SIGUCCS 2019 Program Abstracts
The abstracts for the conference are listed below by track. For speaker slides and other supplemental materials, please review the SIGUCCS 2019 Sched page.
- Communications, Training and Documentation
- Infrastructure, Security and Operations
- Instructional Technology and Design
- Leadership and Professional Development
- Service Desk and Service Management
- Lightning Talks
- Posters
Communications, Training and Documentation
An A11Y-ance: Approaches for Transferring Expertise to Build Accessibility Liaisons in the Campus Community
Jeffrey Kontio (Princeton University – Department of Politics) and Preston Radtke (Rutgers University)
As purchasers of services and equipment, application developers and end-user support providers, information technology professionals at all levels hold unique positions in regards to the possible role of an accessibility advocate. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 laid the foundation for which numerous other laws and guidelines have been built. It is in the best interest of Universities to not only meet these guidelines, but to be an example of how these guidelines can empower a wide range of individuals.
Rutgers University has been building a team of professionals whose main goal has been to not only address accessibility needs, but to be engaged with a wide range of groups across campus. They are regularly promoting accessibility; actively educating and engaging with faculty, staff, and students. By bringing awareness of accessibility concepts to every level of their campus community, Rutgers University strives to provide the best opportunity to meet the needs of its members in addressing unintended access barriers.
Princeton University has undertaken an arguably successful campaign to certify a wide range of their IT Support professionals as Certified Professionals in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC). As a result, Princeton University holds the largest number of CPACC-certified professions in a single organization in the world with just over 90 certified as of February 19, 2019. The training and certification program at Princeton is designed to promote accessibility wherever technology is developed, supported or purchased by decentralizing broad expertise across a wide population in the campus community.
Though Princeton and Rutgers are embarking in granularly different approaches to meeting accessibility needs and requirements, the goal is the same: to not become a barrier that dissuades or blocks access to spaces in the digital, mental and physical realm—affording everyone the chance to participate equally and freely.
Applying Design Thinking: Making Connections One Desk at a Time
Corin Walker (Texas Woman’s University), Tomeka Nolen (Texas Woman’s University), Iris Du (Texas Woman’s University) and Heather Davis (Texas Woman’s University)
Building relationships with busy administrators, faculty and staff can be a challenge. Our team of learning technologists have applied design thinking to “learn with their eyes” by visiting individuals where at their desks to observe their workarounds and frustration points. These building walkthroughs have yielded positive results for our campus communities, allowing our department to build relationships with individuals across our campuses.
We will feature a brief overview of our technology outreach (building walkthroughs) across our multi-campus university. We will include a sample of our timely topics/questions. We plan to engage attendees by asking them about their strategies for reaching administrators, faculty, staff and students on their campuses, and welcoming their questions about our process.
Rather than waiting for employees to come to us for assistance, we take support to their desks. This service is a “white glove treatment,” during which we are able to share information about projects and services, as well as answer questions from employees. The learning technologist carries an iPad to practice collaboration software, video call subject matter experts for immediate support and share documentation from our knowledge centers. The iPad is also handy for scheduling follow-up appointments on the spot.
Further, while the learning technologist is conducting the site visits, she has an opportunity to engage with students across each campus to make them aware of the services available to them.
We will include metrics related to number of visits (23% increase fall 2017 to fall 2018), follow-up meetings and assessed value.
Cook ’em Like Gumbo: Support Documents for Today and Tomorrow
Mo Nishiyama (Oregon Health & Science University)
Gumbo (the official state dish of Louisiana) is known for assimilating many culinary traditions throughout its rich history. The highly revered dish continues to be influenced by multicultural traditions and is enjoyed by a diverse group of people. Customer-facing Help and How-to document system at Oregon Health & Science University share many features as gumbo: articles are authored by experts from various missions, they share similar and consistent content structures and are served to diverse customer bases.
Although the Help and How-to document repository has been in existence for just over five years, we learned from many challenges and successes when developing the system. We have learned where and how customers interact with information, what types of articles are in high demand and how documents complement our communication campaigns. We have adopted better inclusion practices with the words and graphics we use, and raised awareness for accessibility concerns. We also expanded our group of core editors during this time.
Yet there are more changes on the horizon. With the organization’s imminent ITIL adoption, the role of support articles and technology challenges will continue to evolve—just like gumbo.
Digital Transformation from Day One: Onboarding New Employees
Iris Du (Texas Woman’s University), Heather Davis (Texas Woman’s University), Corin Walker (Texas Woman’s University) and Tomeka Nolen (Texas Woman’s University)
Many new employees find the hierarchy of a university to be a daunting challenge. Making sense of the “organized anarchy” can be tough, and using technology to get anything done can be a significant hurdle for new hires. Beginning with a general overview session for new hires, we have iterated to develop a strategy that engages new employees to make them feel welcome and build a positive relationship with IT from day one. Beyond connecting employees to our services, we are able to encourage “good habits,” such as contacting the Service Desk for support and safely saving files. Our focus is on being agile and collaborative.
The session will feature a brief overview of our onboarding relationship management for new hires across our multi-campus university. We will include a sample of our just-in-time communication plan and new hire face-to-face meeting checklist.
New hires who have benefitted from this revised process report fewer tickets and feel more comfortable with our technology services and systems than those hired before our process began.
We plan to engage attendees by asking them about their strategies for tech onboarding and welcoming their questions and discussions about our process.
Improvisation for the Rest of Us and Those Who Want to Be Better Communicators
Russell McMahon (University of Cincinnati)
This workshop will teach participants some of the basics of improvisation and ideas on how it can be used in at work. There are studies that suggest improv does help us all to become better team members, learners, innovators and communicators. Companies are using improv methods as a way of creating more innovative and collaborative teams. This is a method that can be used from brainstorming to create a better work environment by stressing “Yes” before “No.” Improv training can help everyone become better learners and make learning more enjoyable.
Come and learn about improv and why companies such as IDEO, Google, Marriott and Twitter have embraced this technique to build a culture that promotes better communication, collaboration and team building. This workshop is an interactive workshop. Please attend and have fun learning how to be more positive, vulnerable, attentive and playful in your daily grind.
A Laughing Matter: Humor and Technology
Casey Davis (Arizona State University) and Laurie Fox (SUNY Geneseo)
There are positive and engaging ways that humor can be infused into a technology environment for increased and effective communication, stress relief, as well as building a positive culture in any industry or environment. This presentation explores different genres of humor and how to incorporate them within any traditional, virtual or blended working environment. Participants will gain an understanding of the best genres of humor to use (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, self- deprecating) as well as how to best employ them.
Humor is relevant in the current professional sphere now more than ever. The deft handling of humor to diffuse situations and build a positive, engaging and collaborative atmosphere. Humor overcomes awkwardness, opens up conversation, and provides a fertile ground for engaging individuals and bringing them together as a group in a positive way. Humor shared in this way provides a common language to build a culture upon in the working environment. While humor is a powerful tool, it must be wielded responsibly. Explore some of the more common pitfalls of employing humor in the daily working routine. With the ever-increasing reliance on digital technologies, effective communication faces new and never-before encountered challenges in regards to misinterpretation of message. Best practices and proper use of humor in technology are explored in order to avoid these tricky pitfalls.
Learn the best methods to use of humor in a technological environment, examine the different genres of humor that are best suited for digital delivery, and discuss how to best incorporate and embed humor into the daily workings of any office in any culture. Humor can be safe and fun without necessarily being insulting, patronizing or pandering in any way. Come along and join in—there are laughs to be had by all!
A Less Dangerous Ask Me Anything
Jessica Stockett (Swarthmore College) and Joel Price (Swarthmore College)
When we started really paying attention to how people use IT and how they respond to the offerings our department has, we noticed something fascinating: people have great questions and they don’t always have a space to ask them.
Traditionally, our department offered periodic in-person “training” sessions around the type of software applications you’d expect: Word, Excel, Photoshop and InDesign. We (perhaps coincidentally) also noticed low numbers of attendees at these sessions, and the same self-selecting folks showing up regularly.
We found that when we identified key folks around campus, we had higher engagement and higher attendance at sessions, as well as a welcome and engaging diversity of questions at the sessions. We transformed our approach from an us-to-you delivery platform to a preparation for the types of things many people want to know about a program—and preparation for answering the things people needed to know once they had used the program. We started asking “What do you want to be able to do?” instead of telling them “This is how you should use this application.”
