Updates from IT Forum and IT Matters

1 03 2013

Just a few updates from recent Planning and Information Resources events and publications – PIR staff, let me know if I missed anything!

February 2013 IT Forum: PIR Tactical Plan

At the February 14th IT Forum, CIO Jerry DeSanto and AVP Robyn Dickinson gave a presentation (slides) on “Information Resources in Transition… Adding Value… Making a Difference” in which they discussed PIR’s progress on their 2010-2013 tactical plan and the thinking behind the 2013-2016 tactical plan. Robyn introduced the four parts of PIR’s vision: 1) Professional expertise, 2) Seamless technology environment, 3) Promote sound business practices, and 4) Enhance the learning experience. Points of particular interest for faculty members:

  • PIR will support innovation in teaching & learning by expanding lecture capture use and capabilities, exploring learning management tools, refining long-term plans for classroom technologies, and working with colleges (via deans and TAG) to identify and meet faculty and student needs.
  • PIR will be looking at big data and analytics in higher education – e.g., using analytics to attract students but also to measure learning.
  • IT will be addressing BYOD (bring your own device) trends as students and faculty access University services using a large variety of consumer devices/products.
  • PIR will be working on improving business practices and project management, not only in PIR itself but across the university. On the faculty side, we’ll see more information in the IT Service Catalog about what services are available (and how quickly).

IT Matters: Spring 2013

The Spring 2013 issue of IT Matters is out. Highlights for faculty members:

  • OIT staff completed upgrades to Brennan 228, 312, 314, 500, 502, and 509 over intersession (yay!). St. Thomas 207, 212, and 311 also got upgrades (yay!).
  • Google Chrome will be installed on University computers through KBOX (Tim has been waiting a long time for this!). There will be an IT Forum on Google Chrome on March 14th.
  • Remote Desktop Assistance is now here – using Viewfinity, Technology Support Center staff can share your desktop (with your permission) in order to help you resolve issues over the phone.
  • The Mobile Device Support Center has been updated with more documentation for Windows mobile devices.
  • IT Services and the Library set up some self-serve book scanners so that students can scan pages from articles or books to a USB drive or Google Docs or email.
  • Connie Wisdo has some notes on Footprints that show how you can log your own tickets (p. 1, 12).
  • Phil Erb wrote up an explanation of Active Directory and what it means for users (see p.6).

 


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Categories : Announcements, Classroom Mediation, Upgrades

State of IT – Notes from September IT Forum

3 10 2012

Last week, CIO and Vice President for Planning Jerry DeSanto presented on the “State of IT” at the semester’s first IT Forum. His talk provided some really interesting insight into how CIOs strategically plan for the future – see his slides (in pptx) for more detail.

Some of the trends that Jerry discussed:

  • Consumerization – consumers bring their interest in technology to the workplace, and increasingly they’re also bringing their own devices (BYOD) to the workplace as well. For CIOs, this means a shift to supporting a wider variety of devices, with less depth of support for any one device/platform.
  • Cloud services – as we use more cloud computing services, we rely less on the computing power of our desktop computers. Thin clients let users access software from the cloud, so you don’t have to be at a specific workstation to use certain software.
  • Security – cloud computing raises a lot of issues in terms of security and data management – e.g., who owns the data? Is it secure? Is it exportable? Terms of service become very important. IR is working on some additional security initiatives, like two-factor authentication (for high risk data users), forced password changes, and guidelines for remote access (under development) – that is, how to safely work with restricted/confidential data from a non-University device.
  • Teaching and Learning – lots of new developments here – MOOCs, learning analytics, software licensing…
  • Network – The redundancy and reliability of the University network have become increasingly important. At the same time, there are increasing demands on the network (video streaming, gaming…). Our network just underwent a huge upgrade – our bandwidth is now 500 Mb, as compared to 50 Mb back in 2008.
  • Big data – corporations are increasingly leveraging data about their consumers to make decisions and to get a competitive edge. We might start seeing some of these techniques used in higher ed.
  • Business continuity – disaster recovery is really important. We have a good on-site data center, but we need an off-site backup as well.
  • Workforce and services – soft skills are becoming as important in IT as technical skills. As more software-as-a-service tools become available, there’s less need for home-grown solutions.

So there are lots of challenges ahead for Jerry and the IR division. Jerry has given TAG some questions he has about campus technology needs – we’ll be talking at our meeting today about how we can get input from the rest of the faculty. (More notes to come.)


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