Notices or bulletins contain important information regarding services offered by University Systems. These may include campus communications regarding changes to services or new service offerings, notification of large-scale planned outages, or recommendations on newly released software. Select any of the messages below to learn more.
Beginning May 15, 2022, UVic MFA will be required in order to access critical information systems including Banner Admin Pages, FAST, and Exchange email & calendar, and the Virtual Private Network (VPN).
Read more: UVic MFA will be required on May 15 for critical systems
To better protect your NetLink account and enhance secure access to the campus network, University Systems will be adding support for UVic Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to the Virtual Private Network (VPN) service.
University Systems is excited to announce the launch of a new student focused service—Microsoft 365 Email for Students. This service delivers students email accounts within Microsoft 365 accounts and includes features that haven’t been offered with UVic student email accounts before like calendaring, a curated address list of UVic student services, integration with the Microsoft 365 suite of tools like Teams, OneDrive, To-Do, Duo multi-factor authentication protection, and more.
University Systems will be changing the login process for UVic’s Outlook Web Access for Exchange email effective January 31, 2022.
University Systems will be upgrading the Spectrum Protect (formerly TSM) backup server to a new version. This version will require all users of the Spectrum Protect backup service to be running client version 8.1 or newer to maintain compatibility with the service. We recommend Spectrum Protection version 8.1.13.2 for Windows and version 8.1.13.0 for Mac.
Zoom regularly releases new versions of the Zoom Client to add features, resolve issues, and patch security vulnerabilities. To ensure you are protected against vulnerabilities in the Zoom Client and can use the latest features of Zoom in your online meetings, UVic will be implementing a minimum version requirement of 5.8.4 for all UVic Zoom accounts on December 22, 2021.
Description
The University's central administrative system (Banner) used for student records, payroll, and finance will be unavailable on Saturday, November 13, 2021 from 12:01 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. to perform planned system maintenance. See the full bulletin for affected services.
Read more: Banner maintenance scheduled for November 13, 2021
UVic Multi-Factor Authentication (UVic MFA) is a new security feature to protect accounts now available for all students, staff and faculty.
Read more: UVic Multi-Factor Authentication (UVic MFA) is now available
We are excited to announce that NVivo is now available to all faculty members and graduate students! NVivo is a qualitative data analysis software package that allows for data to be organized according to user-defined themes, keywords or classification schemes. Complex data can be queried allowing connections to be made enabling robust argumentation, visualization and theorizing on the basis of empirical evidence.
Read more: NVivo available to faculty members and graduate students
On October 19th, the sign-in page for Student Webmail will change to a simple username and passphrase prompt.
Until a more thorough test and review of the release version of Windows 11 can be performed to ensure compatibility with UVic specific applications and services, University Systems does not recommend upgrading to Windows 11 at this time.
As of the Fall 2021 academic term, Echo360 has been adopted as UVic’s centrally supported video platform for learning and teaching, replacing Kaltura. As we fully transition to the new platform, access to Kaltura will no longer be available after September 30, 2021. This includes access to the Kaltura Media Gallery and Kaltura videos embedded in Brightspace.
In accordance with UVic’s records management obligations, UVic will be implementing a 5-month data retention schedule to the Microsoft Teams Chat feature starting July 15, 2021.
Endpoint protection software, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MSDE), is mandatory on all university computers as part of our Information Security Standards and is available free of charge for all UVic faculty and staff using UVic-owned Windows, Mac, and Linux workstations. The previous standard endpoint protection software, Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP), will no longer receive software updates as of August 30, 2021. You must transition to MSDE before this date to ensure your computer remains protected.
University Systems is upgrading our NetLink ID passphrase security to support the UVic security standards. These new features will be available on June 2nd. Existing passphrases will not be impacted; to take advantage of these new features, please change your passphrase after June 2, 2021.
We’re making a few changes to My page and Online tools on March 11, 2021 to improve security and navigation.
Recently, several UVic accounts synced to MyMail, an email service that allows user to sync their email to my.com servers, have been confirmed as compromised. We will block Exchange ActiveSync to MyMail commencing February 23, 2021.
University Systems will start simulated phishing training for UVic email accounts in February 2021. Simulated Phishing Training is a recognized approach for cybersecurity awareness and training to reduce risks associated with phishing. Simulated Phishing Training consists of generating emails that resemble real phishing emails we have received, and sending 3-4 such simulated phishing emails to UVic email accounts on a monthly basis.
The University's student email system has been upgraded to improve the security and privacy of client connections. You can now update your email client to use an encrypted and authenticated connection (SMTPAuth).
