Staff updates

Congratulations to Student Services Director Andrea Strachan, who has been awarded the AFR Emerging Leader award, acknowledging her work and response to the pandemic.

UQ has joined the Parents at Work network to help staff to thrive at work and home. Live webinars and podcasts on life, work, family and career wellbeing are now available for parents and carers, as well as managers and all staff. Register for the ‘Wellbeing Habits to Manage Fatigue and Burnout’ webinar on Thursday 26 November.

The Data at UQ website is a central location for data and information management articles and resources, helping the UQ community to understand, find, use and manage UQ data.

Brisbane City Council will be upgrading the Sir Fred Schonell Drive and Coldridge Street intersection at St Lucia from Monday 23 November until early 2021. The intersection upgrade will improve safety for all road users by upgrading the existing right turn from Sir Fred Schonell Drive into Coldridge Street. For enquiries, contact cityprojects@brisbane.qld.gov.au.

A reminder that the UQ Awards for Excellence Ceremony will occur on Monday 7 December 2020 from 2.30–5pm. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, there will be a reduced capacity allowed in the venue. However, we encourage you to watch the ceremony via live stream to celebrate the achievements of our colleagues.

UQ is publicly launching the Merle Pledge – an initiative to improve women’s representation in public and professional forums. The pledge is named after legendary activist Adjunct Associate Professor Merle Thornton AM, who was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from UQ on Saturday. Read about Merle’s remarkable life, her famous protest at the Regatta Hotel in 1965, and take the Merle Pledge today to request gender equity as a condition of participation or attendance at a conference, panel or event.

UQ Sustainability, UQ Wellness and Student Services invite the UQ community to join Eco-Organiser Tanya Lewis in this informative webinar to support personal and planet wellbeing. This webinar will run on Thursday 3 December.

Congratulations to Customs House within the Property and Facilities Division, who recently won the major award of Caterer of the Year at the 2020 Restaurant & Catering Awards for Excellence Qld and NT!

Simplify the recruitment and application process for student volunteering, mentoring and student leader programs with the UQ Life Get Involved platform on Student Hub! We support staff to promote, target and manage their process and cover all core inductions! Get in touch to find out how!

COVID-19 continues to impact the travel landscape both domestically and internationally. As a consequence of the continued decrease in travel spend, FCM Travel Solutions have reduced the number of roles across their business, including the team servicing the University. For more information, contact UQ Travel.

UQ will be acknowledging the December 2020 graduating cohort with a special online celebration on Thursday 17 December 2020 at 7pm (AEST). UQ staff, students and family members are encouraged to be involved in the broadcast by submitting a video message of congratulations to the cohort or an individual graduate. More information available online.

To help maintain UQ’s beautiful campus environment and in preparation for the start of 2021, Property and Facilities Division are asking that all staff participate in a general campus clean up/de-clutter from 1–15 December 2020.

Professor Ian Frazer and Dr Kirsty Short return to give us the latest updates on COVID-19. While restrictions are easing around the country, this pandemic is not over yet. Remember first and foremost, stay at home if you feel unwell and keep practising physical distancing and regular hand-hygiene.

Complete the new online module designed by Student Services to build staff awareness of how to best support students' mental health and wellbeing while studying at University.

Smartphones and mobile devices play an increasingly essential and varied role in our personal and professional lives. How can we protect our devices and data from unauthorised access?

The UQ Contacts page has been updated to adopt UQ branding and provide a more usable interface for visitors. Staff are encouraged to visit the new UQ Contacts page to review their details. You can suggest edits to your details via an online form which is available on the page.

UQ has jumped eight places to equal 36th in the US News Best Global Universities rankings, with six subjects in the top 20.

On Monday 2 November 2020 UQ’s travel services provider, Campus Travel, will be re-branded as FCM Travel Solutions (FCM). Travel consultant email addresses will change, all enquiries must now be sent to uq@fcmtravel.com.au. Travel documentation will be branded with the FCM logo. For more information, contact UQ Travel

Due to the financial impact of COVID-19, staff have been asked to take three days of recreation leave during the Christmas shutdown period.

Modern scams can be highly sophisticated, making it difficult to know what is real and what is fake. Take a moment to think before clicking or responding to unexpected requests and ask yourself: Is this legitimate?

UQ’s virtual private network (VPN) service has been upgraded to use UQ Authenticate and MFA for enhanced security.

