Faculty Services
UC Merced Information Technology (UCMIT) provides a number of services to the entire University community in accordance with our mission and a number of fundamental strategies. These include general facilities such as email, networks, web sites, storage facilities, etc., which are available to faculty as well as to the rest of the University community. However, a number of the facilities and implementation strategies should be of particular interest to the faculty.
Open standards
UCMIT takes great care to choose and implement facilities that support open standards. This allows the faculty great flexibility in choosing operating systems, email clients, etc., depending on their requirements, preferences, and need for support. Configuration documentation is available for Windows, Macintosh, and some Linux platforms. However, as at most other universities, in-depth centralized support can be made available for only a limited set of products. See IT Desktop Support for Faculty/Staff Computers for detailed information about support.
Networking
UC Merced is connected via fiber optic cables to CalREN, the state research network, which in turn connects to the Internet and a host of research networks. Both the main campus and Castle are each connected to CalRENs Digital California (DC) network (general connectivity) and High-Performance Research (HPR) network (research community) at 1 GBS. On campus office and lab connectivity is minimally 10/100 Mbps in all locations. UCMIT is available to advise on augmenting the number of ports or connection speeds in laboratory or other situations (note that, in order to assure availability for all campus users, only IT-approved switches, routers, etc., may be installed).
Course management and collaborative learning
Course management and collaborative learning is supported by UCMCROPS, which stands for UCM Courses, Research, Organizations and Project Systems, an implementation of the Sakai community-source collaborative learning environment. In addition to online course environments, UCMCROPS is the vehicle through which class rosters are made available and grades are submitted.
The UC Merced portal, myUCMerced, is the gateway for all IT support and service information, resources, as well as the means of access to UCMCROPS.
Web site hosting
UCMIT offers two hosting options for faculty web site.
Looking for help?
We offer a number of tutorials and FAQs available in the Guides & FAQs section.
If you have any questions, problems, or comments, please contact the IT Help Desk via email at helpdesk@ucmerced.edu, via phone at 209.228.HELP (4357), or visit them in the Classroom and Office Building room 132A.