Archives

Risk Guidance and General Inquiries

"" Overview and Key Features:

The Information Risk team is available to provide guidance and answer general inquiries about information security risk management. This service can help to enable units and divisions to manage their exposure to risks and make risk-informed decisions.

""  Getting Started:

To access this service, please submit a ESC ticket.

""   Get Help:

All questions about risk are welcome. If you have a question or you’re unsure whether something is an information security risk, please reach out to Kanupriya Kejriwal, Manager, Risk Management at kanupriya.kejriwal@utoronto.ca.

Research Cyber Security Training

"" Overview and Key Features:

Research cyber security training aims to:

  • Equip research teams with cyber security best practices
  • Offer discipline- and solution-specific training
  • Address cyber security questions related to research, roles and solutions
  • Fulfill training requirements for specific applications and agreements

Through researcher-focused cyber security training, teams will gain a general understanding of how to better secure their research projects. Training is delivered synchronously, either virtually or in person.

""  Getting Started:

Connect with the Research Information Security Program team via Enterprise Service Centre (ESC) to safeguard research knowledge, intellectual property and data.

""   Get Help:

Contact the Research Information Security Program team: research.infosec@utoronto.ca.

Preferred name (display first name)

"" Overview and Key Features:

Members of the University of Toronto community often have a first name other than an official name that they use to identify themselves to others. Recognizing this, U of T allows students, faculty and staff to set and use their preferred first name.

Differentiating between the preferred and official first names allows the University to enable individual preference in applications that do not have a requirement to use official names. The preferred name option enacts the adoption of a consolidated preferred name across the University’s IT infrastructure.

The preferred name service was previously known as display first name.

""  Getting Started:

Access the preferred name service.

  • How to use:

To change your preferred name, log in to the preferred name service page and follow the prompts.

  • Application owners:

If you’re an application owner, learn how to consume preferred name information from Shibboleth.

""   Get Help:

Questions about selecting a preferred name

Students should contact their registrar’s office and employees should contact their divisional human resources office.

Forensic services

"" Overview and Key Features:

The Incident Response team offers digital forensic services for malicious computer activity. This service also facilitates access to third-party services if information security incidents need a more detailed analysis of changes made by malicious actors.

""  Getting Started:

Forensic services are provided for reported information security incidents. If you are experiencing an incident and you have not reported it, please follow the steps below.

  • Low severity incidents:

For low severity incidents, such as a compromised account or clicking a link in a phishing email, contact security.response@utoronto.ca.

  • Medium to critical severity incidents:

For information about medium to critical severity incidents, refer to the Incident Response Plan. If you are experiencing a medium to critical severity incident, complete the incident intake form.

""   Get Help:

If forensic services work is not already happening as part of a reported security incident, contact security.response@utoronto.ca.

AI-Assisted Productivity Tools

""  Overview and Key Features:

With Microsoft Copilot Chat, you can ask the AI chatbot questions and get detailed responses with footnotes that link back to original sources. Because it is connected to Microsoft’s search engine, it can provide users with up-to-date information and real links, which may make it a better research and teaching tool than ChatGPT.

The Microsoft Copilot service is currently available to the public, but the public version does not have full privacy and data protections; instead, the University has access to an enterprise edition, which does conform to the University’s usual privacy and data protections. This document describes how Faculty, students and staff (with access to the Microsoft toolkit) can access this protected version of Copilot.

Key Features:

  • Uses web search and will provide links to the sources of information it quotes/finds.
  • Your chat data is not used to train models. The data is not available to Microsoft.
  • Copilot cannot access your other Microsoft 365 data.  It does not work on Outlook email, Teams messages, SharePoint files, etc.
  • You can upload a local pdf file or document file and ask contextual questions, for example, “Make 10 quiz questions based on chapter 3 of this pdf”.

 

""  Getting Started:

You can access Microsoft Copilot Chat by navigating to m365.cloud.microsoft/chat and follow the prompts to login to your University of Toronto Microsoft 365 account.

Your interactions with the AI-powered chat tool will not be in the protected environment if you do not sign in with your University of Toronto account.

