February 2009

Thank you to everyone for your participation in January’s Division Meeting. It was impressive to see so many of you present the accomplishments of the fall and the plans for an exciting spring semester. It was even more gratifying to see the extensive collaboration occurring among various departmental groups and the thanks you offered to your team members for their contributions and support.

I encourage everyone to check out the tactical plans that align our division’s efforts with Kent State’s institutional goals, which can be found in the Divisional Meetings folder on the Information Services shared drive (S:\Divisional Meetings\011509\Tactical Plans). These plans outline upcoming projects over the next 18 months.

Those of you with project-related responsibilities may see your names attached to specific objectives. Moving forward this semester, it will be important that we stay close to our core projects and services as we continue to examine out-of-the-box ideas for streamlining efforts and reducing expenses while providing the highest possible level of service.

If you’d like to continue the conversation from the meeting or if you have additional topics to discuss, 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

• Participants from the Operations, Server Support, Network and Portal teams will take part in a Disaster Recovery exercise from Feb. 21 to 25 in Philadelphia. A team from Enterprise Support and Application Services will perform validation testing in a Copley, Ohio, facility on Feb. 25. The exercise will test procedures for backup and recovery of systems from FlashLine to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to verify that, in the event of a disaster, core services can be recovered accurately and quickly. A previous exercise tested the Human Resources module of the ERP.
• Telecommunications is working to harden the existing Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)/Domain Name System (DNS) environment (the systems that define IP addresses on a network and that assign friendly domain names to IP addresses). This work is being done in preparation for several upcoming projects, including unified communications/messaging and Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
• The Server Support Group’s server virtualization project is entering its final phase. Kent State’s ongoing project already utilizes software recently adopted by Chancellor Eric Fingerhut’s office for the entire University System of Ohio. To date, 90 physical servers have been transitioned to 10 virtual servers. An additional 60 servers will be consolidated to eight virtual servers once the project is finalized during spring 2009.

Educational Technology

• Last fall, Educational Technology completed a course Web site (http://classes.jmc.kent.edu/bbr/) for Gary Hanson, a faculty member in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The site is used to deliver course assignments in his Broadcast Beat Reporting class and allows students the real-world experience of uploading video, images and text files that are then displayed in the style of a public news Web site.
• The department worked with Emily Aldredge from the New York City Studio, an extension of the School of Fashion Design and Merchandising, to build a Web site (http://nycstudio.kent.edu/) promoting the New York fashion program to current and prospective students. The Web site, which went live last month, is used to recruit students to the program and as a resource for those already participating.
• Jim Raber recently completed a Flashmedia Conversion Tool. The application simplifies a complicated process by allowing users to upload video in practically any format and have it automatically converted to .flv format and uploaded to a streaming server. Users are given a URL to use on their Web sites and a code if they would prefer to embed the video there. The application also allows users to create various-sized projectors without using Flash development software. Educational Technologists are working with a handful of faculty members to test the application before making it public.

End User and Business Services

• The Kent State University Helpdesk provided support to 3,590 callers during the month of December 2008, with an average 70 percent first call problem resolution.
• The department successfully negotiated a significant reduction in the cost-per-call for after-hours Helpdesk support. Based on average volume, the resulting savings total approximately $56,000 annually.
• This fall, ResNet provided on-campus student technical support for 2,470 walk-up personal computer repairs, 634 checked-in repairs and 1,607 callers. Later this spring, all ResNet calls will be centralized at the Kent State University Helpdesk, heightening efficiencies and simplifying service for students, who will be able to call one number for all of their technical support.

Enterprise Support and Application Services

• With full implementation of the Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP), Kent State officially retired its mainframe environment on Jan. 5 at a cost savings of more than $600,000 per year, which includes $6,000 in electricity consumption. The mainframe supported previous administrative systems.
• The university’s FlashLine intranet portal — which provides single sign-on, self-service access to numerous important university systems — was upgraded successfully prior to the start of the spring semester.
• The establishment of a Project Management Office (PMO) continues to provide benefits to the division by improving communications, managing client expectations and scheduling project resources more effectively. Accomplishments include steps toward the standard documentation of projects and processes; development of a charter to launch projects and sign-off for completion; and creation of templates for standard tasks, timelines and project plans.
• Information Services’ Technology Training is coordinating a series of online courses for the Microsoft Office suite of programs. The courses are free to Kent State employees and provide flexibility for participants to complete them at their own pace from any computer with Internet access. A complete list of courses is available online.

Thank you to everyone in Information Services who was able to contribute to this year’s United Way campaign. The division exceeded its fundraising goal, helping Kent State surpass its system-wide target. Congratulations!