OFFICE OF
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
YEAR IN REVIEW
2010–2011
MISSION
The Office of Information
Technology’s mission is to
align with and facilitate
progress toward the
university’s strategic
goals, improve enterprise
technology services,
protect electronic
data, and partner with
distributed campus
technology groups.
EMPLOY TECHNOLOGY TO
EMPOWER EXCELLENCE
We will build and strengthen a robust, reliable,
and secure framework of information and
communication technology to support our
activities as a world-class university. By investing
in state-of-the-art technology and planning for
the future, the university will exploit technology
to harmonize a diverse and widely distributed
campus; leverage learning, research, and
innovation; and empower users in physical and
virtual space.
—AU Strategic Plan
From left: Campus Technology
Leaders—Dave Swartz, chief
information officer; Naomi
Baron, executive director of the
Center for Teaching, Research,
and Learning; and Bill Mayer,
university librarian
CONTENTS
CIO’S MESSAGE
1
MANAGEMENT TEAM
4
ORGANIZATIONAL OVERVIEW
5
IT Customer Service
5
Enterprise Systems
5
Information Security
6
Technology Operations
7
STRATEGIC GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS
8
Epitomize the Scholar-Teacher Ideal
8
Provide an Unsurpassed Undergraduate Education
and Experience
9
Engage in Great Ideas and Issues of Our Time
through Research, Centers, and Institutes
12
Engage Alumni in the Life of the University,
On and Off Campus
14
Encourage Innovation and High Performance
14
Win Recognition and Distinction
18
Employ Technology to Empower Excellence
22
Forge Partnerships by Leveraging
Our Capital Location
26
PERFORMANCE METRICS
27
Project Management Office
27
Service-Oriented Architecture
28
Service Delivery and Support
31
RESOURCES
36
CIO’S MESSAGE
On behalf of the Office of Information Technology (OIT),
I would like to invite you to review our annual report for
academic year 2010–2011. I am pleased to provide you
with this brief overview.
OIT continued to mature over the past academic year with several key leadership changes.
Kamalika Sandell was recently appointed the new associate chief information officer,
serving as the official number two in support of the CIO. In addition, Chris Gehring
was appointed senior director of technology operations. Finally, Terry Fernandez was
promoted to senior director of customer services and support. We are also excited
about the quality of individuals we continue to attract throughout our organization who
contribute to our many accomplishments, as covered in our annual report.
Related to the goals focused on support for instruction and research, OIT made
significant progress on several exciting initiatives:
•• the creation of a high-performance computing (HPC) cluster, made possible through a
National Science Foundation grant coordinated by Mary Hansen, principal investigator.
The HPC initiative will support advanced computing applications and also eventually
link to a larger grid of university research computers.
••
a grants-reporting application was developed utilizing the business intelligence
platform and rolled out to more than 300 individuals this summer to satisfy the
Research and Infrastructure Task Force’s recommendation to support improved grantsreporting capabilities for research faculty and administrators.
••
a pre-award grants system has been selected and will be available soon to support the
development of grants.
••
a tool to support retention of students, called MAP-Works, has been selected and will
be made operational during the fall 2011 semester.
••
a virtual computing pilot has been successful and will continue with the goal of
providing research faculty with access to important software, freeing them from the
need to either purchase the application or go to a computer lab.
••
a new pilot project is under way to extend Google Applications, including Gmail, to
a group of faculty testers to enable collaboration with students and other faculty who
are currently using Google Applications. Three years ago AU migrated student e-mail
services to a solution hosted by Google.
Under the goals for enhancing student services, the virtual student services (VSS) program
was kicked off in fall 2010 as an extension of the physical one-stop center AU Central.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
1
Much progress has been made to enhance delivery of online services to students,
including the launch of the new degree audit and advising systems, as well as numerous
other enhancements to permit students to conduct more business online through the
new myAU portal. Business process mapping and analysis serves as the guide for further
refinement and improvements to 25 different student service processes that have been
selected for focus over the next year.
Under the goal of enhancing the university reputation and marketing, progress
continues to improve the website and its underlying hardware and software. A 64-bit
Web server cluster was created to improve performance and reliability of the AU website.
An upgrade to the university CommonSpot content management system from version 5
to 6 is planned for this coming year. A new blog capability using the popular WordPress
software has been piloted and will be rolled out to the campus this coming year as well.
In addition, the Four Winds campus signage project has expanded the number of digital
signs on campus to 36, all with a common back-end content management platform that
enables enterprise application and management as well as content sharing across signs
and campus domains. The AU mobility initiative is also under way and a campus strategy
will be identified by December as the first phase of this project. Following this phase,
we will move to introduce critical applications and Web content that will be set up to be
delivered to mobile platforms.
Under the goal for improving our administrative efficiency and effectiveness, there
were a number of projects completed. The legacy voicemail system, which was no
longer supported, was replaced by an Avaya integrated messaging system that permits
individuals on the campus phone system to get voicemails via e-mail as well as access
voicemails in the old manner through the phone. In addition, a new AU portal based
upon the Microsoft SharePoint system was introduced and will continue to be refined
over the next year in a phase two project. Business intelligence continues to progress on
campus, with the rollout of a new tool and the introduction of some new applications such
as the grants reporting system and an executive dashboard. A professional education
and integrated performance management system has been selected and will be rolled
out over the next year to support professional education and development at AU. A new
alumni community development and management tool has been selected and will be
introduced over the next year. A new imaging and document management system has
also been selected and will be introduced in a few areas of university operations next year.
“OIT
continued
to mature
over the past
academic
year with
several key
leadership
changes.”
Under the enabling goal to address general infrastructure and operational
improvements, there were numerous projects completed. One of the most important
projects was the upgrade of the campus wireless infrastructure to the new 802.11n
standard with a significant increase in the number of antennas and much more bandwidth
to support new broadband applications such as streaming video. As part of the network
upgrade, we also completed the upgrade and modernization (phase three) of our
campus network infrastructure. At this point, our network is now upgraded to the most
modern technology. We also reached and even exceeded our goal to maintain at least
a 99.9-percent average for uptime and reliability of our core services, largely through
the virtualization of servers and also the establishment of our second data center to
address our continuity of operations plan. We also introduced e-mail archiving to enable
individuals to store and access older e-mails, while helping to get those e-mails out of the
current inbox on the production system. The end result is an e-mail system with improved
performance and reliability. We also launched a new Network Access Control (NAC)
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
2
system to replace the old Cisco Clean Access (CCA) system, which will be less intrusive
than the old CCA, yet still provides the protection that the campus needs. We are also
extending our security-monitoring activities to include campus websites and also software
that will track and flag any changes made to our servers.
In regard to IT customer services and training, we upgraded our enterprise case management system, iSupport, and opened it to other departments, including AU Central,
Kogod advisors, Public Safety, and WAMU. We continue to expand the number of
campus service level agreements (SLAs), offer more online training opportunities, and
work closely with academic technology organizations to move toward a shared one-stop
service for technology support for the campus.
It was a busy and very productive year. On behalf of OIT, I thank you for taking the time
to review our report.
Regards,
DAVE SWARTZ
Chief Information Officer and Assistant Vice President
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
3
MANAGEMENT TEAM
DON MYERS
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER,
VICE PRESIDENT AND TREASURER
DAVE SWARTZ
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
AND ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT
KAMALIKA SANDELL
ASSOCIATE CHIEF
INFORMATION OFFICER
LAURIE AMBACH
DIRECTOR OF ENTERPRISE
APPLICATION ANALYSIS AND
DEVELOPMENT
STEVE MUNSON
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF
INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGY
SOLUTIONS
PATRICIA WILLIAMS
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF
STUDENT INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
FRANCESCO DE LEO
DIRECTOR OF WEB AND
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
JOYCE DEROY
DIRECTOR OF
INFORMATION SERVICES
SHARJIL HASAN
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF
PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
CATHY HUBBS
CHIEF INFORMATION
SECURITY OFFICER
ERIC WEAKLAND
DIRECTOR OF
INFORMATION SECURITY
CHRIS GEHRING
SENIOR DIRECTOR OF
TECHNOLOGY OPERATIONS
HASSAN MARVI
DIRECTOR OF
NETWORK OPERATIONS
PETER SCHLINE
DIRECTOR OF
COMMUNICATION SERVICES
WILLIAM FLEITZ
MANAGER OF NETWORK
OPERATIONS CENTER
MICHAEL GRINNELL
DIRECTOR OF SYSTEMS
ENGINEERING SERVICES
TERRY FERNANDEZ
SENIOR DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMER
SERVICES AND SUPPORT
STEVE KELLY
MANAGER OF HELP DESK
JACQUELINE PALUMBO
MANAGER OF TRAINING AND
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT
LUSHAN SILVA
TECHNICAL SUPPORT MANAGER
KELVIN WILSON
IT SERVICE MANAGER
DALE ROBERTS
MANAGER OF ENTERPRISE
PLATFORM SERVICES AND
SUPPORT
JONI SNYDER
MANAGER OF PRODUCTION
APPLICATION SYSTEMS
SERVICES
MOHAMMAD
MIRZABEIGY
DIRECTOR OF
APPLICATION MANAGEMENT
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
4
ORGANIZATIONAL OVERVIEW
IT Customer Service
The IT Customer Service group is responsible for reliable and effective information
technology services management, delivery, and communications to the AU community.
The group employs industry-standard best practices in Information Technology
Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Service Management, Change Management, and
Performance Measurement.
