Message from the VP of IT |  | |
Welcome to our first edition of the DoIT Monthly Newsletter.
This monthly newsletter is intended not only to provide you additional insight into what is happening within the Division of IT, but also to provide you an informative outlet on the technologies and services that we provide in support of your work on campus.
Our focus is to provide reliability and excellence as we launch new products and services and enhance existing products and services in support of the University’s Strategic priorities and the DoIT Strategic Plans. We will continue to work with our stakeholders to prioritize the many projects in our queue, making sure we keep our eye on the high value projects that support Chico State’s strategic goals while also making sure day-to-day operational projects are executed with excellence. Our vision is to create a premier and innovative information and technology environment supported by a robust, reliable, secure, world-class infrastructure to catalyze Chico State as a top-of-mind, first-choice university for students, faculty, staff, and public and private partners.
Through our guiding principles of providing value, driving innovation, celebrating diversity, empowering students, building partnerships, and embracing change, we work in service to the Chico State community and look forward to supporting you toward your goals whether it be in research, teaching, learning, working or all of the above.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Kind regards,
Monique Sendze
Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
| |
Laptop Loaner Program: The Division of IT has a thriving laptop loaner program with over 900 laptops in the pool. 441 students are currently using laptops provided by the loaner pool. Students can keep a loaner on a per-semester basis. Staff and Faculty can do short-term loans while their assigned laptop/computer is being serviced or when waiting for a laptop they ordered to arrive.
|
Wildcat LAB: The Division of IT (DOIT) provides students, faculty, and staff 24/7 access to virtual desktops through our Wildcat LAB with the following capabilities:
- Access to academic program specific software applications for student coursework.
- Comparable computing performance for software as with your local desktop computer or laptop.
- Lower the digital equity gap by allowing students access anytime, anywhere, from any device.
|
DUO Multifactor: You should set up a secondary device for DUO Multifactor Authentication application. Duo supports multiple device options including using your campus phone extension or hardware tokens. Faculty, students, and staff can pick-up a hardware token from ITSS in MLIB 142.
| |
IT Strategic Plan
On March 1st, the inaugural Division of IT launched its first IT Strategic Plan under the leadership of Vice President of Information Technology Monique Sendze. This plan is guided by the University’s strategic plan and outlines an equity-serving technology strategy, actualizing the University’s strategic priorities through a series of actions organized around 6 pillars. The plan is now live on the Division of IT's website and is organized into 6 Pillars that define its mission and detailed 21 goals, 81 tactics, and over 100 measures of success to execute.
| |
New Media Channel brought to you by CMT
Creative Media Technologies (CMT) just launched a new media channel featuring a collection of over 250 engaging videos available for departments to view, download, and use in their own communication efforts. Students, staff, and faculty can reach out to CMT via their website for creative collaboration and multimedia coverage of campus events, programs, and services.
| |
Introducing the Project and Change Management Office
As an organization, we need to provide consistent project success and benefit realization for the projects we deliver. To do this effectively we need standard methodologies, tools, processes and change readiness and change adoption. To this end, the Division of IT recently formed a Project and Change Management Office (PCMO) with the following capabilities:
| |
Project Portfolio Management: The PCMO will ensure the organizational demand for new projects, services, and enhancements does not outweigh our resource capacity to deliver on everything in our project environment. | | |
Organization Change Management (OCM): For projects that depend heavily on users and stakeholders adopting new tools, processes and skills, the PCMO will utilize an effective OCM plan so the projects can achieve their intended outcomes/benefit realization. | | |
Project Management: A right-sized approach to project management will allow IT Project Management staff to take what they need from our formal project management frameworks and then tailor a process that will work for the projects based on project size, type, visibility, impact, and effort. | | |
Resource Management: IT currently lacks the resource capacity to adequately meet organizational demand for new projects and services. Working with a new Project Governance Committee, the PCMO will assist in making strategic prioritization decisions based on resource capacity. | | |
Business Process Re-engineering: PCMO will identify what aspects of the university’s business to transform, what technologies to embrace, what processes to automate, and what new business or operating models to create in a value-driven approach to digital transformation. | | |
Governance: PCMO will have a set of processes and policies that are used to define roles and responsibilities when it comes to managing projects, programs, and portfolios, consider accountability, authority, reporting, and decision gates for functions across campus. | | |
As we continue to build this office, the Division of IT invites you to engage with them as you begin thinking about any of your projects that require IT resources. The PCMO can also help you with any of your process improvement projects and will work with you to design your current and desired state process maps for your business transformation initiatives. | |
Smart Self-Service with 24/7 Chatbot
The Division of IT is piloting the use of AI Chatbots starting with Chico State’s Commencement Office to improve the way we interact with and engage with our students, faculty, staff and community, especially with providing tier 1 support 24/7. Our Chico State bot has been named “CatBot” and you can take “CatBot” on a ride by going to the commencement website and asking all your commencement related questions.