Alumni Email

""   Overview and Key Features:

The Alumni email service provides a personalized email address ending in @alumni.utoronto.ca, along with access to calendar and contact tools. It is hosted on the Microsoft platform and is designed to offer continued connection with the University of Toronto community after graduation.

Key features include:

  • Microsoft Outlook web access

  • Calendar and contact syncing

  • Support for desktop and mobile apps

"" Getting Started:

To access your alumni email account, log in using your full alumni email address and password at https://alumnimail.utoronto.ca.

You can also configure your account on supported desktop clients (like Outlook or Mac Mail) or mobile email apps. Instructions for setup are available in the Knowledge Base linked below.

"" Get Help:

If you’re looking to get started or have any questions or concerns, we recommend beginning by reviewing the relevant resources:

 

Research Data Management Platform (REDCap)

""   Overview and Key Features:

REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is a free and secure data-management web application for building and managing online surveys and databases. While REDCap can be used to collect virtually any type of data, it is specifically geared to support online or offline data capture for research studies and operations.

For a comprehensive list of REDCap features, visit: https://projectredcap.org/software/

 

Help - Free computer icons    Getting Started:

To be eligible for a REDCap user account at the University of Toronto individuals must have:

  • A valid University of Toronto UTORid
  • Receive approval through their division/department
  • UTORmfa

Divisional Approval

The University of Toronto is rolling REDCap on a per-division/department basis. The criteria for eligibility are determined by appointed divisional and/or departmental leadership. Persons wishing to request a REDCap account should complete the onboarding form.

 

Question mark - Free communications icons   Get Help:

This REDCap resource webpage contains the relevant training and resources that will help you get started with the REDCap. Faculty members, staff, and students can access this webpage using the link  https://cris.utoronto.ca/redcap-resources/

Support Contact: redcap@utoronto.ca

Campus Wi-Fi

"" Overview and Key Features:

  • Students, staff and faculty:

Registered students, staff and faculty have access to the wireless network, including wireless printing.

  • A note for U of T faculty and staff:

U of T faculty and staff with valid UTORid credentials can create up to five unique guest Wi-Fi credentials. The duration of these credentials is valid for a maximum of up to five days. To create your guest Wi-Fi credentials, visit the eVA self-serve portal at: eva.eduroam.ca.

  • Alumni and Visitors:

Alumni and visitors can use the wireless network if sponsored by U of T staff and faculty. These sponsored accounts are known as short term (shorter than 5 days) and long term guest accounts (greater than 5 days). See the Sponsoring a UTORid web page for further information.

"" Getting Started:

Device Guides:

""  Get Help:

System Status Page

Product overview - Free business icons   Overview and Key Features:

The ITS System Status Page provides an overview of current service status messages and scheduled maintenance for major University of Toronto systems and services. The System Status Page is maintained by the Joint Operations Group (JOG) in Information Technology Services (ITS) and welcomes contributions from IT providers across the University Community.

Service:

  • Communicates status of Mission Critical IT Applications and Systems

Features:

  • IT Administrators contribute status updates in real time

Help - Free computer icons      Getting Started:

Need to post an event or maintenance period to the University Community?

Need to be aware of events or maintenance period in the University Community?

  • Go to The System Status Page
  • Click on the “Subscribe to Updates” (Top of page)
  • If you select email notifications, we recommend using a non-UofT email address so that you will still receive notifications in the event there is an outage that prevents access to university email services.

   

Question mark - Free communications icons   Get Help:

Joint Operations Group (JOG)

""   Overview and Key Features:

The Joint Operations Group (aka. JOG) staffed by Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions(EIS) in Information Technology Services(ITS) monitors the U of T network infrastructure. The JOG also maintains the System Status Page showing the currently availability of the enterprise services. The JOG issues bulletins on scheduled maintenance windows and informs service owners of issues when encountered.

Services:

  • Monitoring and reporting on U of T network infrastructure
  • Coordination of the ITS System Status page
  • ITS Maintenance communications

  

Question mark - Free communications icons   Get Help:

The JOG is staffed Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
Contact the JOG at jog.help@utoronto.ca or by phone at 416-978-4621.
Voicemail messages left on the JOG phone line outside of regular operating hours are forwarded, via email, to a group of on call staff who will triage and respond to incidents as required.

Report a security incident to the Security Team