CU-Boulder Office of Information Technology
Past and Present Milestones and Accomplishments
January 2013
About This Update
The CU-Boulder Office of Information Technology (OIT) strives to continually evolve to
better support the diverse, ever-changing needs of faculty and students. It is a priority for
OIT to partner with the Boulder Faculty Assembly, particularly the Administrative Services
and Technology Committee (AST), on campus technology initiatives, through the
leadership of the Associate Vice Chancellor for IT.
The fall of 2009 began many changes for OIT, formerly known as IT Services (ITS), and for
the CU Boulder IT environment, beginning with the hiring of Larry Levine into the new
position of Associate Vice Chancellor for IT and CIO. To provide current and future AST
committee members with an OIT history that might serve as a base-camp of information
for future IT initiatives, this update summarizes OIT milestones and activities from fall
2009 to now that are of particular interest to faculty and BFA members. Future updates
will conceivably be approximately yearly.
Content is organized chronologically:
1. OIT Evolution, 2009 to Present: How OIT has evolved since 2009 to better serve
the CU-Boulder campus with effective uses of technology:
a. 2009/2010 Listening Tour
b. Campus-wide IT Strategic Plan and ITS Administrative Program Review
c. Organization Alignment
2. Technology Services Launched 2011-2012: A review of the technology services
launched to date that serve faculty, students and staff.
3. Current Strategic Initiatives: A review of OIT’s major initiatives, including:
a. Business Performance Excellence (BPE) and how it is transforming OIT.
b. Major OIT Initiatives and how they aim to evolve the campus’ technology.
4. OIT Organization: Links to the OIT organization charts.
Please view this document electronically to access hyperlinks with reference information.
This reported is posted on the OIT website at
http://www.colorado.edu/oit/accomplishment-reports.
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OIT Evolution, 2009 to Present
1. Listening Tour
In a Nutshell
In 2009, Larry Levine joined CU-Boulder as the new AVC for IT and CIO. He immediately set out on a
“listening tour” to assess the big picture of campus IT, form working alliances and introduce initial
changes by fiat. He found OIT needed to address service and support issues quicker to better serve the
campus, and set out to make changes by early 2010.
In 2009, both clients and decentralized IT staff articulated that they were frustrated and
dissatisfied with the organization, then called ITS. It was clear that senior campus
leadership, faculty, students and staff wanted the central IT organization to align itself
closer to CU-Boulder’s mission of research, teaching and learning.
“Listening Tour”
To assess the climate and environment, the new CIO set out on a listening tour, beginning
with the search committee who hired him and expanding to interviews with additional
people recommended by Ric Porreca and Russ Moore. Additional names were solicited
from those interviewed and met with as well, including over 40 stakeholders by the spring
of 2010.
Breakfasts with ITS and CCITP
Larry also met with ITS staff at “Breakfast with the CIO” every three weeks to obtain their
candid feedback. Conversations were open-ended. All ITS staff members were invited to
attend at random, 12 at a time. Those who were interested were placed on a list and
randomly invited. Those unable to attend were invited to a future breakfast. Breakfasts
occurred every month, and all discussions were off the record, with any and all topics and
questions encouraged. Breakfasts were later expanded to include members of the
Campuswide Collaboration of IT Professionals (CCITP), and have continued, with a hiatus
fall 2012, resuming in 2013.
Initial Conclusions
Through the many discussions, Larry saw that ITS was organized and managed to largely
preserve status quo. The pace of change and diversity of needs across campus demanded a
more client-focused IT organization, that saw not itself but the faculty and students as “the
customers,” and that was willing to truly partner and leverage the strengths of non-OIT
staff.
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Willingness to Collaborate
Despite the significant dissatisfaction with the current ITS organization, there was a very
positive (if, for some, latent) willingness to see and support IT change. Faculty members
were particularly interested in building a collaborative research computing environment –
a mandate of the new AVC for IT role. A natural sciences faculty member stated, “I get the
vision; if you try it, I’ll support it.” This kind engagement from many faculty members was
critical to make significant change.
