Resource guide for new IT staff - UW–⁠Madison Information Technology

Last updated February 1, 2024

The University of Wisconsin–‍Madison is committed to supporting new employees in successfully transitioning to our workplace and quickly achieving high levels of proficiency. Work with your local onboarding coordinator to get started.

This guide is for IT staff who are beginning their career or changing roles at UW–‍Madison. It can help get you connected to the IT tips and resources you need to be successful on campus. Welcome to UW–‍Madison!

During your...

First week

Get a peer partner

If your manager or supervisor hasn’t paired you with a peer partner, ask them to do so.

A peer partner is a fellow employee, other than the manager or supervisor, who supports you during your first months on the job. Peer partners offer advice and guidance regarding the day-to-day aspects of working at UW–‍Madison.

Get support

Familiarize yourself with your IT support options. They may include:

Your unit’s own local IT staff and local resources or documentation.
(Note: Departments interested in learning more about how DoIT Departmental Support can help support their unit can submit an inquiry.)
The DoIT Help Desk.
You can also find self-service technology support and information in the UW–‍Madison KnowledgeBase.
Visit it.wisc.edu for guides, service information, and other helpful resources.

Get software

UW–‍Madison provides no-charge software through our Campus Software Library. Contact your local IT support for assistance installing software on your UW-managed system.

Understand your unit’s preferred communication paths

Check with your colleagues regarding their preferred communication technologies. UW–‍Madison offers several different communication tools centrally as well:

First month

Meet with your peer partner

Plan a meeting with your peer partner. You may want to keep a list of questions that come up in your first weeks on the job to ask your peer partner during your first meeting.

Get security advice

The Office of Cybersecurity provides guides on many topics. Familiarize yourself with them.

Familiarize yourself with IT Policies

Review UW–‍Madison’s Policy Library, the IT-specific policies in particular. The policy library is searchable and has quick links to help you find policies faster. You should review these policy resources to know which campus policies will apply to you and your work.

Check out other IT services

Many other IT services are offered to campus. If you are looking for a particular service or are curious about the breadth of services on campus, you can check out the IT Service Catalog.

First year

Attend a conference

People in information technology at UW–‍Madison enjoy access to conferences that are free or inexpensive, some of which provide continuing education units. UW–‍Madison hosts the free IT Professionals Conference and Information & Technology Leadership Conference each year.

Learn about your professional development opportunities

The chief information officer (CIO) sponsors a number of training, development and presentation opportunities for UW–‍Madison staff. For more information on these or to recommend or request CIO support for others, contact cio@wisc.edu.

Development programs, such as those offered by EDUCAUSE & MOR Associates
IT training for faculty and staff
UW–‍Madison employees have access to thousands of courses, seminars, conferences, online training, and events every year through the Office of Human Resources’ Professional Development website as well as through LinkedIn Learning which you can log into with your NetID.

Get involved

Committees and governance groups provide the chance to contribute to improving the landscape of IT on campus. User groups and other bodies help you make connections with your campus IT colleagues.

IT committees & groups

Some IT committees and groups recommend policies and advise the administration on community needs or concerns, while others foster subject matter expertise and networking opportunities.

Governance

Governance is an important aspect of UW–‍Madison leadership and planning. Campus governance and advisory groups provide advice and guidance on various aspects of campus technology. Find out what they’re doing and how to get involved.

User groups

To better represent our core missions of teaching and learning, research and service, UW–‍Madison’s IT community engages with a variety of organizations and user groups.

Communities of Practice

Communities of practice are groups of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or an interest in a topic and who come together to fulfill both individual and group goals.

Mentoring

If you’re interested in making a new IT contacts and beginning to build your professional network you can contact the UW IT Mentoring program. There’s no obligation to join the program!

Others

Information Technology Management Council (ITMC) considers information technology matters of common interest among UW institutions and addresses System-wide issues.
HIPAA local security coordinator — learn who the coordinators are in your unit.

At any time

Build your campus IT network

Mentoring

If you’re interested in making a new IT contact and beginning to build your professional network, you can participate in the UW IT Mentoring program. There’s no obligation to join the program! Instead, the Mentoring program will pair you with another IT professional on campus who can answer your questions and help you begin to navigate UW–‍Madison’s complex IT landscape. Complete this form to begin.

Leading, learning, connecting

There are many groups and communities of interest that are open for anyone in the IT-adjacent community to participate in. Many of the sponsored events are available online. Browse the ever-growing list on the UW IT Connects website.

