new curriculum design means you won’t have to request additional modules anymore. See a module that interests you? Go ahead and take it!

Emails about Secure UD Training will be sent on behalf of secadmin@udel.edu, the official email address of Secure UD. This is a change from previous years. If you don’t see your training emails, check your junk or spam folder. Remember, you can always log in to training through the Secure UD website; if you’re not sure about the information in a training email, you can visit the official website to log in and verify your training status.

If you aren’t currently enrolled in Secure UD Training and would like to be, send email to Secure UD at secadmin@udel.edu to get access.

Data Privacy Day

Richard Gordon

The University of Delaware, alongside more than 300 other organizations worldwide, will be celebrating Data Privacy Day on Sunday, Jan. 28. Data Privacy Day is an annual, international effort to create awareness about the importance of respecting privacy, safeguarding data and enabling trust.

Awareness of data privacy is crucial in a world where data is constantly being collected and distributed among people, devices and services. People voluntarily share their personal data through social media accounts, rewards programs and other applications, often without considering how that information may be re-shared or used.

Read the full article.