Initial Actions
Guided by the diverse input from listening tour, ITS began to evolve by:
 Addressing low-hanging fruit: ITS quickly but sustainably changed several
services that unnecessarily inconvenienced clients, such as: eliminating a variety of
phone and network fees and instead bundling them into an overall lower
“connectivity fee”; drastically increasing email storage from 400 MB to providing a
minimum of 1 GB of storage for all Microsoft Exchange email users; and enabling a
series of small conveniences, such as making “guest wireless” access accessible for
campus visitors, providing a secure mechanism to exchange very large (or any size)
files that could not be sent via email with colleagues anywhere and simply allowing
outbound caller-ID if desired. Storage fees that hindered cross-discipline research
and hampered innovation were shelved to make daily computing easier.
 Evolving ITS’ purpose and structure: In addition, Levine began discussing the
idea of ITS’ purpose and structure, as outlined in this example presentation (PDF)
shared at a Dean’s Council.
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2. Strategic Plan and Program Review
In a Nutshell
The strategic planning team collaborated with key faculty and staff to develop the campuswide IT
strategic plan. This reshaped the IT organization with a new governance structure, new collaborative
research computing environment, symbolically new name, new reporting structure and new
continuum of IT services.
Since 1998, the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE) has required colleges
and universities to submit an IT strategic plan every four years. The next plan for CUBoulder was due in 2010. This fortuitous timing led to a visible, campus-wide effort to
review all aspects of the IT environment and strategy.
Engaging the Campus in Strategic IT Planning
Rather than create a strategic plan internally, ITS formed 17 committees that were mostly
chaired by faculty and included many faculty and staff participants. Details may be found in
Larry Levine’s Dec. 16, 2009, memo to the Chancellor’s Executive Council (CEC) inviting
them to participate. The committees catalogued key program and strategic direction
changes across academic and administrative IT.
Planning Outcomes
Perhaps the two most important planning outcomes were:
1. Formed a new IT Governance structure: Letters from the Provost and the SVC
invited faculty and staff to participate. This presentation to the CEC explained
governance to various groups.
2. Launched a faculty-led research computing collaborative environment: This
included moving the CU-Boulder supercomputer (Janus) into production.
Program Reviews
Not long after releasing the 2010 IT Strategic Plan, Ric Porreca asked all administrative
units reporting to him to undergo an Administrative Program Review Process, similar to
the Academic Review and Planning Advisory Committee process that academic
departments undertake typically every seven years, which was also fortuitous timing. ITS,
volunteering itself, was one of the first of Ric’s administrative units to conduct a program
review, which comprised a self-study, internal campus-committee study and external
committee on-campus review.
Initiatives Derived from the Program Review
Three of the most significant outcomes of the program reviews were:
1. We reorganized IT support, beginning with the help desk. Historically, ITS
employees were instructed to stay on a help desk call no longer than 180 seconds
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with the faculty, staff or student who called. A change was made to have
professional IT Support staff handle the faculty and staff calls, while student
workers handle the student calls. Calls were no longer monitored by length (180
seconds) but rather by resolution.
2. We established simple, correlated principles for OIT: Principles include: a)
increased transparency; b) internal and external communication; and c) a
continuum of IT services – whereby collaboration occurs. OIT provides the common
infrastructure on which localized IT providers can build area-specific services, and
importantly, whereby all are responsible to ensure there are adequate and sharable
core services.
3. We established a stronger commitment to supporting teaching and learning
with technology and research computing initiatives, and as a result, Larry’s
reporting line grew to include a dotted-line to the Provost, strengthening the
relationship between the academic mission and the centralized IT organization.
4. We changed organization name to the Office of Information Technology: The
new name was symbolic, marking a new era of IT services for the campus, and
connoting a collaborative breadth to the entire CU-Boulder IT environment.
All of these steps – governance, research computing, how to organize support, the dotted
line, the symbolism of a new name and the IT continuum – helped pave the way to a
differently organized and new OIT.
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Technology Services Launched 2011 - 2012
In a Nutshell
In 2011 and 2012, OIT has launched a variety of initiatives to improve IT across campus and support
the campus’ Flagship 2030 initiative. Some OIT initiatives tend to be more visible to clients, including
innovative campus technology, teaching and learning technology and IT support services. Other
initiatives tend to be more “behind the scenes” but are equally as critical, including technology
infrastructure and IT security services. Finally, others are precursors to client-facing technology,
including alliances, partnerships and studies.
OIT Governance
Five representative IT advisory committees that make up OIT governance: The IT Executive
Governance Committee, the Administrative IT Advisory Committee, the Faculty IT Advisory
Committee, the Student IT Advisory Committee, and the Campus-Wide Collaboration of IT
Professionals (CCITP). Visit the Campuswide IT Governance page of the AVC for IT website
for more information about governance.
