Information Technology News Archive

1996 - 2017

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).

In Brief February 2013

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latest news

  • The campus on-line directory has been modified so that last names, which in the past have been in UPPER CASE, are now displayed in the more conventional Mixed Case.
  • Walk-in support by the OIT Help Desk is now available in Modular B, Physical Sciences Quad (in parking lot 16) in addition to 115 Aldrich Hall.
  • The campus Kerberos servers (which provide WebAuth and other UCInetID-based login services) were recently upgraded resulting in quicker authentication processing.

Tips for Using Exchange Calendar

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Last summer, UCI converted calendaring functionality from Oracle Calendar to Exchange Calendar.  Here are some helpful tips gleaned from the first six months’ use of Exchange Calendar.  If you have questions about how to use your calendar, please send email to oit@uci.edu – your question might help many others at UCI.

When I delete the email inviting me to a meeting, sometimes the meeting disappears from my calendar. Why does this happen?

In Exchange Calendar, calendar events and email messages are closely linked. What you do with your calendar can affect your email and vice-versa.  Your individual experience will vary depending on whether Exchange (as opposed to Enterprise Services) is your email server, and whether you use Outlook or Thunderbird as your email client.

If you delete the meeting invitation email from your Exchange inbox before you have responded to the invitation, Exchange interprets that as declining the meeting.  So, just as when you explicitly decline an invitation, the meeting disappears (making room for future invitations.)

Because of this behavior (declining the meeting deletes it), many people leave a meeting in a “tentative” state so that it remains on the calendar.  If they later find they are able to attend, they can respond at that time.  Meanwhile, they have not committed.

How can I better manage calendar-related email?

Consider creating a folder for archiving meeting-related email.  After you’ve responded to a meeting invitation, you can refile the message to get it out of your inbox, and this technique won’t have an impact on your calendar (whereas deleting the invitation may).  If you find calendar-related messages are cluttering your inbox, you may choose to create a filter in your email client (such as Outlook) to file those messages into a folder for later review.  You can create another folder for archiving as above.

When I accept meetings in Exchange Calendar, it deletes the meeting request in my inbox.  How do I keep the email message?

This is normal behavior for Exchange Calendar, but you can change it with an optional setting in Outlook.  Step by step instructions are available in the Exchange FAQ.

Do you have any pointers on scheduling meetings with other people?

Exchange Calendar includes a tool called the Scheduling Assistant.  It offers a great deal of help in coordinating with other people’s calendars, if you know where to look.  A screenshot showing various items of interest is available in the Exchange FAQ.

For other useful tips on effective use of Exchange calendar, read the Microsoft article “Outlook meeting requests: Essential do’s and don’ts”.