IT Services

PolyU Student Mobile App- PolyULife

PolyULife is a native mobile app, which facilitates students the access of essential information for study such as personal class and exam timetable, payment due date, study information and push notifications to support students’ studies at PolyU. Students can find a list of useful online resources to various student-related applications in this mobile app including classroom booking enquiry, eStudent, Library, PolyU Online Student Services (POSS), Scholarship, Job Board and etc.

Printing Services for the Workspace

Printing services for workspace includes desktop, networked, and Managed Print Service (MPS) printers to faculty and staff. Recommended Printers in Workspace Today’s multifunction printer (MFP) does more than print. It scans, sends and stores potentially sensitive information. Printers process documents created by users and business applications across the entire University on a daily basis. It is important to safeguard sensitive/confidential information and limit access on a need-to-know basis. To facilitate departments/ offices in selecting printing solution which is secure, environmental-friendly and economical, a standard guideline for multifunction printers has been jointly developed by ITS and Campus Facilities and Sustainability Office (CFSO). The guideline includes the PolyU printing standards to safeguard printing security and some turn-key printing solutions available for departments/offices. Check the guidelines below to know more about the details.

Remote Access Services

Two types of virtual private network (VPN) services are provided to the University community to access IT facilities on campus and on the cloud services provided by the University. Campus Remote Access Service This VPN service facilitates staff, students who assist in departmental projects and other users to access the IT resources on the campus network from remote access in a secure way. There are four kinds of VPN: Staff VPN (for all PolyU staff) Restricted Access VPN (for staff, research assistants or vendors who need to perform server administration work on data centre) Research VPN (for students who help departments carry out researches and need to access departmental hosts) CPCE VPN (for CPCE users accessing CPCE services on PolyU campus) Cloud Express II VPN Service Cloud Express II VPN service provides a higher-resilience multiple-entry secure VPN service for staff and students in Mainland to access cloud services provided by the University such as LEARN@PolyU, irrespective of the telecom carriers of the Internet service provider subscribed by the students.

Security Consulting Service

Users may come across security related problems while conducting teaching, learning, research and administration activities, our security consulting service provides users with advice on compliance, security risk assessment, threats mitigation and incident response to address security issues concerned.

Security Risk Assessment Services

Two main types of security risk assessment services are provided to user departments: System vulnerability assessment service System vulnerability assessment service identifies potential vulnerabilities on their information systems and examine the security posture of the systems. Web application vulnerability assessment service Web application vulnerability assessment service identifies the possible vulnerabilities in the web applications before they are placed in production. In general, individual vulnerability assessment could be completed within 5 business days, depending on the complexity of system / web application and the availability of the assessment resources.   Preparation prior to the assessment Involvement of department / office is required for the success of the service. The following are some of their responsibilities: Department / office should clearly identify the scope for the vulnerability assessment and provide written authorization to our Cyber Security Team for that assessment A representative from department / office should be appointed as single point of contact during the service period Department / office should provide the necessary documentation to review Department / office should arrange internally for a time slot for the vulnerability assessment The remediation of the vulnerabilities identified from the assessment is not included in the service. Department / office should be responsible for the fixing Department / office should ensure a full and restorable backup (including both system and data) is available before the assessment

Security Threat Mitigation and Incident Response Services

To assist departments/ offices to handle an IT security incident and to minimize the adverse impact to the University as a whole, we provide: Assistance for the concerned departments to mitigate the imminent threats posed by the attacks Alert to the University community of imminent threats and provide recommendation on the mitigation Recommendation on the necessary enhancement to avoid the recurrence of the similar incident in the future

Smart Form and Workflow Development Service

This service is to assist user departments to automate or streamline their daily business operations through adoption of smart e-forms and process automation technologies. Workflow automation can boost productivity by taking care of repetitive tasks, increasing efficiency and reducing errors. This also allows users to focus on more critical tasks and get better results, leading to resources optimization. Some use cases are piloted with the support from departments.