1. Innovative Campus Technology
Launched
August 2012
Initiative
Launched Desire2Learn
and retired CU-Learn
Benefits
During 2012, the campus online learning environment
transitioned from CULearn to Desire2Learn (D2L) to provide a
more robust system for faculty and students. The transition was
complted, and CULearn was retired, on Aug. 31, 2012. (The two
systems overlapped for approximately 1 year.)
June 2011
Launched a revamped
OIT website with
comprehensive client
information
OIT launched a completely revamped website on the new Drupal
platform. For the first time, OIT services and information are
consistently explained, and customers can access resources,
documentation, instructions and more whenever they needed to.
The site also enables customers to provide immediate feedback
on specific services.
May 2012
Launched MyCUInfo and
retired CU-Connect
OIT retired the CU-Connect campus portal for faculty and staff
on May 14, 2012, and extended MyCUInfo to include
registration, online courses, campus news and events, and
employee information and training. Over time, MyCUInfo has
steadily taken on more functionality from CUConnect so that it
can serve faculty and staff needs as well.
August 2012
Launched Student
Mobile Site
OIT launched a new mobile website at
https://m.colorado.edu/mycuinfo/ that makes it possible for
students to view their class schedule and location, book lists,
grades and more on a smartphone or other mobile device. It
even uses your mobile device’s location functionality to map
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your route to the classroom building by car, bike or foot.
August 2012
Launched Adobe
Connect to enable
faculty, staff and
students to meet and
connect virtually
OIT launched Adobe Connect to allow faculty, staff and students
to share a computer screen; create whiteboards; use text, audio
and video chat; and much more – all through a web browser
window. Since the service is provided as a common good to the
campus (there’s no direct cost for using the service), it can
replace paid alternatives like WebEx and GoToMeeting.
September
2012
Completed the
migration of faculty and
staff to Microsoft
Exchange e-mail
OIT migrated faculty and staff from outdated CU-Link e-mail to
Microsoft Outlook e-mail. This transition enables faculty and
staff to access their CU e-mail seamlessly with a wide variety of
devices, including Macintosh, PC, tablets and mobile devices
such as phones.
September
2012
Began offering Apple
software, including Mac
OS 10.8 as a common
good service
Added UCB wireless
connectivity to the Buff
Bus
The campus’s Apple volume licensing agreement provides
licenses as a common good to CU-Boulder faculty and staff for
select Apple products and upgrades.
Provide students,
faculty and staff on the
CU-Boulder campus or
on all CU campuses
with Microsoft and
Apple software
download as a common
good service that they
can use for productivity.
From Jan. 1 to Nov. 31, 2012, 4133 clients downloaded
Microsoft Windows or Office, and 1,310 clients downloaded
Apple Mac operating system or application software. These
totals include anti-virus software listed in the “IT Security”
section of this report, below.
September
2011
Ongoing
Note: A variety of versions
are required to be available
to accommodate for
compatibility with the
variety of computers and
systems versions that end
users have.
Added UCB wireless to the Buff Buses so that users can access
campus resources that are restricted to the campus network,
such as file servers or library resources, while riding the bus.
Here are details about downloads of Microsoft, Apple and other
software that is available as a common good:
Software
Microsoft Office 2010 for PC
Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
Microsoft Office 2007 for PC
Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac
Microsoft Office 2003 for PC
Microsoft Windows 7 OS for PC
Microsoft Windows XP OS for PC
Microsoft Windows Vista OS for
PC
Mountain Lion OS (10.8) for Mac
Lion OS (10.7) for Mac
Snow Leopard OS (10.6) for Mac
iWork for Mac
Pages for Mac
Keynote for Mac
iLife (discontinued June 2012)
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Downloads
3235
2330
66
170
21
48
2182
635
69
Individuals
2092
1615
60
131
17
40
1760
508
60
764
763
60
354
333
395
359
562
543
52
282
267
301
285
Mathematica*
MATLAB*
Origin Pro*
ArcGIS Desktop*
JMP*
5486
4161
439
785
729
3340
2069
n/a
n/a
n/a
*Provided to students, faculty and staff at all CU campuses.
