Information Technology News

Secure Instant Messaging

NACS has introduced a new component of our communication and collaboration services: Instant Messaging (IM).

This service allows real-time communication between two or more people.  You can type brief messages back and forth, ask and answer quick questions, share links, and transfer files. In addition to person-to-person communications, it can be used to host a group “chat room”, to assist help desk or reception activities, or for contact between faculty and students.

As this service is designed for and operated at UC Irvine, it has many advantages over commercial IM services:

• UCInetID Identification — Your instant messaging ID is the same as your campus login: UCInetID@uci.edu. With the UCInetID system you always know with whom you’re speaking; no need to guess or verify whether an instant messaging handle actually belongs to your coworker.
• Spam-Free — NACS Instant Messaging is not accessible by commercial instant messaging systems. In addition, you must authorize senders before they may send messages to you.
• Security — All transmissions are encrypted using SSL/TLS.

NACS offers documentation for selected instant messaging clients for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

For additional information and connection instructions, please see http://www.nacs.uci.edu/computing/im/

Recruit Updated

Recruit Web Site

The faculty recruitment process at UCI is managed by the web application “Recruit.” NACS has improved Recruit’s applicant interface based on feedback from applicants as well as the academic personnel analysts who manage faculty recruitment.

Since its launch just over three years ago, more than 15,000 applicants have used the Recruit system.  The system allows applicants to apply electronically and enables the search committee to see applicant files online. Recruit is part of Academic Personnel Systems, built as a partnership between the Office of Academic Personnel and NACS, and based on an earlier version from ICS.

Extensive help is now available on-line for all Recruit users — not only for the applicants, but also for their references, academic personnel analysts and for search committee members who may be unfamiliar with the system’s interface. The on-line help is organized by job or task. For example, a member of a search committee will easily find help on how to review documents or filter the view of a large applicant pool. Compared to printed materials, on-line documentation has become increasingly prevalent because of the advantage in updating the content as well as instant accessibility.

The Recruit website can be found at http://recruit.ap.uci.edu/

UCInetIDs for Applicants

NACS has expanded the availability of campus network identities this year for the first time to include applicants for admission to the university.

Since applicants now have the ability to officially authenticate to UCInet, units such as the Registrar, Admissions, Financial Aid, and Housing can offer online information and support to potential students without creating their own systems of identification, providing applicants more uniform and convenient access to these resources.

NACS issued over 64,000 UCInetIDs to applicants this year.

Most Spam is Blocked

In 2008, UCI email readers were spared almost one billion spam messages which were blocked by the NACS spam-mitigation system prior to delivery.  This represents more than 21,000 messages for each faculty, staff, and student at UCI last year.

Of the messages accepted for delivery, 12 million were labeled as potentially spam so that people could quarantine them and inspect them at their convenience.  Here is a summary of the spam and mail delivery statistics for 2008:

Total Messages Blocked: 869,295,065
Total Messages Accepted: 97,484,167
Total Messages Accepted marked as spam: 11,786,134

The chart shows the number of spam messagess blocked each day in 2008 (in red) and the number of messages accepted for delivery (in blue.)  You can find more information on spam and spam filtering on line.