All @edu.uwaterloo.ca accounts moved to the @uwaterloo.ca domain
IST has completed the migration of all @edu.uwaterloo.ca accounts to the @uwaterloo.ca domain. Having both students and employees in the same tenant will allow for significantly enhanced collaboration opportunities between these groups while using Office 365 applications. This change will also allow IST to further investigate the use of Teams to support teaching and learning (investigations to begin fall 2020); an important consideration as we continue to support students from a distance.
Resources to support this change are available on the Student Email Migration website.
Pantheon selected to host WCMS 3.0 websites
In 2019, Information Systems & Technology (IST) issued a request for proposal (RFP) for a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) environment to host the University’s next generation Waterloo Content Management System (WCMS) 3.0 ecosystem.
We are pleased to announce that, earlier this year, the RFP was awarded to Pantheon. Pantheon is one of the largest cloud-based Drupal PaaS hosting providers and has a significant footprint in both Canadian and US Higher Education. As WCMS 3.0 rolls out later this year, all newly created and migrated WCMS 3.0 sites will be hosted on the Pantheon platform and data stored in their Canadian Data Centre.
This Platform-as-a-Service model gives the University the certainty of regular, continuous releases to the underlying technologies that run the WCMS, as well as enhanced Continuous Integration tools that will help IST significantly reduce the time required to publish updates to the WCMS. This new model also gives IST the ability to dynamically scale website performance based on real-time demand, and with Pantheon’s Content Distribution Network, performance of WCMS-hosted sites for international audiences will be significantly enhanced.
More information on this project can be found on the “Building the Next WCMS” website
Supporting instructors remotely
Teaching and learning remotely is not a simple thing. Modifying and even recreating course materials for remote teaching in a very short period of time, and ensuring the proper supports are in place, poses many challenges.
The Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE), Centre for Extended Learning (CEL), Instructional Technologies and Media Services (IST-ITMS), and the Library have formed a Teaching and Learning Support Team that will coordinate and guide the teaching and learning support services required during this transition.
Important resources are available on the Keep Learning website. Here, instructors can find advice and direction on how to conduct remote teaching successfully, including course design, assessment options, consideration for accommodations, and educational technologies that can enhance the teaching and learning experience. Workshops and events for a variety of related topics are also listed.
Instructors can request assistance with course design, teaching strategies, or course reserves through a new central email address, remoteteaching@uwaterloo.ca or contact learnhelp@uwaterloo.ca for technical support.
The Keep Learning website, Teaching and Learning Support Team, and staff of these instructional support units will be integral to delivering a quality University of Waterloo academic experience during these extraordinary times.
Did you know?
A Campus IT Team has recently been created, and you can request to join! In this Team you'll find great information on information security, networking, web, research computing support, and more. Ask a question, join a conversation, start a new relevant channel, or review the information for general knowledge.