DoIT Departmental Support

If you’re interested in learning more about UW–‍Madison’s central IT services and how DoIT Departmental Support can help support your unit, you can reach out here.

Familiarize yourself with guidelines and best practices

The Guidelines, best practices, and advice for UW–‍Madison IT professionals was created by UW IT professionals for UW IT professionals. It’s packed with helpful resources. Check it out.

Expand your knowledge

There are many guides, how-tos, and opportunities to learn more on the Learning section of the it.wisc.edu website.

Additional resources & information

Depending on your role in IT, you may need access to additional resources and information at various times in your career.

Purchasing

Talk to your supervisor before buying anything for your department. Every department handles purchasing and interacting with purchasing services differently, and policies and guidelines change regularly.

Purchasing services

Purchasing Services provides the university with effective and responsive life cycle procurement practices. They will purchase, distribute and dispose of property in the best interest of the university. Purchasing, Materials Distribution Services and SWAP (Surplus With a Purpose) are all run through this office.

Shop@UW+

For office supplies, lab supplies, laptop and desktop computers, and other general needs, use ShopUW+, a pre-approved IT vendor.

Technical training

Authorized Agent Network Tool Suite (AANTS) training
Firewall training
WiscIT Powered by Cherwell Training
JIRA training
Introduction to Request Tracker
KnowledgeBase training — The KnowledgeBase Team can work directly with the groups that host their own KB spaces to provide admin and author training when requested.

Inclusive language

AI resources

UW–‍Madison has vetted and secured contracts for generative AI services . These tools are available university-wide for free and provide higher data security and privacy protection than public services. Please consider these options before exploring unvetted generative AI services for university work.

Access generative AI tools at UW–‍Madison

Crowdsourced resources from the 2022 IT Professionals Conference

UW–‍Madison’s IT landscape can be a jumbled and confusing space. Over 50 members of the UW–‍Madison IT community participated in a series of breakout sessions at the 2022 IT Professionals Conference to answer the question “What resources (programs, activities, groups, web links; etc) did you find most valuable as you started your position at UW?” Their responses are below, organized by category, and ordered based on how often they were listed across all breakout groups.

Professional Development

EDUCAUSE

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association and the largest community of technology, academic, industry, and campus leaders who advance higher education through the use of IT.

Grants/funding

Financial resources for professional development offerings.

Improv!

Leadership Improv provides a safe space to practice leadership concepts based on fun, improvisational comedy routines.

Information & Technology Leadership Conference

The Information & Technology Leadership Conference aims to advance leadership on campus by bringing together professionals to learn, listen and collaborate on leadership topics impacting UW–‍Madison’s IT and IT-adjacent professionals.

IT Leadership Program

ITLP is a unique professional development opportunity which requires a high level of participation and engagement, both during and after the program.

IT Mentoring Program

UW-IT Mentoring connects newer IT and IT-adjacent UW–‍Madison employees with experienced colleagues in peer relationships to enhance skills, knowledge and experience.

IT Professionals Conference

An annual conference by and for IT professionals at UW–‍Madison

LinkedIn Learning

This online training service provides access to a full library of self-study software tutorials available anytime, anywhere.

Peer partners

If your manager or supervisor hasn’t paired you with a peer partner, ask them to do so. A peer partner is a fellow employee, other than your manager or supervisor, who supports you during your first months on the job. The role of the peer partner is to offer advice and guidance regarding the day-to-day aspects of working at UW–‍Madison.

Professional development

Access thousands of courses, seminars, conferences, online training and events available to UW–‍Madison employees.

UW–‍Madison support

UW–‍Madison is committed to providing career management support through policies, online resources and learning resources.

General Resources

Americans with Disabilities Act information from the Office of Compliance

The University of Wisconsin, Madison is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive campus experience for all members of the campus community.

Campus map

A searchable map of the UW–‍Madison campus with information about housing, public parking, Madison B-Cycle, dining, libraries and gender-inclusive restrooms.

Campus Software Library (licensing@doit.wisc.edu)

UW–‍Madison provides no-charge software through the Campus Software Library.

CIO Office Hours

An informal opportunity to engage with Chief Information Officer Lois Brooks and guest speakers.

Digital Accessibility program

The Digital Accessibility program in the Center for User Experience supports the University of Wisconsin–‍Madison in creating an accessible, usable and inclusive learning and working environment for all students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners of the university.