The IT Customer Service group includes:
••
the IT help desk team—answers questions and provides general troubleshooting
assistance for the AU community via telephone, e-mail, and instant messaging.
The help desk team is empowered with system administrator rights to resolve most
issues directly and also coordinates with other technical support partners to solve
customer problems and questions.
••
the IT service manager—provides team leadership in developing and managing
service standards and processes with the goals of: fostering effective relationships,
managing expectations, and reporting performance metrics to the functional service
owners and primary customer contacts across the university.
••
the technical support team—provides on-site technical assistance to AU faculty,
staff, students, and guests for issues pertaining to supported hardware, software,
and network connectivity. The technical support team responds to requests for
service either through direct interaction with customers at OIT’s walk-in service or
through issues that have been escalated from the help desk.
••
the technical training team—designs, administers, and delivers the technical
training curriculum. The team leverages industry best practices to design and
implement learning solutions that meet university goals and IT process standards.
Enterprise Systems
The Enterprise Systems group is responsible for providing a comprehensive, integrated
set of technology solutions that enables AU to improve the way we conduct business,
supporting various staff and academic functions. Managing the university’s technology
portfolio continues to be a fine balance among modernizing existing solutions,
charging ahead with new solutions, and continuing to operationalize best practices.
The group is organized to provide a single point of contact to the staff and academic
units, with specialized focus on the university’s data infrastructure and website.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
5
The Enterprise Systems group includes:
••
the application analysis and development team—shapes, furthers, and
manages a variety of enterprise solutions in support of university staff and
academic units and the processes they support on behalf of faculty, staff,
students, alumni, and other related university constituencies.
••
the application management team—provides application administration and
third-level technical support for all enterprise systems applications, through the
formulation of a well-defined quality assurance function.
••
the information services team—defines the university’s data infrastructure,
thereby providing reliable, accurate, secure, and accessible data to the campus
community through management of the university’s data warehouse and
analytical reporting functions.
••
the project office—institutionalizes best practices in several IT management
service areas, building a reusable framework related to technology project and
portfolio management practices.
••
the Web and emerging technologies program team—realizes an effective
and compelling university website and a high-quality, Web-enabled campus,
integrating Web technologies to support learning, teaching, and communications
through the Web; and provides innovative solutions by introducing and
formalizing new technologies across all enterprise applications.
Information Security
OIT’s Information Security group supports AU’s executive leadership in protecting
and defending the university’s information assets by executing appropriate and
efficient security practices in IT planning, implementation, management, and
operations, while assuring confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, accountability, and
availability.
The team works to accomplish this through:
••
ensuring compliance with applicable policies, laws, and regulations
••
enforcing university policies and standards
••
highlighting sources of risk to university management
••
implementing technologies that increase the visibility of potential risks to our
data
••
developing repeatable processes that validate security in IT systems and services
••
contributing to awareness, training, and education programs
••
initiating partnerships with departments to evaluate and improve their computer
security practices
••
safeguarding new technologies and services
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
6
Technology Operations
The Technology Operations group administers the university information technology
infrastructure, continually striving for the balance of efficient applications of human
resources, repeatable processes, and technology investment.
The Technology Operations group includes:
••
the network operations team—provides operations management and monitoring,
after-hours help desk assistance, information technology facilities management,
and network engineering. The team also furnishes telecommunications services and
workstation lifecycle management.
••
the systems engineering services team—provides directory architecture
management and engineering, systems engineering and operations, and database
administration. The team also administers the e-mail and collaboration software
environment and server- and storage-platforms architecture, engineering, and
operations.
From left: Chris Gehring,
Kamalika Sandell, Terry Fernandez,
Dave Swartz, and Cathy Hubbs
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
7
STRATEGIC GOALS AND
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
OIT has aligned its portfolio closely with the university’s strategic plan
and overall goals, with projects and initiatives supporting each goal.
Epitomize the Scholar-Teacher Ideal
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Upgraded Campus Wireless
AU’s wireless network usage continues to grow exponentially, with many of our
students, staff, and faculty using multiple mobile devices on a daily basis. In fact, we
regularly have more than 3,000 concurrent users connected to the network. To better
handle the growing need for wireless connections, the network engineering staff, in
conjunction with systems engineering services and IT customer service, spent the past
year working to deploy a state-of-the-art wireless infrastructure, known as eaglesecure.
This yearlong project required the upgrade of 59 buildings
across campus and included the deployment of 11 wireless
access controllers and 833 wireless access points. This new
system more than doubles the capacity of the previous
system and offers authentication and encryption to protect
the campus network. Not only is the new wireless network
faster and more scalable than the previous infrastructure,
but it also offers a higher level of fault tolerance to reliably
handle more concurrent users and greatly reduces the risk
of large-scale system failures.
UPCOMING PLANS
Piloting Google Mail for Faculty
Three years ago, AU migrated student e-mail services to a solution hosted by Google,
giving students reliable access to the suite of online applications that Google provides,
including e-mail, calendar, and contacts. This fall, OIT will host a pilot for faculty
members that would like to take advantage of this service to work more closely with
their students in this collaborative environment. One of the benefits of having faculty
and students in the same e-mail and application environment is that it will make the
sharing of information and applications easier for faculty to facilitate. It will also provide
our faculty with more options for choosing their e-mail environment.
For today’s information ecology,
strong networks are more
critical than at any other time.
At the AU Library, our students
and researchers consume
nearly 20 percent of the total
bandwidth on campus daily.
With that consumption comes
an expectation that things will
just work. Thanks to OIT and
the eaglesecure wireless upgrade
this past summer, I have total
confidence that the library will
continue to be a central place on
campus for connection, creativity,
and community.
I’m a completely wireless
executive­—I haven’t plugged into
a wired network port in over 3
years—so I know firsthand how
essential strong networks are to
productivity. Thanks to OIT, I
have the most essential part of my
knowledge toolbox - connection and that has set me free.
William Mayer
University Librarian
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
8
Provide an Unsurpassed Undergraduate Education
and Experience
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Implemented AU’s New Portal
AU continues its journey of maturing the university’s Web presence. AU’s legacy portal
was a transaction-rich platform, but was based on older technology difficult to extend
and build upon. After a yearlong effort, OIT implemented a new portal in collaboration
with our campus community. AU’s new portal uses Datatel’s ActiveCampusPortal
solution, which is based on an open Microsoft SharePoint environment. Along with
easier collaboration, better design, and a flexible architecture, the new portal platform
allows targeted messaging and notifications for individuals as well as for specific
subgroups.
Introduced Virtual Student Services Program
Improving student services continues to be a key focus for AU. Last year, OIT worked
with campus units to realize the physical one-stop function AU Central. The objective
this year involves shaping and maturing the virtual component of student services.
Many of these services exist online, but they had been built with the objective of
automating the process from the point of view of the functional unit, not with the
intuitiveness that is needed to service a student without first generating additional
questions. Services, when implemented, need to take into consideration some level
of interactive design that guides the student through available choices and assists in
easy decision making. The first phase of the Virtual Student Services program is in
progress now. This phase focuses on effectively virtualizing processes related to Student
Accounts, Financial Aid, and the Registrar’s Office. More than 40 projects have been
implemented to address gaps in the top 25 process areas that needed improvements.
These projects involved technology, operations, policy and communication-oriented
changes. OIT will continue working through identifying improvement opportunities for
the rest of the processes over the next 12 months.
The Committee for Faculty
Actions greatly appreciates the
excellent, timely, and continuing
work of OIT in developing
and maintaining the project
management for promotion and
tenure files at a university-wide
level. For the first time in AU’s
history, files for action are being
submitted digitally via the new
portal, and it is OIT’s continuing
support for this transition that
makes it possible.
Patricia Aufderheide
University Professor, School of
Communication and
Director, Center for Social Media
Completed Campus Life Improvement Initiatives
OIT has continued to assist the Office of Campus Life with
innovative improvements to the student online experience.
Incoming AU students used a new online portal to register
for Eagle Summit this year, and Campus Life will use this new
application for additional sponsored events throughout the
year. Incoming freshmen also participated in the housing
selection process for the second year, which includes a social
networking component to propose roommates with similar
living preferences. This process was further streamlined this
year, and automation put in place by OIT helped reduce
the workload of Housing and Dining Programs staff and
integrated the housing selection system with AU’s enterprise
resource planning system, Datatel’s Colleague. This
application was also tested this year for the returning student
housing selection process and will be released next year to
support this process online.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
9
Improved Degree Audit System
A new degree audit system was implemented and went live earlier this year. The
legacy system had many exceptions built into it, so although fully automated,
ongoing student planning and management of progress had become a very manual
process as these exceptions had to be continuously evaluated and applied on an
ongoing basis. The new degree audit system factors in degree requirements much
more gracefully while allowing flexibility and discretion. It empowers advisors to
make real-time changes to student records, eliminating approximately 31,000 pieces
of printed paper per year. The new report is easy-to-read and understandable and
provides students with a tailored view of their completed, in-progress, and notstarted degree requirements. Tighter process rules eliminate the need for many of
the 60,000 exceptions previously processed on the old degree audit system over
the last five years. The new system ensures that students stay on track to reach their
educational goals, and facilitates the exploration of alternative academic programs.
Installed Four Winds Digital Signage
In conjunction with the Office of Campus Life, we successfully led an enterprise
rollout of digital signage across campus. A total of 31 signs have been deployed,
including two interactive signs. The project included procuring and implementing the
new infrastructure; designing content that represents the university as an integrated
entity, yet allows for units to showcase specific content for the unit and the location;
and modeling governance for ongoing management and decision making.
