This article explains the key differences between Microsoft’s free Copilot and Copilot for Microsoft 365, including features, access requirements, and availability at KAUST. It also outlines how to responsibly use AI tools and provides guidance on how to access Copilot using a personal Microsoft account.

Formstack users at KAUST are now required to enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) to enhance account security. Users are also reminded to delete unused forms and submissions to help manage storage limits and avoid additional license costs. Learn how to stay compliant and optimize your Formstack usage.

To prevent data loss and protect your files, KAUST IT is taking steps to restrict the syncing of personal OneDrive accounts on KAUST-managed devices. Learn what’s changing, what actions to take, and how to avoid accidental merging of your KAUST and personal data.

Microsoft apps like Whiteboard, Excel, and Outlook are moving to the new cloud.microsoft domain. No action is needed, existing links will continue to work automatically.

Traveling soon? Make sure you’re set up for secure, seamless access to KAUST systems. Check your VPN, DUO, and device settings, and explore tools like OneDrive, Softphone, and mobile apps to stay connected on the go.

We would like to inform you of a global issue currently affecting GPS-based time and location synchronization on some devices worldwide.

KAUST IT will be performing scheduled system maintenance in alignment with SAP’s global upgrade over the next two months.

KAUST community members may experience brief internet slowdowns or disruptions due to issues with global connectivity affecting our secondary links. Our IT team is monitoring the situation and working to resolve it promptly.

Learn some essential tips for optimizing home Wi-Fi networks to enhance internet speed and reliability.

In our previous announcement, we shared plans for an important update to our network infrastructure—specifically targeting the residential network service—to enhance the security of KAUST’s academic, research, and business data.

Microsoft has announced the End of Support for Windows 10 will be on October 14, 2025. With support ending, services such as security patches and regular software updates will be discontinued.

Important updates to KAUST network infrastructure, specifically the residential network service.

Important updates to KAUST network infrastructure, see the schedule to know when your residential area will be impacted by the change.

The IT outage is still under investigation, and our teams are working diligently to resolve the issue.

As part of our ongoing commitment to maintaining and improving the performance and reliability of our IT systems, we would like to inform you about upcoming planned maintenance to various University systems.

After the successful launch of our state-of-the-art wireless connectivity service, Uni-Fi, in buildings 2 and 3, we are now thrilled to announce its expansion to building 1!

As you prepare to travel, KAUST IT would like to kindly remind you of a few key items to help ease your travels and keep you safe and secure.

KAUST students, faculty, and employees may resume using Microsoft 365 services as the impacted service degradation has been resolved by Microsoft.

On December 1, 2024, Apple will be discontinuing its support for the operating system MacOS Monterey.

25 November 2024: KAUST students, faculty, and employees may have trouble accessing or using some Microsoft 365 services due to a current global service degradation.

The IT Training Academy is hosting another round of courses provided to the community.

On December 1, 2024, Apple will be discontinuing its support for the operating system MacOS Monterey. This will include all regular software updates and security patches for this operating system. KAUST IT recommends that, if your device supports an upgrade to the latest version of MacOS (Sonoma), to back up your data and upgrade your devices to the latest versions.

In line with optimization, we have decided to rely on a single enterprise-wide tool, Crowdstrike, to ensure continued protection of all KAUST provided devices. As a result, IT will begin uninstalling all Cortex agents from all KAUST provided devices starting September 1, 2024.

KAUST IT is thrilled to introduce Slido, an intuitive Q&A polling platform designed to make your presentations, events, classes, webinars, and meetings more engaging than ever through interactive features.

In alignment with the university’s sustainability and optimization goals, the IT department is introducing a Green Printing Program to upgrade old printers with new, energy-efficient multi-functional printers. The rollout will commence immediately following the announcement.

As you prepare to travel, KAUST IT would like to kindly remind you of a few key items to help ease your travels and keep you safe and secure.

As part of our ongoing commitment to delivering better services to you, and in recognition of the recent changes to our SAP systems (KAUST Portal, HR Connect, and SAP Ariba), we invite you to join us and learn more at our Pop-Up Service Desk.

KAUST IT is excited to announce the launch of Uni-Fi, our new state-of-the-art wireless connectivity service. Uni-Fi is more than just Wi-Fi; it is an intelligent infrastructure designed to enhance your digitally connected lives within our university campus.

