Centre College ITS Annual Report August 28, 2014 A Productive Year for Technology Transformation & Change at Centre During my nearly 25 year career in higher education technology leadership, I cannot remember a more exciting and productive year than 2013-14 here at Centre College. After spending a number of months gathering groups together to share thoughts, needs and insights as well as creating an extensive review and planning document, we have made some great strides in technology development for faculty, staff and, most importantly, Centre students. From the opening of the new Technology Support Center in McReynolds to a new scheduling/ reservation system to a refreshed perspective on customer service, our professional staff in Information Technology Services (ITS) have worked together and performed far beyond my hopes and expectations. We have worked to increase and improve our campus exposure and made departmental changes that make our services more accessible and welcoming… and the response from the campus community has been amazing. Thank you for a great first year! 1 Executive Highlights The main focus during the 2013-14 academic year in ITS was to improve and streamline technology support to our campus community. With the creation of the new Technology Support Center, the addition of a new call tracking system and a fresh perspective on customer service, we hope that the campus has seen a dramatic change in the way we serve our campus community and how they see our department. Improved Facilities The newly renovated location for our datacenter in McReynolds is a huge improvement. The new datacenter is now environmentally sound and provides a new level of reliability to crucial core campus online systems. Focus on Automation In 2014-15, ITS will focus on several projects to automate and streamline business operations in administrative departments. 2014 ANNUAL REPORT ON CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY 2013-2014 Information Technology Services Report on Centre College Technology and Support Operations for the Campus Community Keith Fowlkes, M.B.A. Chief Information Officer & Director of ITS Centre College
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Centre College ITS Annual Report August 28, 2014
A Productive Year for Technology Transformation & Change at Centre During my nearly 25 year career in higher education technology leadership, I cannot remember a more exciting and productive year than 2013-14 here at Centre College. After spending a number of months gathering groups together to share thoughts, needs and insights as well as creating an extensive review and planning document, we have made some great strides in technology development for faculty, staff and, most importantly, Centre students.#
From the opening of the new Technology Support Center in McReynolds to a new scheduling/ reservation system to a refreshed perspective on customer service, our professional staff in Information Technology Services (ITS) have worked together and performed far beyond my hopes and expectations. We have worked to increase and improve our campus exposure and made departmental changes that make our services more accessible and welcoming… and the response from the campus community has been amazing. Thank you for a great first year!!
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Executive Highlights
The main focus during the 2013-14 academic year in ITS was to improve and streamline technology support to our campus community. With the creation of the new Technology Support Center, the addition of a new call tracking system and a fresh perspective on customer service, we hope that the campus has seen a dramatic change in the way we serve our campus community and how they see our department.
Improved Facilities
The newly renovated location for our datacenter in McReynolds is a huge improvement. The new datacenter is now environmentally sound and provides a new level of reliability to crucial core campus online systems.
Focus on Automation
In 2014-15, ITS will focus on several projects to automate and streamline business operations in administrative departments.
2014 ANNUAL REPORT ON CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY 2013-2014 Information Technology Services Report on Centre College Technology
and Support Operations for the Campus Community
Keith Fowlkes, M.B.A.Chief Information Officer& Director of ITSCentre College
Centre College ITS Annual Report August 28, 2014
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!!!ITS Service & Accessibility to the Campus Community
Over the past academic year, ITS has worked hard to make itself known as a campus service to students, faculty and staff. Through a new newsletter, a new video blog, signage and the new Technology Support Center renovation, our message to the campus has hopefully been clear. Centre Information Technology Services exists solely for the service to our campus community. We have taken nearly every opportunity possible to be more visible and accessible this year and to see our customers as valuable partners in the success of Centre College and our students.
Our resolve will not change in serving this core value of our departmental mission. We intend to “sharpen the saw” with gathering perpetual feedback from faculty, staff and students and in recording our service metrics and making adjustments. We will also be developing new outreach efforts while continuing to take time for staff training in customer service methods and techniques.
Overview of 2013-14 Major Projects
Our ITS team completed a wide range of projects in 2013-14 but it could not have been done without the partnership and teamwork shown by many other departments. The items listed below are just a few of the new major projects that were done in partnership with staff, faculty and students in the past year.
1.) New EventCentre campus event scheduling system
With the use of open source (free) software and the successful planning of colleagues across the College, the implementation of the EventCentre software (rebranded open source) was a complete success. The need for a more complete and campus-wide solution was evident for many years. With the help of friends in Student Life, Academic Affairs, CTL, the Norton Center, Finance and Alumni Relations (to name a few), this project saved the College approximately $22,000 in implementation costs and $6,000 in new recurring costs by using open source software with a minor internally-programmed customizations.