UPCOMING PLANS
Implementing Changes to the Academic Regulations
The university is embarking on a thorough change of academic regulations, both for
graduate and undergraduate studies. In addition to the academic regulation changes,
General Education requirements are being changed as well. The effort to implement
these complicated changes is one of the university’s top priorities for the upcoming
academic year. It involves altering the heart of the student information system,
requiring a cross-functional campus team to invest time in partnership with OIT. We
look forward to implementing all of the changes, as planned and approved.
Continuing the Journey with Virtual Student Services
Over the next year, OIT will continue focusing on implementing process
improvements for student-facing processes related to Student Accounts, Financial
Aid, and the Registrar’s Office. Many large projects are planned, including automation
of internship and independent study registration, and improvements to the refund
process, work-study-related processes, and student registration. The ultimate goal
through future phases and broader campus participation will be to establish a virtual
presence for all student services. Such a virtual platform will transcend organizational
boundaries and focus solely and effectively on getting students what they need
through a simple, easy-to-use, interactive Web-based interface.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
The implementation of the new
Colleague Degree Audit System to
replace the legacy system DARS
was quite complicated from the
outset. The users of this system
are spread across all academic
units on campus, the Registrar’s
office, and all currently enrolled
students. However, the OIT
project management team was
able to bring all the user groups
together, identified technical
and process issues that need
resolution before, during, and
after the implementation,
and completed the project
within the timeline as planned.
Training of all users, including
academic advisors and students,
was planned accordingly and
accomplished in time for the ‘live’
date in spring 2011. As with other
IT projects affecting academic
affairs units, we have come to
expect this high-quality, on-time
performance from OIT staff and
have never been disappointed.
OIT has been a wonderful partner
for us in the academic affairs
division. Thank you.
Violeta Ettle
Vice Provost for
Academic Administration
10
Partnering with the University Library to Create a One-Stop Center
for Technology Support
With AU’s distributed technology support model, it can be hard for students, faculty,
staff, and guests to know who to turn to for help when they need it. Recognizing those
challenges, OIT and the University Library are creating a one-stop center to serve as the
single point of contact for in-person information technology service for the community.
This one-stop center will be helpful in addressing issues relating to AU computing
accounts and passwords, AU-supported software support, wired and wireless network
connections, e-mail access, encryption of AU-owned workstations, hardware referrals for
students, hardware repair for AU-owned workstations for faculty and staff, health check
remediation, printing, system restoration, troubleshooting, virus removal, and more.
The initial plan is to create a physical “help desk” in a central location within the
University Library that will be staffed by front-line personnel from the library and
OIT. A new queuing system will manage the walk-in traffic, and the iSupport case
management system will continue to be used by both offices to manage cases as they
are escalated across our offices, with a fully closed feedback loop to our customers.
This approach ensures high-quality, thorough service, and allows the university
administration to better understand the demands for support so we may identify other
strategies to improve our service delivery in the future.
Implementing the MAP-Works Student Retention Tool
AU is in the process of implementing MAP-Works to improve our student retention rate.
This tool will help improve student experiences at the university by focusing students
on enabling effective early intervention with at-risk students; empower the faculty
and professional staff to effectively and efficiently impact student success; and focus
students on college success behaviors.
Moving toward Online Advising
The new advising system will provide online functionality for students and advisors in
planning students’ course work for their academic career at AU. This new tool will give
students true ownership of their academic planning and career, simplifying the most
important planning process in the student experience, empowering them to write the
road map to their academic future from day one, and allowing them to understand
how changing their academic plan affects graduation. Aggregated academic planning
statistics available through this tool will provide AU leadership with valuable student
data for enrollment management. By enabling greater collaboration in curriculum
planning between advisors and students, online advising will replace the amount of
time spent advising students about course selection with time spent strategically on
student development.
Implementing Student Web Finance Improvements
A comprehensive program has been planned to contemporize many of the processes
in Student Accounts, specifically the processes related to creation of the student
bill. Currently AU does not use term-based payments. As such, the bill is somewhat
confusing to students and the online bill that they see on the Web is different from
the paper version that is mailed to them. The current online bill also has limited
functionality; for example, students cannot view their outstanding balance unless they
have started the term. Students are also unable to view prior-term financial transactions.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
11
Partnering with Datatel, AU is implementing term-based payments, payment allocation
procedures, brand new e-commerce functionality, and a newly developed interactive
Web finances module that will provide much of the functionality that AU lacks today in
the old custom programs.
Engage in Great Ideas and Issues of Our Time
through Research, Centers, and Institutes
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Developed Policy on Academic Requests on Restricted-Use Datasets
for Research
OIT’s information security team has been supporting American University’s research
efforts by evaluating computer practices related to grants and other research activities
referred to them by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). As those requests began to
increase, Dr. Rosemary Wander, former vice provost for graduate studies and research,
requested that the OIT information security team draft a policy to define the process
for obtaining university approval for the use of restricted-use datasets for academic
research.
As the policy owner, Dr. Wander used the draft to solicit broader feedback and facilitate
dialogue. Within a few months, the Policy on Academic Requests for Restricted-Use
Datasets for Research was signed by Provost Bass. This policy is intended to ensure
that American University complies with the various legal and grant agency requirements
that come with the use of restricted-use datasets for research and to ensure that each
request be handled in a standard way.
Built High-Performance Computing Infrastructure
In conjunction with a grant from the National Science Foundation obtained through
the College of Arts and Sciences, our systems engineering services team designed
and deployed AU’s first high-performance computing (HPC) environment. Hosted at
our business continuity site in Reston, Virginia, this platform allows AU researchers the
computing power necessary to run high-demand applications in a robust and scalable
environment. The state-of-the-art cluster uses high-performance compute nodes
and fast, low-latency storage to greatly reduce the time necessary to run complex
computational problems. Having a dedicated HPC environment provides a 60-fold
increase in efficiency for university researchers. Tasks that typically would take weeks
on a standard computer will now take hours, boosting the rate of research and overall
productivity for research faculty.
Implemented Research Grants Reporting System via Business Intelligence
Reporting Platform
One of the top priorities identified by the Research and Grants Infrastructure Task
Force last year was the need to provide reports in a timely manner for funded faculty
and financial data pertaining to grants. Most of the data are in the university’s financial
system, Datatel’s Colleague; however, Datatel is geared toward transaction processing
and does not lend itself well to casual, infrequent users for reporting and analysis.
The university has invested in MicroStrategy’s state-of-the-art business intelligence
and reporting platform, which the newly built grants reporting system utilizes. A set of
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
Having the policy on restricteduse datasets for research has
greatly facilitated the research
activities of certain faculty.
Developing and implementing the
policy was easily done because
of the cooperation of many
individuals, in particular those
from OIT.
Rosemary Wander
Former Vice Provost for
Graduate Studies and Research
From the VP level down, OIT has
been an enthusiastic partner in
the development and deployment
of the High-Performance
Computing System. Their efforts
represent serious commitment
to the strategic plan: OIT has
actively supported the design and
construction of the infrastructure
that is essential for serious
research and graduate training
in the wide variety of fields that
utilize computationally intensive
methods. The computing
environment OIT staff has helped
faculty to create will enable
research in the social sciences
and physical sciences for the next
decade and will help AU to attract
the most exciting and productive
new scholars in fields that are
critical to our future success.
Mary Hansen
Associate Professor, Economics,
College of Arts and Sciences
12
more than 35 reports has already been rolled out to more than 300 faculty and staff.
The reporting system also provides full-featured projection tools that allow for budget
modeling and projection.
UPCOMING PLANS
Piloting Virtual Computing Labs
With guidance from the Academic Technology Steering Council, OIT is partnering with
the Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning (CTRL) and the University Library to
make the first virtual computing labs a reality. The goal of the initiative is to provide
specialized software applications and computing resources to students and faculty
beyond the confines of physical lab space. If successful, the program could also help
reduce the necessity for dedicated lab areas, freeing up valuable space for reuse.
During the past year, a successful pilot program using application virtualization
technology to deploy four software packages was implemented. This pilot virtualized
two statistical applications and two desktop applications to show the feasibility and
scalability of the system. This year, OIT, CTRL, and the library will continue moving
forward with phase two of the pilot program, which will create virtual desktops for
remote-access users, bringing us one step closer to a “compute from anywhere”
environment.
Planning Rollout of Grants Management System
The second set of needs identified by the Research and Grants Infrastructure Task
Force is to automate and better manage the pre-awards phase of the overall grant
process. Working with the Office of Sponsored Programs, the Controller’s Office, and
campus stakeholders from schools and units, Cayuse424 was selected as the product
that we will implement to automate the approval and management of pre-awards and
dramatically improve effectiveness over the old manual process.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
The new BI reporting tools for
grants and contracts provide
faculty and administrators
with easy-to-use reports
and forecasting tools to help
monitor grant expenditures.
OIT took the lead on this
high-priority recommendation
from the Research and Grants
Infrastructure Task Force report
and worked with a team of
campus constituents to develop
these new reports. Getting
this information out of Datatel
and into a more contemporary
and user-friendly reporting
format is crucial, especially
as the university continues to
put additional emphasis on
sponsored research. OIT’s work
was both timely and professional,
and we look forward to our
continued partnership on many
future projects.
