Category: Elevate the Stakeholder Experience

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).

Discounted Software for Purchase at UF

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Did you know students, faculty, and staff can get discounted pricing on a variety of software titles? UFIT manages campus-wide software licenses and distribution for more than 40 applications. There is an an extensive selection of popular software programs for instructional use or professional development. Here’s a chart showing what is available for departmental or individual (faculty/staff and student) purchase: https://software.ufl.edu/software-listings/.

Students can purchase more than 20 different software packages at substantially lower cost than from big box or online superstores. Popular options for students include Adobe, Grammarly Premium, and Endnote Basic. Students with questions about purchasing a discounted software license can talk with Help Desk staff at the 2023 Tech Fair on Wednesday, Feb. 22, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Faculty, students, and staff who are interested in purchasing software at UF discounted rates can visit the UFIT Help Desk, located on the first floor of the Hub between the Starbucks and the UF International Center.

Focusing on Your Future

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The 2023 Tech Fair is focused on AI and your future, and the university’s, too: https://youtu.be/ncY9tYlpq9s.

Ever wish you had a crystal ball that would display what your future career looked like? There are no fortune tellers at the Tech Fair, but AI art generators will be. UFIT staff will help you use mage.space to create works of art that show the future of UF and your career. Stop by to participate in the AI art contest and you might just win a Roku Streaming Stick!

For all undergrads, regardless of major, one thing you need to understand before applying for jobs or internships is how AI is used to review applications. The Career Connections Center (C3) staff will meet with you to address items related to AI in your career search. Staff will provide resume examples and discuss the importance of keywords for applicant tracking systems or ATS. The C3 will also discuss using the LinkedIn platform to students’ advantage. They’ll also have some really helpful handouts at their tent, so be sure to stop by. Visit the Tech Fair website for more information. See you on Feb. 22, Gators!

Enhance UF Academics With Tech Fee Grant

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Your technology-related idea to enhance UF’s academic environment could become a reality: Consider submitting a proposal to the Tech Fee grants for funding. All faculty, students, and staff are encouraged to submit ideas fitting the submission guidelines. The process for submitting a proposal is outlined in the 2023 Tech Fee template.

Among many tech options initially paid for by Tech Free grants are: express digital scanning, LinkedIn Learning, MADE@UF for Infinity Hall, and iPads for borrowing at Smathers.

The submission deadline for review by a UFIT director (all of whom are listed on the template) is Friday, March 10, 2023. After the Technology Fee Advisory Committee reviews the proposals, those they recommend will be forwarded to the vice president and chief information officer for funding consideration. Program information, guidelines, and templates may all be found on the Tech Fee website. Anyone with questions about submitting a proposal is welcome to contact Anne Allen, support administrator for the Technology Fee Advisory Committee.

Empowering UF to Meet Our Future Needs

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Over the past two weeks, more than 700 employees participated in product demos for Empowering UF, the multiyear initiative underway to replace the 19-year-old PeopleSoft application. Staff governing the initiative want to ensure UF’s enterprise systems meet today’s needs for security, data reporting, and other functions, while also serving our complex administrative environment, including human resources, research administration, finance, and procurement.

“Ultimately, while technical in nature, Empowering UF is really about people,” says Interim Vice President for Human Resources Melissa Curry. “Modernizing our systems will give us a competitive edge in meeting the needs of a modern workforce — helping to ensure we attract, recruit and retain the best and brightest while easing the administrative burden.”

The Empowering UF website includes the roster of the initiative’s executive sponsors, steering team, and project implementation team. There is also a robust and frequently updated FAQ page on the site. Anyone with questions about the initiative is welcome to contact the project implementation team: https://empowering.ufl.edu/contact-us/.

Tenth Anniversary of Tech Fair!

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Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Tech Fair, UFIT’s largest annual outreach event, features experiential activities that focus on helping students utilize AI and online tools.

Students can get advice and support on setting up their e-Portfolios, improve their digital literacy, meet with C3 staff to learn how AI programs evaluate resumes, and see what’s available in the Marston Science Library Makery. Students can also get assistance with campus tech such as help with Wi-Fi (eduroam), setting up GatorMail on their phone, and learning what software is available for free or at seriously discounted prices.

2023 Tech Fair
Wednesday, Feb. 22
10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Tech Fair is held in Tech Plaza, the space created by Marston and the CSE Building. (Look for the tents!) In addition to getting help with campus tech that could boost your future plans, students could win a Tribit Stormbox Bluetooth Speaker or a Roku Ultra Streaming Device just for answering the Tech Fair survey. Students with questions about Tech Fair are welcome to email it-comm@ufl.edu. See you on Tech Plaza!

Storage Allocation Changing: UF Google Drive

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Effective December 31, 2022, Google is applying a storage limitation to UF’s Google Workspace for Education. To prepare for this change, on November 15, UFIT will implement a per user storage quota on UF Google Drives of 5 GB. All UF Google Drive users must move or delete content to get at or below 5 GB before November 15.

Anyone with 5 GB or more will see their UF Google Drive reduced to “read-only” status. This means users will still be able to access their data, but will not be able to add new or update existing content. Users can use the Google Takeout tool to download content and store it in another location such as UF’s Microsoft OneDrive (students, faculty, and staff), or UF Dropbox (faculty and staff). Please consider the data you are moving–is it PHI or other protected data? If so, then it should be moved to another UF-protected service. (Personal data can be moved to a personal Google account or other storage resource.) Follow the instructions in the Google documentation linked below for the two options to download content:

• Download your data into an archive
• Copy your data to another Google Account

For more information, please reach out to your local IT support staff or the UF Computing Help Desk (352-392-HELP/4357, helpdesk@ufl.edu).

Increase Equitable Access: NameCoach

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Two of UF’s core values are inclusion and community and implementing NameCoach makes the UF community safer, more welcoming, and more inclusive. NameCoach is an online tool that provides students, faculty, and staff the ability to record the pronunciation of their names and enter their gender pronouns. Funding of this service is through the Technology Fee Academic Innovation Grant (“Tech Fee“) program, with an initial three-year campus-wide license.

Utilizing NameCoach is an opportunity to strengthen a sense of belonging and togetherness and makes UF’s learning environment more inclusive by honoring the differences in identities of the Gator community. Available in e-Learning, NameCoach enables correct name pronunciation–an important step for an institution with 15,000+ minority students and nearly 6,000 international students.

UFIT published a webpage with tips for using NameCoach. Instructional faculty who would like help incorporating NameCoach into a course may request a consultation with the Center for Instructional Technology and Training.

Prepare for Hurricane Ian

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With Hurricane Ian potentially impacting much of the State of Florida, now is the time to prepare while it is still in the Gulf of Mexico. Gators, know that updated news about campus closings and other important information is available at https://updates.emergency.ufl.edu/. This link is also featured as the top header on UF’s homepage and will remain so throughout this weather emergency.

Here are some tech recommendations to consider when campus is in the path of a storm:

• Conserve your laptop battery by exiting out of unused apps and turning on your device’s power-saving mode. Contact your local IT staff if you need assistance making these changes
• Connect with your area’s building emergency coordinator for directions on how to secure work areas prior to a weather event or university closing
• Update your desktop phone’s voicemail so colleagues have an alternative method for contacting you if necessary. Check out UFIT’s Unity Phones help page for setting up and accessing voicemail when away from the office
• Back up important work files using one of UF’s free cloud storage options, like UF Dropbox or OneDrive

Stay safe, Gators!