DoIT glossary

A useful glossary of IT and IT adjacent terms, from AANTS to WSB.

DoIT Help Desk

The Help Desk provides free tech support and troubleshooting help with your computing needs by phone, email, chat or in-person at 1210 W. Dayton Street.

Environment, Health & Safety – Ergonomics

UW–‍Madison provides ergonomic assessments to help you configure your desk, chair and computing equipment properly.

HR new employee benefits enrollment

Learn about your benefits, including the Wisconsin Retirement System.

HR new employee orientation

Connect with colleagues from across the institution, learn about UW–‍Madison, explore the campus community and get introduced to available tools and resources.

Microsoft Teams

Part of the Microsoft 365 family of products, Teams provides workspace chat and videoconferencing, file storage, and application integration.

MyUW

A platform providing applicants, students, faculty, staff, advisors and instructors with a suite of integrated information resources that are tailored to their roles and interests.

Research Cyberinfrastructure Strategic Initiative

DoIT & Research Data Services have partnered to make it easier to find, compare, and get assistance with centralized campus research data storage.

Researcher toolkit: acronyms

A useful glossary of research-related acronyms on campus, from ACI to WPT.

Retirement planning classes/checkup, Mid-Career Retirement Check-In

Resources to help you plan your retirement, including “Ready to retire” sessions, benefits calculators and informational packets.

Risk Management and Compliance (RMC)

RMC assessments are designed to communicate levels of risk and provide recommendations for risk reduction.

University Book Store

The University Book Store has served the University of Wisconsin and Madison since 1894.

UW Directory

An online look-up of individuals and departments at UW–‍Madison.

UW IT Outages

Timely information about outages and planned maintenance of IT services and related infrastructure at UW–‍Madison.

UW–‍Madison IT

UW–⁠Madison Information Technology, a website connecting & supporting our digital campus.

UW–‍Madison KnowledgeBase

The KnowledgeBase (KB) empowers you to easily locate information online. It also allows KnowledgeBase site owners and authors to easily create, categorize, maintain and present their information.

UW–‍Madison Libraries

UW–‍Madison Libraries provide many services for students, faculty and staff, including but not limited to subscription databases, spaces, & equipment.

UW–‍Madison Policy Library

The UW–‍Madison Policy Library is the single, up-to-date resource for all university-level policies.

Working @ UW

Working at UW is designed to be your employee home base, bringing together all of the resources you need in one place, and offering information, news, tools, and services to help you be an effective, connected part of this amazing university. For example, see their list of employee discounts.

Tools

AANTS/WiscNIC

Documentation of the Authorized Agent Network Tools Suite (AANTS) and associated tools such as WiscNIC.

Eloqua (for mass communication)

Eloqua is software for email marketing (simple mass email sends) and marketing automation (multistep, automated marketing workflows).

Microsoft 365 Service Accounts

Shared email accounts, accessible by multiple team members, used to provide support for services.

Qualtrics

Qualtrics Survey Hosting Service allows UW–‍Madison faculty, staff and students to easily create surveys, collect and store data, and produce reports.

Communities

Tech Partners

Tech Partners is an Office 365 Group that is meant to help members of the UW–‍Madison community keep up with campus technology.

UW IT Connects

UW IT Connects recognizes that people are the highest value of a successful information and technology organization, and given that the information and technology community at UW–‍Madison is highly distributed, UW IT Connects and the individual groups therein provide diverse engagement, leadership, relationship building, and professional development opportunities for our community to learn and grow together.

UW IT Mentoring

UW IT Mentoring pairs new or current employees with experienced peers who have skills & knowledge relevant to the mentee’s needs.

UW Women in IT (UW-WIT)

UW WIT advocates for the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in the field of Information Technology.

Professional Development: Communities of Practice

Communities of practice are groups of people who interact regularly to develop their skills.

CommunITea

A weekly event for IT and IT-adjacent folks to socialize with peers and connect in a relaxed, introvert-friendly atmosphere (webcam not necessary to participate and listen in).

Distributed Developers

The Distributed Developers community of practice is intended to provide software developers and other IT staff in distributed departments who handle auxiliary systems and data responsibilities an opportunity to share best practices, learn, provide feedback, network and collaboratively interact with campus peers.