On Oct. 26, 3012, the following software became available. From
Oct. 26 to Nov. 31, 2012, clients downloaded it as follows:
Software
Microsoft Windows 8 OS for PC
Downloads
511
Individuals
437
Note: The “downloads” column lists the times the software was
downloaded. The “individuals” column lists individuals who conducted
downloads. Often, an individual will download multiple copies for
multiple computers.
2. Teaching and Learning with Technology
Launched
October
2012
Initiative
Added Web conferencing to
Desire2Learn
Benefits
In October we added Adobe Connect web conferencing’s
Online Rooms to Desire2Learn (D2L). This integration allows
users to share a computer screen; create whiteboards; use text,
audio and video chat; and much more all through your web
browser window. D2L Online Rooms also allows users to
archive past meetings, so attendees can view past sessions on
demand.
Fall 2012
Conducting an E-Textbooks
Pilot
CU-Boulder is one of over 20 colleges and universities
participating in a pilot of E-Textbook technology during the
Fall 2012 semester. Led by EDUCAUSE and Internet2, the pilot
involves replacing physical books with virtual ones. Our
participation involves 9 instructors and 8 classes, totaling
approximately 800 students and spanning several disciplines
including business, science, social science and engineering.
August
2011
Updated classroom iClicker
technology
OIT updated iClicker technology that is installed in most
classrooms and lecture halls seating over 40 students. The
update eliminated registration issues that had been disrupting
the use of iClickers.
January
2011
Rolled out Classroom Capture
technology
OIT launched Classroom Capture technology in Dec. 2010, in
advance of the 2011 spring semester. This technology
automatically captures, stores and indexes classroom-related
audio and video from faculty lectures, for subsequent review
by students on the Web. OIT has partnered with vendor Sonic
Foundry and is using their Mediasite solution to deliver the
service.
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Ongoing
Conducted many
Desire2Learn workshops
In 2011, OIT’s Academic Technology team conducted 18
workshops, with 171 attendees and an average session size of
10. In 2012, Academic Technology significantly expanded the
D2L sessions. Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30, 2012, they
conducted 42 workshops with 449 attendees and an average
session size of 11. Topics included: Getting to Know D2L;
Working with the D2L Gradebook; Using D2L Quizzes; and
more.
Ongoing
OIT’s Academic Technology
team provides consultative
support to faculty in the use
of technology to further the
teaching and learning mission
of the campus
Over the past three years, OIT’s team of Academic Technology
Consultants (ATCs) has steadily increased its one-on-one
support of faculty’s technology teaching and learning needs:
Total Faculty
Contacts
Unique
Contacts
2010
1546
2011
1755
2012 (YTD)
2164
444
724
732
ATCs have consistently supported CU-Boulder’s schools:
2010
2011
2012 (YTD)
Arts and
53%
59%
51%
Sciences
Education
9%
9%
6%
Engineering
7%
3%
10%
Law
16%
17%
16%
Leeds
15%
12%
12%
Music
N/A
N/A
5%
TOTAL
100%
100%
100%
ATC contact as a percent of total faculty per school is as
follows:
2010
2011
2012 (YTD)
Arts and
35%
38%
37%
Sciences
Education
89%
90%
64%
Engineering
19%
9%
20%
Law
96%
93%
81%
Leeds
99%
74%
82%
Music
N/A
N/A
24%
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3. Technology Infrastructure
Launched
Fall 2012
Initiative
Upgraded the campus network
Benefits
Starting in August 2012, began work to improve our
campus network infrastructure. All campus switches
(1000+) were upgraded to support local network
speeds up to 1 gigabit (GB) per second, which is a
tenfold increase over our current network standard of
100 megabits per second. This change will also allow
for improvements in our wireless network, making it
possible to upgrade our wireless access points to the
latest standard and support an increase in network
speeds by 6 times over the current technology..
Initially, this work was planned to be conducted in four
phases over four years; however, given the criticality
and dependency of these upgrades, the team fasttracked the upgrades in the fourth quarter of 2012, on
time and on budget. The work took place in six phases
from September through December.
June 2011
Upgraded infrastructure for www
colorado.edu
Given vendor support for the www.colorado.edu
computing hardware infrastructure reached end of life,
OIT replaced all infrastructure and migrated all content
to a new hardware platform.
Summer
2011
Implemented several improvements
to the campus network
Over the summer, OIT upgraded the campus network
to make it faster and eliminate congestion on the
network.