Microsoft has announced the End of Support for Windows 10 will be on the 14 of October 2025. With support ending, services such as security patches and regular software updates will be discontinued. KAUST IT recommends that you upgrade your devices to Windows 11.

As you prepare to travel, KAUST IT would like to kindly remind you of a few key items to help ease your travels and keep you safe and secure.

KAUST IT Training Academy is excited to announce a round of courses for various IT systems; these courses are available to anyone with a KAUST account.

KAUST IT Training Academy is excited to announce a round of courses for various IT systems; these courses are available to anyone with a KAUST account.

KAUST IT Training Academy is excited to announce a round of courses for various IT systems; these courses are available to anyone with a KAUST account.

The Spine Auditoriums, located between buildings 2 & 3 and 4 & 5, have undergone a remarkable transformation with cutting-edge AV/IT technologies.

KAUST IT Training Academy is excited to announce a round of courses for various IT systems; these courses are available to anyone with a KAUST account.

KAUST IT Training Academy is excited to announce a round of courses for various IT systems; these courses are available to anyone with a KAUST account.

Microsoft has announced that Windows 10 will no longer be supported with any security updates or technical support after October 14, 2025. KAUST IT recommends that all supported systems should be upgraded before the end-of-life date to Microsoft Windows 11.

As you prepare to travel, KAUST IT would like to kindly remind you of a few key items to help ease your travels and keep you safe and secure.

As a follow-up to the IT Alert sent earlier today about the recently discovered ‘zero-day’ vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook, the Information Security Office would like to advice KAUST community members to apply updates to devices running Microsoft Outlook as soon as possible, since the vulnerability is being exploited in the wild.

KAUST IT Training Academy is excited to announce a round of courses for various IT systems; these courses are available to anyone with a KAUST account.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) pilot using Automation Anywhere platform has been conducted in KAUST where 9 RPA BOTs were deployed in Finance, Procurement and HR which have automated 10s of thousands of Records/Transactions and helped save 100s of productive hours over the past ~1.5 years.

We would like to follow up on our IT Alert regarding Outlook profile pictures being incorrectly displayed with photos of other colleagues.

As you prepare to travel, KAUST IT would like to kindly remind you of a few key items to help ease your travels and keep you safe and secure.

MacOS Catalina (10.15) will no longer be supported by Apple with any future updates and security patches after the release of macOS Ventura which is expected to happen in October 2022. To prepare for this change, the KAUST IT Department is requesting you to proceed with upgrading your Apple computers to the current latest macOS (Monterey).

The IT Training Academy is excited to another round of courses that cover the Power Platform, this will cover the basics and introduce attendees to use cases within the platform such application building, automation, and much more.

Have you ever wondered what makes your calls to our community call centers work? What technology makes the 959 or 910 numbers always available? We recently had the opportunity to gain some insight into the technology and challenges around the platform enabling our call centers, as we aimed to update the infrastructure to its latest version, packed with new capabilities to enhance your user experience.

Article written by: Luis Goiriz | September 11, 2022

IT is excited to offer a deep dive into the various technologies available to support the goals of the academic and research community.

KAUST IT is excited to announce a round of courses for various IT systems; these courses are available to anyone with a KAUST account.

Look into a partnership lasting for an incredible 13 years between KAUST and Sonic Foundry! Since 2009, both have worked together implementing video capturing technology, instructor control stations and digital whiteboards. Bringing the modern classroom support that KAUST provides to all their students, making remote learning accessible for all students as if they were in classroom itself.

KAUST has partnered with the Microsoft Compass Program to give our community a voice in building better M365 products and experiences. We are one of twenty universities selected to be part of this exclusive program that will allow us to be part of the Microsoft design and development process!

KAUST IT is excited to announce the completion of Phase 1 in our Exchange Online Migration project. All user mailboxes including user distribution groups have been transferred to Microsoft M365. Kindly contact the Email migration team at kems@kaust.edu.sa for any discrepancies. As may already be aware, M365 Exchange Online has transformed many of our commonly used productivity applications to make it easier for you to study, work and collaborate.

The KAUST IT - Data & Analytics Team is pleased to announce the launch of the 360 Degrees Assessment of Data & Analytics at KAUST on March 1st, 2022.

