September 2025 Tech News Continued
Thursday, September 4, 2025
Updates to Research IT Services Website: EITS and Research and Computational Data Management (RCDM) recently partnered to consolidate and update the Research IT Services web page. The new page offers an overview of research computing, storage, and tools and services for UGA researchers. Users who visit the old URLs (https://researchit.uga.edu or https://eits.uga.edu/support/faculty_it/research_it) will automatically be redirected to the new page on the RCDM website at https://researchdata.uga.edu/services/computing.
GACRC teaching cluster available for Fall 2025: A small high-performance computing cluster devoted exclusively to teaching duties is available for use during the Fall 2025 semester. This cluster includes high-memory nodes and GPU-enabled nodes. The cluster, which is supported by the Georgia Advanced Computing Resource Center, was also in use during the spring. Faculty members interested in discussing the capabilities of the teaching cluster and how it might integrate with their coursework should contact Dr. Guy Cormier at [email protected].
Ransomware Tabletop Exercise Planned for September 29 and 30: Ransomware has become one of the top business risks facing any large, distributed organization. To proactively raise our awareness and improve our continuity planning, EITS will host a Ransomware Tabletop Exercise at the Georgia Center on September 29 and 30. UGA has contracted with a leading cybersecurity firm to deliver operational and executive leadership tabletop exercises at UGA. For more information, contact Ben Myers at [email protected].
QuestionPro Survey Research Tool Now Available: QuestionPro is the new enterprise survey research tool available to students, faculty, and staff free of charge. This platform includes tools for the creation, distribution, and analysis of surveys, along with tablet-based mobile research and data visualization. EITS launched QuestionPro for campus use by faculty and staff on March 17, 2025, and it is now available to all students, faculty and staff. There will be two migration and training sessions this fall on September 4 and October 6, 2025. Registration links for these sessions are available at https://eits.uga.edu/about/initiatives/survey_tool/migrationworkshops/. All recordings from the migration and training sessions from spring have been uploaded at the link above. For more information about QuestionPro, visit questionpro.uga.eduor contact [email protected].
Qualtrics Cost-Sharing Program Planning Underway: To assist departments interested in continued use of Qualtrics after December 2025, EITS has instituted a cost-sharing program. The deadline to opt-in to the cost-sharing program was May 1, 2025, and cost-sharing program participants have received recommendations for survey clean-ups. Effective January 2026, Qualtrics access will be limited to cost-sharing program participants only, and UGA Single Sign-On will be required. Current faculty and staff who are not part of the cost-sharing program will retain Qualtrics access through December 2025 and have received information on transitioning to alternative survey tools. Students will have access to Qualtrics until August 1, 2025. After this time, they should use QuestionPro as their primary survey tool. For more information, contact [email protected].
Fall Biannual Network Maintenance Scheduled for November 2, 2025: EITS plans to conduct its fall biannual network maintenance on Sunday, November 2, 2025. EITS conducts biannual network maintenance in the fall and spring each year to support the network and provide ample bandwidth and internet capacity to the university. The maintenance will result in intermittent outages of campus Internet access, telephone services, and various UGA information systems, including UGA Single Sign-On, UGA websites, and wireless networks. For more information, contact Rayid Tartir at [email protected].
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 at https://uga.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/3190/eitsclientportal/Requests/ServiceDet?ID=54344 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 3000 phone extensions. For more information, contact Steven Duffee at [email protected].
Transition from Omni CMS to Kaptiv8 WordPress by December 2025:Effective December 2025, Omni CMS (formerly OmniUpdate) will no longer be offered as a content management system for university websites. EITS recommends WordPress provided by Kaptiv8as an alternative solution for content management and website hosting. All university websites using Omni CMS must migrate to WordPress or another website hosting platform by the end of 2025. The transition from Omni CMS to WordPress was announced in 2023 and began in early 2024. To learn more about options for transitioning to WordPress, visithttps://uga.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/3190/eitsclientportal/KB/ArticleDet?ID=158743. For more information, contact David Crouch at[email protected].
Microsoft 365 is Free for all Students, Faculty and Staff: UGA provides Microsoft 365 software to eligible students, faculty, and staff. The suite includes full versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote and Outlook. Users also receive access to OneDrive cloud storage, allowing for easy access to saved documents from any location. For questionsregarding Microsoft 365you can visit the EITS Knowledge Base at eitshelpdesk.uga.edu, or contact the EITS Help Desk at 706-542-3106, email [email protected].
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