Summer
2011
Implemented uninterruptible power
supplies for network switches
Over the summer, OIT added uninterruptible power
supplies (UPS) to network switches across campus,
providing backup power in the event of a power outage
up to 30 minutes. This infrastructure enhancement has
helped reduce network outages and prepared the
campus for Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoiP)
telephony.
November
2012
Upgraded the emergency power
system in the campus’ datacenter
located in the Computing Center
building
This upgrade replaced the existing uninterruptible
power supply (UPS) and supported other upgrades to
the emergency power distribution system. The upgrade
resolved issues encountered at this facility in Sept.
2011 and Jan. 2012.
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Fall
Semester,
2012
(Aug. 1,
2012, Dec. 12,
2012)
OIT has approximately 85,000 devices registered on the wireless network and supports an
average of over 25,000 simultaneously connected wireless clients daily. OIT’s wireless
offerings include campus UCB wireless that is available to campus users with an IdentiKey, as
well as Buff Bus UCB wireless and guest wireless for campus visitors.
An average of over 25,000 users connected to wireless in some fashion during the fall semester:
An average of 800 – 900 users connected to the guest wireless during the Fall 2012 semester:
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An average of 500 – 600 users connected to UCB Buff Bus wireless during the Fall 2012 semester:
4. IT Support Services
Launched
August
2012
Initiative
Extended Service Center
hours
Benefits
To make it easier for OIT clients to get the IT support they need,
when they need it, starting Aug. 20, 2012, the IT Service Center
opens earlier and stays open later on weekdays, and also has
regular weekend hours for the first time.
September
2011
Published an IT quickstart guide for faculty,
staff and students
To make it easier for faculty, staff and students, OIT published an
IT quick-start guide summarizing the steps users need to get
started with critical campus technology services such as IdentiKey,
E-mail, UCB Wireless, Wired Internet, Portals, IT Training,
Academic Technology, Desktop Support, IT Security and more.
2012 year
to date
The IT Service Center
help desk supported the
campus’ IT issues and
service requests
Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 31, 2012, the IT Service Center help desk
has responded to nearly 40,000 calls for IT help or service
requests from faculty, students and staff.
The top IT issues clients called about, in descending order, include:
1. Help with IdentiKey user IDs and passwords
2. General desktop support
3. CU-Link student e-mail
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4.
5.
6.
7.
Support with using and education technology facility
Login issues with UCDAccess
Requests for account setup
Signups for the CU Police Department’s laptop anti-theft
program
8. Help using Microsoft Exchange E-mail
9. Support migrating from CU-Link e-mail to Exchange e-mail
10. Requests for new IdentiKey user IDs and passwords
2012 year
to date
OIT’s two campus IT
Walk-in Desktop Support
Centers supported the
campus’ IT issues and
service requests
Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 31, 2012, the two IT Walk-in Desktop
Support Centers, located in the Technology Learning Center
(formerly Telecommunications building) and in the Norlin
Information Commons building, provided help to 5,505 faculty,
students and staff with their IT issues.
The top 5 resolutions to address these clients’ issues, in order from
most to least, are:
1. Virus/Spyware Removal
2. OS Upgrade or Reinstall
3. Software Installation
4. Data Backup
5. Application Issue
Ongoing
Provided comprehensive
information about IT
services on the OIT
website, including a wide
array of self-help
resources to help faculty,
students and staff use
CU-Boulder technologies
and services.
Between Jan. 1, 2012 and Nov. 31, 2012, the OIT website saw
1,599,138 page views, and the average time spent on a page was
1:38.
Top pages visited, in descending order, include:
 IdentiKey
 CULearn
 VPN
 Software and Hardware
 Exchange
 Quick Start
 D2L
The site saw 38,798 visits from mobile device, including tablets.
Top mobile devices include:
 iPhone
 iPad
 SonyEricsson LT15i Xperia Arc
 iPod Touch
 T-Mobile myTouch4G
 HTC Incredible and EVO
 Motorola DroidX
The site saw 2,102 visits via social media referrals. Top referrers
include:
 Facebook
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

Blogger
Twitter
These data are for Jan. 1, 2012, through Nov. 30, 2012. In order to depict
proactive client visits to the site, these data exclude campus lab and kiosk
default home pages that are served from the OIT website pages.
