Category: Elevate the Stakeholder Experience

Learn to Navigate UF’s New T4 Web Template

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The University of Florida employs TERMINALFOUR (T4) as the campus’s central content management system for website hosting. UFIT collaborated with the Office of Strategic Communications and Marketing and a vendor (Stamats) to create UF’s new template. The template is called the Mercury Theme and aligns with the refreshed UF branding effort, providing a modernized look and feel for UF’s web environment. Colleges, administrative units, and academic and research centers are encouraged to adopt the new template for their website.

UFIT is sponsoring a T4 training for power users to assist campus web managers with the new Mercury Theme template. Register for this two-hour class through myTraining. Seating is limited so interested staff are encouraged to register ASAP:

Date:  Thursday, Oct. 19

Time:  1:00 – 3:00 p.m.

Location:  Weil Hall 408-A

More information about the new T4 theme is available on: https://webservices.it.ufl.edu/mercury-theme/about/. Anyone with questions about this class is welcome to contact the UFIT Training team.

Campus Printing Options

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There are times when you need more options than black and white printing or you forgot to print an assignment out before heading to class. GatorPrint is a newly expanded service available to students, faculty and staff, with specialized printing services available at multiple locations.

You can use the Web or Email Print features of GatorPrint to create print jobs from your residence hall or even while on the bus, and then release your print job at any of the GatorPrint locations across campus. GatorPrint has over 50 locations across campus, including all the Smathers Libraries, Norman Hall, Levin College of Law, and all of UFIT’s learning spaces including the Hub. The Smathers libraries locations and 12 additional locations offer standard black-and-white printing, with the Smathers locations and four of the UFIT learning spaces offering color printing as well. Poster printing is available at Marston Science Library (ground floor, in Collaboration Commons), the Architecture Lab (first floor, room 118), and the Computer Sciences/Engineering (CSE-Room E235) labs. Printing costs are published in the UF Printing Services Pricing Guide.

Visit https://print.at.ufl.edu/ to find printing locations, guides for mobile printing, and more. Representatives are available at most locations to assist you with printing. You can also contact the UFIT Help Desk with questions or issues.

New Templates for UFL.EDU Available

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UFIT collaborated with the Office of Strategic Communications and Marketing (SCM) and their agency partner to update the UF web presence. A working group from SCM and UFIT have built flexible, modular website templates with the goal of making them accessible in multiple formats to colleges, departments, centers, institutes, and other administrative units.

The new templates are now available for use. Templates can be accessed several ways:
• Direct access to base code stack (HTML, CSS, JS)
• Terminalfour
• WordPress (WordPress Multisite and WordPress Single Site options)

Visit the ‘Website Templates’ page of the Brand Center to get started. You will find information about the different ways the templates can be accessed as well as the required documentation to use them. If you have any questions, please fill out the contact form on the bottom of the page.

Note: For UF Health entities, including the health colleges, centers and institutes, refer to the UF Health Web Services website for available web templates and resources.

Survey Tools: New Options

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Researchers at UF often need to survey large populations, utilize advanced survey distribution strategies, and implement specialized survey question types. For these complex needs, UFIT recommends using Qualtrics, available campus-wide. But sometimes faculty and staff need a lighter tool for quick surveys or to create administrative forms. UFIT created a new training–Survey Tools for Non-Research Use–to introduce Google Forms and Microsoft Forms, two easy-to-use applications for creating and distributing surveys and forms. UFIT’s next 1-hour Survey Tools for Non-Research Use training will be held on:

Wednesday, August 30
10:00-11:00 a.m.
Register here

This class will be taught monthly over Zoom. Visit the class homepage for more details, and check out UFIT’s Survey Tools webpage for a comparison of Microsoft Forms, Google Forms, and Qualtrics. Anyone with questions about this class or other IT training offered is welcome to email the UFIT Training team.

What Every Entering Gator Should Know

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Welcome, new Gators! We know that adjusting to campus life is challenging, and it takes time. We have resources to facilitate your smooth transition before classes begin.

Looking for technical, academic, or administrative systems support? The UF Computing Help Desk can answer your questions regarding UF systems and services, including GatorMail, Canvas, eduroam, and UF’s VPN. Connect with the Help Desk by calling 352-392-HELP/4357, visiting 132 Hub (located across from the Starbucks), or submitting a ticket.

Use some time before the start of classes to watch UFIT’s Gator Students Playlist. Learn to use several UF tech services and steps to stay cybersafe. Your emotional and physical safety matters and yeah, UF has an app for that. Or two! Download the GatorSafe and the Whole Gator apps. GatorSafe allows you to view transportation information on SNAP, UF’s nighttime shuttle, and RTS, the city’s bus service. You can also get immediately connected to UF’s Police. The Whole Gator app provides wellness and mental health resources, recreation opportunities, and more. UF also provides an online campus map, useful for locating class locations and computer labs before the semester begins. UFIT is here for you, Gators! Let us know how we can help!

