August 2022 CIO Update
Welcome to the 2022-2023 academic year! It’s nice to see so many students back on both campuses and to feel the renewed sense of energy that the fall semester brings. For this month’s entry, I’d like to feature two exciting new service offerings:
Adobe Creative Cloud Available to Students
For years the Student Technology Fee has provided valuable technology tools to promote success for VCU students. These tools include Google Workspace, Microsoft Office365, TopHat, and others that enhance the classroom experience. Student input is vital for how these funds are distributed. Recently, students have asked for full access to Adobe Creative Cloud at no additional cost. Based on this feedback, the Adobe suite of applications is now available to students for their class work at no additional cost through the support of the Student Technology Fee.
Adobe Creative Cloud provides students with the means to make anything imaginable. These industry-standard applications, web services, and resources enable students to easily integrate photography, graphic design, video editing, user experience design, drawing and painting, social media, and more into their classwork. All VCU students enrolled in at least one credit-bearing course have full access to the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite at no charge. Read more about how VCU aims to become the university of the future through its partnership with Adobe.
VCU was the first university in Virginia to earn the designation of Adobe Creative Campus. This partnership was made possible by incorporating problem-solving into our curricula and encouraging 21st-century teaching and learning methods. VCU students learn the skill of persuasive communication, allowing them to clearly express ideas in the classroom and showcase their work to future employers. Student engagement in coursework increases with more immersive projects such as creating podcasts, web pages, and documentaries. As a Creative Campus, VCU students have the opportunity to graduate with the visual, audio, and animation skills that will lead to employment and put them ahead in the modern workplace. Visit go.vcu.edu/adobe/students to explore the creative possibilities and see how our students are showcasing their work.
To learn more about how VCU became an Adobe Creative Campus, please see our Adobe Timeline.
New IT Status Page and Alerts
The new IT Status Page is finally here! VCU Technology Services has rolled out the new IT Status page, the primary IT alert page for central IT systems, and service outage notifications.
Some of the benefits of this new page and tool are as follows:
- VCU faculty, staff, and students can subscribe and sign up to receive email and text message alert notifications for the central IT systems and services that are most important to them.
- The new IT Status page allows us to display alerts, updates, and data about system and service performance so customers can quickly access updates and information on their own.
- Advanced reporting and metrics capabilities allow us to track downtime and communications patterns to identify opportunities to streamline and perform quality management.
To visit the new page, go to https://it.vcustatus.com.
For information on how to sign up for email and text alerts, please review the documentation by clicking this link.
Best wishes to all for a rewarding and exciting Fall semester!
Alex