The UQ Digital Asset Manager (UQ DAM) is here and houses all brand-compliant digital assets including images, video, audio, brand templates, UQ logos, guidelines, illustrations and stock photos. If you haven’t had a look, or are unsure about the download process, view the training videos.

UQ Images has been replaced with the UQ Digital Asset Manager (UQ DAM). The UQ DAM will help staff and suppliers work more efficiently and collaboratively. It houses all brand-compliant digital assets including images, video, audio, brand templates, UQ logos, guidelines, illustrations and stock photos.

The UQ Art Museum is hosting a new online exhibition. Via a dynamic online platform, 'Conflict in My Outlook' presents new and recent artworks, and brand new research on how the internet shapes social relations and ideas and tracks our cyber movements.

If you're an academic looking for more opportunities to engage with the media, it's time to update your Researcher's Profile. This is a great source of public information that the media can use to find spokespeople and experts for their stories. Head to researchers.uq.edu.au, click ‘Update Profile’, and list your research keywords in layperson's terms to help journalists find you.

UQ community members are able to access free Telehealth counselling via UQ With You, providing confidential, high quality counselling services free of charge. UQ With You is here for you, whether you need a one-off chat or longer-term support.

As part of UQ’s strategy for sexual misconduct prevention and response, UQ Respect have just launched a new online module, UQ Respect: Sexual Consent, Ethical Bystanding and Compassionate Response. We all have a role to play, in ensuring our learning environments are safe and respectful spaces for all.

As we return to the office, new cyber security and information protection considerations arise. It’s important that we refine our habits when we’re back on-campus to ensure we are still effectively protecting information in this environment.

Did you know that there are different types of data roles defined at UQ? All staff have a part to play in UQ’s data landscape. Learn about the different data roles within UQ, your responsibilities, and how you contribute to ensuring we all work with high quality data.

You can now easily and securely recover your UQ password online if you forget it. To enable the online password recovery feature, you will need to provide some personal contact details and answers to security questions in the my.UQ dashboard under ‘My profile’.

A strong password or passphrase is still one of the best ways to secure your UQ and personal accounts. This is vital during the pandemic due to the high volume of scams and malicious activities targeting individuals and organisations. Ensure sources are genuine before clicking links, downloading or providing information.

More UQ websites and services are using UQ Authenticate for staff to log in, providing a seamless log-in experience and enhancing security by protecting your information with multi-factor authentication (MFA).

The UQ community plays an essential part in protecting the integrity of Zoom meetings. All staff are reminded that while you can share the links in Blackboard for teaching purposes, you must not share Zoom meeting links in public forums, such as social media.

Have you noticed something suspicious? Think you may have fallen victim to a cyber scam? To appropriately manage and reduce the impact of cyber security incidents, it’s important that you report them to IT Support as quickly as possible. Find out what you should report.

Technology is an important enabler for us to continue to support the University whilst working remotely. Here are some tips to improve your Zoom and VPN experience while ensuring that these services remain stable for all staff and students to use.

Cyber security researchers around the world have witnessed a surge in COVID-19 themed cybercrime. Take care to ensure that any messages (phone, email or text) regarding COVID-19 are genuine before replying, downloading, clicking links or providing information.
Find out how to stay protected.

It’s important you safely and securely manage your files. Based on the type of information you are working with, it’s essential that you select an appropriate storage location that meets your needs, as well as UQ’s and regulatory compliance requirements. Find out where you should be storing your files.

While the Internet provides convenience and connectivity, it’s important that we understand the security risks and take steps to protect ourselves and those around us. Read our Internet safety tips.

Credential phishing is an email scam that targets your login details. Learn how to spot a credential phishing scam and protect your sensitive information in this month’s cyber awareness update.

UQ has recently moved from a preferred supplier panel to an approved supplier list. We now have more than 20 approved photography and videography suppliers, giving staff a range of options, both in style and price point. All suppliers must be set up in UniFi for payment, and non-approved suppliers will be blocked. Send requests to add new supplier to brand@uq.edu.au.

In July 2019 UQ launched automated invoice processing, introducing optical character recognition (OCR) technology and changing the way the Accounts Payable team manage processing supplier payments. OCR technology significantly streamlines the payment process, however suppliers are required to meet specific requirements to ensure an efficient payment process.

Business email compromise occurs when an employee receives an email from a senior staff member requesting important documents or payment. Find out how to spot a fraudulent business email, and protect yourself from a potential attack.