Our documentation style changed in response to this change in session offerings. We started writing in a way that streamlined the user path to information. Our mantra became, “Don’t hand me the dictionary when I ask you how to do something.” We strive to provide succinct and distinct paths to commonly requested information in plain English, and to address concerns up front with our users.
The results of our approach are easy to see—people feel more comfortable when learning on their own terms, and it is easier for our team to help provide meaningful sessions when we have identified people who help identify and target sessions and to help round up attendees. When we listen, we can do better.
Slaying the Bad Communication Beast!
Mark Davis Jr (Swarthmore College) and Aixa Pomales (Swarthmore College)
A lot of people think the smarter you are or the higher your IQ, the more effectively you communicate. Unfortunately, that’s not true. In fact, sometimes, believing that you are the smartest person in the room can easily get in the way of communicating effectively. In comes, emotional intelligence (EQ): studies show that those who leverage EQ have a much better indicator of their ability to influence, persuade and connect with others—which ultimately is all about the way we communicate.
So whether you think of yourself as a world-class communicator or as someone who would rather just send an email than deal with face-to-face chatter, chances are you have at least a few bad communication habits that may drive people crazy. How can we slay the beast of bad communication? This interactive session will discuss the pitfalls, methods and strategies to help us embrace thoughtful and effective communication at all levels. We will also discuss the powerful influence it can have on creating a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community.
Think Like a Scientist, Solve Like a Sleuth! An Introduction to Troubleshooting Theory, and How to Make it Accessible to Others
Edward Morreale (St. Lawrence University)
One of the most challenging skills to teach new technicians is the ability to troubleshoot any kind of issue, even if they have no prior knowledge of the given topic. Without knowing where to begin, understanding how to look at a problem and learning to break it down can be daunting.
However, the task does not need to be viewed in such a fearful light. Technical problems in IT can be broken down and solved much in a similar manner to how a detective will search for clues, gather information and then make an inference. In much the same way, the Scientific Method can also be applied to the process of troubleshooting. Creating a hypothesis, performing an experiment and drawing conclusions are all steps that can help a technician solve a problem just like a scientist. By presenting the process of troubleshooting through one of these lenses, the task can be made more accessible to fledgling technicians, and can even reframe the task as an engaging activity.
Infrastructure, Security and Operations
Automating a Part of the Assessment of a University using Excel
Yoshitaka Kihira (Fukuyama University), Takashi Yamanoue (Fukuyama University), Motoo Tanaka (Fukuyama University), Eiji Sato (Fukuyama University) and Yutaka Otsuka (Fukuyama University)
Most of universities in the world are implementing the PDCA cycle for achieving their purposes. Implementation of the PDCA cycle needs a lot of work.
At Fukuyama University, a small private university in Japan, every staff member, including faculty, must take part in the implementation. This could be an obstacle to having good education and good research in the university if the burden of implementation were not reduced. The Check process of the PDCA cycle includes collecting evidence for evaluating the assessment policy of the university. At Fukuyama University, the following steps were executed to implement the assessment policy.
1. For each department in the university, the table showing the relationships between terms of diploma policy of the university and grades of classes for the department was defined.
2. For all students in each department of each school, all of grades for each class were collected.
3. For each student of his/her department, the radar chart of his/her accomplishment by the definition of the table was drawn.
4. For each department, the radar charts of how students in the department accomplished the terms of the diploma policy were drawn.
To reduce the burden of these steps, we made the step one to be suitable for automation and we have automated the steps of two through four, using our university’s student management system and Excel. We have corrected about 260,000 grades for each student of each class at our university, and produced radar charts for each student and each department. The automation involves clicking just some buttons in the Excel book after the grade data is downloaded from the management system. We have spent about two years for step one and we have spent about two months to make the Excel book.
Avoid Phishing Traps
Katelin Moul (Dickinson College)
Here at Dickinson College we have been working diligently to train users to avoid phishing traps. This paper and presentation will highlight our steps in the fight against phishing. We have: used annual phishing quizzes with prizes, created a phishing alerts web page, hosted Cyber Security Awareness Month events, had an Avoid Phishing Alerts presentation, added a warning bar to external emails and started implementing Microsoft MFA utilizing the Microsoft Authenticator app. This struggle involves our entire division and our efforts have been evolving for years.
Be Careful What You Wish For: ITS Involvement in the Design of a New Building
R Kevin Chapman (Carleton College)
In 2011, Carleton College brought the Weitz Center online. While the launch was successful, there were numerous IT challenges. ITS had been left out of some important conversations and—as a result—certain design choices made technology implementation harder than necessary.
In Fall 2019, Carleton’s new science facility will open for business. ITS was determined to be more involved in conversations around the design and implementation of technology this time, from as early on as possible. The administration saw the value in this, and brought us in. It’s possible that we got more than we bargained for.
Our involvement started in 2016, reviewing networking, lab layouts, classroom tech and printer locations. Soon, ITS staff were leading plan reviews for science faculty and staff on these and additional aspects of the building. Before we knew it, we found ourselves involved in regular reviews of architectural plans, power locations, data ports, furniture design, lighting and more. We make weekly walkthroughs of the construction site, checking progress and working directly with the trades on site to identify and address issues as we see where certain design choices don’t necessarily work in practical reality.
ITS has now committed hundreds of staff hours to the project, far more than we initially expected, with the work of bringing the building online still to come. Was it worth the time and effort? Will the building be in substantially better shape than it would have been without our involvement?
This paper will address the difference in approach between these two projects, and the advantages of one over the other. It will also step through ITS’ contributions to the science complex project, those that we chose to be a part of and those that we were drawn into as a result, including the pros and cons of each.
Catch the Big Bad Wolf: A Cybersecurity-themed Escape Room
Beth Lynn Nolen (Indiana University – UITS IT Training) and Tom Mason (Indiana University – UITS IT Training)
Test your digital security skills in “Catch the Big Bad Wolf,” a cybersecurity-themed escape room where you’ll take on the role of members of the Sheep Dog Detective Agency as you work to solve a mystery happening in the barnyard. On the farm, animals and things have been going missing, and nobody can figure out why. The lead suspect is Wolfrid, the notorious wolf in sheep’s clothing, and your goal is to explore his lair to find information that will lead to his capture before he returns!
As part of Indiana University’s Think Before You Click phishing education initiative, the “Catch the Big Bad Wolf” escape room helps reinforce digital security skills, such as recognizing phishing emails, creating strong passwords and safe handling of USB drives. This IU-themed experience was adapted from the “So you want to be a spy” cybersecurity escape room developed by Linda Ludwig at Grinnell College and shared by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Challenges in IT Operations Management at a German University Chair – Ten Years in Retrospect
Martin Geier (Technical University of Munich) and Samarjit Chakraborty (Technical University of Munich)
Over the last two decades, the majority of German universities adopted various characteristics of the prevailing North American academic system, resulting in significant changes in several key areas. These include both teaching—which has been affected by the introduction of bachelor’s and master’s degrees (as a result of the Bologna Process) and a general shift towards courses being taught in English—and research, where tenure procedures (complementing the traditional, industry-aligned recruiting model) and a more publication-oriented modus operandi have been introduced.
The universities’ internal organizational structures, however, still follow a traditional, decentralized scheme to a varying degree. Although the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has been establishing a more centralized scheme for many administrative tasks over the past decade, the transition from its distributed to a centralized information technology (IT) administration and infrastructure is still an ongoing process.
In case of the authors’ chair, this migration so far included handing over all network-related operations to the joint compute center, consolidating the chair’s legacy server system in terms of both hardware architectures and operating systems and, lately, moving selected services to faculty- or university-operated replacements. With requirements, individuals and organizations constantly shifting, this process, however, is neither close to completion nor particularly unique to TUM.
In this paper, we will share our experiences with respect to this IT migration with other institutions facing similar challenges, and what we hope to learn from those insights gained by fellow colleagues who already operate their research-, teaching- and management-related IT in a more centralized fashion.
Deploying High-Performance Virtual Workspaces
Muhammed Naazer Ashraf (Lehigh University)
Designing a modern workspace and application delivery strategy needs to be focused on one thing—the user experience. Discover the blueprint that Lehigh University’s Library & Technology Services in partnership with the College of Engineering employed to maximize the use of our resources and transform the student experience.
