OIT Article Summaries

CU Anschutz has made meaningful progress in advancing digital accessibility across our campus. From expanding our resources and training to increasing our engagement and accessibility scores for websites and course materials, these efforts reflect our shared commitment to creating a digital environment with equal access for all. As we celebrate these achievements, it’s important to stay informed about how we can continue to meet the requirements of Colorado’s Accessibility Law (HB21-1110) and build on the momentum we’ve created together.

ISS and Denver OIT have partnered with Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) to put on a free, one-day event on each campus for university faculty and staff to drop off old university electronics for secure recycling. Only university devices will be accepted and only the devices listed below. Laboratory equipment and personal devices are NOT accepted at this event.

Information Strategy and Services (ISS) has been strategically iterating on infrastructure and performance solutions for our university community through data-driven initiatives. As part of this work, our web team has migrated Sitefinity – our enterprise website platform – to a cloud-based, vendor-hosted solution. Moving Sitefinity to the cloud offers improved service reliability, improved performance and scalability to grow with the campus. Sitefinity currently powers over 300 university websites across the CU Anschutz and CU Denver campuses and receives 25 million annual visits.

In the flexible work environment that Teams Calling provides, your physical location changes as you move around using different devices, which makes accurate location data essential for emergency response. Location data is only accessed if Teams Calling is used to place a 911 emergency call. It is not tracked for any other purpose. The Location Services Standard outlines the Standard for enabling location services for Microsoft Teams Calling on university-owned devices at CU Anschutz and CU Denver.  

Microsoft will discontinue support for the Windows 10 operating system in October 2025. After this date, Windows 10 devices will no longer receive important security patches or performance updates. In alignment with the Baseline Secure Computing Standards, the Endpoint Management team has been working with IT professionals across the CU Denver and CU Anschutz campuses to update all university-owned Windows workstations to Windows 11 by July 31, 2025, to avoid a decline in computing performance for our Windows users and any potential security risks.

The university’s one year pilot of SensusAccess is coming to an end on July 31, 2025. This tool will no longer be provided by the Office of Information Technology (OIT). If you currently use SensusAccess to convert documents into a range of alternate and accessible media, your access will go away at the end of July. If you have an Adobe Creative Cloud or Adobe Acrobat license, that may work for you as an alternative solution for these tasks.

Thank you to everyone who joined or watched the recording of the training with Microsoft on using Copilot Chat. There was an extraordinary level of interest in this training which has allowed Information Strategy and Services (ISS) the opportunity to expand our resources and learning materials for using AI to support your work with the university.  Read more for resources.

As we approach the fiscal year end, it is also time for you to renew the software license(s) you have purchased with the Office of Information Technology (OIT). This year, the process to renew your license(s), specifically Adobe and BioRender, will be changing in order to migrate all active licenses into our new, more efficient and user friendly, CU Denver | Anschutz OnTheHub Software Store.

ISS is happy to offer Remote Desktop Services (also known as End User Compute or virtual desktop) to our faculty and staff. Our Remote Desktop provider recently rebranded the service from VMWare Horizon to Omnissa Horizon. As we upgrade the various components of the environment, you will see the green VMWare Horizon icon replaced by a blue Omnissa Horizon Client icon among other branding updates. The cost and service will remain unchanged.

Starting July 1, 2025, ISS is introducing a new flat rate of $48 for AV technical assistance and setup services for classroom and event support. This change models more closely the support that is requested by our university community for these events and services and allows for our teams to schedule in a more efficient manner allowing us to serve our customers at a higher level meeting the unique requirements of each event.

As part of ongoing efforts to proactively address outdated technologies and improve security, the campus’ e-directory website was sunsetted on April 10. This change protects users, their privacy and information, and data. In place of the e-directory, campus community members can use the People Search function within Microsoft 365, which offers a better user experience, more reliable data, and more appropriately meets IT security and compliance standards. It is immediately available for use by university students, faculty, staff, and researchers.

Accessible image practices enhance the user experience for everyone, including people with blindness, low vision, other vision impairments, and cognitive disabilities. Using alt text and avoiding images of text enables assistive technology users (such as screen readers and magnifier users) to access the information conveyed through an image. 

As announced in February, the campus is transitioning from the current phone system (Cisco) to Microsoft Teams Calling. The cloud-based Microsoft Teams Calling will streamline communication for you, allowing you to make and receive calls directly within the Teams app from your computer, a mobile device, or a physical phone handset. This means you can stay connected and take important calls whether you're at your desk, hybrid or on the go. OIT is excited to implement this change to meet the new business goals and needs of our evolving campus. Microsoft Teams Calling offers multiple communication modalities while passing on lower operating costs to the end user. Our team will be working with each department to discover your unique needs prior to any migration. This phased approach allows OIT to work directly with each group and learn about each department and unit’s needs to ensure you are getting the best service. 

The Teams Calling Migration project team has made significant progress toward modernizing the university’s aging phone system infrastructure. Teams Calling will streamline communication for the university, allowing you to make and receive calls directly within the Teams app from your computer or mobile device. This means you can stay connected and take important calls whether you're at your desk or on the go! The migration to Microsoft Teams Calling is currently in the pilot phase, and we will begin rollout of the new system at the end of March starting with Jabber soft phone users.

Windows 11 has more rigorous hardware requirements than Windows 10, and some older computers will not be able to be updated to Windows 11. Please work with your school or department IT professionals to either upgrade your devices to Windows 11 or replace your old computer as necessary.   

Our teams have been working together to enhance our AV and videoconferencing capabilities. Starting February 24, Logitech Zoom Rooms can now connect to Teams Meetings via the Tap Controller. Additionally, we have streamlined the classroom computer experience by removing unnecessary applications, disabling non-essential settings, ensuring quicker startup times and seamless presentations. 

We are making a major upgrade to our campus calling system and transitioning to Microsoft Teams Voice in 2025. This cloud-based phone system will integrate with Microsoft Teams, allowing seamless calls directly within the app, enhancing both communication and collaboration. As part of this transition, several general-purpose phone numbers will be deactivated and reconfigured for emergency dialing only, ensuring a smooth and reliable upgrade to our new system.

Our new software store OnTheHub launched this month! Explore OnTheHub and take advantage of the new streamlined process for accessing essential software.

As communicated earlier this month, we are implementing several improvements to further protect our information and technology infrastructure, including a proactive password reset for all campus account holders.

Join the virtual cybersecurity roundtable discussion at noon on Tuesday, October 15. It is a free one-hour event — all faculty, staff and students are encouraged to attend. Learn about best practices for protecting your information, identifying phishing scams, choosing secure passwords and how to stay secure while using the growing AI technologies.