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5. IT Security
Launched
October
2012
Initiative
Issued new standard antivirus for
Macintosh
Benefits
The IT Security Office provided a new standard
antivirus software, called Sophos Endpoint Protection
for Mac, replacing iAntivirus, which maker Symantec
stopped supporting earlier this year. Sophos is
available for all CU-Boulder-provided computers that
are used by faculty, staff and students.
To date in
2012
Addressed approximately 50
significant IT security related
incidents
Incidents included software security updates (e.g.,
Adobe, Apple, Java, Microsoft, etc.) that involved
updating campus software to ensure continued
compatibility of OIT systems.
September
2011
Implemented malicious website
protection technology
IT Security implemented web security technology that
helps protect the campus from websites that are known
to contain malware and transmit data back to a hacker.
Blocked websites and ads display a notice to users.
OIT’s “Phishing E-mails” information page displays
reported phishing e-mails, to help raise awareness
about false e-mails. The page was launched in 2012,
and thus far it has received 600 views. This page is
gaining steam, and we anticipate many more visits as
we continue to promote and prioritize this important
information resource.
March
2011
Launched IdentityFinder technology,
further securing private data
Identity Finder enables faculty, staff and student
employees to scan the content of all computer files to
identify private data that should be protected. Action
can then be taken to protect this sensitive information,
preventing a gap in security.
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Jan. – Nov.,
2012
Provided students, faculty and staff
with Microsoft and Apple antivirus
software as a common good service
to protect their technologies.
From Jan. 1 to Nov. 31, 2012, clients downloaded
antivirus software as follows:
Software
Downloads Individuals
Microsoft Forefront
1865
753
Antivirus for PC
(In 2010, Forefront was downloaded 5,143 times. In
2011, it was downloaded 2,572 times.)
On Oct. 26, 3012, the following software became
available. From Oct. 26 to Nov. 31, 2012, clients
downloaded it as follows:
Software
Downloads Individuals
System Center 2012
82
65
Endpoint Antivirus for
Mac
Sophos AntiVirus for
334
n/a
Mac* (launched Oct.
19, 2012)
*Provided to students, faculty and staff at all CU campuses.
6. Alliances, Partnerships and Studies
Launched
January
2012
Initiative
Conducted a future of labs study
Benefits
Conducted a study regarding converting central
computing labs into flexible-use spaces and deliver lab
software to students, faculty and staff over the campus
network.
December
2012
Conducting teaching and learning
spaces study
The Teaching and Learning Spaces committee is
working to better understand campus needs and to
propose support, maintenance, and funding for the
technology in centrally- and departmentally-managed
teaching and learning spaces, including instructional
and open computing labs. The committee will submit
its proposals to the Provost and to the Senior Vice
Chancellor for Budget and Finance.
Ongoing
Increased understanding and
alignment to IT Information Library
(ITIL) industry best practices
In support of continuous improvement, OIT is adopting
ITIL best practices. According to the official website,
ITIL is “the most widely adopted approach for IT
Service Management in the world. It provides a
practical, no-nonsense framework for identifying,
planning, delivering and supporting IT services to the
business.” In 2012, 67 OIT staff completed formal ITIL
training and certification.
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Current Strategic Initiatives
1. Business Performance Excellence (BPE)
In a Nutshell
In 2012, OIT launched a BPE initiative, in partnership with Dr. Jeff Luftig, Professor of the Engineering
Management Program. This program aims to permanently and sustainably change the OIT
organizational culture.
Overview
OIT is partnered with Dr. Jeff Luftig of the Engineering Management Program for its BPE
initiative. The primary goal of this initiative is to render OIT a client-needs responsive and
employee-empowered organization, as assessed by metrics, and as a sustainable culture
not dependent on any set of persons.
According to Dr. Luftig, empowered employees know: what is expected of them; how what
they do is part of organizational mission and purpose; and how they will contribute. In
addition, they have the skills and resources they need to be successful.
Learn More
To learn more about this initiative, please view this memo that went out to OIT staff
regarding BPE.
Proactive Customer Surveys
On Oct. 15, 2012, OIT launched a new survey that provides critical feedback from faculty,
staff and students. Shortly after receiving help from OIT, an email goes out to our clients
with a link for a quick follow-up survey.
Clients are asked to share how satisfied they are with OIT services and what specifically
they find satisfying or dissatisfying. All answers are strictly confidential, and no individual
responses are shared.