Douglas Kudravetz
Associate Vice President of Finance
and Assistant Treasurer
13
Engage Alumni in the Life of the University,
On and Off Campus
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Strengthened Development and Alumni Relations Reporting
OIT has been working closely with Development and Alumni Relations to improve
its reporting capabilities through the introduction of new reporting tools and data
strategy. This fall, OIT and Development partnered to develop a reporting strategy
to enable holistic and consistent reports on giving. This effort has established
common definitions for Development’s data and remedied some reporting
inconsistencies. New reports have also been developed to assist with day-to-day
operations, including a report of daily general-ledger postings and tracking of
monthly giving by staff through payroll deduction. The payroll-deduction reports
were developed and deployed using the Informer reporting tool, which provides
flexible, Web-based access to real-time data. To support Development’s progress
toward its strategic goals, a report of monthly giving has been developed using the
new business intelligence tool MicroStrategy. Now that Development and Alumni
Relations has started to utilize these tools, the division is poised to implement
several additional reports to further its operational and strategic reporting.
UPCOMING PLANS
Integrating the Alumni Community and Management Experiences
OIT has partnered with the Development and Alumni Relations Office to facilitate
selection and implementation of a set of tools that realize an integrated alumni
community experience, blending existing social networking strategy. The selection
process has been completed, and OIT is in the process of implementing iModules.
There are currently multiple separate tools that provide pieces of functionality
but do not integrate, providing a holistic, useful experience. When iModules is
implemented, we will be able to utilize this cohesive platform to connect and
engage our alumni community, allowing them both the interaction and the
services they need from this institution, thereby creating a better experience and
engagement.
Encourage Innovation and High Performance
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Upgraded and Expanded Use of iSupport Case Management System
In December of 2010, OIT replaced the Lotus Notes–based c.Support case
management system, used for more than a decade, with a new Web-based version
of the system from the same vendor, iSupport Software. Since we changed the
underlying platform, the implementation team took advantage of the opportunity to
configure the new system from scratch. After a review of the old information, analysis
was performed to optimize the thousands of categories, call scripts, and templates.
Then each was manually entered into the new system and access rights were applied
to restrict access to only those with a business need to view the cases.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
The transition from c.Support
to iSupport couldn’t have been
any smoother for AU Central.
OIT worked with us well in
advance on training, timing, and
integration concerns that needed
to be in place for an easy switch
over. The on-site assistance when
we went live (on probably one
of our busiest days) made the
transition nearly seamless. Being
Web-based, iSupport is much
faster, easier to use remotely, and
of course has some new bells and
whistles that help us work more
productively.
Jonnel Clothier
Director, AU Central
14
For OIT staff and our technology support partners across campus, iSupport replaces
several disparate tools, allowing us to fully integrate our incident, problem, and change
management processes based on Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
best practices. The new system has numerous benefits, as it provides easy access to
its user-friendly interface, allows us to record customer issues faster, streamlines the
identification and escalation of problems, and helps us track our efforts to restore
service as promptly as possible.
The AU IT support model involves an equal number of staff inside the central OIT as
are decentralized in local departments. To facilitate the sharing of information and
encourage collaboration, OIT has offered iSupport access to all of its partners, so
incidents can be seamlessly escalated across the various offices, with a fully closed
feedback loop for our customers. To date, the following groups are utilizing iSupport:
Auxiliary Services; Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning; University Library,
including the Anderson Computing Complex staff and the Blackboard support team;
and WAMU technical staff. More groups are expected to adopt iSupport in the
coming year.
The benefits of this case management system extend well beyond IT. Public Safety
adopted c.Support in 2003 to track customer interactions. AU Central began using
c.Support in the summer of 2010, along with partners from the Office of the Registrar,
Financial Aid, and Student Accounts. Both groups successfully converted to iSupport in
January of 2011.
Implemented E-mail Archiving Solution for AU Staff
To improve the reliability of the Lotus Notes e-mail environment, while at the same
time allowing long-term storage of necessary e-mail data, a project was implemented
to automatically move e-mail data that has not been accessed in more than two years
to a secondary storage location. This secondary storage provides long-term access
to archived data at a lower cost than the primary storage location and improves the
response time and availability of more critical recent data. In addition to improving the
user experience, backup and recovery of the primary e-mail environment has greatly
improved, adding to the stability and reliability of the system for all users.
Expanded Support for Mobile Devices Utilizing Lotus Traveler
Through feedback from our growing mobile device–user population, OIT embarked
on a plan to increase the support for various mobile devices used by AU faculty and
staff. Using a product from IBM Corporation called Lotus Traveler, OIT is now able to
support a wide range of mobile devices to securely access Lotus Notes e-mail. The new
Traveler system supports iPhone, iPad, iPad2, Android, and Symbian devices, providing
a fast, clean interface to AU mail, calendar, and contacts. This method of access is not
only faster and more reliable than accessing via the IMAP protocol but also adds the
functionality of calendar and contacts not available through IMAP clients.
Developed AU-Specific Online Technology Training
Across campus, demand continues to increase for effective just-in-time training
modules, so OIT created a number of AU-specific online training courses to supplement
the online technology education suite already available via the portal from lynda.com.
The OIT training staff first replaced the Introduction to Datatel Web UI and Introduction
to EagleData classroom courses, required to obtain access to these privileged systems,
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
Truth be told, I wanted an
Android-enabled smartphone!
The showstopper was no Notes
availability; I had come to rely
on Notes mail, calendar, and
address book and the thought of
migrating away from Notes just
to have the Android was not for
me. My patience paid off. The day
that Lotus announced Traveler
for Android, I was at the phone
store calling OIT to say I was
ready and waiting for the OK to
install Traveler. Notes Traveler
on the Android works and works
well and the integration was
immediate. From download to
sign-on, the step-by-step process
is straightforward and in a few
minutes, everything is working.
If you want to use Notes and
migrate to Android, it’s easy.
Notes Traveler is reliable.
Jill Klein
Executive in Residence,
Kogod School of Business
15
with online versions. Staff members now have the convenience of taking the course as
their schedule permits, which also allows the technical trainers to devote more time
developing training to support new IT initiatives.
Four additional courses were created to support other large-scale campus
implementations of new technology, including the Introduction to the Avaya Unified
Messaging system, Creating a Staff Profile via the Content Management System, the
Introduction to the myAU Portal for Faculty, and Introduction to the myAU Portal for
Students. We are pleased that several hundred AU staff and faculty have already taken
advantage of these online tutorials.
Encouraged the Proliferation of Project Management Best Practices
For several years OIT has had a small but well-established Project Management Office
(PMO). This office has rolled out project management practices throughout OIT that
are suitable for adoption by other departments at AU, based on guidelines available
through industry standard practices developed by the Project Management Institute.
The PMO has invested heavily in training OIT team members in project management
disciplines and practices, since many members of our team need to handle significant
projects independently. The project management training has helped them better
manage stakeholder expectations and improve project delivery.
The project management training is now expanding beyond OIT and being offered
to campus staff with the hope that it will help improve delivery skills of AU staff as a
whole. We have completed a few well-attended sessions. Over the next year, we plan
to offer this training more broadly and provide it to the campus on an ongoing basis.
Equally important as managing delivery by balancing scope, schedule, and budget is
the need to understand business services and business processes before beginning
to propose technology solutions. This past year, we also introduced business process
analysis as a key component of our project methodology. Business analysis is a core
competency of any mature IT organization, so we have started building our staff skills
accordingly. We expect to formally incorporate it as part of our project practices and
roll out training for staff.
Rolled Out Business Intelligence as a Reporting Platform
While AU’s existing analytical platform, EagleData, offers robust data storage and
reporting, it is a fully custom environment that lacks standard tools. Reporting is
limited to running canned and prompted reports, because it does not provide a setup
for ad hoc analysis or report creation. Additionally, EagleData does not easily lend
itself to an extension that would support the institution’s growing data needs. Based
on careful evaluation, OIT selected and implemented the state-of-the-art business
intelligence platform MicroStrategy. This platform has been implemented, with the first
set of analytical applications utilizing this platform built, including the university’s new
research and grants reporting system. The tool provides users with the ability to create
their own reports, in an ad hoc mode, use powerful drill down features, and even
perform predictive analysis and projection modeling.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
Once I learned about the Project
Management Office’s concept
of helping improve the delivery
of project skills to the general
AU staff population, I was very
excited about the opportunity
to participate in one of their
training sessions. Though I have
partnered with OIT on major
enterprise projects like the myAU
portal and american.edu redesign
projects, I recognized that
much of the IT-centric project
management disciplines and
practices were easily applicable to
my work in digital publishing and
creative marketing initiatives.
Managing expectations and
project delivery by balancing
the many phases of a project life
cycle is a difficult task without
the core concepts and toolkit
to navigate a client’s business
requirements and other obstacles
that can threaten the successful
delivery of a project. Those in
the AU community who are
required to manage significant
projects with minimal resources,
or independently, will benefit
from OIT’s effort to share this
methodology and empower staff
to work more confidently in their
respective specialty areas.
Kevin Grasty
Assistant Vice President for
Creative Services, University
Communications and Marketing
16
Piloted Board of Trustees Portal
In partnership with the Office of General Counsel, OIT has rolled out a new and
exciting Board of Trustees portal. This new portal utilizes the university’s myAU portal
architecture based on Microsoft SharePoint. Taking advantage of the workflow and
collaboration features of SharePoint, this new portal builds in role-based security
to manage the flow of information to and from the board, its different committees,
the president’s cabinet, and other users as applicable. Collaborating and approving
material can be managed much more effectively and easily. Information can also be
disseminated easily. Even in a pilot mode, this portal has received a great deal of
attention and accolades and serves as a model for future specialized portals for
specific campus constituencies.