Software Asset Management (SAM)

The PolyU Desktop Management System (PUDMS) provides general users, departmental administrators and Heads of Departments/Offices a centralized portal to review and manage the following IT resources (IT assets including PC/ laptops): User information Software inventory Hardware configuration IT Number IP Address Functional role Taking advantage of the Enterprise Active Directory (AD) and System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) installed on the staff desktop PCs, the system can consolidate users’ IT related information automatically to reduce users and administrators’ effort in data collection / submission; and allows users to view and manage related data in one place. This service also provides a software asset management tool for departments to scan, record and update the software installed on departmental computers, to ensure that only properly licensed software is installed and used in support of University business.   Software requiring specific licenses Software are classified as one of the following categories: PolyU Site License – software licenses arranged centrally by ITS; Departmental License – Software licenses arranged by individual department; Freeware – software licenses available for free; Shareware – software which may be bundled with a service subscription, hardware, or component of a software; Drivers and patches – drivers and software patches for hardware, software and operating system; Personal License – software which cannot be classified as any of the above categories   Roles and Responsibilities of Parties involved in SAM Click to read the roles and responsibilities

Software Licensing Programmes

To optimize resources centrally, achieve cost-effectiveness, fulfil regulatory compliance and enjoy compatibility with the latest update release campus-wide, ITS coordinates various site licensing programmes and bulk purchase agreements for some commonly-used PC software and their distribution to departments. Software Licence Available for Departments’ Purchase Agreements have been made with software vendors for departments to purchase new licence and / or maintenance upgrade of the following PC software at prices lower than the regular packages: Adobe Software License Microsoft Products Statistical Software Package Respondus   Distribution Arrangements For the purpose of distributing the software purchased under site license arrangements, departments can: borrow the software from ITS for installation in their offices, Loan of Software Request Proforma has to be completed. download the software directly online if network distribution arrangements are made available by the software vendors. Click here for the software media available for on-loan purpose from ITS. Departments can call the ITS General Office at Extn 2413 for prior booking arrangements.  

Student Computer Centre

The Student Computer Centre (SCC) is located on the 4th floor of the Li Ka Shing Tower where over 200 PCs are accommodated for student and staff use. Apart from the computer labs, there are informal learning spaces for project discussion and group work and a relaxation area for users to take rest and relax. No prior booking arrangement is necessary in SCC. All users are requested to observe the Rules for Student Computer Centre Users (see the rules via the link below). Computers & Software Students are welcome to leverage the prevailing software installed in SCC for their study. For details of the computer hardware and software configuration in the Student Computer Centre, please refer to the list via the link below. TLIT Lab Teaching and Learning Information Technology (TLIT) lab, located at M401, provides workstations with graphics card installed to run multimedia applications. Software such as Unreal Engine for Augmented Reality (AR) / Virtual Reality (VR), gamification, level design and development; Renderforest for animation, DaVinci Resolve for video editing and Unity for game development are available for use in TLIT lab and/or via remote access. Virtual Access Computer Centre Software applications in SCC and TLIT lab are also made available through Virtual Student Computer Centre (vSCC) for students to remote access from home machine browser with their NetID and NetPassword. Classroom Booking for Teaching A number of designated PC rooms on the 4th floor of the SCC is available for class booking by departments via the Room Enquiry and Booking System on a first-come-first-served basis. Please contact your Departmental Timetabling Officer for booking arrangements. Printing & Scanning Printing and scanning services are provided in the SCC and octopus card is adopted for charging. A wireless printing service “SCC Mobile Print” via mobile application “Print Utility” has also been introduced. Users can easily print files from their mobile device or cloud storage at the SCC's printer such as Microsoft OneDrive for Business, Adobe Reader, Google Drive, Google Docs, iCloud Files and Dropbox, etc. For details, please refer to the SCC mobile print user guides.