Instructional Technologists Group (ITG)

The mission of the Instructional Technologists Group (ITG) is to bring together instructional technologists, designers, and support specialists from across campus to provide input, guidance, and support to the vice provost for teaching and learning and other governance groups as requested in fulfilling the academic mission of the university.

Madison Information Security Team (MIST)

The UW Madison Information Security Team (MIST) is a collaborative group of campus IT staff and management with a common interest in promoting information security at UW Madison.

IT-related communities of practice

IT Related Communities of Practice

Accessible Technology Advisory Group (ATAG) – A group of faculty and staff working to raise campus capacity to support Digital Accessibility at UW–‍Madison.
Agile – A group for professionals who want to improve skills, expand minds, and continuously raise the day-to-day effectiveness and satisfaction of teams across campus.
Campus AD Community – The goal of the group is to be an informal place for discussion for the everyday administrators of their department’s AD instance or OU within Campus Active Directory.
data science @ uw Carpentries Community – The UW–‍Madison Data Science Hub and the Carpentries partner to offer data and software training for researchers.
data science @ uw Machine Learning Community – The goal of this community of practice is to bring together machine learning (ML) practitioners, novice and experienced, across a variety of departments and disciplines.
Data Wonks – A space for individuals who work with data and technology at UW–‍Madison.
Design Community – Teaching user experience design skills so partners can create better digital experiences.
DevSecOps – A group for people interested in DevSecOps in the UW–‍Madison Community.
Digital Accessibility Community of Practice – A group for professionals who are working to improve digital accessibility at UW–‍Madison.
Distributed Developers – This is a space for Distributed Developers across campus to chat and collaborate.
Event producers group (EPG) – A group to discuss relevant topics related to the production of in person, hybrid, or virtual events. We have an active Teams Channel, a book club, and social networking time designed to connect with one another, troubleshoot, and support each other in the post-COVID event landscape.
PowerApps User Group – This group is for collaborating and community building around MS PowerApps.
Microsoft Teams User Group – This space empowers Teams users to openly discuss their use cases, questions, problems, innovations, and more.
Sharepoint Power Users – This space is for community building, collaboration, and questions around MS Sharepoint.
UW–‍Madison Endpoint Management – A collaborative space for campus IT to share and learn about endpoint management tools and best practices.
WebEx User Group – This group is for users to discuss questions, ideas, problems and updates
WordPress Users – This is a space for WordPress admins and editors to share their experiences, offer guidance, and ask questions of the larger group.

Miscellaneous (everything else)

Chazen Museum of Art

The Chazen’s expansive two-building site holds the second-largest collection of art in Wisconsin and is the largest collecting museum in the Big 10. Within its 176,000 square feet of museum space is a collection of approximately 23,000 works of art covering diverse historical periods, cultures and geographic locations, from ancient Greece, Western Europe and the Soviet Empire to Moghul India, 18th-century Japan and modern Africa.

Discounts for UW–‍Madison employees

As a UW–‍Madison employee, you may be eligible for personal discounts from a wide variety of organizations.

Geology Museum

Explore the Geology Museum and take a peek into Wisconsin’s deep history! On your visit you can touch rocks from a time when there were volcanoes in Wisconsin, see corals, jellyfish and other sea creatures that used to live and swim where we now walk; and stand under the tusks of a mastodon while imagining yourself in the Ice Age.

Going for walks – campus is beautiful!

Guided tours via the Campus Tour app
Self-guided tours via the Campus Tour app

Music Library – unlimited classical listening under Naxos

The Naxos music library is “the most comprehensive classical music streaming platform. An invaluable resource for universities, public libraries, schools, music professionals and collectors.”

Primate cam

The Wisconsin National Primate Research Center supports one of the largest colonies of common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) in the United States. Through the Callicam, anyone with web access can observe one of the WNPRC’s common marmoset families.

UW Arboretum

The Arboretum is a global source of knowledge of and a model for restoring ecologically sustainable relationships between people and the land through integrative, innovative, and collaborative approaches in science, stewardship, education, and public engagement.

UW Makerspace

UW Makerspace is a community of designers and builders at UW–‍Madison within the College of Engineering (CoE). The Makerspace facilities include 25,000 ft2 of shop and flex space with a wide range of rapid prototyping equipment. Largely student-run, the Makerspace strives to empower students by creating a community immersed in emerging technologies, focused on creating innovative products.

Questions?

Email the DoIT Help Desk or call 608‑264‑HELP (4357).