Information Technology News Archive

1996 - 2017

You are here: Home / Archives for About NACS / Campus Support

Campus Support

Broadcast E-mail to Students

by

With the support of the UCI Registrar, Network & Academic Computing Services provides a service to facilitate the distribution of academic information to large sets of UCI students. The “Student Electronic Broadcast System” (SEBS) provides mailing lists and delivery mechanisms to reach various categories of students.

With SEBS, authorized personnel can send e-mail to all students within a major, all students within a year (e.g. all sophomores), and several other useful categories. Lists are dynamically maintained using official UCI Registrar enrollment data so that schools and departments do not have to maintain and update their own lists.

The broadcast system was developed based on input from the campus, to meet academic information dissemination needs. More information can be found at http://www.nacs.uci.edu/computing/sebs/

Web Hosting Service

by

For the many faculty and staff who wish to develop Web sites, NACS offers computers and services to augment existing school and department resources. NACS has both Linux and Windows servers, in order to accommodate most Web development needs.

The machines are configured so that Web sites can be developed and maintained by the faculty/staff sponsor, by NACS staff, or cooperatively. A variety of Web server and Web development tools are available, native to either environment. The hosting service is economical, because several departments share the cost of acquiring and maintaining a single machine.

An on-staff Web developer is also available who is skilled in a wide array of Web technologies, including Perl, PHP, ASP and SQL.

More information can be found at http://www.nacs.uci.edu/support/webdev.html

Some recent sites which NACS has hosted and/or supported development:

Campuswide Honors program
http://www.honors.uci.edu/
Student Fee Advisory Committee
http://www.sfac.uci.edu/
Sexual Assault Survivors Alliance
http://www.sexualassaultsurvivors.org/

Y2K Bug is a No-Show at NACS

by

Thanks to preparations and planning, NACS is pleased to report that no Y2K-related problems occurred on the campus network, in the campus telephone system, or on NACS computing systems on January 1. Only minor Y2K problems had been anticipated, but we were concerned about possible threats to network and computer security by those attempting to exploit holiday absences and Y2K confusion.

NACS had staff standing by during the holiday to deal with potential Y2K problems or security attacks. Our goal was to be sure the UCI community could depend on NACS services upon their return to campus.

During the break, about a half-dozen different attempts to find or exploit weaknesses in UCI systems were detected and handled. In addition, several network and computing problems of a routine nature were fielded, and some key installation projections completed. Many thanks to the NACS computing and communications staff who worked or were on call during the holiday.

UCI Epidemiology to Manage Internet-based Informatics Systems

by

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has chosen the Epidemiology Division of UC Irvine’s College of Medicine to manage two Internet-based informatics systems. The first is for an existing NCI network of twelve international institutions studying genetic and other causes of breast and colon cancer, and the second will link eight major research centers nationally (including UCI) in NCI’s newly created Cancer Genetics Network. Both informatics systems will take advantage of emerging technologies and recent discoveries that are allowing scientists to explore, more than ever before, the key role gene mutations play in human cancer susceptibility.

In early May, the Epidemiology Division moved the Cancer Genetics Network and Informatics Centers to one of the new buildings on Theory Drive in the University Research Park (URP). The Informatics Centers are the first campus programs to utilize high-speed fiber-optic communication links from URP to the campus network backbone, orchestrated in large part through NACS. NACS will also be instrumental in planning networking and security needs for the Informatics Center.

The UCI Informatics Centers will develop one of the most comprehensive human cancer genetics research databases ever undertaken. The system will contain data on hundreds of thousands of people who are genetically predisposed to cancer, as well as information on biological specimens, educational materials and other resources designed to increase the world’s understanding of the genetic basis of cancer.

The Principal Investigators on these research projects are Hoda Anton-Culver, Ph.D., Robert Moyzis, Ph.D., Alberto Manetta, M.D., F. Allan Hubbell, M.D., and Argyrios Ziogas, Ph.D., among many others.

UCI Computing Supporters and Y2K

by

NACS hosts monthly meetings of campus computing supporters: the CSCs (Computer Support Coordinators) and CLCs (Computing Lab Coordinators). NACS staff and others will present on Y2K topics during two summer meetings of these groups:

Meeting agendas, schedules, and locations are announced and discussed on the UCICSCG@UCI.EDU LISTSERV mailing list, which anyone may join.