December 2025 Tech News Continued
Wednesday, December 3, 2025
New Digital Accessibility Tool for eLC Launched: On October 15, 2025, Ally for eLC launched and is now available to help instructors improve the accessibility of their course content. Ally is a digital accessibility tool that identifies issues in instructional materials and provides clear visual indicators and feedback to guide improvements. This launch supports compliance with a new federal rule from the U.S. Department of Justice requiring all state entities to ensure their websites and mobile apps are accessible to individuals with disabilities by April 24, 2026. The preparation period that began in October is designed to help instructors meet this requirement. Starting with Summer 2026 courses, all instructional materials must comply with the new federal standard. Students will also benefit from alternative file formats that support diverse learning needs. The Digital Accessibility Support team will host two Q&A sessions in December for Ally products; sign up for a Q&A session on the EITS Major Initiatives page. For more information, contact the EITS Digital Accessibility Services team.
Spring Network Maintenance Date Announced: The spring 2026 network maintenance is scheduled for Sunday, March 8, 2026, from 4:00 a.m. to midnight. During this time, students, faculty, and staff should expect intermittent service outages throughout the day. EITS performs network maintenance twice a year—in the fall and spring—to maintain the university’s technology infrastructure and ensure adequate bandwidth and internet capacity. For questions, contact Rayid Tartir.
Teams Phone Available for Campus Units: EITS now offers Teams Phone, a cloud-based, next-generation phone system provided by Microsoft. Teams Phone allows UGA employees to communicate and collaborate anytime, anywhere, on any device. It integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft Teams application on laptops, tablets, or mobile devices, allowing employees to access all calls, chats, calendar invites, and meetings in one place. EITS will transition all phone lines off the legacy PBX and onto Teams Phone by March 2026. Telephone Services is scheduling departments that have not already scheduled their transition to Teams Phone. DTRs should fill out a Teams Phone Onboarding Request for their unit as soon as possible. Upon receiving the onboarding request, approximately six weeks prior to the port date, Telephone Services will schedule a large group meeting to address any concerns and answer questions. The Teams Phone transition does not affect AT&T Centrex/HVS users or phone lines outside of the Athens area. As part of this project, Telephone Services has successfully transitioned around 5,000 extensions off the UGA PBX and approximately 3,500 phone extensions now on Microsoft Teams phone. For more information, contact Steven Duffee.
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