We will breakdown and try to understand the important elements of a modern workspace that leverages application virtualization. The most critical component in driving the adoption of virtual environments is the user experience. Students do not care—or may not even realize—how their Windows workspace is being delivered. We will learn to quantify this user experience by defining a key metric that is able to model the experiential findings a user has when sitting in front of a computer. This will provide a platform-agnostic measure of success.
We will discuss key questions to ask yourself when selecting a vendor. We will also demonstrate application layering and how this technology is transforming the delivery of applications in modern workspaces.
From Patient to Population: Understanding Cybersecurity Though Public Health
Adam Mikeal (Texas A&M University)
Information security is practiced at many levels—sometimes close to the end user and sometimes not. Sometimes malware and computer threats are personal, but sometimes they affect an entire population. Sometimes in order to manage a cybersecurity threat, it’s necessary to step back and look at data that spans traditional organizational silos in order to make connections that would otherwise remain hidden.
I propose using the model of public health as a way to understand how to address cybersecurity threats. Just as public health officials have different priorities than a doctor engaged in individual clinical care, information security officials at a university must necessarily be concerned with different priorities than an IT professional at a college or department. Frustration arises when those competing priorities seem to produce conflicting goals. Understanding the differences between these two approaches—and also the points of connection—is necessary to increase the ability for these groups to effectively communicate, and ultimately collaborate.
How Do You Migrate Your System to the Cloud Environment? An Example of Conversion from Silo Type to Horizontal Type
Masaru Okumura (Fukuoka University) and Sho Fujimura (Fukuoka University)
At Fukuoka University, we are promoting the transition of information systems centered on administrative systems to the cloud environment. Migrating over 30 existing on-premise systems—large and small—and over 100 servers to the cloud environment (including Azure) was our task. Our main missions are twofold. One is to unify the complex system infrastructure by utilizing virtualization technology and the cloud. The second is to reduce the operating costs of those system infrastructures for the future.
In this transition, we aimed to standardize the system environment by establishing a new server infrastructure utilizing the cloud, from silo-type system construction. As a concrete effort, we created common service specifications to present to each system construction vendor, and unified support windows and routines for applying server patches. As a result of this standardization, unified management operation of the system infrastructure was achieved. Moreover, we were able to contribute to reduction of human cost and operation cost associated with system operation.
In this report, we will introduce our approach and report the position of each step. In particular, we would like to share our approach and experiences with the vendors and departments that build and operate each system as an information infrastructure department and how we organized the structure and operation of the campus information system.
Intelligent Campus Environment Room Monitoring System(CampusEMonitor)
Shamar Ward (The University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus), Mechelle Gittens (The University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus), Nicholas Rock (Caribbean Examinations Council – CXC) and Keone James (Caribbean Examinations Council – CXC)
Students, staff and infrastructure are the center of the campus environment. It is therefore important to monitor, analyze and make decisions which would ensure the comfort of students and staff on campus as well as preserve infrastructure. Server/switch rooms may become extremely hot due to air conditioner failures unknown to staff. These undetected failures cause servers to switch off, affecting service delivery. In other cases, unsafe gases may be present in the environment. This situation may be unknown to management and the environmental conditions can cause discomfort to students and staff.
In this paper, we present CampusEMonitor, which is capable of monitoring various aspects of the environment, which may affect students, staff and campus infrastructure. CampusEMonitor is capable of monitoring temperature, humidity, moisture, environmental gases and unauthorized human entry to campus spaces. Additionally, CampusEMonitor can be configured to trigger various types of alerts automatically—which include emails, SMS and automated calls. Such alerts can select suitable staff members to notify when conditions become unfavorable. We developed a low-cost system using Raspberry Pis and sensors for sensing; old Repurposed Cell Phones (RCPs) for sending alerts; and open source software for dashboards. Sensor data collected at the Caribbean Examinations Council was displayed in real-time on dashboards but is also stored and processed to identify trends. Staff members were also surveyed about the performance of the system. CampusEMonitor can be used to monitor environments other than campuses to ensure the comfort of internal and external users and ensure optimal performance of equipment.
Re-Planting All Your Trees in One Forest: Deploying an Enterprise Wide Active Directory at Penn State
Alexa Spigelmyer (The Pennsylvania State University) and Darren Hron (The Pennsylvania State University)
Four years ago Penn State’s Identity Services department was issued a herculean task; to deploy a centralized, enterprise-wide Active Directory. The project was given a five year goal to move from an underutilized central service with departments and colleges who had been hosting their own domains to one centrally managed service with university-wide buy in.
We are now closing in on our five year goal and are in the final phases. This paper will explore why this goal was set, how we went about tackling such a massive scope, where we are now, what we have left, the mistakes made and some of the lessons learned along the way.
Risk Management for Software License/Asset Managers
Holly Ives (Pima Community College) and Cornelius Bledsoe (Pima Community College)
The idea of this document is to get Software License/Asset Managers to start thinking about their software assets from a risk management standpoint:
• Draw attention to the liability/risk of software assets to the institution
• To give Software Asset Managers a starting point
• To get the conversation started so that Software Asset Managers can approach their Department heads and/or Administrators with a plan/overview as to why ITAM is important at their schools
It would be a workshop where people would break out into groups with a contrived list of software with other criteria, such as pricing frequency of install, size of a software company and reputation/public profile.
Based on this information, groups would come up with an assessment and create a risk level chart along with action items for managing these risks.
People would come away with some level of information along these lines where they could take it home and do their risk assessment—and start thinking about how they want to handle risk in their department.
These are questions I want to get people thinking about:
• Identify what the significant risks are at your school.
• Out of those risks, what are the critical aspects of those assets that would make them a larger or smaller risk?
• What is the likelihood of that risk becoming a more significant risk?
• What can you do to manage it?
Instructional Technology and Design
AR/VR Strategy Considerations for Academic Computing Services
Owen McGrath (Educational Technology Services)
Over the past several decades, new digital content forms have ushered in major developmental leaps in educational technology: electronic text, interactive multimedia, hypermedia and—more recently—a spectrum of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) capabilities. As higher education institutions now consider how best to support AR and VR for teaching and learning, opportunities and challenges arise when it comes to planning the training, infrastructure, facilities, hardware, software and staff resources needed to deploy services.
Examining current features of the AR and VR landscape, this paper focuses on key strategic areas of focus including emerging interoperability standards and infrastructure implications—as well as the development, accessibility and curation of content. Specific examples from one university’s setting illustrate the issues in each area, and show how new AR and VR services can be developed by leveraging existing resources and expertise of older services such as AV/IT design, instructional computer labs and video production.
The goals of this paper include:
1. Briefly survey commonalities and differences of AR and VR as they are being applied to teaching and learning
2. Discuss service design approaches and key decision points around what AR and VR technologies to support at scale
3. Note key issues and challenges for developing sustainable approaches to curating AR and VR content
4. Offer lessons learned in developing the staff expertise and capacity to manage and operate AR and VR infrastructure, spaces, and services.
Bringing Campus Experience to Online Classes
Karl Owens (University of Oregon, Lundquist College of Business), Michael Suskin (University of Oregon, Lundquist College of Business) and Chris Wiesemann (University of Oregon, Lundquist College of Business)
No recording ever captures the experience of a live performance. Same is true about education. Feedback we have received regarding online education, has been that remote attendees miss access to resources and the live interaction with their instructor and classmates. Through the use of a couple of commercial services we are able to provide bring some of the campus to online students.
“If We Build It, Will They Come? (And If They Come, Will We Be There?)” Designing, Building and Launching the Faculty Media Center
Edward Ostrander (Oregon State University), Marc Cholewczynski (Oregon State University), Kristina Case (Oregon State University) and Amy Hunter (Oregon State University)
Looking to maximize the ROI in our academic technology ecosystem, Oregon State University identified a critical missing element: centralized resources and support for the effective design, and delivery of quality instructional media content. Enter the Faculty Media Center. We will share information about the newly launched Faculty Media Center and discuss the challenges we faced, lessons we learned and fun we had along the way.
