March 2009

I often speak of the division as a service organization. Our mission is to provide the services and support needed by Kent State's students, faculty and staff so that they can learn, teach and work more effectively.

When many think of service, they immediately connect with those frontline staff members who have direct contact with our clients. But the truth is that every one of our roles contributes to our service mission, and all of us must continually explore new ways to provide better service to our constituents.

Examine your own business processes and products. Are they easy to use? Do they add value for our community? Are there obstacles or barriers that should be removed? In short, where do we excel and where can we improve upon our core mission?

Let's make this an ongoing dialogue. If you have ideas to contribute to the discussion, give me a call or drop a note to cio@kent.edu.

Ed Mahon
Vice President for Information Services
and Chief Information Officer

Infrastructure and Operations

Security

• With the demise of the Ruckus music service, the Office of Security and Access Management recommends the following music service providers as alternatives for students: www.pandora.com, www.deezer.com, www.spiralfrog.com or www.imeem.com. These sites offer legal, free music streaming or downloads. With the exception of Spiral Frog, all are cross-platform compatible. For questions regarding the legality of a specific music provider, call 330-672-5566 or e-mail security@kent.edu.

Client Infrastructure Group

• The group will present at the annual Ohio Higher Education Computing Council Conference in March. Presentations feature Kent State's implementation of McAfee Endpoint Encryption and Blackberry management in higher education. Ryan Miles, Ben Pijor and Chris Bues are representing the division.
• FlashZone XpressConnect, the new wireless configuration tool, was put into production at the start of the semester. Handling Windows and Macintosh platforms, the tool walks users through an easy, one-time configuration and assists staff in troubleshooting.
• Work began Feb. 16 on the Active Directory Restructure Project, with BlueChip LLC on site for 10 weeks to assist. The project will move more than 100 departments to the standardized Active Directory structure, allowing for easier, secure provisioning of client management tools.
• Testing and configuration for the new Kent State Virtual Private Network (VPN) has been completed for 64-bit operating systems. Part of the proxy retirement project, the new VPN software is available as a single downloadable program that automatically configures the appropriate client and removes unneeded proxy settings.
• Planning is underway for the group's spring and summer projects, including Altiris rollouts, a pilot of Apple Open Directory and McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator.

Network/Telecommunications Services

• New redundant Infoblox DNS/DHCP and IP management appliances have been put into production in the Library and Moulton Hall data centers and now support DHCP for the dynamic assignment of IP addresses for all wireless Local Area Networks (LANs). Network Services will continue to move services to the new appliances over the next several months.
• The networking, VPN and tunneling facilities for the Columbus Disaster Recovery site have been installed. This enables the placement of key critical services that require immediate recovery in the event of a disaster in the Kent Campus data centers.

Operations

• As a result of the Mainframe Decommissioning Project, the mainframe and three other pieces of supporting equipment are being offered for sale through Kent State's surplus equipment auction process. Power saved from shutting off this equipment, approximately 6 kilowatts, would account for more than half of the total power used by an average home in the United States. The power was delivered on 15 circuits that are now available for other equipment. Additionally, a substantial amount of storage, both tape and disk, has been freed.
• The Data Center Server Equipment Audit is complete and being maintained daily. There are 531 physical and virtual servers in the Library and Moulton Hall data centers. In addition to tracking current equipment for warranty, support and server details, this process tracks the status of inbound equipment and equipment that has been retired.

Server Support Group

• The group is studying costs associated with providing various services — such as file servers, virtual machines and Exchange — in order to make them more cost-effective.
• The Exchange Disaster Recovery process is up, and the group began initial data replication.

Educational Technology

• Working with the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Ben Hollis developed an interactive Web site to enhance student learning through professional feedback. Students in a magazine design course upload work to the site, and industry professionals evaluate them online. The project will be presented in March as part of the Learning, Libraries and Technology Conference in Columbus.
• Educational Technology is working with the Faculty Professional Development Center and Turning Technologies LLC to introduce the use of a classroom response, or "clicker," system with this fall's freshmen class. Clickers are used to support engaged learning in larger lecture courses. Demonstrations are being conducted for interested faculty in the Moulton Hall Ballroom on Feb. 26.
• At the request of Provost Robert G. Frank, the educational technologists will be heightening their focus on the development of distance learning and First Year Experience courses. This change has resulted in several staff relocations. Educational technologists now will be located in Moulton Hall. The course management group is relocating from the second to the third floor of Moulton, and Carol Moore will split her time between Moulton and Michael Schwartz Center as a liaison between the Office of Continuing and Distance Education and Educational Technology.

End User and Business Services

• The Kent State University Helpdesk faced a busy start to the new semester, providing support to 5,986 callers in January. Additionally, 684 e-mails were received.
• The Helpdesk is now able to send an automated reply message to all individuals who request assistance via e-mail. The message sets expectations for response times, alerts users with urgent needs to call for immediate assistance and includes a tip of the month.
• Beginning March 4, ResNet calls will be centralized at the Helpdesk, heightening efficiencies and simplifying service for students, who will be able to call one number for all of their technical support.
• Beginning in fall 2009, the department will expand Kent State's computer repair service. The new computer repair service, named The Tech Spot, will serve all students, as well as repair the personal computers of faculty and staff who use them for university business. Additionally, the team will be authorized to perform onsite, warranty work for Apple and Dell units. A limited pilot will launch this summer.

Enterprise Support and Application Services

• The eServices team launched two new workflows this past month. A long desired workflow to expedite student grade changes was completed, as was the voluntary separation workflow to notify a variety of areas when someone leaves the university.
• The online complete term withdrawal process also was put into production and enables students to complete an exit questionnaire logging their reasons for leaving the university. This enhances the potential for future follow-up with the student.
• Six members of the Enterprise Support and Application Services team will present this month at the SunGard National Conference, called Summit. Rebecca Benya, Jamie Jackson, Lindy Lewis, Coleen Santee, Shelley Sherwin and Holly Slocum will represent Kent State.
• During the next few weeks, the Kent State Banner Users Group, University Banner Committee and Data Standards and Governance Committee will be convened. These committees will be instrumental in preparing for the upgrade to Banner 8.2 and directing the future development and enhancement of Kent State's Unified Digital Campus.