Apr, 2014

Important changes to U of L Email and related services

Standards

IT Services – Access Standards Released

Recently a number of significant documents (five in total) describing the University’s rules for granting and revoking a number of technology services were created by a University representative committee and authorized by the CIO. These documents describe the various services available to faculty, staff, students, alumni and outside entities that desire the use of the IT infrastructure of the University. The material is available on the University of Lethbridge policy website, which is publicly available here: http://www.uleth.ca/policy. To review, set the filter on “Information Technology” and the documents will appear alongside the password standard, acceptable use, and screen saver policies.

IT Services encourages all University users to review these documents to familiarize themselves with their contents. See below for a summary of major changes.

Major Highlights of the Data Access Standard documents

Employees/Administrative Staff

  • Effective immediately, University of Lethbridge employees will no longer be eligible for “email for life” when they retire. From the moment of termination, access to email will be removed. An automated message indicating failure of receipt will be active for 3 months. As always, we strongly encourage administrative staff not to use their uleth.ca address as their primary personal contact email. Many free services offer competitive, secure email products and should be used instead. Personal emails are permitted in uleth.ca accounts however, extensive use is not advised.
  • A separate staff drive (similar to the P: Drive) will be created for University business use in order to separate student data from University data. Once employment is terminated, access to this drive will be removed.
  • Exception cases exist where an employee is also a currently enrolled student.

All individuals who are currently receiving an email for life benefit will not have their services revoked. This affects only new retirements of administrative staff from May 1, 2014 and beyond.

Faculty

  • If not retiring in good standing, email access will be removed immediately. An automated message indicating failure of receipt will be active for 3 months. For those that retire in good standing, their uleth.ca email will be available for life.
  • A separate staff drive (similar to the P: Drive) will be created for University business use. Once employment is terminated, access to this drive will be removed (regardless of retirement standing).
  • Exception paths exist for reinstating access through department chairs, deans, and the University Provost.
  • Academic/research data will not be deleted, but this provision is only temporary until a data retention committee can identify a more permanent solution that better handles this type of information.

Students

There are no changes to current service practices, which include:

  • Access to email terminates approximately one year after the last registered class is completed.
  • Access to the personal drive (P: Drive) terminates approximately one year after the last registered class.

Please see the document for additional details.

Alumni

  • After graduation, a new email address, @alumni.uleth.ca, will be assigned and enabled for life, or until a removal request has been received. Instructions will be available to help transition content between student addresses and the new alumni addresses if desired.
  • No additional services will be available for alumni other than email/Bridge access. Access to services such as the library will determined according to individual policies and regulations.

External Groups

  • Temporary accounts require approval from a sponsor’s supervisor, unless they are a Dean, Executive Director or a higher ranked official.
  • All temporary accounts will auto-terminate based on the usage dates provided at the time of their creation.

If there are any specific questions about these new standards, please do not hesitate to contact Kevin Vadnais, Manager, Information Security Office.

Phone: 403-332-4056    Email: kevin.vadnais@uleth.ca

Patches, password changes thwart Heartbleed bug

A security issue (denoted the ‘Heartbleed bug’) has been identified that affects some University of Lethbridge systems. This issue is serious and compromises a core encryption technology designed to keep your information safe as it crosses the internet. Most often you would see this technology in use when you visit sites that begin with https.heartbleed-bug

A small number of University machines are affected by this issue, most of which are not accessible from the internet.  The two systems representing the greatest risk are the student email system and the mailman (mailing list) administration console.  These systems were fixed on April 9th  and we have no evidence to indicate they were targeted in any attacks.  As a precaution, students and mailing list administrators who are concerned can change their password if they desire.

ITS is working with faculties, departments, and business units to fix the remaining systems.  System Administrators concerned with the integrity of effected systems are encouraged to change administrative/root passwords.  Users inquiring about the integrity of their accounts are advised that changing one’s password is always the best policy.  Instructions to change University of Lethbridge passwords may be found here: https://www.uleth.ca/webtools/account_tools/pswdchng

For more information about the bug go to: http://heartbleed.com/

Technical support personnel outside of ITS are encouraged to contact the Solutions Centre at help@uleth.ca for further information.

Users with questions or concerns can also contact the Solutions Centre at 2490 or help@uleth.ca

 

Huge Adobe software package available to U of L employees

U of L faculty and staff can benefit from a new software package made possible by an agreement between the University of Lethbridge and Adobe Systems Inc.Adobe Creative Cloud

The enhanced Adobe Creative Cloud for education agreement provides a full suite of software, free of charge, for use at work. The agreement also offers a work-at-home package for only $11.25 per year for personal Windows and Apple computers.

The Creative Cloud suite includes, but is not limited to Photoshop, InDesign, Adobe Edge Animate, Acrobat XI Pro, Illustrator, and a variety of other Adobe products. “The retail value of these products is enormous,” says Chris Robinson, Client Services Manager.  “Photoshop alone is around $700 and up, depending on the version.”

IMPORTANT: For University-owned computers, faculty and staff should contact the Solutions Centre to request installation.

To purchase Creative Cloud for home computers, there are some important details interested buyers should know ahead of time.

  • The work-at-home software is for personal and professional supplement purchases only.
  • To download, go to https://www.uleth.ca/information-technology/store
  • Click on Take Me to the IT Store button. You will be required to log in using your U of L username and password.
  • Click on the Kivuto button.
  • Click on Start Shopping. The Adobe Creative Cloud icon can be found under the Adobe tab.

Both the download and installation steps can take up to one hour each. It is recommended that the download take place on campus if home internet bandwidth is not high-speed.

“The best options are to either bring their laptop onto campus to download the software, and then proceed with the installation at home or, if they have a desktop computer at home, download it onto their work computer and copy the installation file onto a 32GB USB key that has a minimum of 16GBs of free space,” says Robinson.

Any questions or concerns should be directed to the Solutions Centre at (403) 329-2490 or help@uleth.ca.