UPCOMING PLANS
Rethinking Performance Management
OIT is especially excited to partner with Human Resources in a campus-wide initiative
to rethink and restructure performance management for staff at AU. Part of the overall
initiative involves implementing the process through the right set of technology tools
that will lend themselves easily to providing continuous and ongoing developmental
feedback between manager and associate. OIT and Human Resources, in conjunction
with campus stakeholders, have completed the selection process. We expect the new
tool, along with the restructured performance management process, to be rolled out
by the next performance management cycle.
Implementing a System for Managing Individual Development Plans
and Training
This year the Office of the Board
Secretary in collaboration with
OIT designed a Board of Trustees
portal—an online tool that allows
trustees around the country to
access and share documents and
information quickly and easily.
It also provides simple solutions
for the administrative side of the
board’s work. We are grateful
to OIT for designing such a
comprehensive tool. The board
portal has given the university a
new tool to communicate faster
and more accurately with all the
individuals who work with the AU
Board of Trustees.
Mary E. Kennard
Vice President, General Counsel,
and Secretary
Along with rethinking the performance management process, Human Resources is
leading a key initiative on staff training. This provided an excellent opportunity for
OIT and Human Resources to look at both projects holistically in order to select an
integrated platform for both performance management and learning management.
An integrated system will provide a meaningful way for staff to work and manage their
development and training plans that are influenced through the feedback provided
through the performance management process.
Implementing an Imaging and Document Management Solution
AU’s leadership has identified the need for an enterprise imaging and document
management solution as a key priority for the upcoming year. Phase one of this mega
initiative will focus on processes in Accounts Payable, Enrollment, Financial Aid, and
Risk Management. OIT is in the process of working with an identified campus project
team to finalize the selection process and begin the implementation.
Introducing Business Intelligence Executive Dashboards
OIT has almost completed the implementation of phase one of an executive
dashboard, utilizing the university’s business intelligence platform, MicroStrategy. This
dashboard includes key indicators for the institution. OIT has been working with a crossfunctional campus team to design the dashboard and will be rolling out phase one of
the dashboard to the university leadership later this year. Future releases will focus on
additional datasets like development and fundraising. The goal is to make sure that our
university leadership is relying on a single source of truth in order to make decisions.
The platform allows for easy reporting and viewing, as well as dynamic navigation and
powerful “what-if” analysis.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
17
Implementing a Capital Projects Planning and Management Tool
AU is establishing the next campus plan, involving a substantial investment in capital
projects. To facilitate this ambitious effort, OIT is working with Facilities Management to
select and implement a tool, enabling structured planning and management of these
projects.
Win Recognition and Distinction
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Honored with Prestigious Leadership Award
COURTESY OF NICHOLAS DONNER PHOTOGRAPHY
American University Associate Chief Information Officer
Kamalika Sandell received the 2011 Leadership Award in
Education IT from Women in Technology (WIT). The mission
of this organization is to advance women in technology from
the classroom to the boardroom by providing advocacy,
leadership development, networking, mentoring, and
technology education. The award recognizes women in the
Washington area who excel as mentors, leaders, and role
models in their professional endeavors and communities.
Cochaired EDUCAUSE and Internet2 Higher
Education Information Security Council
American University Chief Information Officer Dave
Swartz served as cochair of the EDUCAUSE and Internet2
Higher Education Information Security Council for his
second and final term, during 2010–2011. This prestigious group works to improve
information security and privacy programs across the higher education sector through
its community members and focused partnerships with government, industry, and
other academic organizations. The council actively develops and promotes awareness
and understanding, effective practices and policies, and solutions for the protection of
critical IT assets and infrastructures.
Kamalika Sandell is
congratulated at the WIT
Awards by CIO Dave Swartz
(left), CFO and VP Don
Myers, Provost Scott Bass,
and VP Terry Flannery.
Honored for Security Best Practices
The chief information security officers from American University, Georgetown University,
and George Washington University continued to earn more accolades for their
Collaborative Cybersecurity Response. Cathy Hubbs (AU), David Smith (Georgetown
University), and Krizi Trivisani (George Washington University) were honored with the
Information Security Executive Northeast Project Award 2010. After nearly a decade of
recognizing excellence in information security, the Information Security Executive (ISE)
of the Year Award has become the industry’s most prestigious and anticipated award for
security executives and their project teams.
Chosen for its collaborative innovation within the cybersecurity arena, this effort
provides numerous best practices that can be shared throughout the information
security community. This enables others to benefit from the partnering, training, and
planning endeavors of these organizations, all in the interest of encouraging top-notch
cybersecurity emergency preparedness.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
18
Recognized as Friend of Housing and Dining Programs
At the 2010–2011 staff appreciation banquet for the office of Housing and Dining
Programs, Steve Munson, associate director of integrated technology solutions, was
presented with the 2011 Friend of Housing and Dining Programs Award. This award is
presented to a campus colleague who has made a significant impact on the residential
community or the operations of the department in the past year. Munson received
several independent nominations for his invaluable contributions supporting the
streamlined use of the Datatel’s Colleague, OneCard, and Symplicity systems.
Awarded OIT Staff Performance
OIT recognizes the exceptional efforts and accomplishments,
both collaborative and individual, of our staff. In December
we celebrated the second annual internal OIT awards
program.
•• Ming Cheng—Dependability Award
••
Michael Grinnell—Critical Thinker Award
••
Marico Hawes—Initiative Award
••
Steve Kelly—Enlarger Award
••
Prashant Sinha—Leadership by Example Award
••
Joni Snyder—Customer Service Award
••
Patricia Stewart—Vision Award
••
Kelvin Wilson—Campus Partner Award
Engaged in Professional Development
OIT encourages its staff to contribute to their own professional development planning
and execution in ways such as belonging to professional organizations, writing technical
papers, and delivering presentations.
•• Terry Fernandez—Member of the SIGUCCS 2010 and 2011 Communication
Awards Team
••
Debra Gonski—Chair of the IT Subcommittee for the Datatel Users Group 2011
••
Debra Gonski, Dale Roberts, and Patricia Stewart—Co-presenters at Datatel Users
Group 2011 (“Evolution: Moving to a New Colleague Server”)
••
Debra Gonski, Dale Roberts, and Patricia Stewart—Co-presenters at Datatel Users
Group 2011 (“Strategically Moving to Datatel Portal: Leveraging Access to the
Datatel Portal Using Colleague”)
••
Cathy Hubbs—Coauthor of EDUCAUSE REVIEW, July/August 2011 (“Alternative IT
Sourcing: A Discussion of Privacy, Security, and Risk”)
••
Cathy Hubbs—Co-presenter at EDUCAUSE Security Professionals Conference 2011
(“Raising Awareness of Website Vulnerability: How to Protect Your University’s Site
from Threats”)
••
Cathy Hubbs—Co-presenter at TechForum’s Cloud Security Forum 2010: The New
Infrastructure for Enterprise Security (“Protecting Data in the Cloud: What’s In Your
Security Toolkit?”)
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
From left: Michael Grinnell,
Ming Cheng, Kelvin Wilson,
Steve Kelly, Patricia Stewart,
Joni Snyder, Prashant Sinha,
and Marico Hawes
19
••
Cathy Hubbs—Judge for the 2011 Global Security Challenge
••
Cathy Hubbs—Member of the Advisory Board for the CISO Executive Network
••
Cathy Hubbs—Member of the Security Guide Editorial Board for the EDUCAUSE
Higher Education Information Security Council
••
Cathy Hubbs—Panel member at Federal Student Aid Fall Conference 2010
(“Don’t Be Tomorrow’s Headlines”)
••
Cathy Hubbs—Presenter at EDUCAUSE Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference 2011
(“IT Security and Compliance”)
••
Cathy Hubbs and Dave Swartz—Co-presenters at EDUCAUSE Enterprise Technology
Conference 2011 (“Achieving Cost-Effective PCI Compliance”)
••
Kamalika Sandell—Co-presenter at a meeting of the National Association of
College and University Business Officers (“One Stop in Action: Case Study—
American University”)
••
Dave Swartz—Co-presenter at EDUCAUSE 2010 Face-to-Face Meeting (“CIOs and
Enterprise IT: Tackling the Tough Issues” and “Higher Education Information Security
Council Community Update”)
••
Dave Swartz—Co-presenter at EDUCAUSE Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference 2011
(“CIOs: What You Need to Know to Be One or to Work for One”)
••
Dave Swartz—Moderator at EDUCAUSE Security Professionals Conference 2011
(“Ask the ISO Experts: An Online Panel Discussion”)
••
Dave Swartz—Panel member at EDUCAUSE Enterprise Technology Conference
2011 (“CIO Panel: Major Challenges Facing IT Leaders”)
••
Dave Swartz—Panel member at EDUCAUSE Security Professionals Conference 2011
(“Discussion: Top Information Security Challenges in Higher Education”)
••
Dave Swartz—Presenter at EDUCAUSE Institute Leadership Program 2011
(“Architecting Relationships” and “Strategic Planning and Thinking”)
••
Dave Swartz—Presenter at EDUCAUSE Security Professionals Conference 2011
(“Welcome and Introductions” and “First-Time Attendees: How to Get the Most
Out of the Conference Experience, and an Introduction to the Higher Education
Information Security Council”)
••
Eric Weakland—Member of the EDUCAUSE Security Professionals Conference 2011
Program Committee
Improved Web Presence and Analytics
With the major focus of Web redesign behind us, this year’s focus involved rolling out
additional capabilities. We have made tremendous progress in terms of integrating
social media into the Web. OIT has now integrated Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter
directly into the website, enabling AU to establish a cohesive online presence. In
addition, the legacy faculty and staff directory application has been completely redone,
with a smarter and simplified search feature. The new directory links to the Web profile
of the individual, thereby allowing easier access to needed information. Additional
focus has also been invested toward reassessing our digital media infrastructure.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
Human Resources was happy to
collaborate with IT on the new
online faculty staff directory in fall
2010. The emerging technologies
staff were committed to creating
a new system which was both
comprehensive and versatile. The
new directory provides the AU
community with extensive search
options, and incorporates adjunct
and emeriti faculty. The success of
the project has been evident in the
number of employees now ‘opting
out’ of the print edition of the
directory. I would gladly work on
future projects with this team of IT
professionals.