This presentation will tell our story about designing, building and launching the Faculty Media Center at Oregon State University. Newly opened during Spring Term 2019, we will start from the beginning, leaving no stone unturned as we discuss everything—from our campus alignment, budget and organizational structures to our Do-It-Yourself philosophy, A/V production design and implementation, and service and support offering at the Center. We will talk about our timeline, planning process and facilities renovation work. We will speak in depth about our technology infrastructure and the resources we leveraged to make the Center a reality. Lastly, we will discuss our user experience goals, service design principles and intended impacts aimed at improving student success at Oregon State University. As learning spaces evolve, the Faculty Media Center offers us an opportunity to reimagine technology design and support methodologies that enhance teaching and learning in the higher education landscape.
Innovative Uses for an Online Survey Tool at WVU
Kathryn Fletcher (West Virginia University Information Technology)
In 2013 West Virginia University purchased a campus-wide license for Qualtrics, a highly respected survey tool, to accommodate researchers conducting online surveys and to support marketing course instruction. Additional uses for Qualtrics have been implemented on WVU’s campus such as online forms with workflows, program reviews that allow collaborative responses over a six month period, online tutorials with built-in quizzes and providing authentication for student body elections. Other full-featured survey tools could be used in a similar manner. I will provide more information on WVU’s “off label” uses of Qualtrics and will include best practices based on lessons learned.
Learning Management Systems Implementation: a Stakeholder Analysis
Ajayi Ekuase-Anwansedo (Southern University and A&M College) and Akai Smith (Southern University and A&M College)
The concept of E-learning in universities has grown rapidly over the years to include not just only a learning management systems (LMS) but also tools initially not designed for learning. These include Facebook and advanced learning tools such as games, simulations and virtualization. As a result, cloud-based LMS is being touted as the next evolution of the traditional LMS. It is hoped that cloud-based LMS will resolve some of the challenges associated with the traditional LMS implementation process. In a previous study, we reported that lack of involvement of faculty and students in the LMS implementation process results in the limited use of the LMS by faculty and students. The question then is, “Will the cloud-based LMS resolve these issues?” We conducted a review of literature and presented an overview of the traditional LMS, cloud computing and the cloud-based LMS. We described how the cloud computing LMS resolve issues raised by faculty and students. We find that even though cloud-based LMS resolve most of the technical issues associated with the traditional LMS, some of the human issues were not resolved. We hope that this study draws attention to non-technical issues associated with the LMS implementation process.
Training Faculty: Teaching Goals vs. Tech Tools — Finding a Balance
Lisa Brown (University of Rochester), Laurie Fox (SUNY Geneseo), Miranda Carney-Morris (Lewis and Clark College) and Beth Nolen (Indiana University Bloomington)
Faculty often ask us about specific technologies to use in their teaching; however, context to their teaching goals might suggest use of a different technological tool, or suggestions for specific settings to a tool. Additionally, research has shown that faculty expect and want technology support, not support in their teaching and pedagogy. Our goal in supporting faculty in their instruction would be to educate them about the tools, but also guide them to the right tools for their specific teaching needs. When training faculty about the tools available to them, how do we find a balance between pedagogical support and strict technology overload? How can we offer them the technology training they want, along with the guided support toward best practices in teaching and learning with technology?
This session will cover how different schools provide different types of training in technology tools for faculty and how each finds the balance between teaching and technology.
Virtual Reality: Classroom Tool or Classroom Fool
Eric Handler (Macalester College)
In March of 2019 Macalester College’s Center for Scholarship and Teaching purchased a computer and headset for a Virtual Reality Cart. The purpose of the cart is to provide the instructional support staff (Academic Technologists and Research and Instruction Librarians) a resource for learning more about VR as well as facilitating projects in classroom spaces for faculty without the resources to purchase their own VR systems.
Using an HTC Vive Pro and an Alienware Aurora Desktop computer the cart was assembled and the aforementioned staff had the summer to learn and prepare for designing systems that took advantage of the hardware. Prior to the arrival of the equipment on campus, faculty expressed interest in virtual museum tours and creation (Art and Art History), virtual dig sites (Anthropology), Exposure Therapy (Psychology) and language instruction.
Hear about the wonderful experiences of staff and faculty in early fall, our lessons learned, steps to avoid and what went horribly wrong. The bright future of VR is that when you find a pitfall, you can take the headset off to help with getting out of the hole, finding the solution and improving for the next classroom session!
Leadership and Professional Development
5 Tips for Career Resilience in the Face of Economic Uncertainty
Lindsey Freer (Mount Holyoke College)
We need to be honest with ourselves about the economic pressures faced by colleges and universities in the United States. Small colleges are closing regularly, sometimes with next-to-no warning. Most schools are trying to do more with fewer employees, given the rising costs of pensions and health care. The news is full of caution about coming demographic shifts, and cost-conscious families are questioning both the sticker price and the long-term value of a degree. If you don’t have the benefit of tenure, then no matter your role or the institution you work for, it’s reasonable to be concerned about your employer’s financial health, your own job security and what impact the shrinking higher education market will have on your career.
As I’ve built my career as an instructional technologist and a team manager, I’ve been laid off twice for budget-related reasons. Each time I pivoted from that experience of job loss into a new position with greater authority and scope. Let me show you how I did it! We will talk about dealing with the psychological impact of an involuntary separation, tips for navigating a changing job market in instructional technology and what we can do to maintain a resilient mindset—in a culture that ties our sense of self so closely to the work that we do. Participants will leave with my five top tips for healthy career growth in uncertain times, and worksheets to help them analyze the tradeoffs and financial risk inherent in positions they either hold or might apply for.
Building a Professional Development Program from Scratch
Carol Currie Sobczak (University of Maine System)
The University of Maine System’s Information Technology teams lack an organized approach to professional development. A coordinator position was established in 2015 to start addressing technical training needs of all staff and students. A documentation site was established. Strides were made to enhance the content available to staff; Atomic Learning (now Hoonuit) was used as a pilot program. Human Resources jumped on board and expanded that availability to the university community—all faculty, staff, and students. As this program developed, it became clear that something was needed to organize the training efforts specifically for IT staff, which often went beyond the routine GSuite- and Office-type training.
This presentation will outline the development process and beginning stages of implementation of the program. Since this is a project in its infancy, discussion around other organization’s programs will be welcomed.
Draft Day: How Lessons from Fantasy Football Can Teach About Staffing
Mitchell Ochi (University of Hawaii System), Judy Toma (University of Hawaii System) and Claire Chun (University of Hawaii System)
When Matthew Berry wrote, “A bad league ruins the experience for so many…” a resounding nod amongst Fantasy Football (FF) players echoed any manager’s plight: staffing. Berry also noted that the appeal to FF is interacting with people. Juxtapose great staff with a bad “league” and this further encapsulates that staffing, much like building one’s FF team, is not only critical to an institution’s success but strategic. Many managers, however, are rarely trained properly and are usually left to improvise or figure things out on their own (Wilks, 2018).
To address these issues, we will discuss how FF can mimic the hiring process and can provide a model to understand what a manager requires from a new staff member (player research), the interview process (preparing one’s roster for draft day), the selection committee’s consensus process (draft day), on-boarding staff (building one’s roster), continual training and conclude with an effective evaluation process (maintaining one’s team). We will use some of Bob Lewis’ Eight Tasks of Leadership to define how staffing is dependent on both concrete and subjective tasks such as making decisions, motivating employees, communication, and building and maintaining teams. Finally, we will examine the current Leadership Development Group program within our IT organization (ITS) to guide future managers within ITS.
How’s Your EQ? – Let’s Find Out!
Mark Davis Jr (Swarthmore College)
Do you understand the role your emotions play in how you see yourself and others? What role does EQ play in successful leadership? How does EQ impact diversity, equity and inclusion? How much of an impact does emotional intelligence really have on your professional success and the relationships you build? The short answer is, “A lot!”
This interactive discussion (or workshop) will help us identify and assess our abilities in each of the EQ quadrants of self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and social awareness. We will also discuss methods and strategies to help us embrace EQ at all levels and identify the influence it can have on creating a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community.
Improving Leadership Through Improv
Ella Tschopik (UW Madison School of Education)
Improvisational theater may seem distant from our daily meetings, emails and tasks, but as we will learn through doing this session, there are many connections between the two. For example, what do you do when someone gives you a problem and needs an immediate solution? Learning improv skills helps you develop quick thinking, flexibility and collaboration. Come find out how and start improving through improv!