The collective and continued input of our clients is critical to enable OIT to clearly
understand what is and isn’t working. If we don’t know about problems, then we cannot
work on adequate solutions, and that is why this process is so important.
Here is the current report of trends from the reactive customer surveys.
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2. Major OIT Initiatives
In a Nutshell
OIT has several ongoing technology initiatives. This section summarizes the current initiatives that
aim to meet the critical technology needs of faculty, students and staff.
1. Innovative Campus Technology
Initiative
Google Apps for
Education and Microsoft
Office 365
Benefits
OIT is undertaking a major change in the way e-mail, calendaring and other
collaboration services are provided. Student e-mail will be migrated from an
outdated, in-house solution (i.e., CULink) to Google Apps for Education, which
includes Gmail and Google Calendar. Faculty and staff e-mail will be moved from
an in-house hosted Microsoft Exchange service to Microsoft Office 365, which is
a cloud-based service that also includes other collaboration and productivity
tools. Eventually students, faculty and staff will be all able to use both services,
and the OIT will support an ability to select their preferred e-mail and
calendaring platform.
Conducting Identity and
Access Management
Study
OIT is collaborating with University Information Services (UIS) and the Denver
and Colorado Springs campuses to conduct a study regarding shared identity
management infrastructure. A shared approach could improve processes to
create and maintain accounts and access privileges, triggered by updates in the
source systems (i.e., HRMS and ISIS). It could also allow campuses to share data
to "cross-authenticate," whereby credentials provided by one campus could be
used for services provided by another.
2. Teaching and Learning with Technology
Initiative
Campus and System
Strategy on Digital
Education
Benefits
OIT is working with campus and system leadership to better understand the
campus’ teaching and learning environment in the context of national and
global education. Likely outcomes of this strategic initiative include venturing
into a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and providing tools and support to
encourage a “flip-the-classroom” approach to teaching.
Technology and Campus
Strategic Studies
OIT is currently leading several strategic and technology tools studies to shape
the campus’ future IT environment. A campuswide group is determining how
best to continue to fund classroom and lab spaces to support teaching and
learning. A second group, working with the Office of Diversity, Equity and
Community Engagement, is rethinking how different units (e.g., Disability
Services, University Communications, OIT and Human Resources) can
collaborate to better meet the needs of students, faculty and staff that use
assistive technologies because of a disability. Three smaller studies planned for
the spring semester include an independent (not publisher-sponsored) etextbook pilot, a web-based cellphone student response system pilot and an
investigation of the correlation between student computing device ownership,
student computing lab usage and student socioeconomic status.
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Rich Media Enterprise
Streaming
OIT is establishing streaming media services for the campus to enable two
things. First, it will enable faculty and staff to host and deliver copyrightsensitive materials in a fair use and protected manner (i.e., restricted access and
non-downloadable). Second, the service will provide live streaming and
archiving of classes/lectures, presentations and events using Kaltura opensource video hosting technology.
IT in teaching and
learning
OIT is partnering with the College of Arts and Sciences Support of Education
through Technology (ASSETT) and the Provost’s office regarding how CUBoulder can better use IT in teaching and learning (including an approach to
campus-wide advising and a new LMS).
2. Technology Infrastructure
Initiative
Project Management
Office and Project
Portfolio management
Benefits
OIT is maturing its project management and portfolio management processes,
focusing on three main goals:
1) Better prioritize our work and have consistent shared priorities across the
organization.
2) Ensure that when services are launched or changed through a project, they
are completely supportable through fully implemented support and operations
processes and documentation.
3) Improve our ability to execute on projects to meet established schedules and
deliverables.
Datacenters
OIT developed a comprehensive datacenter strategy for the campus, to support
the growing needs for research and administrative computing. The strategy
includes: continuing development of the Space and Science Center (SPSC)
(formerly Sybase); developing a plan for a possible data center in the to-be-built
SEEC Annex (formerly MacAllister); and growing the Janus supercomputer
container to serve more high-density computing. OIT is also developing a plan
to facilitate the transition of many small, local datacenters across campus into
future datacenters in the in the SPSC, SEEC and Janus buildings. The benefits
will include: improving physical and technical security; providing power and
cooling redundancy as well as backup, and scalability that small, local
datacenters do not have; helping reduce high costs for power to support
datacenter cooling and heating; and un-impeding growing limits to research
computing.