Microsoft Windows 8.1 will no longer be supported with any future updates and security patches beyond January 10th, 2023.

We would like to thank our Community for the great feedback and suggestions we have received over the past few weeks.

As we conclude our final week of the IT Survey, we invite you to visit our survey station where you can enjoy coffee, snacks and giveaways while you complete the survey and be entered in our final raffle to win exciting prizes!

KAUST IT is in the process of bringing you more of Microsoft Office 365 by migrating our existing mail solution to Exchange Online. Exchange Online will bring a whole new suite of productivity applications, to make it easier for you to study, work, and collaborate.

The Information Technology department announces the latest update to the wireless presentation system, AirMedia 2.

The IT Department hosted its first in-person townhall since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost a whole year has passed since the last one hosted over Zoom. The event was a great opportunity for IT teams to showcase their great work, items in progress, and highlight new and exciting upcoming activities!

Article written by: Daniel Nader | November 16, 2021

Help us make IT happen by taking this 10-minute survey and let us know what we’re doing right, and what we need to improve.

KAUST IT is excited to announce a round of courses for various IT systems; these courses are available to anyone with a KAUST account.

Hybrid learning combines traditional face-to-face teaching with additional offline and online techniques, like experiential learning and digital course delivery for the ambitious students of today's generation. We met with Professor David Ketcheson, Associate Professor in Mathematics and Computational Science, to hear about his experience using these cutting-edge technologies in his classrooms for teaching.

As you prepare to travel, KAUST IT would like to kindly remind you of a few key items to help ease your travels and keep you safe and secure.

IT will decommission the KAUST provided television service as of December 31, 2021.

With KAUST Softphone, you can stay connected by having your business phone line (808) on any of your smart devices or computers. You will be able to use features that you have on your desk phone, and more, all through a new and intuitive interface.

Impostor/Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams are growing more prevalent as cybercrime incidents are rising in numbers. Financially motivated cyber-criminals are looking for more businesses than ever before. It’s wise to be aware of the different varieties of impostor email threats you might encounter at work.

IT Colleagues, In an effort to create a uniform look and feel for our internal and external communications, we have put together a guide for email signatures and a reminder to update our information on the KAUST Portal. This aims to encourage colleagues to create a homogenous experience for our customers when interacting with IT, in line with the CIO's Strategic Goal for IT Re-Branding & Outreach.

We wanted to take the chance to personally welcome each one of you back to the offices, catch-up with old friends, enjoy warm cups of coffee and treats, and to rekindle our team spirit and sense of belonging, which we have missed the most during the pandemic.

IT is excited to offer a deep dive into the various technologies available to support the goals of the Academic & Research community! The event will be Wednesday 16 June 2021 starting at 1PM.

As we have expanded our usage of forms and digital correspondence; we have seen an increase in the number of Formstack forms, which has brought us very close to our account’s capacity in terms of the total number of forms and data storage capacity. PLEASE NOTE: If we continue to reach our maximum capacity, this will result in increased license cost.

Effective June 1, 2021, IT will be introducing new changes to our Zoom recording and storage policy. All Zoom Cloud recordings will be reconfigured to automatically delete after 90 days. For any recordings prior to June 1, they will be stored for 90 days from that date.

With KAUST Softphone, you will stay connected by having your business phone line (808) on any of your smart devices or computers. You will be able to use features that you have on your desk phone, and more, all through a new and intuitive interface.

KAUST IT is introducing KAUST Softphone, an extension to your existing business landline. It enables you to make phone calls at the office, on the move, and even when you are out of the country.

KAUST IT is pleased to announce the new learning event brought by IT Project Management Office: Adaptive Leading of Projects in a Digital World.

In order to secure highly confidential data, including Genome Human Data, we have enabled a new service called SDataWaha, which allows you to store data on DataWaha storage and archive system in a highly secure manner.

As part of the Digital Transformation Strategy, there was a major platform shift happening in our current Enterprise Data Warehouse Landscape during the period of March to June 2020. And right in between the project, we were hit by the Pandemic Lockdown. However, the entire project team mustered for the challenge and achieved the successful completion of the Project. The project was executed remotely with teams located in different countries, sharing great team spirit with a high sense of commitment to achieve our goals.

As a part of continuous Cyber Threat Intelligence, the Information Security Office has been notified by a credible source that passwords used on hungrycampus.com have recently been exposed and may be involved in a security breach.