It Was Never a Dress; the Wonder Woman of IT
Sasha Calden (Duke University)
In 2015 the bathroom-sign lady with the triangle dress received a serious makeover. This panel will discuss how an agile project management software company (Axosoft) launched an It Was Never a Dress campaign which challenges people to be conscious and collaborative, to be aware of what’s going on in the world of technology and other spaces that women occupy. How can something so small make such a positive impact? We will discuss what we can do to recognize the challenges women face in their roles in IT programs at our Universities and Colleges, and how we can support a mission for collaboration which enhances excellence through positive leadership and inclusion.
Mental Health in the IT Workplace
R Kevin Chapman (Carleton College)
Everyone has their own personal struggles, and we are in the habit—for better or for worse—of powering through them. But is that the right approach? Sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression—to name but a few—are frighteningly commonplace amongst the general population. To deny that these conditions exist in the workplace would seem to be foolish. The important question: Is this reality acknowledged? Are there support structures in place to help us address mental health issues when they arise? After all, healthier employees are in everyone’s best interest: company, client and, of course, the individuals themselves.
This panel will be comprised of members of the SIGUCCS community who currently experience, or have experienced, some form of mental health issue that they feel has had an impact on their professional (and personal) lives. We’ll talk about how these conditions manifested themselves, the impact that they had or are having on our work, and what we did or are doing to address them. We’ll also talk about the importance of support structures in our workplace—whether they existed in our personal experiences or not.
Please join in what we hope to be a safe environment for an important conversation.
Productivity Panel and Discussion
Laurie Fox (SUNY Geneseo), Dan Herrick (University of Colorado Boulder), Beth Lynn Nolen (Indiana University Bloomington), Jason Vaughn (Texas A&M College of Architecture) and Kathy Fletcher (West Virginia University)
As our community members continue to share their productivity journey, this popular panel topic returns to SIGUCCS with new faces. Listen to panel participants share their planning strategies, tools and experiences—then join in on the conversation with other attendees.
Student Staff in IT: From a “Just a Job” to a Career
Trevor Freeland (Carleton College) and Kendra Strode (Carleton College)
How can IT go from “just a job” to a career path for students? Though many IT professionals have experienced this transition, this paper explores a range of contributing experiences and circumstances to identify common themes and significant indicators in that transition.
Through a case study and student technician surveys and interviews, we will examine the roles that student training, projects, increasing levels of responsibility and other interactions play in transforming students’ awareness of IT as a career choice rather than simply a work-study position, and the benefits that this has had on the team and the productivity and culture of the helpdesk as a whole.
Supporting Students and Technology at Stanford University
Melissa Doernte (Stanford University), Arik Broman (Stanford University) and Tiffany Lieuw (Stanford University)
The Office of the Vice Provost of Teaching and Learning (VPTL) at Stanford University serves as a model of student technology services by supporting all matriculated students. 98% of our undergraduate and graduate students live on campus, which presents unique challenges and opportunities. We are set apart from other schools by having limited full-time management, while employing upwards of 150 student staff who support 16,000+ students.
Our program uses a tiered student support system comprised of Technology Desk Consultants, Residential Computer Consultants, Operations Techs and Peer Technology Specialists. The tech desk consultants provide first tier support, triaging incoming needs. They also loan specialty technology and maintain resources that facilitate students’ academic goals.
In the undergraduate residential spaces, Residential Computer Consultants live amongst their peers and assist with technical support. The main hours of documented support occurs between 7-10 pm. They also provide first tier support for in-residence computer clusters/labs.
Operations Techs provide tier two and three support for Stanford-owned equipment and residential learning spaces. We maintain 86 computer clusters and 55 learning spaces with audio-visual technology. Peer Technology Specialists handle tier two support and teach educational workshops to all students.
Our system provides a path of student growth within each job, as well as the chance to move to enhance their skill set by moving to a different technical job. Student leaders are given management specific training, and are expected to fulfill a supervisory position that includes interviewing, hiring, training and reviewing their peers.
Come to our panel to learn more about our unique program and learn techniques to build your student staff program!
Service Desk and Service Management
Access Service Unbound: A Customer-Focused Service Model for the 21st Century
Emy Decker (Georgia Tech Library) and Karen Glover (Georgia Tech Library)
While users continue to depend on being able to receive their course materials, requested books, technological gadgets, Reserves and ILL materials on time, the contemporary academic library must be nimble enough to anticipate future needs, develop more streamlined services, and help transition its librarians and staff into their shifting roles and responsibilities. The academic library must adapt its public services and user engagement strategies to meet the changing needs of the 21st century academic community.
Whereas Access Services was once a stand-alone department with dedicated librarians, the new model requires a more matrix-style organization with continuous communication between many different departments to ensure excellent customer service. In order for the supply chain to operate effectively, librarians and library staff need to function together with the main goal being to meet—or exceed—the users’ needs.
In addition to creating a welcoming environment, the all-new Public Services Department model includes library staff members “roving” to meet users where they are needed, just as much as it anticipates user needs by offering user-friendly, self-service options. It also ushers in a new public service model that is open-ended enough to adapt to user needs as they evolve over time. Such proactive flexibility is a vital component of the library’s outreach to students and faculty.
While the immediate needs of the users are getting met via a new public service model, more of the traditional Access Services “processes” are distributed to other units within the library.
This Supply Chain splits the once Access Services Department into a triangular relationship between Technical Services, an off-site storage facility and logistics (i.e., stacks maintenance), while maintaining a close relationship with Public Services, operating as the storefront to the supply chain services provided. Maintaining this delicate relationship requires work from all units involved.
Building Bridges to Outstanding Customer Service: Improving Help Desk Efficiencies 5000%* Through Student Training
Deb Meyer (University of Wisconsin Platteville), Josh Savoy (University of Wisconsin Platteville) and Patti Mitch (University of Wisconsin Platteville)
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville is a mid-sized university, focusing on undergraduate and graduate programs with hands-on learning opportunities rooted in a comprehensive liberal arts education. Our IT support team, which is comprised 3:1 of student employees to full-time staff, provides technical services to the campus community of 8000 students and 1200 employees.
After years of providing the same annual training to all of our student staff regardless of skill level or time of service, it became evident that we needed to revise our approach to better prepare students to deliver the quality service our customers deserve. It was also important to maintain student interest and enthusiasm for their work while providing them with professional challenges and growth opportunities. Success was measured by the completion of five deliverables:
• A differentiated program based on student knowledge and experience
• On-demand, repeatable training
• Learning outcomes and corresponding assessment
• Documented position hierarchy with clear path for advancement
• A process for ongoing program assessment
We identified skillsets, redefined position descriptions and developed a multi-tiered, hands-on training program with specific learning outcomes and assessment tools. Now our annual four-day training features differentiated instruction for each level and area of student employment—Help Desk, Hardware, and Tech Maintenance from new hires through lead consultants. There is also opt-in training for those who are interested in specializing in specific areas of support.
ITS full-time staff provide the training on-site and are responsible for developing an alternate method of delivery for students who are not able to attend in person. To make sure the program continues to meet the needs of our staff and of campus, we instituted a process for annual review and revision of the program.
Walk with us on the journey from “Where do we start?” to training on Easy Street.
Case Study of Building a High Performance Team: Endpoint Engineering Experiment
Muhammed Naazer Ashraf (Lehigh University)
Hear the story about the conception of our Endpoint Engineering team that brought together a diverse group of high-potential individuals from within our organization to focus their efforts in maximizing our efficiencies.
This cross-functional team was charged with reimagining desktop support and lab management across the entire university. Their prime directive was to bridge centralized and decentralized IT to deliver a collaborative service. The result of which, we anticipate, will offer a level of service that exceeds anything that either organization alone has delivered in the past, and support Lehigh University’s Path to Prominence vision.
Creating a “Phoenix” Service Desk from the Ashes of a Student Helpdesk and a Desktop Support Team
Kirsten Petersen (Oregon State University), Andrew Wheeler (Oregon State University) and Max Cohen (Oregon State University)
This presentation will detail how Oregon State University Information Services formed an ITIL-based Service Desk from the staff and resources of a centralized student helpdesk, a contracted desktop support team, a walkup support service and a campus labs support team.
