A loud and clear message from student focus groups
We heard loud and clear from student focus groups that finding the way to the application was a challenge. That is part of the reason for branding My Student Center. A lot has changed in our internet (externally facing) and intranet (My UT Health, internally facing) sites over the past months. Parallel to this upgrade, we are working with partners across the organization to do a major cleanup of the student sites, links, and search engines to enable a more efficient path to My Student Center.
A Safer World
The downside of connectedness the internet brings is we are constantly at risk from those who would do us harm. The State of Texas and UT System have both mandated a high standard for securing the systems, servers, and data at UT Health. This standard includes multi-factor authentication (MFA) which most are already familiar with in the personal sites they use on a daily basis. At a deeper level, connecting to the UT Health network from off-site locations requires virtual private network (VPN), a technical term for what is essentially a secure tunnel for data to travel from our network to the user location, wherever that may be. These standards add complexity to the previously simple task of an activity in a computer system. However, the complexity increases the security of your personal information and protects our network form those who would do us harm. We are working to simplify and clarify the how to instructions for staff, faculty, and students as they engage with My Student Center and help to protect our networks and data.
