Workgroup Report March 2015

Leadership Team

Recent Accomplishments:

• Articulated ITS Strategic Direction and Initiatives.
• ITS SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis.
• An on-going review of organization structure, including looking ahead to ITS @MIIS integration.
• FY16 Budget submitted.  Additionally, a review of all FY16 budget submissions throughout Middlebury for technology implications.
• Submission of staffing plan growth for Media Services.
• Review and submission of PCI compliant payment tech proposal.
• Consistently well attended and productive tech partners and strategic advisor group meetings.
• Provided detailed risk analysis related to IT and InfoSec to new Middlebury risk committee as part of their process to prepare for an institutional-wide risk audit.
• Participated in the release of a report by the Data Strategy Team that raised many critical points for further examination and offered specific recommendations for next steps regarding stewardship, classification, organization, accessibility, integration and transformation of Middlebury’s intuitional data.
• A joint Library/ITS successful presentation to the Board of Trustees and senior Administration regarding current operating status, satisfaction levels, strategic direction and current activities.

3-6 month priorities:

• Continue to advocate for ITS culture change, in particular the comprehensive adoption by all of ITS of our articulated values, mission and vision.
• Advance ITS strategic direction and initiatives with outreach, discussion and coordination.  Transform direction and initiatives into a formal strategic plan.
• Evaluate and implement as necessary ITS organizational changes that allow us to most effective execute on our mission, vision and strategic initiatives.
• Formalize and integrate ITS @ MIIS as part of one ITS organization for Middlebury as an anchor function.

User Services

Helpdesk - Call Center and Walkin

Recent Accomplishments:

• Of the 8052 Tickets Closed in this period, 2952 ( 37%) were closed by the Call Center or Walkin. 2064 (26%)were closed on first contact.
• Call Center staff has completed windows 8 training
• We have completed 4 of 6 best practice documents for ticket creation.

Priorities for next 3-6 Months:

• Continue with Best practices goal. 
• Continue to work with Call Center Crew in professional development.
• Student training has been revisited and revised to streamline effectiveness. We will monitor new hires for progress.
• Develop KPIs.

Helpdesk – Service Requests

Recent Accomplishments:

• Of the 8052 Tickets Closed in this period,1251 (15%) were closed by Service Requests
• 132 computer distributions
• All requests for academic software installs and upgrades were completed for the Winter and Spring term semester startups
• Completed the testing and planning with CSNS for the Wireless Upgrade Project
• Expanded Kace deployment to entire campus of college owned computers
• Identified all remaining XP computers and their primary users to begin process of addressing security for those that cannot be upgraded 

Priorities for the next 3 – 6 months:

• Complete the XP updates that can be done and take off network those that are attached to devices that could be secluded into a secure network setup
• Research and compare products for Lab usage monitoring and reporting
• Upgrade the staff distributions that are due this fiscal year
• Plan the setups for Breadloaf, Language Schools and other summer sessions
• Develop KPI’s

Telephone and Printing Services

Recent Accomplishments:

• Defined system needs, prepared a request for proposal, identified vendors, evaluated proposals, and provided budgetary figures for replacement of the campus telephone system.

Priorities for the next 3 – 6 months:

• If funding is approved, begin telephone system implementation planning
• Develop KPI’s

Media Services

Recent Accomplishments:

• Upgraded fifteen smart classrooms.
• Upgraded meeting rooms in Marbleworks and Bowker to support staff moves.
• Overall successful support for the dedication of the field house, video wall, MLK and MCSE symposiums, the Trustee meetings, Feb graduation and orientation.
• Supported four hybrid videoconferencing courses. Currently supporting three similar courses.
• Successfully supported over 600 events, recordings, screenings - these have increased in numbers by about 16% YOY.
• Successfully supported over 100 videoconferences - these have increased in numbers by about 130% YOY.
• Evaluated and proposed a video streaming server.
• Evaluated and proposed a digital cinema system.
• Evaluated and proposed backup/redundant videoconferencing infrastructure.

Priorities for the next 3 - 6 months:

• Purchase, test and setup a wireless streaming solution to use as backup if the existing overflow system fails.
• Upgrade Mead’s sound system in March.
• Upgrade fifteen more smart classrooms.
• Support the inauguration of the new President, Trustee meetings, Language Schools and their Centennial celebrations, Bread Loaf, Reunion, Foodworks.
• Complete the implementation of the videoconferencing classrooms.
• Upgrade the foreign language satellite TV system.
• Install the digital cinema system (if approved) before August 20th, in time for a potential film festival.