2.) New ITS Helpdesk support call tracking system
With the implementation of SysAid, a commercial software solution for professional Helpdesk operations, ITS has been able to both monitor, track and give feedback on campus user support requests faster and more effectively. Through this software, ITS can also continually monitor trends in the specific support needs of users while surveying staff responsiveness and continually improve efficiencies within our user services operation. Support performance metrics are listed on page 9.
3.) Reimagining and Renovation of McReynolds Hall
An obvious deficiency in technology support operations at Centre was the lack of a service/support location where students, faculty and staff could bring their equipment, devices and questions to our professional technology support staff. Additionally, a serious institutional risk factor was in our datacenter location. The old location was below ground-level and in, quite literally, a wet storage area. With the aid of our incredible Facilities Management leadership and the support of Stephanie Fabritious, Bob Keasler, Wayne King and Ann Smith, the new design of the Technology Support Center and datacenter was realized. The new facility is a welcoming place where our campus community members can come and receive support, training and consultation on a multitude of technology-related resources and skills. Our datacenter is now a modern and stable location to protect some of the College’s most valuable resources- its data and operational systems. We count this facility a wonderful collaborative success and have already seen a large increase in student traffic during the summer and early fall.
Centre College ITS Annual Report August 28, 2014
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Overview of 2013-14 Major Projects continued
4.) Redirection from Perceptive Imagenow to Alfresco Open Source Document Management
In reviewing the plans last year for implementation of the Perceptive Imagenow document management solution, we decided that the long-term costs for the current license agreement and future expansion were far too costly for the College. Our current administrative software (Jenzabar CX) plans to integrate document management functionality within their planned product upgrade (Jenzabar JX). By implementing an open source document management solution, the College can have a strong document management software without the long-term costs of a commercial solution and still have flexibly to move to Jenzabar’s “built-in” solution in the future.
The Document Imaging Ad-Hoc Committee, made up of many administrative departments across the College, reevaluated their departmental needs and discussed possible solutions. We found an easy-to-use, open source (free) software solution in Alfresco Document Management Software. The system is flexible, fast and expandable to all departments for no additional costs to the College other than the moderate storage space increases for the files stored. With Imagenow, the implementation costs per department would have been between $15,000-$30,000 plus additional recurring cost per department of $1,000 per month. With open source Alfresco, there are no costs for implementation or for licensing the software for as many departments as we wish.
The system is now being implemented in many departments and are live in many of these departments now including Registrar, Alumni Relations/ Development, Financial Aid and Admissions. We were able to renegotiate our exit from the Perceptive ImageNow contract from the remaining $64,000 budgeted to approximately $17,300. We hope to use some of these savings for departmental document imaging with KUSI, Kentucky Underground Storage, who is a local secure document scanning and storage company in Wilmore, KY.
Overall savings for this project are difficult to assess because of Perceptive Imagenow’s licensing increase calculations but estimated savings related to using the open source product, expansion costs for implementation and licensing for the involved departments are significant. We estimate College cost savings for this project as compared to the use of Imagenow to be between $400,000-$600,000 for the 10 departments in the project over the coming 7 years.
5.) Addition of a systems and security specialist position
The addition of a new position for systems and security for the College’s data and network assets was crucial. This position addressed several very important risk management related duties. These duties included 1.) being a working backup for Shane Wilson on network and systems operations, 2.) someone to focus more attention on security monitoring, vulnerabilities and intrusion detection of our networks and servers and 3.) a close liaison to our user support staff and helpdesk operations. With recent data breaches at colleges and universities across the country, this position will help us to avoid embarrassing data breaches while providing a trained backup for current staff.
6.) Addition of Telecommunications as a function of ITS
Over the past 10 years, telecommunications has moved from a mostly outsourced service to an internally managed technology service. The cost of managing this infrastructure internally is cheaper than outsourcing and service can be done internally much more efficiently. This fall 2014, we will be changing our telecommunications infrastructure to package long-distance minutes and consolidate our service to a single vendor for local and long-distance service. This move will lower our long-distance costs from 7¢ per minute to 2.5¢ per minute. This should effectively lower college costs for long distance calls by 64% annually. The addition of a new call management system this fall will also lower our overhead costs while allowing the College to track telecommunications costs more effectively for future savings.
