Kim Vassiliadis, who has worked for ITS for seven years, has gained a new title: Director, Digital Experience & Communications.
Effective as of April, Vassiliadis’ new title reflects the new responsibilities she gained with the ITS reorganization in July 2021 in which ITS Communications and the ServiceNow engagement team moved under her supervision. In that reorganization, Vassiliadis added those two teams to her existing responsibility of leading Digital Services and the Digital Accessibility Office.
ITS News used this opportunity to ask Vassiliadis to talk about the realignment benefits, her priorities and her teams’ current efforts.
How has this realignment improved efficiencies and collaboration? How has it benefited the groups under your supervision or service to the campus?
My background is in user experience. That’s always been a focus in my various roles at UNC. I love that UX is a large component for each of these groups. Their work directly impacts the University, and they’ve each found success by building strong campus partnerships. Much of what we do is campus facing, whether it’s building websites, managing help documentation, advocating for digital accessibility, or creating promotional materials for new services. And while each group focuses on their own corner of ITS, they regularly collaborate.What are some of your top priorities?
They include:- Identify opportunities to improve how users interact with ITS and our services.
- Unify ITS “brand.” Our products should look related. A cohesive visual brand creates trust among our user populations. If they can recognize it as an ITS-owned product or service, they can trust it.
- Streamline outreach and communication efforts, whether it’s for new students, promoting services, or providing updates about a change in services.
Kim Vassiliadis
Title: Director of Digital Experience & Communications
Years with UNC: 21; 7 with ITS and 14 years with UNC Libraries
Education: University of Texas at Austin, master’s degree, library and information science; Flagler College, bachelor’s degree, English and communications
Native of: Florida
Town of residence: Carrboro
- The DAO team has done amazing work promoting digital accessibility. Digital accessibility is a university’s responsibility. It is also a part of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and a place where ITS can make a huge contribution.
- The ServiceNow Help portal serves as the front door to our help and service offerings. The portal will never be a completed “project.” We will continue to evaluate its usage and make iterative improvements to ensure that it continues to meet campus needs.
What are some of the key projects or efforts that your teams are working on?
Digital Services hosts roughly 6,000 websites. We’re developing a new WordPress theme for campus. We can affect real change by introducing a flexible and robust modern theme. A high adoption would immediately improve user experience and accessibility, and promote the University’s brand.It’s a collaborative effort among my teams. Digital Services is developing the theme, ITS Communications will work on the interface design, and the DAO will address accessibility. ITS Communications will pilot the new theme with the ITS website.
The DAO, meanwhile, will increase outreach to faculty and students. In these first three years since the DAO formed, the team has focused on training campus staff members and helping departments and groups improve the accessibility of their websites and materials.
As for the Service Management Engagement Team, that team will expand the University’s existing ServiceNow platform by launching another ServiceNow product, or set of tools, this one for asset management. In addition, the Service Management Engagement Team will improve the ServiceNow portal in a variety of ways.