VPIT_November2025

Vice President for Information Technology Status and Activity Report for November 2025 Prepared by Timothy M. Chester, Vice President for Information Technology (VPIT) 1. Key Items for Faculty and Staff Meetings •

New Digital Accessibility Policy Announced: In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a rule requiring all state entities to ensure that their websites and mobile apps meet the WCAG 2.1 Level AA standard by April 24, 2026. This mandate applies to all digital programs, services, and instructional materials. To support compliance, UGA has launched a Digital Accessibility Program in collaboration with the Equal Opportunity Office (EOO) and has formed a Digital Accessibility Steering Committee. In October, this group published the university’s new Digital Accessibility Policy. The policy outlines its purpose, scope, legal standards and timeline, exceptions, resources, and methods for monitoring and promoting compliance. To read the policy in more detail, visit the Digital Accessibility Policy on the UGA Policy Library. For more information, contact the EITS Digital Accessibility Services team.

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New Digital Accessibility Tool Ally for Web Launching in November: On November 10, 2025, UGA will launch Ally for Web, a new digital accessibility tool designed to help identify and fix accessibility issues in website content. This initiative 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. Ally provides visual indicators and actionable feedback to help improve accessibility. In November, the Digital Accessibility Services team will contact Digital Accessibility Liaisons (DALs) for web to collect a list of their unit website domains. Once accounts are provisioned, DALs will gain access to Ally and can begin updating their sites for compliance. Training and support will be available later in the fall 2025 semester through the EITS Digital Accessibility Services team. For more information, contact the EITS Digital Accessibility Services team.

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Institutional Reporting Transitioning from Tableau to Power BI: In November 2024, the Office of Institutional Research (OIR) announced its transition to Power BI as the university’s primary enterprise reporting tool. Over the next year, OIR will migrate existing Tableau reports to Power BI. For report users, this change will bring a refreshed look and feel while maintaining familiar, consistently sourced data. OIR will communicate with Tableau Server stakeholders in the coming months to support planning and transition efforts. To learn more about Power BI and its features, visit the EITS Knowledge Base article about Microsoft Power BI. For more information, contact Andrew Westbrook.

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Office of Institutional Research Launches New Website: The Office of Institutional Research (OIR) has launched a redesigned website featuring a modern interface, enhanced functionality, and interactive data visualizations. This upgrade enhances the usability, accessibility, and presentation of institutional data, making it easier for the UGA IT community to explore and leverage key insights. The site currently includes Tableau reports, with Power BI reports to be added as they are developed. The website remains accessible at the same URL, and can be accessed by visiting the Office of Institutional Research. For more information, contact Allan Aycock.

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New Duo Exception for Departmental MyIDs: Effective November 18, 2025, Departmental MyID accounts not enrolled in Duo will be restricted to on-campus access only. These accounts will no longer be able to sign in to Microsoft 365 services, including UGAMail, Teams, Office, and OneDrive, from off-campus or outside the UGA network.

This change strengthens account security and reduces the risk of compromise for shared or infrequently monitored accounts. Departmental account owners who require offcampus access should enroll their accounts in Duo prior to November 18. For more information, contact Lance Peiper.

2. Services for Students: •

Student MyID Access Changes After Graduation: To protect the UGA network and prevent unauthorized access, EITS disables student MyID accounts approximately one year after graduation or departure from UGA. This results in loss of access to many UGA IT services, including UGAMail. To increase awareness, notices will be sent to undergraduate students eligible for graduation in December 2025, as well as graduate students who graduated or left the university during the summer of 2025. The first notice will be sent on December 3, 2025, with additional outreach through social media and other platforms. UGA departments are encouraged to remind their graduating students that their MyID access will expire one year after graduation. Students should set up a non-UGA email account for job applications, graduate school, or professional programs. To learn more about this process, visit the EITS Website Story “Prepare for MyID Changes After Graduation”.

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Automated Student MyID Clean-up: In 2024, EITS implemented an automated process to clean up inactive student MyID accounts. This process runs once a semester, and flags accounts for disablement and deletion if the student graduated or left UGA approximately one year ago. Alumni and former students with flagged accounts will receive two automated emails to their UGAMail address, notifying them of the upcoming deactivation and deletion. The current clean-up cycle began on September 30, 2025.

Notices were sent in October, and affected accounts will be disabled on November 17, 2025. For more information, contact Kristi Wall.

3. Services for Teaching Faculty: •

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 visual indicators and feedback to guide improvements. This launch supports compliance with a new federal rule from the U.S. Department of Justice, which requires all state entities to ensure their websites and mobile apps are accessible to individuals with disabilities by April 24, 2026. The preparation period beginning 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 to support diverse learning needs.