Cindy Lindstrom
Operations Analyst, Human Resources
20
Google Analytics has been rolled out for the website, which offers a simpler, more userfriendly reporting tool than the university’s old implementation of WebTrends. We now
feel ready and poised to focus on AU’s mobile presence over the next year.
Earned Certifications
As the central IT provider to AU staff, faculty, students, and guests, we feel it is
important to have objective validation of our knowledge and skill sets. OIT staff
attained a number of professional and technical certifications in the past year. We
have a goal of maintaining a 1:1 ratio of relevant and current technical and professional
certifications to personnel.
•• Laurie Ambach, Matteo Becchi, Keith Britt, William Fleitz, Debra Gonski, Michael
Grinnell, Steve Kelly, Liz McGuinness, Mohammad Mirzabeigy, Steve Munson,
Dale Roberts, Lushan Silva, Joni Snyder, Patricia Williams, Kelvin Wilson, and Bill
Wyker—AU Leading with Impact Certificate
••
Vick Bhatia and William Fleitz—Aruba-Certified Mobility Associate
••
Michael Grinnell—GIAC-Certified Windows Security Administrator
••
Sharjil Hasan and Kamalika Sandell—AU Innovation Facilitator
••
Cathy Hubbs and Eric Weakland—ISACA Certified in Risk and Information
Systems Control
••
Steve Kelly—ITIL Foundations Certificate in IT Service Management
••
Homer Manila—Certified Information Systems Security Professional
••
Joni Snyder—IBM Certified Advanced System Administrator for Lotus Notes
and Domino 8.5
UPCOMING PLANS
OIT has
a goal of
maintaining
a 1:1 ratio
of relevant
and current
technical and
professional
certifications
to personnel.
Enhancing AU’s Web Presence
The enterprise content management system, CommonSpot, will undergo a major
upgrade this coming year. CommonSpot version 6 comes with better caching
functionality, which will improve Web performance. The new version provides a robust
infrastructure that will allow AU to extend some of our key applications, such as profiles,
news, and success stories, to other applications. Earlier this year, we completed a
successful pilot rollout of an enterprise blog tool. Full rollout and adoption is expected
to occur in phases over the next few months.
Implementing Phase Two Enhancements of the Portal
In addition to refining much of what has been made available through phase one, the
overall goal of phase two of the myAU portal implementation is to target content, such
as links, announcements, and services, dynamically and specifically to personalize the
portal user experience. During phase two, OIT will also explore creating additional
landing pages or portals for other constituencies. Combining the power of targeting
links and the creation of team sites that allow for collaboration, the new portal
architecture will enable the creation of additional portals, such as the Board of Trustees,
or newly admitted students, or new students, or new faculty, and so on.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
21
The university thrives on collaboration, whether through formal project teams, informal
working groups, special interest groups, departmental management teams, etc. In the
past, most of these groups have relied heavily on e-mail messages to communicate,
share documents, and exchange ideas. Although e-mail has worked as a messaging
tool for these purposes, it is challenging to keep track of related topics simply through
e-mails. Microsoft SharePoint, the technology on which the portal is built, provides a
great platform to collaborate through the implementation of team sites. More than 30
team sites have been rolled out in a pilot mode, and thus far the feedback has been
excellent. We hope to complete a full rollout of team sites with appropriate training for
team site owners this coming year. These powerful tools can be used for collaboration
among research faculty with a specific interest, staff working on project teams, budget
committees, departmental committees, etc.
Employ Technology to Empower Excellence
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Implemented Safe•Connect, the Next Generation Network Access
Control System
OIT replaced the Network Access Control (NAC) solution used for many years at AU
(Cisco Clean Access, or CCA) with Impulse’s Safe•Connect during the summer of 2011.
When AU adopted Cisco’s solution in 2004, it was at the forefront of the industry, and
its implementation resulted in an 83-percent reduction in computer virus infections from
2004 to 2006. Unfortunately, Cisco’s software updates and new releases have lagged
over the past few years, so OIT began to search for a better NAC product.
An evaluation team gathered feedback from OIT staff, campus technical partners,
and representatives of the office of Campus Life and the Faculty Senate Committee
on Information Services. A request for proposal was sent to top vendors, and
three responding vendors were chosen for evaluation. Impulse Safe•Connect was
unanimously selected, since it provided the best customer experience, met AU’s
security requirements, and was most suited to AU’s current network architecture.
Safe•Connect features include:
•• quicker and broader support for new operating systems (Macintosh support),
anti-virus and anti-spyware products, and hardware devices
••
continuous posture assessment of a computer’s security, so no requirement to
log in to the system every Wednesday for a posture check
••
a fail-safe model, meaning users can fully use the AU network even if there is a
technical issue with Safe•Connect
••
simpler remediation if computer updates are needed to meet a security requirement
Supported Salto Lock System
The implementation of
Safe•Connect went extremely
smoothly within the residence
halls. At the time of the
transition, we were in the middle
of the summer conference season
with students and guests in
our buildings from around the
world. We received sufficient
information and plans about
the transition to Safe•Connect
in a timely manner that allowed
us to provide information in a
timely and successful way to
our summer guests. I heard
zero issues or complaints from
students and guests.
Curtis Hoover
Director, Conference and Residential
Services, Housing and Dining Services
Working with Public Safety and the new AU One Card working group, OIT assisted in
implementing a new system for door access. The traditional system of keys is costly and
difficult to maintain. Thousands of keys and locks across campus must be tracked and
replaced when a key is lost or stolen. The new Salto lock system replaces traditional
keys with a card-based access system that can be centrally managed, logged, and
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
22
monitored. This creates efficiencies and greatly reduces the replacement costs of a lost
or stolen key card. In the future, the Salto access will be integrated into the existing AU
ID card that all students, staff, and faculty already carry. Several buildings have already
been migrated to the new system, and more will move to the new system as campus
renovations continue.
Performed Upgrades to University’s Web Infrastructure
A comprehensive performance assessment was done for the university’s website in an
effort to provide better stability. Each of the three production servers was upgraded
to 64-bit so that they could take advantage of more memory and work with larger
databases. Additional improvements were made to partition the database to allow
faster data access. Because of these efforts, the performance and availability of the
Web has been greatly improved.
Introduced Unified Messaging Infrastructure
This year, a flexible and friendly voicemail system, Avaya Unified Messaging, was
deployed to replace our existing system, which had been in place for nearly 20 years.
This new system allows users to access their voicemail in the traditional method they
have grown accustomed to, as well as via the Lotus Notes desktop and WebMail,
and on mobile devices such as Blackberry, iPhone, and Android. This new, integrated
voicemail system blends e-mail, voicemail, and fax messages into a single storage
facility, allowing access from any Internet-connected device. During the project, 2,874
users were migrated to the new system in a phased approach that minimized disruption
and provided a high-touch customer service approach.
Upgraded the University’s Enterprise Resource Planning System – Datatel
OIT continued focusing on maturing the infrastructure of the university’s integrated
enterprise resource planning system, Datatel. Earlier this year, OIT led a major initiative
to successfully upgrade Datatel’s user interface (UI) application to a Web-based version,
which was easier to access and manage, as well as more secure. Ultimately, the Web UI
will be the standard supported platform, in lieu of the legacy desktop UI application.
Matured IT Service Management Best Practices
Over the past year, OIT continued to align our business processes more closely with
information technology service management best practices, based on the ITIL standard.
We added four service level agreements (SLAs) and a memorandum of understanding
(MOU) with partners throughout campus while working to mature all existing
SLAs through the renewal process with lessons learned over the past year, service
measurement, and governance.
Being able to monitor voicemail
from my e-mail client has
significantly increased my
efficiency. Now I can focus solely
on my e-mail client without
worrying that I might be missing
voicemails, plus I can search
my messages and see the entire
history of my correspondence
with a specific person. Better still,
audits have never been so easy.
Thanks to my friends at OIT,
I now have capabilities I never
would have thought to request!
Aaron Long
Dining Programs Coordinator,
Housing and Dining Program
The new SLAs pertained to the management of the NovusHR online employment
application system, the Four Winds digital signage system, the energy management
systems, and the iSupport case management system. The new MOU brought clarity to
the roles and responsibilities shared across multiple functional units for the handling of
Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaints. In OIT, every group plays a critical role
in ensuring the successful operation of technology services. To that end, OIT drafted a
template for internal operational level agreements (OLAs) to better articulate the roles
and responsibilities for each of the internal groups within OIT to support a particular
service.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
23
OIT continues to mature our critical incident management process to better
handle problems affecting multiple users simultaneously. We defined the roles and
responsibilities of our designated communications manager and incident manager,
documented our communication plan to share information and updates internally as
well as with our customers, and collectively worked to restore service as promptly as
possible.