We will explain where we started, what our goals were, the changes we made to reach our goals, what we learned along the way and what we plan to do in the future. Like the phoenix, we expect to change again.
The presentation will be given by the Client Services Director, Client Services Assistant Director and Service Desk Supervisor, representing a range of perspectives from strategic to tactical and operational.
Attendees will learn practical approaches to address structural and other barriers to implementing an ITIL-based Service Desk from existing support teams.
Jamf is a Verb! Have You Been Jamfed?
Cristina Koorie (Lehigh University) and Devin Jayetileke (Lehigh University)
A team of different employees under Lehigh University Library and Technology Services (LTS) implemented a management system for Apple devices. This presentation will cover the steps to collaboratively implement an Apple management system across faculty, staff and labs throughout the university. It will highlight the security features it provides, training, machine enrollment, creating documentation, communicating to the campus and future management features. We will focus on the development and design of the Jamf Pro Cloud service for Lehigh University’s use case. Emphasize the security goals of this project which include, strong password requirements, enforcing encryptions and inventory device management.
This presentation focuses on the best solution for the design in Jamf Cloud Pro for our university and its benefits for further implementation and configurations. Included will be a demonstration from start to finish the interface of enrolling machines, and design processes. Improving the security to Apple users is vital and was unaddressed at the university. It was important to also document and communicate Jamf to make the transition for faculty and staff. There are continuous enhancements of Jamf at Lehigh for the following year becoming a more valuable component of the Lehigh University device management process.
Target audience: Faculty/ Staff/ Labs using Apple devices
Platform: Jamf Cloud Pro
Collaborative effort between departments within our university.
Attended 3- day training with Jamf administrator on campus.
Communicate new software to campus.
Jamf self service feature which allows users to control what applications are installed on their devices.
Enforce security protocols such as FileVault, software updates and 6 month password changes.
Process: Devices are either enrolled via DEP or our self enroll feature.
Result: A better management of all apple devices within our organization.
Organizing Decentralized Helpdesks
Karl Owens (University of Oregon, Lundquist College of Business)
In a decentralized support environment much of user support looks much like an improvised jam session of technology soloists. Is it possible to organize decentralized support services to provide some standards for best practices, share resources for staff training to improve, provide vented feedback to centralized technology services and improve the user support to the campus community? We’re creating a community of practice of technology helpdesk managers with the hope to achieve some of these goals.
Overhauling Our PC Inventory System – How Student Workers Saved the Day
Timothy Palumbo (Lehigh University) and Grant Hittinger (Lehigh University)
Lehigh University currently utilizes a custom built system to garner data on all active directory joined PCs owned by the University. This system replaced an antiquated login script based inventory system that was unable to accommodate a number of demands requested by our endpoint support teams and our management.
This paper will focus on a few key areas, including why the need to start over was necessary and the original replacement that, while functional, still did not adequately meet the needs of our staff. The heart of this paper will cover the full revamp of the inventory, which included a full code rewrite of the front and back end. This will include brief discussions on what the project was previously built on (ColdFusion, HTML, JavaScript, and PowerShell) and what it was changed over to on the new system (Python, Flask, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and PowerShell). It will cover the pivotal role of student workers in making this project a reality and discuss how projects that lack feasibility with current staffing may be possible with the help of properly empowered student workers. The paper will also include interview data with current and previous student workers. This is to showcase the value that they find in working with a technology group and to ascertain if their student work enhanced their marketability when applying for jobs. Finally, an actual look at the final product will be demoed.
Solve and Evolve: Practical Applications for Knowledge-Centered Service
Rebekah Lineberry (Washington University in St. Louis)
In any organization with a true service focus, knowledge is a community asset. The sharing and availability of knowledge is crucial to providing better customer service, but the larger and more decentralized your group is, the more the logistical challenges pile up. By implementing formal knowledge management (KM) practices, higher education IT organizations can improve performance metrics and customer service, while improving collaboration among fragmented teams and cultivating a singular, rather than siloed, view of the IT ecosystem.
Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS, formerly known as Knowledge-Centered Support) presents the administration and lifecycle of an organization’s knowledge base in two concentric rings: the Solve and Evolve loops. “Solve” covers the day-to-day transaction work with knowledge: service desk and customer, incident tickets and creating articles. “Evolve” then layers in leadership, organizational strategy and data-driven methods for improving and maintaining a healthy knowledge base.
In this paper, we will explore KCS best practices in Solve and Evolve, and how they align with ITIL framework for IT Service Management. Through the lens of knowledge management at Washington University in St. Louis, we will examine the practical application of these processes and the results we are experiencing in our burgeoning KM work, and present scalable takeaways for organizations looking to grow and expand knowledge management.
Teaching an Old Bee New Tricks – Change Management at Georgia Tech
Vicki Rogers (Georgia Institute of Technology)
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol
The IT Change Management process is designed to help control the life cycle of strategic, tactical and operational changes to IT services through standardized procedures. The goal of Change Management is to control risk and minimize disruption to associated IT services and business operations. Georgia Institute of Technology introduced Change Management in 2018.
This session will briefly describe and define change management and how it fits into the ITSM model. Participants will learn about Georgia Tech’s process and how we managed adoption. They will see a summary of a year of data, learn about our successes and our lessons learned. We will be open to engage in questions and conversations about change management. Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of change management, how it can work in a higher education setting and how a large research institution traversed adoption of change management.
Lightning Talks
5 Lessons From My First Big IT Project
Ella Tschopik (UW Madison School of Education)
What did I learn while enrolling 676 faculty and staff in Multi-Factor Authentication? Find out at this lighting talk as I share an overview of the project, the timeline, the strategies and the take aways from my first big IT project.
Badges: Do We Need to Show You Some Stinkin’ Badges
Eric Handler (Macalester College)
In the spring of 2019 in partnership with Macalester’s Center for Scholarship and Teaching, I am leading a group of faculty and staff in an exploration of gamification and badges in higher education. Inspired by my Apple watch, I wanted to learn from faculty what they thought of gamification, badges and more. Are they interested, how do they define these terms, what challenges do they foresee. We anticipate reading some literature on the topic as well as partnering with our campus career center to learn about what they are hearing from employers.
While Macalester is far away from implementing an on-campus badging system, this “Talking about Pedagogy” workgroup is likely to inform that exploration in the years to come. In this presentation/lightning talk/poster/panel I will share what I’ve learned from the faculty as well as what we learned together about the state of badging across the higher education landscape.
Barrels, Buggy Whips, and BASIC – A Historical And Personal Perspective on Skill Obsolescence
Travis Freudenberg (Carleton College)
Over the last several years, Apple has released new designs that have received rave reviews as being some of the least repairable computers ever made. Colleges and businesses are increasingly outsourcing repair and maintenance of their technology assets to third parties. Why, then, would anybody choose the increasingly anachronistic trade of hardware repair as a career anchor?
In this lightning talk, I will discuss historical examples of skill obsolescence, as well as how a “wrench” can stay relevant in an era of disposable hardware.
Communication Skills and Teaming are a Project Manager’s Best Tools
Kristi Lenz (Washington University in St. Louis)
As a project manager it is our job to control the scope, time and budget of an initiative with a defined start and end. The everyday logistics of how that occurs varies greatly from one PM to another and from one organization to another. Two skills that can be consistently used to support success are strong communication skills and teaming.
Teaming is the art and skill of creating several small focused working groups to concentrate on very defined deliverables while working as a part of the whole project as one cohesive unit. Communication skills is a vast bucket into which many things can be grouped; in this particular scenario I am referring to communications within your project teams, controlling communications to your customers/stakeholders and communication up to senior management.
In this paper I will explore the various tools and strategies, including teaming which can be used to increase project visibility, create stakeholder buy-in, encourage organizational change management and ensure project success.
My SIGUCCS Book Report
Laurie Fox (SUNY Geneseo)
The SIGUCCS Community read together 7 professional development and leadership books this year. In this lightning talk, I will give a one-minute book report on each book.
Productivity Pants: The Joys of Context
Mo Nishiyama (Oregon Health & Science University)
With thousands of books on the topic, productivity is a popular subject in the business world. Increase work output, reduce the bottom line, and stay competitive—those are some of the magic bullets that productivity promises.