Network infrastructure –
ongoing upgrades
OIT is upgrading the core network infrastructure to support continued wired
and wireless growth on campus. The backbone of the network will be upgraded
from 10-gigabit (GB) to 40 GB per second. In addition, in-building networks will
be upgraded from 1 to 10 GB, to support growing needs on the distribution
layer.
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3. IT Support Services
Initiative
Standardizing desktop
support campuswide
Benefits
OIT is working to realign its desktop support services. Once launched, this new
service will provide desktop, laptop and smart device support on a more
equitable, less “have/have-not” basis across campus. This improved service
aims to eliminate the disparities, where some have support while others do not,
by standardizing desktops and consolidating much of the distributed and nonstandard support across campus.
Continue improving IT
Service Center
OIT continues the work to improve the services offered by the IT Service Center,
or help desk. Goals include resolving 80 percent of calls within the first call,
adding a remote desktop capability, increasing evening and weekend hours, and
adding new tools that will allow end users to track the progress of their trouble
tickets and service requests.
Launching a new Web
Express service
OIT is launching workshops, training and technical support for all academic
departments. This new service will include standardized web content tools with
CU-Boulder branded themes that groups can use to build and host self-service
websites.
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4. IT Security
Initiative
Network access control
Benefits
OIT is replacing the system used to register computers on the network. The new
system will improve the security of the network by allowing risk-based security
requirements for network access and much more rapid response to security
incidents. The initial deployment will focus on providing network
authentication for networks where registration is currently in place (e.g.,
residence hall networks and wireless). Future phases will focus on ensuring
that computers and devices that connect to the university network meet
security requirements (in particular those departments maintaining high risk
information) and enable support of campus emergency communication efforts.
Information risk
management
improvements
As part of a university-wide effort to measure the effectiveness of efforts to
protect University information and IT systems, the CU-Boulder campus is
implementing an information security metrics program. The core objective of
this program is to assist leadership in understanding risk. Information from
security audits, policy exceptions, security incidents, information asset
inventory, a new risk self-assessment tool and security awareness and training
data will be aggregated to identify risks to the campus and individuals
departments. As part of the effort, all departments will be asked to complete the
risk self-assessment survey tool.
5. Research Computing
Initiative
NSF subsidized storage
Benefits
Research Computing (RC) at CU-Boulder is committed to the vision of
redefining discovery and transforming research support by setting new
standards. In support of this, RC will implement an foundational storage
infrastructure. University Libraries and RC propose to acquire, deploy and
maintain an expandable petascale storage infrastructure.
The CU-Boulder petaLibrary integrates disk and tape to enable faculty, staff,
postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students to build, store, share, and
merge large and growing data collections. The petaLibrary will be made
available to all CU-Boulder’s researchers at the cost of the storage media.
NSF funded network for
science
Researchers at CU-Boulder use a hierarchy of computational resources, ranging
from desktops to lab machines to campus clusters to national supercomputers.
As they compute on these resources, they inevitably want to move data among
them. The current Research Computing (RC) DMZ (RC-DMZ), is a 10 GigE
dedicated layer-2 network serving as a critical infrastructure for a number of
data transfer services provided by RC to the CU-Boulder campus community.
The NSF funded improvements of the RC-DMZ will include better traffic
separation, improved scalability and resiliency, state-of-the-art, real-time
security and performance monitoring, and integrated Dynamic Network System
(DYNES) capabilities. Enhancing the existing RC-DMZ is collaboration between
RC, the departments of Computer Science (CS), Physics and Molecular, Cellular
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Research data
management services
and Developmental Biology (MCDB), the National Snow and Ice Data Center
(NSIDC), and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) – in consultation with
other departments and institutes.
Research Computing (RC) and University Libraries will follow a
recommendation of the Data Management Task Force to formalize the existing
collaboration to support research data management. RC and the Libraries will
establish a new virtual organization call Research Data Services (RDS). RDS will
support at the beginning the following services:
i.
Data management planning, consulting, and training
ii.
Research data storage
iii.
Metadata and documentation consulting
iv.
Support for sharing data among collaborators during active
projects
v.
Periodic ata value assessment
vi.
Referral to existing archival services
vii.
Referral to existing data visualization/analysis resources
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OIT Organization
Here is the current OIT organization chart:
For more information about the OIT organization, visit the Organization page of the AVC for
IT website.
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