October 8, 2020
Interested in using public cloud services such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS)? Want to learn how they can support your research?
UBC Advanced Research Computing (ARC) is hosting the UBC ARC Cloud Computing Research Fall Training from October 19 – November 3, 2020. This year, the program will be offered virtually in the form of a series of webinars and hands-on online workshops. The Cloud Computing Fall Training sessions are free and open to faculty, staff, students, and interested members of the public. Registration will be limited in courses where hands-on training is provided.
Courses will explore introductory and advanced topics in cloud computing on Microsoft Azure and AWS platforms. Sessions will introduce cloud concepts and services, including: creating, securing, and maintaining virtual machines, machine learning and high-performance computing, storage options, and cost-optimization best practices.
As part of the AWS sessions, you will be able to learn about RONIN, a user-friendly web and desktop application that allows researchers to navigate the AWS computing infrastructure with confidence and ease. UBC is the first university in North America to offer this platform, and ARC is thrilled to be able to incorporate this into the Fall training.
View the full schedule on the ARC website.
REGISTER ONLINE NOW
ARC is a dedicated service under the VPRI for researchers across all disciplines working on questions that have large data and computational needs. ARC offers training to all faculties across the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses on high performance computing, research data management, and digital research.
For more information and questions regarding the 2020 UBC ARC Cloud Computing Fall Training sessions, please email arc.support@ubc.ca
Posted in ARC, AWS, azure, Bulletins, cloud, Research Data Management, Research Support
October 7, 2020
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November 2, 2020, UBC IT Okanagan will be moving to the
UBC Self-Service Portal along with the Integrated Services Centre with the launch of Workday. This will make it easier for staff and faculty in the Okanagan, and across UBC, to access a variety of UBC support services from a single website:
ubc.service-now.com (cwl login required).
Users can get help with issues from getting started with Workday to getting a new UBCO employee set up with computer equipment to reporting an issue accessing UBC wireless.
You will continue to be supported by local Okanagan IT staff, while having the option to be seamlessly connected with support teams in Vancouver or the ISC if needed.
A new Campus drop-down menu has been added to request forms to help ensure you’re connected to the right team, on the right campus, to provide better support services for all users.
After November 2, users from the Okanagan will be automatically redirected to the UBC Self-Service Portal to submit any new requests for IT support. The current IT Helpdesk website (helpdesk.ok.ubc.ca) will remain available to access historical information or complete any IT requests in progress.
More details on this change including guides on how to use the self-service portal will be coming soon.
Posted in Bulletins, Client Services, Department News, General
September 25, 2020
Planned maintenance will be conducted on the Okanagan campus telephone system Saturday September 26, 2020, between the hours of 08:00 to 12:00 PT. Incoming calls to campus may experience intermittent service interruptions during this time. Local calls within campus, 5 digit dialing on campus and outgoing calls including to emergency services will NOT be affected.
Posted in Bulletins, IT Infrastructure, Phone, planned outage, telephones
September 22, 2020
UBC Cybersecurity and UBC IT Communication & Collaboration Services will be launching a new email security enhancement on September 28, 2020, targeting emails that originate from outside the university. This enhancement will add a warning tag to the top of emails that originate from outside the University.
The External Email Security Warning Tag serves as a reminder to users to verify the authenticity of the email before clicking on any hyperlinks, opening any attachments, forwarding or responding. The tag is not an indicator that an email is phishing, fraudulent or spam.
Please note, at this stage, the external email security warning tag will be applied to external emails sent to staff and faculty email accounts only.
With the imminent implementation of Workday, it is critical that employees are able to spot fraudulent notifications that claim to originate from Workday but are actually from criminals looking to take advantage of the high volume of communication associated with Workday implementation. Legitimate Workday emails do not have the yellow external email security warning tag typically associated with emails that originated from outside of UBC. If you receive a Workday email with a yellow external email security warning tag, forward it as an attachment to security@ubc.ca.