But with so many thoughts, schools, methods and gurus in the world, where do we begin? How do we find a productivity strategy that is right for our professional and personal goals? How do we know which voices to listen to? The short answer? “It depends.”
In this lightning talk, we will discuss important considerations when we decide to embark on our own productivity journey. We will focus on sharpening our goals, understanding what we value and creating a space for improving the way we work (and live).
Soft Skills and Building Relationships
Arik Broman (Stanford University)
Often times when working in technology the development and training of soft skills is not seen as a primary concern. I will talk about why building relationships with clients is important and how we teach those skills to our student staff.
SustainabilIT
Dan R. Herrick (University of Colorado Boulder)
There is a problem with surplus property on campus: From the “owner’s” perspective, it takes more time and effort to get rid of it than it is worth. Yet, what is worth zero or negative value to one department is worth something to another. Although our central Property Services group manages surplus property at end-of-life, something else was needed to manage assets that still had use… to someone. In addition to maximizing the use of campus surplus property, we wanted to demonstrate a commitment to compliance and sustainability, improve space utilization and increase cost avoidance and revenue.
In 2017, the BuffSurplus web tool was launched to facilitate the exchange, sale and re-use of surplus property between campus departments. Nearly two years later, the tool still struggles to gain traction. Learn how one university has attempted to solve this community problem through a community-driven process, why it still struggles and what we are doing to drive toward success.
You’re (Probably) Not Bad at Your Job: Impostor Syndrome and IT Work
Alexa Spigelmyer (The Pennsylvania State University) and Julio Appling (Lewis and Clark College)
What is it about working in IT that can make us feel like everyone will “figure out” we have no idea what we’re doing? Impostor syndrome refers to the belief that you are under-qualified or inadequate, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In only seven minutes we’ll examine the various ways impostor syndrome manifests itself and why is it so common in IT work. This will hopefully alleviate any feelings you may have of being a complete and total fraud. We’re pretty sure we know what we’re talking about…mostly.
Posters
2019 Summer New Student Conference Brochure
Communication Award, Best of Category Winner for How-to Guides
Adam Mikeal (Texas A&M University)
The Summer New Student Conference Brochure helps incoming students know the resources available to them such as security tools, computer labs, discounted software and much more.
Aggie LIFE – 2018 Cybersecurity Campaign
Communication Award, Best of Category Winner for General Service Promotional Materials
Adam Mikeal (Texas A&M University)
The annual International Security Month Campaign we host exists to raise awareness and educate the entire Texas A&M community on the importance of online safety.
Audition: the Basics
Communication Award, Best of Category Winner for Instructional Materials
Beth Nolen (Indiana University)
Explore how IT Training at Indiana University developed Audition: The Basics, an online course that helps people get started with using Adobe Audition through building a basic podcast.
The Benefits and Challenges of Regulating a Large Institution
Samantha Peterson (University of South Carolina) and Daniel Brown (University of South Carolina)
One of the most challenging tasks to accomplish in a large organization is the standardization and simplification of technology in conference rooms to decrease the learning curve and increase usability. Learning how to appropriately pilot and purchase the necessary equipment without going over budget or stepping on too many toes is the first hurdle. Another difficult portion of this process is managing staff that are resistant to change, and creating proper training programs that are both brief and effective. If the technology and training material are not executed properly, then morale will often fade and the technical staff will be at risk of losing support from the rest of the organization.
Looking at this from a technical standpoint, there are several factors that will be extremely beneficial to this standardization process, including the creation of a shared drive to store mass amounts of information, effective auto logins and reliable conference interfaces for distance networking. Executing these steps will allow an organization to see a drastic improvement in overall communication and efficiency when having meetings.
Samantha is an Instructional Technology Manager for the College of Pharmacy at the University of South Carolina. A former service industry worker for over 12 years, she now works heavily with classroom support and technology design to assist in the overall performance of the pharmacy program. She specializes in managing training programs to solve technology issues and oversees the Distance Education connection to the University’s Greenville campus.
Case Study of Migration into IT Service Desk System from Unstructured Method at Small Computer Center
Hiromi Yamaoka (Kyoto Institute of Technology), Kazuki Yamamoto (Kyoto Institute of Technology), Takayuki Nagai (Kyoto Institute of Technology) and Hideo Masuda (Kyoto Institute of Technology)
In our university, there are about 4000 students and 450 faculties, and 10 faculties support them.
Until now, we had received inquiries and various applications via reception, telephone and e-mail, but we have switched to receiving and managing them by JIRA service desk. By visualizing each task, we can decide the priority, share information, manage progress and assign the person in charge depending on the situation. As a result, the work efficiency of the staff was improved. Also, by the centralization of reception ways, users can expect better convenience.
In this paper, we will describe the detail of user support via JIRA service desk.
Connect: Your Source for IT News at NYU
Communication Award, Best of Category Winner for Computing Newsletter
Keith Allison (New York University)
A dive into the structure of our newsletter, its readership metrics, and the ways we go about collecting info and articles for it.
Contemplating Public NTP Service Issues, How to Terminate Large-Scale Infrastructure Service
Sho Fujimura (Fukuoka University), Fuminori Tanizaki (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corporation) and Masaru Okumura (Fukuoka University)
Do you provide a network service through the internet? When you started the service, did you consider the repercussions of terminating the service?
Fukuoka University provided the first public NTP service using GPS in Japan in October 1993. Meanwhile, as NTP traffic has massively increased, the internet connection has become unstable due to this traffic, making it difficult to provide a suitable education and research network environment for students and faculty.
The traffic comes from throughout the world and we would like to cease the service immediately. However, when we remove the service, the traffic increases several times more, causing the network switch, firewall and so on to malfunction.
In this paper, we will discuss methods of terminating the public NTP service and various related issues.
Developing Technology Training Videos
Beth Lynn Nolen (Indiana University – UITS IT Training)
More and more, learners are looking for videos to help them learn technology skills. Sites like LinkedIn Learning (previously Lynda.com), Pluralsight and even YouTube offer training videos that help people learn all types of tech skills, from Photoshop to Python. However, what if you want to create your own videos to help people learn basic technology skills? Well, it’s not as daunting a task as you might think! With a specific idea of what you want to demonstrate, and the right tools, anyone can make a technology training video.
In this presentation, you’ll be introduced to video development workflows, tools for screen recording, and tips for easily making your videos accessible to all audiences.
Establishing Governance for Project and Service Management
Jason Glenn (Carnegie Mellon University), Kenneth Rose (Carnegie Mellon University) and Jason Glenn (1977)
Recently, the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries’ began to implement a new strategic plan, which greatly increased the number, complexity and scope of new projects and services sponsored by the Libraries. Historically, initiation, planning and management of projects and services within Libraries lacked both codified processes and uniform management tools. Libraries’ leadership quickly realized that the rapid increase in the size of the unit’s project and service footprints had rendered such an unstructured approach to project and service management untenable. As a result, the Libraries’ Digital Strategy team launched an effort to establish a structure of governance around project and service management within the division.
This paper will review the selection process for new project and service portfolio management tools, as well as the effort to define project initiation and management and service transition guidelines, with the intent of providing a framework for establishing project and service management governance in similar organizations.
First Year’s Actual Operational Results of Efficient Security Measure System with Automatic Isolation in TUAT
Kazuhiro Mishima (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology), Takahiro Nemoto (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology), Yoichi Hagiwara (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology) and Takahiko Tsujisawa (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology)
To reinforce a security measure on our campus network, we implemented a brand new style of secure campus network system in 2017. The uniqueness of the university’s campus network is the presence of various devices. The existence of various devices also increases the possibility of security incidents in the network. At Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT), since Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) action was started from 2016, the types of devices connected to our campus network have dramatically increased. Therefore, as a security measure in this university’s typical situation, we designed and started the operation of a campus network security system based on automatic shutdown with network monitoring for brand new security measures of our campus network. In our system, network traffic is monitored on the campus network side (e.g., core switch, edge switch), and a device considered as high security risk is automatically isolated from the campus network on the edge switch. In our system, it is possible not only to perform shutdown automatically but also to automatically perform recovery processing by end-user, and the operational cost is also reduced. As more than one year has elapsed since the actual operation began, we could become possible to clarify the actual operation conditions and the issues of our system’s management.
