Annual Report for FY 2008
This has been a busy year for the Division of Information Technology. The staff has concentrated on extending and renewing various parts of the IT infrastructure in advance of the Strategic Technology Plan as well as upgrading computer labs and improving procedures. Many issues the campus community requested from IT have been addressed, although several major items had to be deferred due to staffing and funding issues. The following list highlights the accomplishments by department over the past year:
Data Management
In addition to the normal enterprise applications maintenance, various patches and upgrades, the Data Management group spent several months developing and testing a housing application for students. The integration of the West Campus application required an update to the Online Housing Application. Another project was assisting with the installation and configuration of Campus Loan manager which is a web-based student loan application. A request received through two of the technology committees (ATAG & ITAG) to have student photos added as an option so faculty could have a student photo with their class roster was fulfilled. This request was implemented by integrating the photos from Bobcat Card system with Banner IDs. Other improvements and additions include: experiential transcripts, the "Student Account Center", "Change of Major", the library's faculty extract procedure, the "Regent's Test Application", and the Greek report application.
Networking
The GCSU wired campus network was extended to several new locations including the Watts House and the Macon Center. The wireless network was expanded to include the Macon Center, Atlanta Gas Light building, the baseball and intramural fields. The Student Technology Fee Advisory Committee, with the approval of the cio and president, provided the funding to upgrade the wireless network in Arts & Sciences, Herty Hall and Atkinson Hall. Additional buildings will be upgraded as funding permits. Network equipment was upgraded in Blackbridge, White House, Bone House, Beeson, Porter, Parks, Atkinson, Herty, Public Safety and the warehouse in Miller Court. Two Internet firewalls were replaced on campus and one was installed at the Macon Center. The campus firewall rules were completely rewritten. Twelve network servers were upgraded. End of the year funds were used to purchase equipment to upgrade the library network.
Office of the CIO
The Office of the CIO spent the majority of the year planning and improving processes to benefit the GCSU community. In October, we implemented an inventory process for all computers, external hard drives and projectors. This process includes tagging the items with an inventory number before it is delivered to the department. We worked with Purchasing to develop a procedure that improved efficient purchases of software under $1,000 using purchasing cards. In response to campus requests, we worked with University Communications to purchase and began implementation of a Content Management system (Revize) to help simplify maintaining web pages.
During the year several security audit items were completed. These included: installation of electronic locks on data closets, engineering for environmental upgrades to several data closets, new underground conduit for fiber optic cable redundancy on the Mayfair block, the entire physical communications infrastructure was located and documented in AutoCAD format, and provided information to assist in developing the technology strategic plan.
IT experimented with video conferencing using Skype as a production tool and facilitated three video conferencing sessions for the VP of Student Affairs and his division. Several items were tested for the Macon Center for use by the staff as well as for classroom instruction.
The CIO attended meetings and advised the technology committees on campus. He is a member of the Planning Administrative Leadership Council. The CIO revised "Faculty and Staff Equipment and Software Policy". The revision was presented and approved through the GCSU governance process.
Members of IT participated in the planning process for the renovation of several campus buildings: Parks Nursing, Health Sciences, Watts House, Underwood House, Macon Center 4th floor, and planning process and construction of the Multipurpose Building at West Campus.
Members of IT attended four USG meetings with the vice chancellor's advisory committee for information technology, several meetings of the BOR Emergency Operations Committee, a USG Banner hosting meeting, and two USG security advisory committee meetings. The CIO attended Lean Six Sigma for Higher Education training for yellow and green belt training. The Assistant CIO participated in the Baldwin-Milledgeville Wireless Community planning project.
Systems Administration
Last year, IT commissioned a study to explore how we could improve customer services, reduce electrical needs and air conditioning requirements by utilizing virtual file and application servers connected to a mass storage device. The study indicated ways to significantly reduce the numbers of single-purpose server hardware by combining many individual services onto several larger multi-purpose servers and realize a reduction in hardware of about 50% when completed. Based on this study, implementation began with the purchase of three larger servers, VMware software and the associated management software. By July 1, 2008, Systems Administration had created twelve virtual servers which are currently in use.
As a test project, they installed a Sun thin client server and several thin clients around campus as a replacement for standard Kiosks. Based on student feedback, the Firefox web browser software was replaced with Microsoft Internet Explorer and underwent testing in the spring semester.
A Sun fileserver was installed and configured for DegreeWorks, a self-service degree audit tool purchased by Enrollment Management. Two digital document servers, one for Physical Plant and one for the Budget Office were created, tested and implemented. A password reset application was created and implement for the MyCats web interface to satisfy requests by students and improve services.
Technology Support Services
Technical Support Services completed 5,314 work tickets. 1,358 faculty and staff service requests were handled at the help desk and 3,120 required technician assistance to complete. 836 student documented service requests were answered. During Move In weekend, 100 students were assisted with connecting and updating their computers.
Our technicians installed 91 end-of-year purchased computers, 15 new faculty computers, replaced student computing stations in the following locations: Herty lab, Chappell training lab, A&S 271, A&S 141 and Atkinson Hall 307. The staff setup and provided four laptop computers and printers to support the Athletic Auction and setup and provided laptops to SGA for their elections.
The Center for Graduate and Professional Learning in Macon was opened in May 2007. The staff assisted in the relocation of computers from Macon State to the new center and setup two classrooms (60 computers), and setup up 12 multimedia teaching stations.
Summary
This summary shows the highlights of the projects, processing and testing over the past year. The entire staff of IT continues to work toward improving services and providing the best secure and stable technology environment for our campus while expanding our services.