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Overview of 2013-14 Major Projects conclusion
7.) Transformation of Centrenet as a true campus portal
With the redesign of the main College website (www.centre.edu), the need to make our Centrenet campus portal (centrenet.centre.edu) a more central resource became evident and crucial for the internal campus community. Over the past year, we have made several significant enhancements to the portal and more are on the way for the 2014-2015 academic year. The addition of the “launch pad” icons for easy access and login to the most used systems for campus communications, academic work, scheduling/reservations and information has been a strong success. The addition of the master calendar schedule, NeXT news, administrative documentation/forms and course and registration features are making the portal a central information source for our campus community. In fall 2014, we will be adding Moodle LMS features to the portal with direct access to online course materials, class announcements and much more. Our goal is to make the Centrenet online portal the single source for information for our internal campus community.
8.) Move from Ricoh MFPs to Lexmark MFP units
This recent project is very closely related to ITS operations today given that the new MFP units or multi-function printers (printer/copier/scanner/fax) are the primary way the campus community prints from computers and other devices. With the disconnect between the Central Printing Service office and the new Lexmark MFPs, ITS has taken on a new role as the first line call center and support for the Lexmark MFPs. We believe the new Lexmark units will be more reliable, faster and more fully functional than the Ricoh units were while giving campus users new abilities for document imaging that the Ricoh MFPs were unable to provide. Also, the move from Pharos print management in labs and public areas to a new enterprise-wide print management system called Papercut MF will enable the College to monitor campus-wide printer use for better cost control for consumables and environmental impact monitoring. Papercut also features environmental monitoring functionality for users to track their usage of paper, CO2 footprint and bulb hour equivalency in power usage from their print activities. (see panel below)
9.) More and better communication with our campus community
One of the most enjoyable aspects of our work has been re-engaging with the campus community and helping them to see our role as consultants, service providers and partners. With the new Tech Support Center, new office configuration and staff organization (and much more), everything we have done this year has been focused on connecting with the campus better and more frequently.
Some of this communication has been done through email but we’ve enhanced our communications through a new online chat service, ITS “eUpdate” newsletter and video blog, as well as a stronger presence on Facebook and other social media resources. We have tried to gain a new perspective on service to our community and seeing ourselves as vital partners to the success of Centre College. We hope to only strengthen and deepen this commitment to service in the coming years with better response times and new communication methods.
10.) Major infrastructure improvements
As you may have noticed by the myriad of summer email messages to the campus, some needed upgrades and updates were completed this summer in both our server and networks infrastructure. Needed additional bandwidth, wireless network coverage and server system upgrades were all part of a very eventful summer for our staff. These upgrades will insure good and reliable systems and networks for the new year.
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Institutional Strategic Outlook & Planning Direction
It is very easy for leadership in an institution to become fixated on the day-to-day operation of the organization and lose sight of its larger strategic vision and direction. This is very true for technology operations but, to be truly successful, technology leadership must continually examine the role of technology in the organizational mission, clearly articulate a strategic direction to meet the mission and monitor the departmental direction to insure a true course.
Through the interpretation of the mission statement in the new draft Centre College strategic plan, it is clear that ITS must continue to research, purchase, implement and manage a reliable network and systems infrastructure to support the research, scholarship, teaching/ learning and administration of the College. This is core to the base needs of the institution. In the true sense of strategic planning, Centre must look outside of these core operational aspects of technology and see new and innovative ways to use technology to its long-term advantage.
1.) Strategic Planning for the Future of Centre’s Administrative Systems and Online Services
This past academic year, Bob Keasler and I have worked to start a possible new consortium of private colleges and universities interested in exploring a collaborative approach to administrative systems. This group met during the summer in Louisville, KY with nearly 40 different private colleges and universities participating. These institutions used a variety of different commercial administrative software products, most from the major vendors: Jenzabar, Ellucian and Campus Management- many creating software-as-a-service models (SaaS).
As we all know, changing administrative software is a very costly and time consuming task for everyone involved. Bob and I are very aware of the risks involved in a move so we are approaching this cautiously. Our situation, like many others, is amplified by having the same base administrative system for 32 years (first CARS and later, after its acquisition, Jenzabar CX). Over these years, we have built a multitude of special processes, customizations and interfaces for many College departments. A move with all these institutionally specific customizations to another vendor would be extremely difficult BUT not impossible.