Security & Infrastructure

Information Security

Recent Accomplishments

• Risk Mitigation - Data loss prevention and identification tools, combined with ongoing collaboration with functional areas, has further reduced the potential risk of sensitive data exposure.
• Security Education - Ongoing information security awareness resources have been made available to the Middlebury community in the form of a pilot program to raise awareness about email phishing, expanded security presentations to functional areas, new computer based training content, and published safe computing guidelines.
• Endpoint Security - A successful upgrade of the Sophos EndPoint security suite has significantly improved protections for College-managed computers.

Priorities for Next 3-6 Months

• Governance - Support an improved model for policy management that results in timely updates to the College handbook and institutional practices.
• Data Security - Continue to reduce the risk of potential exposure of sensitive data through ongoing user education and data auditing efforts.
• Email Security -  Improve the ability of existing email gateways to block unwanted and malicious email message before they are delivered.
• Vulnerability Management - Continue to implement and expand our vulnerability management program across key IT systems.
• PCI Compliance - Update the College’s payment card processing infrastructure to bring it into compliance with the latest PCI requirements and coordinate with functional areas that handle payment card data to develop plans to bring their processes into compliance.
• Firewalls - Deploy a second border firewall at the Monterey campus to provide increased resiliency for the campus’ Internet link.
• Log Management - Additional system security logs will be fed into a central repository, improving our visibility and awareness of potential security issues.
• Network Protections - Enhanced protections to mitigate Distributed Denial Of Service (DDoS) attacks will be deployed for key Internet-facing systems.

Central Systems & Network Services (CSNS)

Recent Accomplishments

• Wireless Upgrades – 20% of the wireless access points on campus have been upgraded with newer models. The new APs have effectively doubled the amount of wireless coverage in all the locations they were placed.
• Email System Upgrades – Our Microsoft Exchange email environment saw a major upgrade from Exchange 2010 to Exchange 2013. This upgrade brought Middlebury’s email environment current with the latest release of Exchange.
• Log Analysis – We began the deployment of a new log analysis application for the upgraded email environment, and we are preparing to roll it out for additional systems. This will bring more visibility into the state of our systems and enable greater trending and planning options.
• Data Centers – Our new data center is fully populated, running well, and serving roughly half of the IT services for Middlebury. This is a significant accomplishment of stellar work across a number of Middlebury departments.

Priorities for Next 3-6 Months

• Wireless Networks Redesign - Our current wireless networks will be replaced to achieve greater security and reliability. One outcome of this effort is to ensure that all wireless clients on our network are secure and identifiable. This deployment is scheduled for March, 2015.
• Email Hosting Strategy – Begin the analysis and planning of the next stage of Middlebury’s email system. We will consider options ranging from continuing to host all email services from Middlebury data centers, moving email services to a cloud-based offering, or a hybrid model.
• Storage – Advertise to the community additional options for storing and backing up large data sets as well as improved support for Middlebury Google drive storage. Using a mixture of Middlebury data centers and cloud provider offerings, we expect to maintain or increase data availability while consuming less resources.

Enterprise Applications

Administrative Systems

Recent Accomplishments

• Completing implementation of Oracle Budget and Planning Cloud Services
• Completing implementation of Oracle Strategic Finance
• Completed implementation of Nolij Form and Workflow for UG Admissions
• Completed implementation of Nolij Forms and Workflow in BLSE
• Completed work related to rebranding efforts for MIIS and Middlebury College
• Completed hiring and onboarding of new Senior Programmer Analyst
• Completed efforts in support of iModules implementation
• Implemented new developer security access and auditing processes in all environments

Priorities for next 3-6 months

• Nolij Scan/Store/Retrieve in HR, Advancement, and Finance
• Complete development of Project Management standards for ITS
• Implement Banner Workflow in support of Administrative Offices
• Implement Salesforce CRM for MIIS

Web Technologies and Services

Recent Accomplishments

• Completed conversion to new Drupal 7 form server
• Completed upgrade to Drupal 7 on MIIS and main college websites
• Completed efforts related to enterprise wide rebranding efforts
• Completing efforts related to History wall in the Athletic Complex
• Completed redesign of MiddCore Site

Priorities for next 3-6 months

• Refill open WTAS Manager and Senior Software Engineer position
• Support CRM implementation for MIIS
• Support Omeka rollout in support of DLA initiatives
• Complete Performance and Security Audits of our Drupal 7 environments
• Complete rebranding of affiliated program sites: Language Schools, Bread Loaf, Schools Abroad, Etc.