Internal Communications

ITD Senior Staff Meeting August 15, 2006
Brief notes and updates

CIO/transition planning

Sam again emphasized that ITD needs to prepare for the significant changes coming in the organization of campus IT. He wants to position ITD staff, core activities and the “linkages” among them as best possible. Sam said he expects to be asked to identify our “most critical” activities; it is not clear how broadly the criteria will be defined.  Sam is hoping for constructive input from staff, and this will be the main focus of the full staff meeting in October.

Greg Sparks reported that VC Leffler has already had a meeting with RMIS staff, and that a follow-up meeting with Provost and ITD is anticipated. Chancellor Oblinger has announced that the new CIO will not report directly to him; it is not clear to whom the CIO will report, however. A slight majority of peer institutions have CIOs who report to the chief academic officer. A committee is being formed that will study the operation of IT on campus and make recommendations about the new CIO’s role and how the university’s central IT organizations will be integrated. Sam said he expects the committee leader and membership will be announced around the end of the month. He expects the committee leader to be a “seasoned and sophisticated” IT professional and that there will be one or more representatives from peer institutions.

Sam sees the Virtual Computing Lab as one of the projects that differentiate ITD as an innovative organization responsive to campus technology needs. He was happy to report that Dr. Martin-Vega, new dean of Engineering, also seemed impressed by the VCL capabilities when Sam and AVP Vouk paid a courtesy call at his office recently.

As an example of another project that will have a significant impact on NC State’s IT planning, Sam is working with others on a restructuring plan for MCNC. The goal is to assure networking capabilities that benefit all UNC system institutions. Sam is chair of the MCNC advisory committee.

Work-schedule flexibility and telecommuting

Sam asked directors and managers to work together to develop work schedule flexibility and telecommuting guidelines that are consistent across all ITD units. Debbie Carraway will schedule a meeting to share the work Systems has done on this topic. Sam would also like more staff to experiment with working from home one day a month, if possible and appropriate.  In part, this is to help with ongoing disaster preparedness and business continuity planning. In an emergency or more protracted crisis such as an epidemic, the university is planning on the continuation of the critical services ITD provides. Sam would like directors and staff to develop and test the telecommuting model to determine when and how it could help meet disaster recovery/business continuity needs. This will likely require that both managers and staff develop some new skills and metrics, he observed

Renovation news

Stan North Martin reported that he expects the major renovation on Room 208 to be done before the new elevator installation starts in mid-November; however, he does not expect that the move into new 208 space will be possible until the semester break or a little later.  The new doorways for the 2nd floor offices near the elevator (218A & C) should be completed before the 208 renovations take place. Facilities plans to bring the access ramp at the back of the building up to code this fiscal year as well. If you would like to see the latest version of the renovation plans, Stan has copies in his new office, room 219H.

ClassTech Reports

Stan reported that ClassTech’s three 2005-06 survey and assessment reports, including the LITRE ClassTech Assessment Report, are now online:  http://www.ncsu.edu/classtech/survey_results/2005-06/index.php. The multidisciplinary assessment team was led by Joni Spurlin, university director of assessment. 

Provost staff approves student email proposal

At a recent Provost staff meeting, Susan Klein and Harry Nicholos presented the proposal to make email an official means of university communication and to designate Unity email as the official email address for students.  Students will still be able to have their email forwarded to an off-campus account, but current student email and associated business processes will be changed.

 The proposal was made after considerable discussion with affected units and constituencies on campus, including the new Student Information System project leaders. The Provost and staff approved the proposal. A new Regulation will be drafted and will likely take effect by fall 2007

USMDB to be enhanced

Susan and Harry reported that Systems and Help Desk staff are working together to improve the User Storage Management Data Base "Quota" system. They will enhance the automated renewal warnings that are sent to those who purchase additional disk space. It will also be possible for those who need additional storage space to delegate purchase, renewal and space allocation tasks to their desktop support staff.

Accessibility news

Saroj has scheduled two more open Q and A sessions for those with questions about the Web Page Accessibility Regulation. The sessions will be held August 31 and September 6 in the ITTC Lab A, DH Hill Library. She is also in the process of implementing a pilot project to test the viability of using the latest version of voice recognition software for creating text transcripts. Shes reported that faculty response has been good. At the most recent Web Design interest group meeting, John Klein gave a presentation on techniques for dynamically creating alt tags for lab usage charts and graphs.

University home page site redesign

Harry reported that Ripple Interactive has presented the University Web Committee with several preliminary site redesigns for the university’s home page and secondary pages. He said was please with the work they presented.

DELTA update

Since Sharon Pitt has moved on to a position at another school, Lou Harrison and Donna Petherbridge have moved up to senior management in DELTA. Lou will be serving as the DELTA liaison at the ITD senior staff meetings. Lou is also the current chair of the Academic IT Directors.

 

Hope this is helpful,
Jude