Xavier Technology Committee
Thursday, November 7, 2013
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Smith Hall Room 247
Minutes
Attending:
Committee Members: Joe Christman, Mike Flick, Steve Herbert, Tom Kessinger, Annette Marksberry,
Judy Molnar, Alison Morgan, Heidrun Schmitzer
Advisory Members: Susan Abel, Jeff Briggs, Mark Brockman, Tim Bucher, Ravi Chinta, Eddie Hooker,
Shari Mickey Boggs, Debbie Tesch
Guest: Kevin Staton, Erik Ball
Approval of Minutes: The minutes from the October 23, 2013 were approved as submitted. Eddie
Hooker made a motion to approve seconded by Tom Kessinger.
Office 365 – Judy Molnar passed out further information regarding the proposal to move to Office 365
for faculty/staff and introduced Erik Ball and Kevin Staton who were at the meeting to answer technical
questions. Given the cost savings and impact, Eddie Hooker made a motion, seconded by Ravi Chinta,
that the XTC accept the Office 365 proposal and support moving faculty/staff to Office 365. Annette
Marksberry offered to speak with faculty committee to address any concerns they may have about the
move. Ravi Chinta raised a concern that there may be too many projects coming down from the top and
questioned the need for larger disc space. Mike Flick brought up concern about security if we move to
office 365. Per Kevin Staton Microsoft does go through a yearly audit to make sure we are compliant and
does everything they can do to make sure it is as secure as possible. According to Erik Ball when he
attended the AJCU conference, users feel the security Microsoft offers is as good as what can offer in
house. Microsoft has a wider security band width than we do. Jeff Briggs asked if Office 365 is just email
or the whole suite. It was confirmed that, for now, it is just email/calendar. Per Kevin Staton, Office 365
does come with Skydrive and Skydrive Pro (cloud based storage) and some other messaging options that
will be phased in. Incoming students may be directed to use Skydrive instead of the X drive in the future.
As we start piloting Office 365 we will be looking at other available options.
Project Request Process – Tim Bucher presented a project request process that was previously
presented to University Technology Committee. Assumption on the work flow is funding is already
secured by department or division. The PPMO will work with units to formalize business cases. Tim is
recommending that users bring ideas forward to XTC for approval then PPMO could work with
application services to prioritize and plan the year. It would be helpful, for planning purposed, to know
on the front end of a fiscal year what projects will need to be completed. The University needs a data
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base that lists all applications we currently own on campus which would allow users to see what
technology is already in place and being used on campus. Working on the back end, PPMO would like to
showcase the administrative and project portfolio showing what is in the system and how projects are
moving through the queue. The XTC site might be a good place for that information to be housed. Tim
would like the XTC to be more involved in the gatekeeping of projects.
Ravi Chinta commented on the basic premise that we are project driven but in the spirit of innovative
companies there should be a portion of the budget allocated to explore what can be done or spent with
no parameters and would like to see some monies devoted to exploration to be spent as deemed fit. Joe
Christman brought up the point that it is important to make sure funding is communicated. Annette
would like to know of any large ticket items so they can be put through the normal budget process and
not be an exception. Information Technologies is willing to help but does not want to be responsible for
securing project funding.
Mark Brockman demonstrated the new mobile app that was launched during the summer and how
students can register and drop/add classes on their phones. The first mobile app was implemented
three years ago. The app was work intensive and you could not do a lot with it. In the spring Xavier
started working with a company called Dublabs. Mark demonstrated the ease of use of the program.
The app has been tested internally and had a test round with students who were thrilled with the app
and are anxious for it to go live. The app is currently available in the App Store. The enrollment
functionality is not available yet. Mark hopes to have an article in the newswire prior to the launch to
encourage students to let us know when they encounter a problem. Application Services is looking for
problems now so they can be fixed before the app goes live.
Meeting adjourned.
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