WhatsApp users were recently notified of the app’s data-sharing practices with Facebook, and many have begun to seek alternatives. This article gives you a summary of WhatsApp’s recent policy update and a reminder for you to be a Human Firewall.

KAUST IT is happy to announce the launch of a newly automated service to handle your IT Equipment transfers through our KITS (KAUST IT Services) automation system.

KAUST IT is pleased to recommend a list of webinars and short courses curated by IT’s Project Management Office. The selected titles include topics related to project management, innovation and transformation enablement.

In line with ongoing enhancements to improve our services, KAUST IT is excited to roll out another exciting feature to our email services offering: Bulk Email Pre-Fixing.

KAUST IT is happy to announce that KAUST now has 5G coverage. enabling everyone at KAUST to enjoy better mobile connectivity.

KAUST IT would like to remind users of the importance of securing their online and social media accounts with simple tips on using multi-factor authentication and password managers to protect their data and secure their accounts.

Earlier this month, KAUST IT posted about email upgrades in this post on TheLENS: KAUST Email Upgrades: Enhancements to better secure your inbox. We would like to remind our Business and Academic Community members of the changes they will see in their email inboxes.

KAUST IT would like to remind the community of email digest services available to our academic and business community members.

Our university has to adapt to a fast-changing threat landscape by using advanced technology and introducing new ways to detect and neutralize email threats. As such, new tools are being implemented to improve your experience with better email management functions and security features.

KAUST IT is excited to inform Community members of FREE access to 10 new premium OSN channels; be sure to use our new application in order to access this offer for the next 6 months.

We met recently with Prof. Magdalena (Magda) Julkowska, an Assistant Professor at Boyce Thompson Institute, former Research Scientist in Prof. Mark Tester’s Salt Lab in the BESE division here at KAUST. Prof. Magda reached out to IT Research Computing for guidance on creating a website that KAUST publishes but gets its contents from a GitHub repository.

Article written by: Antonio Arena | October 27, 2020

As part of our efforts to improve the services we offer the Community, KAUST IT will be upgrading Personal Drive, or P-Drive; during this time all users’ accessibility may be impacted for a short amount of time.

This article covers some of the most frequently asked questions about Microsoft Office 365’s sharing capabilities that are built into its OneDrive and SharePoint applications.

Everyone at KAUST has an Office365 account; this article focuses on highlighting the use-cases of our storage and document collaboration applications and their differences to help you select the right tool for your work needs. Article written by: Daniel Nader | October 20, 2020

Starting on October 7th, the MathWorks Engineering Team will be hosting a series of live online webinars.

BinderHub allows you to build and register a Docker image from a Git repository, then connect with JupyterHub, allowing you to create a public IP address that allows users to interact with the code and environment within a live JupyterHub instance. You can select a specific branch name, commit, or tag to serve.

Article written by: Antonio Arena | October 1, 2020

JupyterHub brings the power of notebooks to groups of users. It gives users access to computational environments and resources without burdening them with installation and maintenance tasks. Students, researchers, data scientists, and professors teaching classes can get their work done in their own workspaces on shared resources which IT Research Computing manages efficiently by running on its Kubernetes production cluster.

Article written by: Antonio Arena | September 17, 2020

Prof. Ibrahim's Hoteit's team generates petabytes of data running simulations on Shaheen. They need fast access to visualize the data for pre- and post-processing. That is where IT Research Computing's Remote Workstations come into the picture. We do not move the data, we just stream pixels. Article written by: Antonio Arena | September 6, 2020

We would just like to thank you for being part of IPTV service during the past few months. We also hope you all were making the best use of our IPTV services over the past few months during the pandemic situation. We want to share two significant points with you.

KAUST IT is excited to offer free access to Gartner Core IT Research to the KAUST Community! Article written by: Daniel Nader | August 23, 2020

The IT Department would like to inform the Community of an upcoming virtual training being provided by Microsoft on the Power Platform, which is part of KAUST IT’s Microsoft Office 365 offering to the Academic and Business Community.

Date and Time: August 25, 2020 | 10:00 AM until 2:30 PM (KSA Time, GMT +3)

IT have been providing free IPTV television services to community members to encourage the use of home entertainment options during this time. We would like your input on what you like best and what we can do to improve your experience!

