Projects

Status: Partially completed: phase 1 complete, phase 2 in progress
Project initiated: December 2021
Page last updated: 7/11/2022

Summary 

To facilitate synchronous and asynchronous communication, as well as remote access to campus phone extensions, prior to the initiation of this project, ICIT provided access to three Cisco applications: Jabber, Webex Meetings, and the Webex App (formerly named Webex Teams). This project will merge the functionality from these three apps into one: the Webex App. This project will:

1. decrease application confusion and redundancy;
2. improve security posture and increase compliance with UW System policy; and
3. provide a more workable solution for student workers on campus.

This project will proceed in two phases:

Phase 1: Move from Cisco Jabber to the Webex App (formerly called Webex Teams) for calling and messaging.

Objective Phase 1

Transition messaging and calling from Jabber to the Webex App. This will include shifting campus branding / terminology for the app formerly called Webex Teams to its new name, the Webex App. 

Phase 1 was completed on March 8, 2022 when ICIT disabled Jabber from campus-owned devices and finalized the transition of campus devices to the Webex App for calling and messaging.

Phase 2: Eliminate the Webex Meetings desktop app consolidating functionality into the Webex App by Cisco

Objective Phase 2

Eliminate the Webex Meetings app, shifting any activities now using Webex Meetings to the Webex App (formerly Webex Teams).

Timeline Phase 2

An awareness campaign will begin late summer / early Fall 2022 to prepare campus to discontinue the use of the Webex Meetings app on November 18, 2022. 

Affected Users Phase 2

Because the Webex Meetings app is robustly utilized in both administrative and instructional capacities, this phase will have a full campus impact, requiring critical testing prior to implementation and re-education for all constituencies on campus. 

Status: Most components completed

Background

Technology advances and emerging threats have created the need for an increased responsibility to provide additional security measures to ensure that the data we collect, consume, and store is secure from unauthorized access. UW-Whitewater and UW System have developed a stronger method for users to sign in to applications that store and process restricted and sensitive data. This effort is known as the Multi-Factor Authentication project.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) provides secure access to UW-Whitewater and UW System applications when used in conjunction with the Net-ID login service. To maintain a high level of security and accountability for those who access UW-W services containing high-risk data, it was decided to transition from UW-W’s existing MFA provider (Symantec VIP) to a new solution that was both more cost-effective and user-friendly (Duo).

Duo MFA provides an extra layer of protection to the Net-ID login service by requiring users to verify their identity via the Duo Mobile app or One-Time Password (OTP) from a supported token or fob.

Project Summary

In the Fall of 2020, ICIT began implementing and transitioning a new Multi-Factor Authentication tool, Duo. This began with communication to current MFA users letting them know about the upcoming transition from Duo, and what could be expected. During this time, ICIT also created and published supplemental training documentation for Duo.

In February of 2021, ICIT opened up the enrollment process for existing MFA users to switch over to Duo. This enrollment process allowed current MFA users to transition to Duo to avoid restarting the MFA credentialing process from the beginning. 

UW-Whitewater completed its transition from Symantec VIP as our MFA provider to Duo on April 10, 2021. For additional information on MFA or how to get access, please visit:  https://www.uww.edu/icit/services/netid#Multi-FactorAuthentication.

To remain compliant with the current UWSA Authentication Policy, all UW-W employees (including students) are now required to be credentialed for MFA. MFA requirements for employee access to HRS went into effect on December 21, 2022. New employees are credentialled for MFA as part of their new hire paperwork through HR & D. 

Status: Completed, Fall 2021

Background

In the Spring of 2018, ICIT and UW-Whitewater launched a partnership with Involvio to help design the official UW-W App. The UW-W App was designed to aid students concerning campus resources, local events, calendars, and academic success. The project’s primary goals were to help students become more organized and involved with the UW-W community, make campus resources readily available, and create a student success network.

After a successful launch of the UW-W App, ICIT continued to work with campus partners on exciting ideas to deliver new features that were meaningful, user-friendly, and in line with the university’s strategic goals. Student Safety stood out as a critical new feature to add.

Project Summary

In the Fall of 2020, under the direction and leadership of the Whitewater Student Government, ICIT began work on the implementation of a Campus Safety Button to be added within the UW-W App.  

The purpose of this button would be to replace the current Blue Phones located around campus. The Blue Phones were put in place for students or staff to use if they ever felt in danger and needed urgent help. However, it was found out that these phones are rarely used over a school year.  Additionally, students had limited access to these phones depending on where they were on campus. 

The new Campus Safety Button would be accessible to anyone who downloaded the UW-W App and could be used from anywhere, not just on campus.  In the Spring of 2021, the first version of the Safety Button was created. After a testing phase and working with Involvio (UW-W App vendor) implementation, the Safety Button within the UW-W App was deployed in the Fall 2021 semester.

Status: Near completion with projected completion date in Spring, 2022

Background

High-quality communication and collaboration tools are vital to the success of all UW-W students, faculty, and staff. Arguably, campus email remains the most important and most used of these tools. Recently, more services, such as email, have been moving to cloud-based solutions that provide redundancy and better security all while lessening the burden of managing an on-premise solution. In addition, UW System’s standing contract with Microsoft allows UW-W to upgrade to Office 365 (O365) for an affordable price. 

