Information Technology Services activities

New/changing services

• Banner 9 went “live” on Sept. 19, following over eight months of hard work by Information Technology Services (ITS) staff, the SUNY State Information and Campus Administrative System (SICAS) Center and a significant amount effort by key functional users across the University. Banner 9 positions Binghamton University at the leading edge of implemented Banner systems and we are still the largest SUNY to have successfully implemented Banner 9. The migration to Banner 9 was necessitated by prior versions of Banner software no longer being supported in 2019 by the vendor.
  
• The implementation of the Papercut printing system at the beginning of the semester was not without difficulties and challenges. The initial product setup from the vendor was delivered late and was initially less compatible than promised. Due to significant effort by a few ITS staff members, the systems was installed, customized and fully functional by the second week of the semester. Once fully operational, Papercut proved to be a much more robust and efficient print management system than its predecessor, Pharos. An innovative app developed by ITS staff, Print@Binghamton, provides students with the ability to print from personal/mobile devices and to improve the efficiency of the printing system by streamlining the print release process. Students average just over 1 million pages of B&W and over 35,000 color pages printed each month.
  
• The start of the academic school year saw a larger than normal spike in Phishing attacks that netted even our more savvy users. One such attack spoofed the University president’s email address and fooled individuals into responding to the ‘phishing’ attack. The ITS communication team worked in concert with its security operations team to develop an informative and detailed ‘anti-Phishing’ campaign for the entire fall semester.
  
• ITS migrated all student data storage from an ITS-provided ‘H’ drive to Google’s ‘G’ drive, greatly enhancing the portability and mobile access for students to their data. For most students, the ‘G’ drive is more than sufficient for their academic or personal needs. In response to specialized requests from faculty and students for larger academic data storage capabilities, ITS procured and installed sufficient resources to meet this demand. The new ‘requested’ data storage for students is called U-Drive, which provides students with 5GB of local network storage for an entire academic year. This storage is ideal for students who are working with data files that require faster input/output for image manipulation, graphics, CAD systems, etc. Most of this work would occur in computer labs or in the BingView (VDI) environment. U-Drive storage must be requested by faculty for an entire class or by an individual student who needs local network storage for working with larger-sized files.
  
• The Fleischman Center asked ITS to develop a process for students to connect with alumni who could serve as mentors. ITS listened and developed VMock, an application designed to link a student up with an alumnus whose background/experiences best mirror the student’s studies/interests. Among other things, vMock enables the student and alumnus to work collaboratively on résumé development and conduct mock interviews, all to better prepare Binghamton students for the professional work environment.
  
• Eduroam (education roaming) has been part of Binghamton’s network suite of wireless connectivity software for several years and in February 2019, it will become the sole method for wireless connectivity. The decision to abandon busecure (the previously preferred connectivity software) was driven in part by the massive adoption of eduroam by educational institutions worldwide. Eduroam is a secure, world-wide wireless internet access service developed for the international research and education community. Students, researchers, faculty and staff can connect to participating institutions’ wireless networks using their Binghamton credentials and are linked back to Binghamton with full access, no matter where in the world they are connected.
  
• The multi-year project to migrate from Blackboard to myCourses will be concluded in the coming weeks. This project has consumed a significant amount of time across all areas on campus and in particular for several ITS staff members. MyCourses became Binghamton’s course management system for the spring 2017 semester, with Blackboard being ‘maintained’ only for historical access to course management data. Due to academic requirements to provide access to course management data for at least two years since last use, the Blackboard systems had to be maintained concurrently for the last two years.

Upgrades to technical infrastructure

• Telecommunications and Networking have been working diligently, performing software upgrades on network equipment, installing new network connections and planning for upcoming renovation projects in support of campus initiatives. The support that Telecommunications provided to the faculty and staff who migrated from Time Warner cable services to Spectrum was significant and went smoothly. Telecommunications was not aware of anyone who lost cable/network service when they converted to native Spectrum accounts.
  
• A new key management lock-box system for the campus (Morse Watchman) is being tested in Physical Facilities, the pharmacy building and ITS. This electronic, online, managed key lock-box eliminates the need to issue keys to individuals and allows for a smaller number of keys to be made, issued and accounted for. So far, testing has been very favorable with greatly improved key accountability and management. As future locations are renovated or there is new construction, physical security in concert with the Physical Facilities Lock Shop are advocating that Morse Watchman lock boxes be installed.
  
• ITS is working with Physical Facilities and EdComm to complete a minor renovation over the Winter Break of the POD in LN-G103 that entails removal of computers, furniture and existing flooring, and installation of a new floor, replacing furniture and re-installing all of the computers.
  
• ITS staff concluded work on almost 20 projects and continues to work on or has commenced work on the almost 80 projects in the active request queue, with another 30-plus projects submitted since our last report. We also continue to plan for several large-scale projects, beyond the normal influx of projects, anticipated to start in 2019 that will keep the ITS staff busy.