Currently, two DoIT student staff members are -- or will be -- leading both UMBC student governments.

Last week, Collin Sullivan (pictured at right), an Economics and Information Systems double major, and instructional technology student consultant, was elected President of the undergraduate Student Government Association (SGA). He joins Roy Prouty, a Computer Science graduate student, and high performance computing (HPC) student consultant in Enterprise Infrastructure Support (EIS), who is completing his tenure as President of the Graduate Student Association (GSA).

Google has announced a new design and several new features for its Gmail platform focused on helping users work safer, smarter and more efficiently.

New features include:

• A more powerful inbox Archive, delete, mark as read or unread, and snooze messages to a later date directly from your inbox. You can even view attachments all without needing to open up the message.

• Nudge reminders Gmail can now proactively remind you to follow up or respond to messages.

• Confidential Mode Set expiration dates, restrictions on forwarding, downloading, or copying contents of an email, or require the recipient to enter a password sent via SMS before gaining access to the email.

• The New Side Panel Quickly reference, create or edit Calendar invites, capture ideas in Keep or manage to-dos in Tasks all from a side panel in your inbox.

• Smart Replies Respond to messages faster by using one of Google's suggested responses.

To try out the new design and features, go to Gmail’s Settings (the gear icon) and click  “Try the new UMBC Mail.” 

If you decide you aren't quite ready to stick with the new design, you can switch back to the existing design from the Settings menu by clicking “Go back to classic UMBC Mail.” However, be aware that Google will be moving forward with this design and will remove the ability to return to the existing design at a later date.

Learn more about the new features or read Google’s full announcement.

UPDATE: To get past the start of Fall 2019, faculty with PS access will be required to upgrade to Duo by 9/30/19.

As part of ongoing efforts to keep the campus safe online, the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has partnered with Duo Security for 2-factor authentication (2FA), which DoIT staff have used for several years. Given UMBC employees’ obligation to protect sensitive, personally identifiable information, all UMBC staff members with access to Peoplesoft (PS) will be required to use Duo by the end of the year 2018. All faculty members with Peoplesoft access will be required to do so by Fall 2019. This will apply to any online UMBC service requiring a login, except for current, “self-service” functions such as timesheets, etravel requests, etc.

Duo 2-factor authentication (2FA) greatly increases the security of your account by adding an extra layer of protection to the login procedure. With Duo 2FA, your account will require you to have a second-factor device physically unique to you, such as a smartphone, your office phone, or even a tablet in your possession to log in. When you log in, your second-factor device will prompt you to approve your online login. Without approval from your second-factor device, any fraudulent attempts to log into your account are denied, thus preventing anyone who shouldn't have access to your account from getting to your data.

However, you don't need to have PS access or even wait until the various deadlines to get started! In fact, DoIT strongly encourages all faculty and staff to enable Duo 2FA now. Required employees who choose not to enable Duo 2FA by the deadlines above will be automatically enrolled on those dates. DoIT will also provide a “count-down” weekly reminder 90 days before the relevant deadline.

Note: DoIT presented this planned rollout at the March 27 IT Steering Committee, March 29 at TechFest, at the Faculty Senate Computer Policy Committee (CPC) on April 25, and will do so at Professional Staff Senate (PSS) meeting before the end of the term as well.

Click here to learn how to activate Duo today.

Additional information about Duo two-factor authentication is available in the FAQs.

If you have further questions, please contact the Technology Support Center by either submitting a support request at my.umbc.edu/help or calling (410) 455-3838.

Congratulations to DoIT Assistant Vice President Joe Kirby, who has been selected to receive the 2018 Presidential Distinguished Staff Award. Along with other recipients and their families, Joe will be honored at the Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards celebration on Wednesday, April 4, at noon in the UC Ballroom. The award also includes a one-time, $2,500 addition to pay.

“I am truly honored to be recognized and grateful for the opportunity to work at UMBC,” says Kirby, who was also recognized for 30 years of service to the campus in 2016.

Kirby is now the third DoIT staff member to receive the Presidential Distinguished Staff Award, following Kevin Joseph, Director of Business Intelligence in 2014, and Vice President of IT and Chief Information Officer (CIO) Jack Suess in 2004.

“Over Joe’s career, he has made many significant contributions to UMBC and DoIT,” said Suess in his nomination letter for Kirby. Among other things, Suess credited Kirby for leading DoIT’s efforts to prepare the campus for the potential ramifications of a Year 2000 (Y2K) “bug,” moving UMBC away from using Social Security Numbers (SSN) as a unique identifier in our IT systems, and evangelizing the use of Request Tracker (RT) as a way to improve campus (not just DoIT) support.  

“Joe is a leader who works with many staff behind the scenes to help them use technology to provide better service and support to our UMBC community,” says Suess. “I'm thrilled the campus has recognized Joe's contributions to UMBC through this award!”