Training and support will be available starting later in the fall 2025 semester through the new EITS Digital Accessibility Services team. For more information, contact the EITS Digital Accessibility Services team.

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4.

Other General Services •

Spring Network Maintenance Date Announced: The spring 2026 network maintenance will take place on Sunday, March 8, 2026, from 4 a.m. to Midnight. Students, faculty, and staff should expect intermittent service outages throughout the day. EITS conducts biannual network maintenance each fall and spring to support the university’s infrastructure and ensure sufficient bandwidth and internet capacity. For more information, contact Rayid Tartir.

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Verify and Claim Your Departmental MyID Accounts by January 23: Departmental MyID accounts are used by units, colleges, and departments to run automated processes and serve as contact emails for departments or programs. EITS conducts an annual verification to ensure each account has a current owner classified by Central Human Resources as a full-time faculty or staff member. This process also confirms that associated account details remain accurate. The 2025 verification process begins December 1, 2025, and concludes on January 23, 2026. Account owners will receive an email prompting them to complete the verification process through TeamDynamix, with follow-up reminders sent until the process is complete. Accounts not verified by January 23, 2026, will be disabled. For more information, contact Kristi Wall.

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Cost Recovery Rates in Development: Cost Recovery rates for Fiscal Year 2027 are currently being developed. The finalized rates will be released in December 2025. For more information on EITS Cost Recover Services, visit the Cost Recovery section of the EITS Knowledge Base.

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2026 USG Benefits Open Enrollment: This year's open enrollment period will be held from October 27 through November 7, 2025. This is an active enrollment year, which means action will be required on the part of each UGA employee to ensure that benefits and associated costs match individual circumstances. All faculty and staff enrolled or enrolling in a USG healthcare plan must certify their tobacco status. Employees covering a spouse on their USG/UGA health plan must also update the working spouse certification; those faculty and staff who take no action during open enrollment to complete these certifications will default to the $150 monthly surcharge for each item.

Open Enrollment is also the only opportunity to enroll in or donate to the Shared Sick Leave Pool for 2026. This program allows employees to contribute paid sick leave to a shared pool for colleagues who meet eligibility requirements. Learn more about open enrollment.

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Unified ERP Update: The Unified Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Project intends to replace the current institutional systems for human capital management, financials, and student information, improving the experience for students, faculty, and staff; streamlining core business processes; and unifying technology into a single, Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. The Unified ERP Program Team Launch will be November 10 and 11 in Macon, Georgia. UGA Team Members who have been identified to serve on the USG Project Team will attend the Program Team Launch. In the near future, the UGA Unified ERP Project team will be requesting that each school/college/unit identify a single point of contact for the Finance and HCM portion of the project. Unit leaders will receive specific guidance on submitting their nominations for this role. This role will be called the “Project Coordinator” and be responsible for success of the project within their unit, including adoption, use, proficiency of users, and integration with unit-level process and policies. This individual will also be responsible for nominating Change

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Champions for their unit. To prepare for the upcoming project activities this semester and to provide additional awareness to the UGA campus community, there are a series of activities occurring in the Fall 2025 Semester. Updates and information about semester activities will be shared on the UGA Project Website. For more information, contact Lynn Wilson, or Shawn Hill.

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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 costsharing 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. After this time, they should use QuestionPro as their primary survey tool. For more information, contact the EITS Survey Tools Team.

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Teams Phone Available for Campus Units: EITS now offers Teams Phone, a cloudbased, 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 are now on Microsoft Teams phone. For more information, contact Steven Duffee.

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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 Kaptiv8 as 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, visit the EITS Knowledge Base article, Centralized WordPress Hosting. For more information, contact David Crouch.

5. Did you Know?

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EITS Help Desk Thanksgiving Holiday Hours: The EITS Help Desk will have adjusted hours for the Thanksgiving holiday. On Wednesday, November 26, 2025, the Help Desk will close early at 5:00 p.m. The Help Desk will remain closed from Thursday, November 28, through Sunday, November 30, 2025, in observance of the holiday. Regular

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operating hours will resume on Monday, December 1, 2025. For self-service support during the break, visit the EITS Knowledge Base.

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Cybersafe while Holiday Shopping: As the holiday season approaches, take steps to protect your personal and financial information when shopping online. Update your devices to the latest software versions and review your privacy and security settings to limit unnecessary data sharing. Be cautious of deals that seem too good to be true; phishing scams often come from seemingly legitimate retailers. Avoid providing personal or financial information unless you are certain the website is secure and trustworthy.

Use a credit card rather than a debit card whenever possible for better fraud protection and lower liability. If you suspect a phishing attempt, report it to the Information Security team.

University of Georgia students, faculty, and staff, as well as interested others, may subscribe to this monthly report by sending an email to listserv@listserv.uga.edu with the phrase subscribe vpit-news as the body of the message.

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