Arnaudd Hungler migrates more than 100 unmaintained virtual machines to Docker containers running on IT Research Computing's Kubernetes cluster. Efficiency at its best!

Article written by: Antonio Arena | July 26, 2020

The IT Project Management Office (IT PMO) is pleased to recommend a list of curated courses available on Coursera for all KAUST colleagues who have an active license.

IT Research Computing is proud to announce that their production Kubernetes cluster is readily available for use by the KAUST research community.

Article written by: Antonio Arena | July 20, 2020

As the COVID-19 crisis prolongs, it is transforming the way we all work. One of the new norms that has developed over the past several months is working from home (WFH). In order to enable you to WFH securely, the Information Security Office (ISO) at KAUST IT has compiled a list of guidelines for all personnel working remotely; this has been amended to the KAUST IT Work from Home Guide.

How well do you know KAUST Information Security Policies, Standards and Procedures?

We’re pleased to announce another chance at winning an Amazon eGift card up to $250!

The IT Department hosted its first ever virtual townhall over Zoom on July 6, 2020 with over 150 attendees!

Article written by: Daniel Nader | July 15, 2020

The Information Technology Department is excited to announce several upcoming webinars provided to the community.

Dr. Amhed Vargas published his R based Shiny web site that models C. Elegans germline leveraging IT Research Computing GitOps knowledge and expertise.

Article written by: Antonio Arena | July 5, 2020

IT have been providing free IPTV television services to community members to encourage the use of home entertainment options during this time.

As I am sure you are aware, ransomware has been used to extort large sums of money from organizations around the world. There has been a sharp increase in such attacks on organizations conducting COVID-19 research and universities in particular.

Docker Containers (Containers from now on) have taken the technology community by storm.

Article written by: Antonio Arena | July 1, 2020

KAUST IT is pleased to announce the reopening of the IT Store (building 2) and the IT Mobile & TV Store (building 5), effective Sunday, June 28.

SAP Concur is a Travel Management and Expense System; you can watch the short video below for an overview.

The IT Department would like to inform you of two exciting webinars offered by Wolfram Research.

IT is excited to announce the rollout of Blackboard Collaborate a tool you can use to lead virtual classes, office hours, tutoring and mentoring sessions, departmental meetings and more.

KAUST is moving to a new, completely redesigned version of Blackboard Learn – a much more user-friendly and mobile-friendly version called Learn Ultra.

As parents or guardians, we must make sure kids can make the most of technology in a safe and secure manner. However, many of us are overwhelmed and not sure where to start. Education is ultimately the best defense children have against today’s cyber risks. We must teach them not to get caught up in technology. Instead, just like in the physical world, we must focus on developing good online values and behaviors. We must establish rules for what kids can and cannot do online.

The Information Technology Department is excited to announce another round of courses provided to the community.

Highly sophisticated threats are targeting our sensitive information. One of the most effective ways to compromise our information is to target the very people who maintain it: YOU!

The KAUST IT Project Management Office (IT PMO) aims to build capabilities in the areas of project management, innovation and transformation enablement.

The Information Security Department at KAUST IT aims to enable you to work as securely as possible from your home. Whether you are at home on-campus or off-campus, you should be alert and aware.

Office 365 is a cloud-based Microsoft service that provides you seamless coordination with the tools you already know and use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and OneDrive. These tools provide the same great features as well as powerful collaboration capabilities in the cloud to work within your team and other teams across KAUST.

We need your help. To ensure a smooth work from home experience, the Information Security Department has stopped proactively blocking home routers that report malicious infections. Our systems now report a significant increase in infections and we need you to help to reduce these by protecting your home devices.

We would like to inform the community that we added new content to the IPTV service.

We regret to inform you that the below listed channels are no longer available on our IPTV platform.

The Information Technology Department would like to inform the Community that Zoom 5.0 is now available!

As part of its ongoing efforts to improve services, KAUST IT is beginning the process of phasing out Ubuntu-16 as the Vendor shall no longer be providing security patches for the operating system. The Ubuntu-16 scientific application stack will be discontinued on Thursday, May 27, 2021.

Join us for some live webinar sessions from our EMEA Academic Engineering Team!

The KAUST IT Department has various tools for collaboration with colleagues and for remote work situations.