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Stay Safe While Using Cloud Services

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Cloud services such as Dropbox and Google Docs are becoming increasingly useful, numerous, and popular. You can work with your information – documents, photos, videos – from any internet-connected computer (including your phone) and trust that the information is backed up and secure.

However, when it comes to university data, additional considerations come into play. Are these services compatible with issues of privacy and security, federal and state law, and university policy?

OIT has published a document to help guide faculty and staff in the use of cloud services for UCI business. Highlights include three fundamental ideas you must keep in mind while using cloud services, a list of business situations for which cloud services are almost certainly inappropriate, and links to further reading.

Cloud services promise to save us time and money, and offer us the ability to share information and collaborate with unprecedented ease. However, in the university business context, additional prudence is in everyone’s best interests.

In Brief May 2013

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latest news

  • UCI is participating in the InCommon Certificate program, which allows delegated administrators in campus departments to issue and renew digital certificates used for such purposes as securing web servers run on behalf of their department.  Details can be found at http://security.uci.edu/sslcerts.php
  • ReadyTalk, UCI’s conference calling service, has been enhanced to include videoconferencing.  Up to four participants (selected by the conference host)  can provide video feeds, and up to 25 conference participants can watch.  More information is at http://www.readytalk.com/products-services/video
  • On May 22, EEE will be offering a workshop, “Working Safe and Smart in the Wild Web” to help faculty and staff learn strategies to protect your personal information while leveraging the power of the internet  for academic communication. Register at https://eee.uci.edu/workshop/cf

UCI Hosts UCCSC 2013

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UCCSC

UCCSC

Every summer, IT professionals from throughout the UC system gather to learn about one another’s challenges, projects, plans, and achievements.  The University of California Computing Services Conference (UCCSC) is hosted by the ten UC campuses in rotation, and this summer it is Irvine’s opportunity to put on the conference.

UCCSC will be held August 4-6, 2013, at the UCI Student Center.  The conference will feature over forty hours of technical presentations, workshops, and panels, spanning the breadth of information technology that helps keep UC running.  UCCSC’s keynote speaker will be Dan Russell of Google, Inc.  A UCI alumnus, Dan explores how people use Google searches, and what constitutes their sense of success. He invented and produces AGoogleADay to challenge people and teach them about search techniques and incidentally, the world.

UCCSC is also the traditional venue for presentation of the Larry Sautter awards.  UC’s Sautter Award recognizes innovative use of information technology in support of the university’s mission. The award is open to faculty and staff from all UC campuses, the Office of the President and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  Named for UC Riverside’s former associate vice chancellor for computing and communications, the award program is sponsored by the UC IT Leadership Council.

Registration for UCCSC 2013 will open in June.  Information about UCCSC can be found at the conference web site https://uccsc.uci.edu/ Questions about the conference may be directed to uccsc2013@uci.edu

Kuali Coeus: Proposal Development and Routing

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Kuali

The new Kuali Coeus Proposal Development module is now available to faculty, staff and Contract & Grant Administrators across UCI for developing and routing proposals to Sponsored Projects for review and submission.

With the successful completion of the pilot program launched on August 6th of last year, the Office of Research has been rolling out Kuali Coeus to the rest of the campus.  Complete implementation is expected by the end of this month, at which point Kuali Coeus Proposal Development will replace the existing Administrative Approval (AA) form, which will no longer be accepted.  Department Managers have been contacted individually to schedule training and to setup workflow parameters for their specific areas.

Questions about Kuali Coeus may be directed to Kuali Coeus Administrator Barbara Inderwiesche at barbara.i@uci.edu or by calling (949) 824-4789.

To stay informed about further development and implementation of Kuali Coeus at UCI, please sign up for the KC-project listserv by sending a blank email to kc-project-join@uci.edu.  You can also follow developments in Kuali Coeus at UCI’s Kuali web site: http://www.kuali.uci.edu

GIS Geodatabase Covers UCI Campus

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For several years OIT staff have been collaborating with staff in Environmental Planning and Sustainability, Space Management, Facilities Management, Environmental Health & Safety, and the UCI Police Department to develop detailed Geographic Information System (GIS) data that represent the campus in its entirety.  The data can be used to develop custom GIS maps of the campus as a whole or for specific areas, to identify campus features (meaning things on the ground) and their associated attributes, and to extract information associated with individual features or groups of features.  Collectively these data products constitute a digital map base, specifically a geodatabase, for the campus.  OIT and other campus departments have been using the geodatabase for mapping purposes and for analyzing details of features.

Initial efforts focused on developing data for the greater campus infrastructure including campus buildings, streets, parking, fire lanes and walkways.  Subsequently, GIS data representing nearly every square foot of the entire campus have been acquired and added to the campus GIS.  Many new data themes now exist such as lawn, shrubbery, mixed landscape, open areas (native plants, water and exposed ground), athletic areas, points of interest, etc.  Within each data theme individual features are distinguished by their type and that information is stored in the geodatabase.  For example, for the buildings theme there are seven unique types and each type is identifiable on the map by its type color.  The detailed map below, covering a portion of Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences Quads, shows several of these data themes that are contained in the campus geodatabase.

Campus GIS

Several projects are currently employing the campus geodatabase.  In one project, 71 detailed maps covering the campus as a map grid have been made.  These maps were developed in conjunction with auxiliary emergency-related data, to support the UCI Police Department and Orange County Fire Authority for emergency response.

You can view the campus GIS map online using the following link:

http://gis.oit.uci.edu/uci/campus/

Campus employees who are interest in using the UCI geodatabase or who are interested in developing their own geodatabase for their research should contact Tony Soeller (tsoeller@uci.edu).