Tech Support For You: How Can We Help?

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Welcome, or welcome back to campus!

New faculty and students, we know there are a lot of things to learn before the first day of term. While you are getting settled, rest assured that help with university systems access and general campus tech questions is just a phone call or short walk away. The UF Computing Help Desk (“Help Desk”) is
in the Hub, on Stadium Road between Century Tower and Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The Help Desk provides assistance with:

● Account Support: Access to UF systems and services start with your GatorLink ID and password. If you experience any difficulties with your GatorLink access or need a password reset, just give the Help Desk a call or stop by.

● Technical Support: Help Desk staff are happy to assist with wireless and VPN connectivity issues, GatorMail email questions, discounted software purchases, and more.

● Systems Support: Help Desk consultants are experts in enterprise campus systems including Canvas, myUFL, ONE.UF, and other university applications and platforms. Need help using e-Learning or reporting time in myUFL? We’re here to help, Gators!

Call (352-392-HELP/4357), submit a help ticket, or stop by 132 Hub.

Stay Up to Date on Campus IT

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UF Information Technology (UFIT) provides updates on social media about new services, enhancements to existing services, the HiPerGator supercomputer and the research computing ecosystem, IT training opportunities, information security issues impacting higher ed and their effect on Gator Nation, IT-based university policies, and special events on campus with a tech flavor.

UFIT maintains Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages. Multiple updates are posted weekly on each channel. There is also a @GoGatorsUFIT YouTube channel, with more than 120 videos and curated playlists for Gator students, staff, instructional faculty, and on HiPerGator and its support of UF research.

Have a question about a service or information posted on a UFIT social media channel? You are welcome to email UFIT’s communications group at it-comm@ufl.edu.

Improving the SHCC’s Networked Environment

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UF’s Student Health Care Center (SHCC) is open at its new location on Stadium Road. Formerly across from the Hub, the new building west of the O’Connell Center presented an opportunity to refresh networking and telecommunications for the SHCC.
UFIT began work on this project during the pandemic. In collaboration with UF’s Facilities Services and the contractor, staff designed the telecommunications systems and provided direction on integrating the UF Health technical environment into the new building. UFIT and UF Health IT met weekly throughout the project to keep on track and ensure the work underway was as unobtrusive as possible for impacted stakeholders. Accomplishments of this project include the first UFNET3 connection to the campus CORE network.

“Working with UFIT has been a pleasure throughout the process,” wrote Matthew Walser, assistant director for clinical operations at the SHCC. “I came into the project ‘late in the game’ and the UFIT folks helped get me up to speed. The communication and response has been seamless and as the point person for SHCC, I literally haven’t worried about anything regarding the IT side of the project.”

A first for UF is the integration of the campus mass notification system into the building’s fire alarm system. This design eliminated the need to install individual mass notification speakers, saving money for the project. For more details on the new Student Health Care Center, visit https://shcc.ufl.edu/2023/05/02/shcc-is-moving/.

Just-in-Time Videos for Campus IT

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UF is a large and complex university with many technical services and providers across multiple campuses. While each college has localized information technology (IT) support and specialized equipment for their faculty and students, UFIT is the provider of centralized IT services. These services are often referrred to as enterprise IT, and a catalog of services offered is available at https://it.ufl.edu/services/. To help support your success at UF, UFIT has YouTube video channel playlists for instructional faculty and students. Each playlist has 20+ videos on a variety of topics, with more videos added each month:

● Gator Students Playlist

● Instructional Faculty Playlist

Development of a research channel is underway and planned for rollout this year. There are more than 130 videos currently available on the UFIT YouTube channel. Suggestions for additional “how to” videos are welcome! Please email them to UFIT Communications.

Available in Zoom: Translated Captions and Live Transcriptions

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The Zoom translated caption and its live transcription service have been enabled for UF. Both the translated captioning and transcription features can be utilized for administrative and research meetings as well as classroom activities in Zoom.

As a global research university, UF currently has faculty, staff, and students from more than 60 countries. These Zoom features can help many in our community to review content in their native language. As of February 2023, the languages currently supported are: Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Ukrainian.

Information and step-by-step instructions on how to enable Zoom translated captions and/or the interpretive [live transcription] capabilities are available on these Zoom and UF links:

1. https://video.ufl.edu/conferencing/zoom/captions-and-live-transcription/
2. https://blog.zoom.us/translated-captions
3. https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/6643177746829

Faculty and staff who need assistance with the new features or would like to acquire a license for the translated captions feature may contact the UF Computing Help Desk (352-392-HELP/4357, helpdesk@ufl.edu).