In this presentation, we introduce the overview of our system, and summarize the operational situation from the start of operation. This makes it possible to overview the appearance of our actual system and the situation of security incident status at the Japanese National University in science area. By considering the issues of our system, we will also help to think about security measures in a unique environment of university.
Golf Cart Pedagogy – Episode 1 – “Here Be Dragons”
Communication Award, Best of Category Winner for Long Promotional Video
Thomas Sciarrino, Muhlenberg College
Golf Cart Pedagogy is yet another vehicle (see what we did there – vehicle?!) for faculty, staff and students to discuss the ways they’re using technology to support teaching and learning here at Muhlenberg. This video series will explore the creative ways our community members are using educational technology of all shapes and sizes, hopefully inspiring others to explore new tools or use current tools in new ways.
How to Integrate On-Premise Authentication System into Cloud Services: Single Sign-On for Office 365
Tsuyoshi Akiyama (Kyoto Institute of Technology), Hiromi Yamaoka (Kyoto Institute of Technology), Takayuki Nagai (Kyoto Institute of Technology) and Hideo Masuda (Kyoto Institute of Technology)
In our university, we began using Microsoft Office 365 since 2018. The authentication of Office 365 is using Azure Active Directory. We synchronized only the information of users who are permitted to use between on-premise Active Directory and Azure Active Directory operated at the university and made it available for authentication by single sign-on using SAML. So that, the user’s experience and security was able to increase by the centralization of login information.
In this paper, we will describe the detail of user synchronization of on-premises Active Directory and Azure Active Directory at our university and detail of the authentication cooperation for Cloud Service.
If You Specialize It, They Will Attend: Lessons in Training
Heather Davis (Texas Woman’s University), Corin Walker (Texas Woman’s University), Iris Du (Texas Woman’s University) and Tomeka Nolen (Texas Woman’s University)
Our annual School of Tech applies best practices in adult learning and grows in popularity each year. Participants engage in active learning in a computer classroom where they grow skills and build relationships. This model provides the opportunity to build digital dexterity and transform our workforce.
Migrate Legacy Email Services in Kyushu University to Exchange Online
Yoshiaki Kasahara (Kyushu University), Takao Shimayoshi (Kyushu University), Tadayuki Miyaguchi (Kyushu University) and Naomi Fujimura (Kyushu University)
In Kyushu University, Information Infrastructure Initiative provides an email service for students and staff members, called “Primary Mail Service.” On December 18th, 2018, we migrated the email service to Microsoft Office 365 Exchange Online. Before that, we had operated in-house email servers, but we decided to give up building a successor system. We couldn’t afford replacement/operational costs anymore. Exchange Online was a full-fledged email service, but we had additional requirements for user provisioning and services (such as sending event-triggered notify messages, changing the sender address, assigning additional alias addresses, etc.) which were not available in Exchange Online, so we had to implement and maintain additional systems on top of it.
By coincidence, Kyushu University Administration Bureau, which separately operated in-house Microsoft Exchange servers for administrative departments, decided to migrate their services to Exchange Online. After some discussions, they concluded to migrate their domain to the same tenant with Primary Mail Service. In addition to that, there are more than a hundred of legacy email servers inside our campus network operated by various departments as subdomains of kyushu-u.ac.jp. Operating a secure email service is becoming very difficult nowadays, so we are designing a plan to wind them up into our tenant of Exchange Online to reduce budgets and human resource costs, and to improve security.
In this presentation, we share our experiences about migrating our campus-wide email services to Exchange Online. Also, we discuss why we want to wind up other legacy email servers and how to implement the plan.
No One Has Any Time: The Tech Talk Model
Gina Donovan (Grinnell College)
New technology can spark innovations in both assignment design and classroom structure; however, training faculty, staff, and students on new technology can be a struggle given everyone’s busy schedule.
This poster presentation will show one model of how to deliver technology instruction through short, targeted workshops. The series, called “Tech Talks,” was the result of a collaboration between the Digital Liberal Arts Center, where I serve as an Instructional Technologist, and the Language Learning Center at Grinnell College. My colleague and I present weekly on new and/or relatively easy to use tools that busy professors can quickly integrate into on-going courses or think about using in future semesters. Recent Tech Talks have covered topics like using Thinglink to annotate 2-D and 360º images and using podcasting as a tool to demonstrate learning. Each talk is short and informal and open to all on campus.
We build in time for participants to try using the tool or to think about how they can use it in class and we provide examples from successful implementation. For example, a faculty member recently very successfully incorporated podcasting into a course and due to my involvement in that project, we can show others how they can also conceptualize integrating a similar assignment. My colleague and I are both available to brainstorm with faculty and to help them think about creative ways to integrate these tools. And since we are both present at all “Tech Talks,” if needed, we can run concurrent trainings with different groups as they stop by. By publicizing the schedule of technology discussed in advance, the campus community is able to pick the talk sessions they want to attend or contact us for individual sessions if they miss a topic of interest.
It Takes an IT Village to Raise a Service Desk
Kirsten Petersen (Oregon State University)
In this Poster Session, I will provide information about what support a Service Desk needs from the larger University Information and Technology (UIT) organization in order to be successful.
Our Service Desk implementation at Oregon State University is relatively new, and we are now in a stage of refinement. In order to be more effective, we are looking at ways to better integrate the Service Desk with other UIT departments within the Division. To that end, we are looking at process improvements around incident management and change management, a more formal training plan for our student employees (the bulk of our Service Desk workforce), and implementing Knowledge Centered Service (KCS). One challenge is that UIT as a whole may not understand the role of an ITIL Service Desk, and may think it is “just a help desk.”
Attendees will discuss practical ideas to better integrate the Service Desk into a larger IT organization increasing overall ITSM maturity.
Renovation of the Office 365 Environment in Kyushu University: Integration of Account Management and Authentication
Takao Shimayoshi (Kyushu University), Yoshiaki Kasahara (Kyushu University) and Naomi Fujimura (Kyushu University)
Office 365 Education is a suite of cloud services for students and educators. Kyushu University has provided Office 365 accounts for all students and staff. The first generation of an environment for Office 365 in the university had several defects on coordination between Office 365 accounts and member identifications of the university. As a member ID referred to as SSO-KID, a unique 10-digit number is randomly assigned to every student or staff member by the central ID management system for using commonly in university-wide information services. Since the list of SSO-KIDs is not allowed to be taken outside, the first environment authenticated a user with ID and password specific for Office 365. In addition, assigning licenses and giving privilege to users for following changes in the ID management system, are not fully automated.
This presentation shows how we solved problems in integrating Office 365 into the ID management of the university by rebuilding the infrastructure. Firstly, we built and configured a system for federated authentication without storing SSO-KIDs in Azure Active Directory for Office 365. Secondly, we developed a system for processing in events of account life cycle such as enrollment, activation, erasure and privilege change. This system manages licenses assigned to users and security groups associated with privileges.
SIGUCCS Mentoring Program
Katelin Moul (Dickinson College), Beth Rugg (UNC Charlotte) and Gail Rankin (Salem)
Our poster will highlight how the SIGUCCS Mentoring Program can help you develop your career.
Think Before You Click
Communication Award, Best of Category Winner for General Service Campaign Materials
Tom Mason, Indiana University
The Think Before You Click campaign came about as a way to help educate people at Indiana University about phishing and cybersecurity topics. In this poster presentation, learn more about how Think Before You Click was developed and the impact it had on the IU community.
To the Cloud
Jeremy Whisonant (USC) and Daniel Brown (USC)
Many companies want to cut down costs and resources for storing data, moving to the cloud is a cost-efficient manner of making sure your data is secured, backed up, and can be accessible anytime and anywhere. OneDrive for Business offers several different plans that have different features such as storage space, mobile access and the ability to share secured files from an organization’s users to others. The issues most organizations run into when implementing OneDrive for Business is determining whether or not to set synchronize the files using hard drive space or enabling the feature known as “Files on Demand” to save space and only download files or folders as you use them.
Learn how to design, shape and implement a OneDrive for Business solution that works best for you, and how to simplify the migration of current data that is stored locally to the OneDrive for Business through the use of a Windows command line action known as “robocopy” to bypass any copying and pasting restrictions through the GUI. Take part in learning what OneDrive for Business is, how it works, how to synchronize OneDrive for Business as both the IT Support and end user, as well as best practices and restrictions or limitations.