In an effort to constantly improve our organization, OIT created a comprehensive set
of performance dashboards for its senior management team, which is shared with
university senior management to measure current performance, track trends, and
assist in making management decisions. An internal campaign was initiated to raise
the awareness of the importance of the performance metrics and reinforce that every
staff member helps to contribute to our success. This effort has resulted in dramatic
improvements over the past year.
Enhanced the AU Technology Infrastructure
OIT implemented a new network design to further segment the network into faulttolerant domains and increase the overall capacity to handle high-demand applications,
such as data, voice, and video. This new design included installing three high-capacity
core routers and 22 distribution routers in a mesh configuration to ensure high
availability. In addition, 122 user access switches were also upgraded, enabling our
data communications to travel on a scalable, highly available network capable of subsecond fault detection and rerouting. This new network architecture positions AU for
the growing demands of voice and video already traversing our backbone and provides
scalability to grow as we move into the future.
UPCOMING PLANS
OIT continued
to align our
business
processes
more
closely with
information
technology
service
management
best practices.
Expanding Use of Tools to Detect System Changes
Protecting American University’s data and system assets requires vigilance and
diligence. OIT has adopted several best practices to meet the service level
requirements of our customers and keep our engineers working effectively. One
important practice is change management. This year we will begin implementing
Tripwire, a leading file integrity monitoring technology, to automatically detect and
communicate configuration and policy changes in systems as an audit. This ensures we
are capturing all known changes and investigating the others.
Adopting Trustworthy Shared Management of Access to Online Resources
In 2011, American University’s OIT joined the InCommon Federation with the goal
of supporting collaboration and research efforts. InCommon serves U.S. education
and research communities, supporting a common framework for trustworthy shared
management of access to online resources. Through InCommon, identity providers
can provide their users single sign-on convenience and privacy protection, while online
service providers like AU control access to their protected resources. OIT has set up
the server infrastructure in support of InCommon and will begin provisioning identity
providers. The first will be Cayuse, the Research Grant Evaluation System.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
24
Implementing New Datatel Web User Interface
Datatel UI 4.3 is a major release comparable in magnitude to Datatel Release 18, which
was successfully completed three years back. More than 700 processes and reports will
need to be redone. We plan on completing this release in phases by the end of the
year. This release planning utilizes full Agile project management practices. The older
legacy desktop Datatel interface allowed direct updates to the database, bypassing
the application (commonly referred to as working at the colon prompt). Although this
access was extremely limited, the practice should be discontinued. The new version
of the user interface comes with options that enable users to choose more acceptable
ways of working with the data without going to the database directly. Parallel to the UI
4.3 rollout, we are also implementing a reporting tool, Informer, which is used by many
institutions. This tool allows users to create and run reports without needing to always
go to Datatel.
Developing Mobile Strategy
With the rapid growth in utilization of mobile devices by students,
faculty, and staff, American University faces the challenge of providing
remote connectivity between these groups and the critical information
found on university systems and in the cloud. There are no “do-it-all”
mobile applications. The needs of our community vary widely and have
grown beyond basic access to personal and professional contacts,
calendar, and e-mail, while on the move to include an array of online
learning applications and access to administrative services such as
online registration, transcripts, or wait lists. Despite the rapid growth
and potential of mobile devices and networks, mobile learning is still in
its infancy. We will need to evaluate which applications have the desired
levels of security and accessibility requirements and plan for architectures
that will consider both these sets of needs. We can meet the unique
challenges of mobile solutions by planning properly and employing
best practices. One of our key goals this year is to develop AU’s mobile
presence, along with the rollout of an applicable suite of services and
applications. OIT is cochairing the cross-functional campus working group
with University Communications and Marketing to create the strategy.
Transitioning to Microsoft’s Active Directory Infrastructure
Over the past year, OIT has continued the push to move from the legacy Novell
network infrastructure to a more integrated Active Directory environment. The key
benefits of leveraging Active Directory are fewer log ins through single sign-on
applications, wider vendor support for third-party applications, simplified workstation
imaging, and improved security through additional endpoint management capabilities.
Currently, our Novell environment is synchronized in real time to our Active Directory
environment for all user accounts, making the transition from Novell to Active
Directory authentication seamless to the end user. OIT has deployed 540 printer
queues, migrated hundreds of log on scripts to the Active Directory environment,
and conducted extensive application compatibility testing with Windows 7 and
Macintosh workstations in conjunction with technical team leaders across campus. The
final challenge over the next year will be migrating more than 12 terabytes of data
from Novell file servers to a new Distributed File System in Active Directory. This new
file system will provide real-time replication and multi-server availability to improve
performance and reliability.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
25
Implementing a Configuration Management Database
OIT has already implemented the iSupport case management system, which conforms
to ITIL version 3 standards. OIT staff and technology-support partners from around
the campus currently utilize iSupport’s integrated incident, problem, and change
management modules to track issues or changes through their entire life cycle. In the
upcoming year, OIT plans to implement the configuration management database
(CMDB) solution, built into iSupport, to enable us to have a single source of authority to
best understand our infrastructure, highlight any changes to its configuration, and map
its interdependencies. Configuration items will be manually entered into the CMDB;
while time consuming, this approach allows us to leverage our existing IT infrastructure
investments and saves us several hundred thousand dollars.
Forge Partnerships by Leveraging Our
Capital Location
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Established Business Continuity Data Center
In 2010, OIT signed a contract with CoreSite in Reston, Virginia, to provide an offcampus, redundant data center to ensure the continuity of operations should a
catastrophic event happen in the D.C. area. Over the last year, good progress has
been made to replicate our core services to this site in order to augment our business
continuity plans. In real time, all data written to the storage system in our primary
data center is copied over to the business continuity storage system. Having the data
available at our secondary site provides the opportunity to begin moving copies of our
critical tier-one applications there.
As part of the e-mail stabilization project to bring our Lotus Notes infrastructure in line
with our goal of 99.9-percent uptime, we implemented cluster servers at our business
continuity site. This configuration, not only allows the e-mail system to remain available
in the event of a single server failure, but it also now allows planned maintenance to be
performed on the servers without interrupting service.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
26
PERFORMANCE METRICS
Project Management Office
Throughout the past year, OIT’s staff responded to approximately 800 project
requests generated from all units across campus. The portfolio is well balanced
among maintaining existing infrastructure, nurturing existing applications, investing
in new functionality, and responding to quick service requests. To manage these
projects, portfolio owners across campus prioritize projects in their respective areas
and as a group across all divisions to determine campus-wide priorities. OIT teams
collaborate extensively, both with internal staff and with functional users in staff and
academic units across campus, to manage scope, protect sensitive data, define
schedules, determine budgets, and deliver on commitments.
Three years ago, OIT established the Project Management Office (PMO), which
developed and rolled out formal project management practices, referred to as
Systems Development Life Cycle guidelines, to help manage our large projects. For
more information, visit www.american.edu/oit/projects.
Over the next year, OIT will continue focusing on collaboration among project
managers, both in our departments and across campus. To that effect, a collaborative
team site is being rolled out that will have all necessary templates and documentation. There will also be roundtables organized on key topics on a regular basis.
More and more projects are utilizing Agile practices. The PMO plans on incorporating
Agile methodology as part of our PMO standard practices over the next year. One
of the key areas of focus for OIT is to develop better change-adoption practices.
With better project delivery, it is important to ensure that the products and solutions
delivered are successfully used. Many of these solutions incorporate change in
business practices and change in thinking. Adoption of the solution is not only about
understanding how to navigate a new technology but also about understanding
how to work with the new paradigm. That is what makes adoption slow and difficult.
Part of the rollout of new solutions has to incorporate thoughts around adoption.
Otherwise, even with the best technology and best solutions, the end goal and
the business objective will not be entirely met. One of the key goals of OIT next
year is to better incorporate change adoption as part of project rollout and project
management practices.
OIT staff are frequent speakers in
my business requirements graduate
and undergraduate classes. One of
my favorite exercises is when my OIT
colleagues help to teach students
how to identify and model key AU
enterprise processes to analyze
them and recommend and model
improvements and system solutions.
What is impressive is the breadth and
depth of knowledge that OIT enterprise
analysts demonstrate about business
processes and functions, necessary to
manage the business of AU effectively
and professionally. There is not a single
business activity question that our
OIT colleagues can’t answer with an
amazing level of detail. This illustrates:
IT is not about the technology, but
about delivering business value through
information systems. These exercises
have worked so well that I invited OIT
to work with six undergraduate teams
in spring 2011 in the role of project
clients/student mentors. The projects
were a total success in terms of the
students’ learning experience, students’
evaluation of the course and projects,
and OIT internships granted to selected
students. This is a win-win situation for
everyone and a great cooperation model
for effective learning with live projects
and talented professionals.
J. Alberto Espinosa
Associate Professor of Information
Technology and UPS Faculty Fellow
at the Kogod School of Business
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
27
This graph indicates the percentage of projects completed for each of the university divisions
during 2010–2011.