To meet the needs of our campus community and take full advantage of a cloud-based solution, UW-W transitionined campus email to Office 365.

Project Summary

In the Summer of 2020, ICIT began the process of migrating campus email to O365. As a cloud-based solution, as the host of our email service, Microsoft will handle updates, security, and redundancy, limiting the chances for an outage. O365 offers expanded email storage, an additional benefit that will reduce quota increase requests.

In the Fall of 2020, ICIT began the testing phase, which included setting up a bridge between Exchange and O365 servers to ensure a secure migration. During this phase, several mailboxes were moved over to the O365 environment to facilitate the testing of different elements like internal and external emailing, calendars, and automatic notifications.

In the Spring of 2021, ICIT completed the initial communication testing between O365 and Exchange environments.  

During the Fall of 2021, ICIT  conducted thorough testing wtih ICIT staff and shared email accounts, producing critical knowledge that was used to fine-tune the transition process. ICIT migrated all UW-W student, faculty, staff, and shared mailboxes to O365 in November and December 2021.  Special and emeriti accounts will be migrated in January 2022. After completion, ICIT staff will complete the migration of servers and campus devices. The project will wrap up with the decomissioning of our Microsoft Exchange On-Premise service in the spring of 2022.  

Status: Most components completed

Project Summary

Effective July 1st, 2018, the UW System merged UW Colleges' 13 two-year campuses with the UW System's four-year comprehensive and research universities. Per the restructure, UW-Rock County has become part of UW-Whitewater, going by the name, UW-Whitewater at Rock County. 

The objectives of this restructuring include:

• Maintaining and expanding access to higher education by offering more general education and upper-level courses at the integrated branch campuses.
• Identify and reduce barriers to transferring credits within the UW System Maintain affordability by continuing current tuition levels at the branch campuses post-merger for general education courses.
• Further, standardize and regionalize administrative operations and services to more efficiently use resources.
• Leverage resources and shared talent at our institutions to get more students into and through the educational pipeline, better aligning the university to meet Wisconsin's projected workforce need.

As part of this system-wide restructure, ICIT has several projects and initiatives in development designed to help UW-Rock County students, faculty, and staff transition into the UW-Whitewater ecosystem. The goal of these initiatives is to provide organizational effectiveness through reliable technology & customer-focused service. This means creating a consistent experience for all UW-Whitewater at Rock County students, faculty, and staff.  

Current initiatives include (but not limited to):

• Merging UW-W at Rock County students into the UW-W lifecycle. (Completed)
• Developing the UW-W at Rock County website. (Completed)
• Transitioning email accounts, shared data, and network files to UW-W. (Completed)
• Transportation to and from UW-W and UW-W at Rock Country campuses. Transportation is provided by two buses which include built-in Wi-Fi networks. (Completed)
• Learning Management System support for UW-W at Rock County through Canvas. (Completed)
• Emergency Communication through the InformaCast App. (Completed)
• IT Security training for UW-W at Rock County faculty and staff. (Completed) 
• Transition VoIP to UW-W
• Complete AV inventory and E-Waste clean up.

Status: Completed with ongoing improvements

Project Summary

In the Spring of 2018, ICIT and UW-Whitewater launched a partnership with Involvio to help design an official UW-W App. The UW-W App is a mobile application designed to aid students with regard to campus resources, local events, calendars, and academic success. The goal of the project is to help students become more organized and involved with the UW-W community, make campus resources readily available, and create a student success network. The UW-W App will be able to leverage numerous campus resources and integrations including the Canvas Learning Management System, campus calendars, student organizations, and Webex. The UW-W App will help students stay more organized and aid in their overall success at UW-Whitewater.     

In the Fall of 2019, the UW-Whitewater app was officially rolled out. The rollout began with SOAR sessions during the Summer and was implemented during the Warhawk Welcome Week at the beginning of the semester.    

Updates

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the UW-W App added several new features to help meet the needs of students and campus departments including hosting virtual SOAR sessions, COVID-19 reporting, and study space reservations.  Additional features are currently being worked on such as an emergency services button as well as classroom seat and event reservations. 

Status: Completed with ongoing improvements

Project Summary

In the fall of 2017, ICIT introduced Citrix Virtualized Applications. Citrix is a tool that provides easy access to virtual applications across campus. These applications can be accessed from anywhere and they eliminate the need to download an entire virtual desktop. Citrix provides a streamlined process for instructors and students to access course software during class time without the need of a physical lab. Students and instructors can access the virtual library of apps from their own computers for easy and seamless collaboration. To get started, please go to: https://www.uww.edu/icit/services/virtual-lab

Updates

In the summer of 2019, the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite was added to the Virtual App library. Creative Cloud is Adobe’s suite of graphic design, video editing, web development, photography, and cloud services, many of which are the industry standard in their respective fields. Creative Cloud Apps that have been virtualized include Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign, and PhotoShop.

In the spring of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous applications were added to the virtual app library, as well as updated to current app versions such as Office 2019 and Adobe Creative Cloud 2021.