Since we launched, on February 20th, 2023, “CatBot” has answered 498 questions with 97% accuracy and will continue to get "smarter" the more it is used. In this proof-of-concept stage, the most popular time of day when questions have been asked using “CatBot” is 6pm and the most popular day of engagement is Thursday. The next two areas slated for implementation of the AI Chatbot are the Division of IT, followed by Enrollment Management and Admissions.
| |
Transforming Learning through Digital Equity
Chico State's Division of Information Technology has been making concerted efforts to support technology equity for its faculty, staff, and students. Spearheading these efforts is Monique Sendze, the VP of Information Technology, who created the new department of Technology Equity and Inclusion (TEIN) in October 2022. This visionary move aimed to increase digital literacy, accessibility, and technological inclusion for all members of the campus community. TEIN is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of our students, faculty, and staff by ensuring that technology access is a basic need met for all.
| |
On April 12th and 13th, the Center for Technology Equity held an event in partnership with an Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) provider to bring $11 tablets and free internet to the Chico State community. This event was a tremendous success, providing nearly 200 tablets to the campus community. For those that had a need but did not qualify for ACP, hotspots were provided thanks to hotspots available from the foundation board gift. | |
We heard so many impactful stories from students who were recipients of these tablets and free internet. Here are some of the highlights: A community member who was studying for his medical exams at home, a student who had been driving down to campus late at night just to get internet access, and another student who had been paying $300 a month in data charges. The event showcased the compassion and empathy of the Center's staff, who waited in line alongside our students for nearly 10 hours per day to ensure that every student who needed a tablet could get one. | |
|
|
Why do I need an ITPR for software I want to install on my computer?
Chico State is committed to having all programs and software used on campus meet federal accessibility standards, as it protects members of our community from being discriminated against when a service doesn't implicitly have user friendly options for a diverse population. It also allows DoIT to address data privacy and cyber security issues that may make our campus systems vulnerable.
Learn about ITPR
| | | |
Why do I have to buy an expensive Dell laptop when I can buy cheap laptops at Costco?
Technology needs to come with a genuine parts & service warranty for it to be a good investment for Chico State. The Division of IT is not looking for the lowest prices when we acquire hardware, the campus needs reliable equipment with genuine parts that can be serviced and ITSS can support for the duration of its lifecycle.
Learn more about computing purchases
| |
| | |
|
|
Can I still use my Google account to send email?
All campus email is now sent and received through Office 365. While you can no longer access Gmail in your campus Google account, you can still access all other Google apps (e.g. Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, etc.). The "username@mail.csuchico.edu" is only the name of your Google account, but any email that is sent to that address will be routed to your O365 mailbox. In O365, all email will look like it was sent to your username@csuchico.edu address, even if it was originally addressed to username@mail.csuchico.edu.
Mail Migration Site
| | | |
Smart Classrooms
Since the pandemic, Chico State’s Classroom Technology Support Services team in the Division of IT has upgraded 130 classrooms with state-of-the-art audio-visual communication equipment. Our purpose is to facilitate faculty's excellent teaching in whichever mode they choose, including co-synchronous mode of teaching which entails simultaneously teaching on-site students face-to-face and remote synchronous students connected via Zoom. Each Smart /HyFlex classroom has:
| |
- Ceiling or wall mounted pan-tilt-zoom camera.
- Extron touch panel to control the AV equipment, including four preset camera angles.
- Ceiling-mounted Microphone array and/or multiple wireless microphones
- Two positional 22” monitors, as a standard.
- Video projector and projection screen
- Document Cameras
- Ceiling or wall mounted audio speakers
| |
HEERF (Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund) and CARES (Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security) funds in the amount of approximately $2Million made these upgrades possible. | |
|
Protection and Prevention from Cyber Attacks is Our Goal
The Division of IT recently made some significant investments from our cost recovery funds to bolster our cybersecurity posture and minimize cybersecurity risk exposure to our campus technology assets. This investment included the purchase of a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) tool with robust AI capabilities for threat intelligence and a 24/7 Virtual Security Operations Center (vSOC) service.
| |
In the last 90 days since we deployed the tool, we have processed 11.5 TB of raw data from our endpoints consisting of 5 billion+ records. Processing this amount of data using our previous tools would cost roughly $249,000/year. Using our current tools saved our team from more than 1.387 hours of triage and investigation. 2,795 attack/threats were investigated by the Cyber Security Incident Response Team (CIRT) and 57% were true positives that identified threatening activity occurring in our environment and were mitigated immediately. In the next months, we will continue to bolster our cybersecurity posture to minimize our risk exposure. | |
Meet Elbert Chan
Operating Systems Analyst in the department of Enterprise Systems (ESYS)
Elbert's primary role may be behind the scenes, working to manage servers and enterprise systems used on campus, but he also has an affinity for dancing. You may have seen him around as a Ballroom Dancing instructor assistant for 10 years here at Chico State. Other talents include being a 2nd degree black belt in Tai Kwan Do for 12 years, and being an active gamer on PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC. He grew up in San Francisco and Hayward and Chico became his home after moving here for college and falling in love with the nature and small-town vibes. He has two cats, Odella and Dakota and you should ask him for restaurant recommendations if you see him around, as he is a self-proclaimed foodie.
| |  |
Meet Deanna Salas
Administrative Analyst in the department of Computing and Communication Services (CCSV)
Deanna's role involves managing the billing for our telephone and network services and working with vendors to get items like hot spots for students and staff who need them. Outside of work, she's a single mom to a 4-year old-daughter and has two cats, Calypso and Animal. She’s an avid reader, mostly crime-based and murder mystery novels, and her Hogwarts house is Ravenclaw. Her hobbies include taking her daughter on weekend adventures to the city, local parks, and other attractions around California. She is from Willows and got her MBA from Chico State. Her favorite restaurant in town is a tie between Thai Basil and Vietnam Bistro.
| | | | | |
