ITS reorganization and initiatives support campus

Department reorganization

Information Technology Services recently completed an internal reorganization that will support its commitment to provide enhanced customer service, clear communication and transformational leadership to the campus community. National searches will soon be under way to find highly qualified staff for key vacant positions. As part of the reorganization, the Client Support Services area has been realigned and is now organized to better provide rapid and quality response to support the technical needs of students, faculty and staff.

Customer service enhancements

ITS is in the beginning phases of a redesign of its website using the OmniUpdate content management system for publishing, editing and managing content and to align with the campus use of the OnmiUpdate tool. The redesign will realign the site’s navigation, reorganize its content for a user-friendly experience and incorporate responsive templates that allow for easy browsing on mobile devices.

ITS also launched two new services in March to help alleviate the stress for faculty and staff in need of a computer repair: a Laptop Loaner Program and a Concierge Repair Pick-Up Service. The Laptop Loaner Program provides a laptop to those needing one while their state-purchased machine is under repair. ITS has both PCs and Macs available for loan. The Concierge Repair Pick-Up Service will come to your office, pick up your computer and deliver it to the Help Desk for diagnosis and repair. Once the repair is complete, the Concierge Service will return the computer to your office and ensure it is working properly.

Innovations Team

As part of the ITS internal reorganization, staff has been dedicated to a new ITS Innovations Team that will provide dynamic response to new ideas as well as respond to requests for innovation from the campus community. The team is comprised of ITS professionals, students and faculty and will work on projects that are approved through the Technical Advisory Board, which will advise and prioritize Innovation Team projects. To date, the following Innovations Team pilot projects have been identified:

    •  Upgrade T2 Flex software and implement e-business – This project will enhance the ability to purchase and pay for parking passes and tickets online.
    • Center for Civic Engagement outreach website upgrade – This project – a collaboration with computer science students – will enhance the Center for Civic ability to match Binghamton University student volunteers with interested in becoming involved in the local community with community agencies in need of assistance.
    • Budget Book process upgrade – This will be a collaborative project with computer science students to automate a purely manual process to create “budget books” showing financial allocations and commitments for various departments on campus.

Expanded relationship opens IT research to entire campus

With IT operations providing support to virtually everyone on campus, a recent upgrade to Binghamton University’s contract with IT research firm Gartner now allows access to information technology research to every student, faculty member and staff member on campus.

The opportunities now open to learn about best practices and what is happening in the IT industry can benefit everyone, said Gartner’s Andrea Adair. “I’m a client manager and my sole responsibility is to ensure Binghamton University is getting value from its investment.”

Gartner, a worldwide company and the oldest to focus on the IT industry, provides fact-based research and consulting services to help their clients use and manage IT for optimum performance. Only institutions of higher education can gain the kind of access to Gartner research that Binghamton now has.

The Information Technology Services Task Force took advantage of Gartner services last fall when gathering background to make its recommendations for the future of ITS operations on campus. Vice President for Research Bahgat Sammakia chaired the task force. “We turned to Gartner Consulting to help us determine best practices,” Sammakia said. “The resources and research they provided us on trends in the IT industry, particularly as it relates to higher education, helped us refine our recommendations in a way that would have been difficult otherwise.”

Gartner’s understanding of the higher education market is definitely a plus for the campus, said Adair. “For example, IT staff can use it to gain information about vendors in making an important purchasing decision. Gartner is vendor neutral because Gartner is a research company and has a strict research and criteria methodology. That’s an attractive quality,” she said. “In addition, academia is interested in research in general so in terms of faculty, we have some that use Gartner research to assist them in developing curriculum for not just computer science but for management programs for example. We’re also a resource to direct their students to.
                     
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Client Support Services and Academic Computing

Virtual Desktop usage
    • Fall 2013 semester saw an average usage of 88 logins per day serving 665 distinct users. 
    • Spring 2014 semester (to date) shows an average usage of 74 logins per day.

Printing within the public computer labs
    • 6,612,342 pages were printed in the fall 2013 semester
    • 2,672,421 pages have been printed through March 11, 2014, for the spring 2014 semester

ITS support of University Union renovations
    • 95 computers have been installed

Classroom upgrades
    • Four general-purpose classrooms were renovated to the new “digital hybrid” room standard.

Help Desk
    • Tickets opened: 2,797
    • Tickets closed by Help Desk: 2,020
    • 72 percent of tickets were closed by first-level support (Help Desk staff)
    • Phone calls answered: 3,020
    • 3 tons of eRecycling collected and processed since Jan. 1,2014

Operations and infrastructure

Construction
    • Center of Excellence – Continued work to install security cameras, panic alarms, data network and telephones
    • Dickinson Hall Project - Telecommunications installed 68,000 feet of cable to support data, cable TV, wireless, door access and security camera services
    • Installed 38 panic alarms for the Univeristy Union construction
    • Installed 35 security cameras in the Binghamton University MarketPlace

Services

    • VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Project continues to move forward and the roll-out will continue over the next three years. VoIP system software and hardware have been installed in preparation for phasing in the remainder of the campus who are using analog phones. To date, 344 ShoreTel VoIP phones have been installed.

Client support

    • Telecommunications
      o The Telecommunications staff responded to 104 repair requests and completed 288 work orders for new service and modifications to existing service.
Systems
    • The Systems group applied updates and patches to the Blackboard production environment as well as made configuration changes and performed software upgrades on the main campus web server to resolve PCI compliance issues.

Networking

    • The Networking team finished the network for the Center of Excellence, University Union renovation and Binghamton University MarketPlace. The team also assisted Sodexo in bringing its Point of Sale system online for the MarketPlace and brought a new enterprise backup system solution online. The Networking group also initiated phase one of a consolidated upgrade system at a cost of $300,000.