The key for us and other private institutions is that the higher education administrative software industry is at a crossroad. Our decisions must be made with care, looking at the long-term benefits and savings of moving to a new system as opposed to staying with the current system, Jenzabar CX. Jenzabar has announced their replacement product, Jenzabar JX, but their development process has been slow and migration to JX is not without its own costs and new licensing structure. We are continuing to keep our eye on the development progress of the JX software while we look at our options.
We know on the base level that we have 3 general directions we can take now. The first is stay with what we have now (Jenzabar CX) and move to the new JX product. The second is to explore possibilities with one of the other major vendors and migrate to their product. The third, and possibly most intriguing, is to look at new products from the open source community (Kuali), as many large, major institutions have done already.
There are major pros and major cons to all three of the options available. This year, Bob and I as well as a number of other institutions and constituents will discuss these options and hopefully together find the path that is best for the future of Centre College.
Centre College ITS Annual Report August 28, 2014
2.) Disaster Recovery Planning for Centre College
Our current disaster recovery plan is several years old and in need of a major rewrite. I am no stranger to disaster recovery planning inside and outside of the technology area. I plan this year to convene a group of administrators and faculty members to review the current plan and suggest edits, additions and deletions. After this, I hope to move forward in refreshing this important document for College insurance, technology and financial audit reviews.
3.) Phases 2 & 3 of the McReynolds Hall Renovation
At this point, I believe it is safe to say that the transformation of the front of McReynolds Hall was a success. We saw an immediate increase in students, faculty and staff visits to the new Technology Support Center in Spring 2014. Our financial and insurance auditors were very impressed with the new datacenter facility. We can truly be proud of the new renovation and new services that ITS is able to provide to the campus community through such a beautiful place BUT it is only phase 1 of a 3 phase plan.
Our plan was to make ALL of our professional staff more accessible to the campus community and not just our support services. When our support staff and department visitors come to visit the staff members in the north wing of McReynolds, they must come through a residence hall stairway and two locked doors (which also requires an escort with door code. We should rectify this as quickly as possible.
Even though phase 1 has been an incredible success, if we are truly to be a full service office, we must finish the job and complete phases 2 and 3 of our overall plan. Phase 2 includes minor updates to the offices of the “main building” (down the hall from the tech support center): carpet and paint as well as a new doorway through what is now our kitchen.
The larger phase 3 focuses on the current office space for many of our senior ITS staff. Wayne King and I have talked about the area and the history of this space spans decades from a cafeteria space to residence halls rooms. When ITS occupied the space, it was never remodeled from the time it was student rooms and still has a shower area in its restrooms. The current configuration has a large restroom/shower area being used as a unisex restroom area. This is very difficult given that we have 7 full-time staff offices in this wing and a number of student workers also using staff offices for their workspaces. We also have frequent visitors to our staff offices from on and off-campus people. Photos of current work spaces below.
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Office Hallway# Entry from Stairwell door# Unisex Area Bathroom# # Old Shower Stalls
Centre College ITS Annual Report August 28, 2014
New Design Concept
Our original plans for McReynolds included the renovation of the front area for customer services and the renovation of a new space for datacenter operations. We also moved our user services team to the front of the building to be more accessible to students, faculty and staff for daily support. This moved Susan Kirkpatrick, Shane Wilson, Dave Frey and myself to the back wing (previously shown) joining David Abney, Stacie Yates and Allen Levi.
Again, this area has never been renovated since the time it was a residence hall. With this, the current layout is a very poor use of the space. The rough concept and design drawings below (1.1) show some needed changes to 1.) reduce the size of the staff offices, 2.) remodel the restroom facilities (gender-separated without showers) and 3.) add an open, central area for group meeting space. Wayne King has noted that this is a “flexible” and “clear span” area with all walls being easily removable for the layout below (1.1).
I propose that we plan for 2015-2016 capital funding for this renovation and target Summer 2015 for a start.Project planning continued on page 10.
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1.1 Design Concept Drawings and Rough Renderings
Centre College ITS Annual Report August 28, 2014
Centre College Information Technology Service by the Numbers…
2013-2014 ITS Technology Support Calls Closed by Type - 3,446 total (8/24/2013 to 8/24/2014)
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Mobile device growth - 2012-2013
0
400
800
1200
1600
iPhone/iPad Mobile Android Mobile
785
1,546
665839
Spring 2012 Spring 2013
Growth of Student Devices for Internet Video Use
0
60
120
180
240
Internet Video TVs & Devices
239
135
Spring 2012 Spring 2013
The new ITS Technology Support Centre is seeing a terrific increase in student, faculty and staff walk-in support this fall from 2013.