For more information on how to know the difference between legitimate and fraudulent Workday notifications please visit:
hxxps://privacymatters.ubc.ca/workday-notifications
(Copy and paste the URL into your browser and replace hxxps with https).
For further technical information on the External Email Security Warning tag, including the exemption process, implementation phases and FAQs, please check out this article on the UBC Confidential Communications website:
hxxps://cc.cybersecurity.ubc.ca/external-email-warning-tag
(Copy and paste the URL into your browser and replace hxxps with https – CWL login and UBC VPN connection required).
Posted in Bulletins, Client Services, Cybersecurity, Email, IT Business Services, phishing
September 17, 2020
Planned maintenance will be conducted on the Okanagan campus telephone system
Saturday September 19, 2020, between the hours of 08:00 to 12:00 PT. Phone service to and from campus will be intermittent during this time, with no incoming calls from 10:00-12:00 PT.
This is the final outage required to complete our full upgrades to the campus telephone system to provide enhanced phone services to better support remote operations for UBC Okanagan. These upgrades will also substantially reduce future telephone service interruptions during routine maintenance in the future.
Posted in Bulletins, IT Infrastructure, planned outage, telephones
September 15, 2020
UBC IT Okanagan will be conducting required maintenance and upgrades on the campus telephone system this week.
There will be an outage for all incoming calls Tuesday September 15, 2020 from 2100 to 2200 PT. Local calls within campus, 5 digit dialing on campus and outgoing calls including to emergency services will NOT be affected. Maintenance will continue in the evenings all week however no further disruption to services is expected.
These upgrades will provide enhanced phone services to better support remote work including receiving UBC calls remotely, as well as improved functionality and easier access to voicemail. The new software will also minimize or eliminate telephone service interruptions during routine maintenance in the future.
Posted in Bulletins, IT Infrastructure, Phone, planned outage, telephones
September 9, 2020
We are experiencing issues with Student Service Centre financials today—students are experiencing significant delays in processing their payments. The Academic Systems Support team is actively monitoring the performance of the SSC and will take necessary actions to achieve and maintain usability.
Posted in Bulletins, General
September 2, 2020
Interested in learning more about research data management (RDM)? Heard about the Tri-Agency’s upcoming RDM Policy and want to know how to meet the requirements?
The UBC RDM Fall Series 2020 will run daily virtual sessions from September 28 – October 16.
These sessions will walk through the full research data lifecycle, with a series of hands-on workshops that build on one another using a mock research project and data (although we encourage you to bring your own project if you’d like!). We’ll explore practical skills that will allow you to meet Tri-Agency requirements, organize and maintain control of your data, and develop workflows for your research lab.
These sessions are open to all UBC faculty, staff, and students, and will be presented by the UBC Research Commons, UBC Advanced Research Computing (ARC), the UBC Okanagan Library, and the UBC Centre for Scholarly Communications.
View the full schedule on the Research Commons’ website and REGISTER ONLINE NOW
Posted in Bulletins, RDM, Research Data Management, Research Support, Webinar
September 2, 2020
August 31, 2020
August marks the sixth month since UBC transitioned to remote teaching, learning, and working in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. September preparedness this year has taken on a very different pace within the OCIO and UBC IT as a result of converging priorities and supporting the remote experience in addition to the usual start of term activities.
Updates to the community this month include:
- MS Teams and OneDrive
- Discounted technology for students
- Zoom passcode security updates
- Workday training
- Integrated Services Centre
To read the full update from the CIO, Jennifer Burns, click HERE.
Posted in Bulletins, Client Services, Department News, General
August 6, 2020
Read this month's news from Jennifer Burns, Associate Vice-President, Information Technology & Chief Information Officer, including details on:
- Implementation of Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) and OneDrive
- Remote Access to Application Software and Computer Lab Resources
- Discounted Vendor Packages for Students
- Internet Connectivity Improvement for International Students
- Relaxed FIPPA Data Residency Requirements Extended
Read the full update HERE.
Posted in Bulletins, Client Services, General