OIT PORTFOLIO BY UNIVERSITY DIVISION
11%
Finance and Treasurer
Development
Campus Life
6%
23%
4% 2% President and UCM
38%
Technology
Infrastructure
27%
Academic Affairs
Service-Oriented Architecture
OIT has adopted an architecture and mind-set of providing secure, sustainable
technology platforms and consistent service delivery. The necessary ingredients are
having the right platform technologies, system software updates, and application
architecture in place and ready at the appropriate time. Over the past year, OIT
Operating System
continued to advance our goals of maturing our service-oriented architecture by
aligning with several industry-standard best practices:
••
ensuring continuity of operations through use of a business continuity data center
••
virtualizing as many services as possible to offer redundancy and simplified
maintenance, and support AU’s goal of carbon neutrality
••
measuring our current performance and tracking historical trends to help make
management decisions
••
streamlining the handling of incidents, problems, and changes through formalized
processes and use of an integrated case management system
••
better articulating the roles and responsibilities for each of the internal groups
within OIT to support a particular service through operational level agreements.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
Did you
know?
Four Shared Assessment
information-gathering
security assessments
were completed by our
IT vendors and filed as
addendums to service
contracts since June 2011.
28
This graph indicates the number of change events recorded to maintain and support AU’s
technology services for the past two academic years. OIT adopted a formal change management
process in May of 2008.
CHANGE EVENTS RECORDED
250
200
# of Changes
150
100
50
0
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AY2010–2011
This graph indicates the historical trend over the past two academic years of the average service
availability percentage for our core services. Our core services include: Blackboard Learn; Datatel’s
Colleague; e-mail, file and print services; network and CCA access; and the portal. An average of
99.9 percent service availability was set as the target for each of these services.
SERVICE AVAILABILITY FOR CORE SERVICES
100.00
99.95
% of Availability
99.90
99.85
99.80
99.75
99.70
99.65
99.60
99.55
99.50
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AY2010–2011
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
29
This table represents many of the services that have a Service Level Agreement (SLA) associated
with it. A Service Level Agreement is a document that defines the agreed-upon levels of service and
support for a given system to formalize the service structure, allowing for consistent service delivery.
An average of 99.9 percent service availability was set as the target for each of these services.
SERVICE AVAILABILITY FOR KEY SERVICES
Service
AY2009-2010AY2010-2011
AU Campus Connect
99.93
100.00
Blackboard Learn
99.91
99.97
Blackboard Transaction
99.96
99.99
C-Cure Access System
99.96
100.00
CommonSpot
99.8299.86
c.Support / iSupport for Public Safety
100.00
100.00
EagleBucks Printing
99.95
99.98
R25
99.9098.82
WCL Core Services
99.90
99.99
This graph indicates the historical trend of the average number of concurrent users taking advantage
of AU’s wireless network infrastructure during the past two academic years. Usage continues to
increase as the wireless experience improves and laptops and mobile devices become ubiquitous.
AVERAGE CONCURRENT WIRELESS NETWORK USERS
3000
2500
# of Users
2000
1500
1000
500
0
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AY2010–2011
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
30
This graph indicates the percentage of users logging in to the AU network with each of the
various operating systems during AY2010–11.
AU NETWORK USERS BY OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows Vista
5%
Windows 7
16%
40%
Macintosh
39%
Windows XP
Service Delivery and Support
OIT strives to meet and exceed the service delivery and support needs of our
customers, namely, AU faculty, staff, students, parents, alumni, and administrators. To
that end, the IT customer service and technology operations teams within OIT work
around the clock to assist our customers. We are constantly analyzing our performance
metrics and benchmarking our services against our peer institutions in an effort to
identify new ways to improve our service offerings and delivery. The following metrics
showcase the enormous volume and complexity of IT training and service requests.
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
Did you
know?
2,171 AU employees
attended OIT training
classes during 2010–2011.
31
This graph indicates the historical trend of the number of AU employees who attended OIT
training classes during the past two academic years. Note that we attribute the increase over the
past year to specialized training events in support of new university initiatives, such as the Avaya
Unified Messenger system, the Datatel Web UI 4.1 client, the iSupport case management system,
and the research grants reporting system.
ATTENDANCE AT OIT TRAINING CLASSES
600
500
# of Attendees
400
300
200
100
0
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AY2009–2010 ry
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AY2010–2011
This graph indicates the historical trend of the percentage of customers who responded on
the OIT training point-of-service survey that they were very satisfied or satisfied for the past
two academic years. Note: Every training attendee is encouraged to complete a survey before
leaving the training session.
OIT TRAINING SURVEY RESULTS
% of Customers Very Satisfied and Satisfied
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0
Instructor
Presentation
Professional Attitude
& Courtesy
Knowledgeable of
Subject Matter
AY2009–2010 OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
Adequately
Answered Questions
Overall Satisfaction with
Amount Learned
Course Met
Expectations
AY2010–2011
32
Help Desk Service
Requests by Submission
This graph indicates theMethod
percentage of service requests submitted to the help desk via
telephone, e-mail, instant message, or self-service through the Web during 2010–2011.
TECHNOLOGY SERVICE REQUESTS BY SUBMISSION METHOD
Walk-in
5%
Instant Message
2%
46%
E-mail
47%
Telephone
TECHNOLOGY SERVICE REQUESTS BY CATEGORY
Password
Network
Information
Security
10%
Accounts
9%
7%
General Requests
6%
5% Telecommunications
5% Hardware
3% Student Network Installations
2% Viruses
2% Other
14%
This graph indicates the
percentage of the 54,614
total service requests
that fell into each major
category during 2010–2011.
The smaller graph indicates
the percentage of service
requests pertaining to
highlighted AU software
applications.
36%
Software
TECHNOLOGY
SOFTWARE SERVICE
REQUESTS
Blackboard
All Others
26%
25%
7%
15%
7%
10%
E-mail
my.american.edu
10%
Content Management
System
54,614 IT service
requests were
resolved by OIT staff
or our partners during
Datatel
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
Did you
know?
Operating System and
Office Applications
2010–2011.
33
This graph indicates the historical trend over the past five years of customers who stated on
point-of-service surveys that they were satisfied with the overall support provided by OIT staff
and our partners. Please note: Point-of-service surveys are sent at random to every fifth customer
at the time of the service request closure.
OIT POINT-OF-SERVICE SURVEY RESULTS
% of Customers Very Satisfied and Satisfied
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0
AY2006–07
AY2007–08
AY2008–09
AY2009–10
AY2010–11
This graph indicates the historical trend over the past two years of the number of service requests
resolved by OIT staff and our partners, compared to the average amount of time to identify a
resolution to the service request. Despite a 15-percent increase in the number of service requests
reported and handled by OIT, the average amount of time to identify a resolution was reduced by
63 percent for the year.
8000
90
7000
80
70
6000
60
5000
50
4000
40
3000
30
2000
20
1000
10
0
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OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
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Tickets—AY2009–2010
Tickets—AY2010–2011
Avg. Hours to Resolve—AY2009–2010
Avg. Hours to Resolve—AY2010–2011
ly
Ju
0
Average Time Until Resolution in Business Hours
# of Service Requests Resolved
TECHNOLOGY SERVICE REQUESTS RESOLVED AND AVERAGE TIME TO RESOLUTION
34
This graph indicates the historical trend of the number of unique visits to AU’s website,
www.american.edu, during the past two academic years. A visit is defined as a series of
actions that begins when a visitor views his or her first AU Web page and ends when he
or she leaves the site.
VISITS TO THE AU WEBSITE (WWW.AMERICAN.EDU)
1000000
900000
800000
# of Unique Visits
700000
600000
500000
400000
300000
200000
100000
0
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OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
35
RESOURCES
With more than 18.5 million dollars
in total expenditures last year, OIT
accounts for approximately 3.62 percent
of the university’s overall budget. As
in most organizations, the largest
expenditure is for personnel. The highly
trained and dedicated professionals
who work in OIT leverage the remaining
funds to manage the infrastructure,
hardware and software maintenance,
external support, and supplies necessary
to ensure reliable, secure, and effective
information technology services
management and delivery.
This graph indicates the percentage of the OIT total actuals for FY2011
by expense type.
OIT EXPENSES BY EXPENSE TYPE
Total Actuals = $18,544,898
Maintenance 9%
9%
Software
Communications
5%
10%
60%
Hardware
Personnel
16%
This graph indicates the historical trend of OIT expenditures over the past five years. The FY2011
personnel expenditure represents the salaries and fringe benefits of 96 full-time employees.
OIT EXPENDITURES
$20,000,000
$18,000,000
$16,000,000
Expenditure
$14,000,000
$12,000,000
$10,000,000
$8,000,000
$6,000,000
$4,000,000
$2,000,000
0
Fiscal Year
FY2008
FY2009
FY2010
FY2011
FY2012
Fiscal Year
Personnel
OIT YEAR IN REVIEW: 2010–2011
Supplies and Expenses
Computer Equipment
36
Office of Information Technology
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
202.885.2550
helpdesk@american.edu
help.american.edu
American University is an equal opportunity and affirmative
action university and employer. American University does
not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national
origin, sex, age, marital status, personal appearance,
sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, family
responsibilities, political affiliation, disability, source of
income, place of residence or business, or certain veteran
status in its programs and activities. For information, contact
the dean of students (dos@american.edu), director of policy
and regulatory affairs (employeerelations@american.edu),
or dean of academic affairs (academicaffairs@american.edu)
or American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW,
Washington, DC 20016, 202-885-1000. UP12-259