College of Agriculture & Natural Resources
Information Technology Group
FY 2008 Work Plan-Summary
Goal 1: Provide efficient, high-quality desktop support to members of the College.
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Provide training, professional development opportunities for CITA staff
Build support statistics from Remedy
Explore hiring a CITA I for dedicated “help desk” activities
Explore and test Remote Assistance through Active Directory/Group Policy to decrease response
Define and document best practices for handling requests and follow-up
Goal 2: Oversee and monitor routine maintenance and upgrades of CANR-owned computer resources.
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Evaluate usage of current server environment: explore virtual servers, ways of increasing security
and redundancy; document environment
Work with Network Services to upgrade wireless capability in Townsend
Plan for refreshment of computer labs
Define budget, plans for testing new equipment, defining recommended systems for College use
Develop a plan for updating the ITV room
Refine and expand our backup processes for College users
Goal 3: Administer the creation and maintenance of an inventory of computer-related equipment in the
CANR and provide annual inventory reports to appropriate university and college units.
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Ensure that every computer in our College is recorded in SMS/Inventory system
Continue to develop reporting, updating capabilities of SMS, particularly the inventory and repair
sections for online use
Develop SMS domain policies
Assist college departments in decisions for annual Faculty Desktop Refreshment program by
providing lists of oldest/most outdated faculty computers in each department.
Goal 4: Develop and implement policies and procedures to direct the use of technology within the college;
explore and guide the application of innovative technologies for the CANR.
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Hire new CITA III: primary responsibilities will be system planning, guidance of projects, supervision
of other CITAs
Increase IT support for research – virtual servers, clusters, programming support, software research
& recommendations
Convert college machines to Windows domain environment (bar required exceptions)
Plan for upgrading from Office 2003 to Office 2007
Evaluate Vista: Discuss plans for upgrading from XP
Evaluate Exchange 2007: discuss plans for upgrading from Exchange 2003
Connect all systems at the Kent County Extension office to BLUEHEN Domain to help in the ongoing
troubleshooting and maintenance
Kiosk: get the Plant Search program working and start promoting it
Goal 5: Collaborate with departments and administration to establish short- and long-range goals and
priorities for technology solutions to meet CANR needs.
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Standardize LAN for College and Extension offices: Configure desktop as well as server setup and
connectivity in a standard way at all locations to aid in ease of maintenance
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Meet with department Chairs to investigate their needs and determine how IT can support them
Goal 6: Initiate and coordinate database activities required to improve reporting practices by the college.
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With the help of financial administrators, provide a version of BUDDY that is stable and meets users’
needs
Goal 7: Devise strategies and implement solutions for CANR-wide reporting requirements.
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Document annual reports required of CANR; build processes for creating them, train multiple users
Explore the new POW software: begin building PeopleSoft, Cognos queries to complete report
Goal 8: Represent the Associate Dean and Dean on college and university committees, and to
organizations and agencies in the state that interact with CANR’s IT group.
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Coordinate with Report Forum to be sure CANR needs are considered as Phytorion’s data
warehouse is developed
Goal 9: Maintain compliance with university standards for security and audit procedures.
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Continue to educate users on PNPI requirements, procedures
Develop year-end “asset” reports
Goal 10: Provide a high-quality, secure web presence for the College and its constituents
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Advanced use of the web via interactive Flash projects, photo galleries, audio and/or video
components on their site
Train all “content owners” to use Contribute to maintain their websites
Faculty profiles – develop and present them to the faculty
Extension fact sheets – have a good system for updates by content-owners
Convert all webpages to CSS format to allow for a College-wide standard and ease of maintenance
Store images and news from the College in an accessible application
Migrate Sussex County Cooperative Extension files over to CANR web server
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