More numbers on Fall 2014 soon…
Centre College ITS Annual Report August 28, 2014
Major projects continued…
4.) Development of a new Centre College Technology Strategic Plan
As the College strategic plan is finalized this year, Information Technology Services will begin the process of developing a strategic technology plan that complements and supports the College’s overall plan. This planning is not a new task for colleges and universities but it has become exponentially more difficult to see the future of technology. Disruptive technologies have been pervasive in higher education over the last 5 years and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. The key for our College is to see through the hype of new ideas and concepts and find the technologies that will truly aid and support the mission of the College.
I believe that we have developed a very strong, new strategic plan. As it is finalized by the Board of Visitors, we will bring together the ITRC, the Library, the CTL and a number of constituents across the College to look at the future of technology at Centre.
Some of the overreaching goals contained within the new College strategic plan draft for discussion are:
• Expand access to computing capability in classrooms and create other experimental teaching and learning spaces using new technologies.
• Use IT to create partnerships with other colleges and universities, non-profits, and other organizations.
• Expand videoconferencing capability, using new hardware and software that creates greater flexibility and less need for centralized locations.
• Devote more attention to administrative IT—for example, establishing integrated software systems and creating a comprehensive event management system.
• Develop library collections, both traditional and electronic.
• Develop and provide research instruction at all levels.
• Develop library spaces conducive to collaborative study and technological innovation.
• Develop and enhance discovery and access to information.
Core to achieving the goals above from the new strategic plan is defining how technology can be used to infuse new innovation, research, ideas and “energies” into the Centre life and not detract from its focus on traditional and personal teaching and learning.
Key points of discussion should include:
• What will the role of technology be at Centre in teaching, learning and operations in the coming decade?
• What are our strategic goals regarding technology use and management at the College in the coming decade?
• How will the Grace Doherty Library look in the future and what can we do institutionally to support the library?
• What leadership role can Centre take in technology use and operations in our region and/or nationally among our peer and aspirant institutions?
• What are some of the technologies and applications Centre should focus on to be truly successful in the coming decade?
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Centre College ITS Annual Report August 28, 2014
Concluding thoughts on technology direction & planning
When I think about strategic planning as it relates to technology in higher education, my mind gravitates to three major things. First, how are we serving students. Second, how are we equipping faculty to teach them. Third, how are we doing in cutting costs and making administrative processes more efficient. There are lots of other diversions but these three things sum up my philosophy for my work and the work of my team. A fourth is slowly beginning to emerge. What will education look like in the coming 10 years and how can technology be used as a strategic advantage to Centre?
I think we are on the right track in Information Technology Services but we have many things to hone this year with our operation. Flowing from the primary questions I listed above, I’m concerned about the future. My family has always had the motto “invest in the good times so you will be ready for the lean times when they come.” What is it that we need to invest in now so that we will be ready for the future of the College?
As the excitement surrounding MOOCs has died down now, questions still remain concerning online learning, alternative online degree programs and how higher education can sustain itself in the midst of rising costs and a flat economy.
The following are a few strategic items that I will be focusing upon in my research, writing and discussions over the 2014-2015 academic year. I hope you will join me in discussing these and other items that are related to technology, Centre College and higher education in the U.S.:!
Focus on strategic collaborative partnerships through our work on the new private college consortium on administrative systems
Improving communication to the campus community on technology developments and innovation in campus ITS operations
Focus on research in areas of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and new open source software trends
Reviewing administrative department workflows with directors to find ways to automate and streamline processes and procedures
Develop a new disaster recovery plan for College systems, networks and institutional databases
Work with various departments on implementation of document imaging/management through our open source Alfresco software (automating current paper processes to streamline business processes)
Begin work on a new Centre College Technology Strategic Plan (see page 10) !The final page includes a quick chart that illustrates how busy this year has been for our ITS staff. These statistics are basic but do illustrate how central technology operations are to campus life and work. Technology touches every student, every faculty and every staff member in their daily work and life. I sincerely believe that the innovative ways we use technology in the future at Centre College will help to define and sustain our institution in the coming decades. These are very exciting times and I am proud to serve with you as a part of the Centre College community.
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Keith Fowlkes, M.B.A.Chief Information Officer& Director of ITSCentre College
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Office of Information Technology Services859-238-5574 | [email protected]
