Multidivisional and Office of the CIO
Launched Service Desk location at Student Union
On May 31, the Service Desk opened its new location in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union to support incoming students during New Student and Family Orientation. The space will serve all members of the Carolina community starting in the Fall semester.
Initiated RFP process for new customer support tool
ITS leaders started the request-for-proposals (RFP) process for a new customer support tool and created a committee to help prepare the RFP and review proposals. The ServiceNow contract is coming up for renewal. After leaders conducted a listening tour last fall, they determined that before renewing a contract with ServiceNow, ITS needs to research whether another tool would offer better value.
Strengthened security for ConnectCarolina
On June 26, ITS began requiring current and former students to use Duo when logging into ConnectCarolina. ITS took action after the Department of Education asked universities to strengthen protection of student financial aid data.
Completed final port of working phones
On June 23, ITS completed the final port of working phones in the multi-year move of campus phones from Verizon to AT&T. In this port, ITS migrated 3,355 phones in 52 campus buildings. Over the course of the project, ITS successfully migrated 27,962 campus phone lines in 260 buildings.
Expanded Carolina Key to all employees
This quarter, ITS expanded eligibility for Carolina Key passwordless logins to all University employees. ITS first introduced Carolina Key to students in November 2022 and rolled it out to employee test groups, including ITS, in Q1 2023.
Assessed Secure Workspace security
Research Computing and Infrastructure & Operations worked with a vendor assess the security of ITS’ existing on-premise Secure Research Workspace.
People
Project Portfolio & Change Management hired two new change managers to manage major ITS change initiatives.
In May, three ITS staff members were tagged to continue serving as Employee Forum delegates: David Bragg, Michael Williams and Sharron Bouquin. A fourth ITS staff member, Theresa Silsby, continues to serve as a delegate. Her seat was not up for election.
Customer Experience & Engagement
Co-organized statewide accessibility conference
For the third year in a row, the Digital Accessibility Office collaborated with the North Carolina Higher Education Digital Accessibility Collaborative to organize a free conference. Organizers held the June 15 conference to increase digital accessibility skills and awareness.
Hosted Apple demo
For the first time since 2019, the Carolina Computing Initiative hosted an in-person product demo from Apple. The Apple demo complemented a Q1 event from fellow CCI product partner Lenovo. About 90 participants joined the Apple event, either virtually or in person.
Created new resources for new University employees
ITS Communications partnered with UNC Human Resources to create a guide to help new employees get to know technology at Carolina. The Getting Started Guide replaced outdated information in University Human Resources’ new employee guide and centralized resources for easy reference.
Celebrated Global Accessibility Awareness Day
The Digital Accessibility Office and ITS Communications showcased Global Accessibility Awareness Day in May with a series of four tweets over two days and an ITS News article busting five common digital accessibility myths, which was amplified in UNC Human Resources’ WorkWell newsletter and the Office of University Communications’ In The Know.
Replaced “Request Something Else” catalog item
On June 15, the ServiceNow Engagement Team replaced the ServiceNow catalog item “Request Something Else” with “General Request.” The General Request item asks users to first search for an appropriate choice in the service catalog. If they cannot find a better catalog item, then users choose from four common routing options. ITS expects this new process to route requests more quickly and efficiently.
Produced customer case study
ITS Communications produced a customer case study to promote Adobe Creative Cloud, one of the many tools that Educational Technologies provides to campus. In this customer case study, Nazanin Knudsen shares why her digital storytelling course, MEJO 121, uses Adobe Premiere.
Formed student technology group
ITS re-envisioned what a student technology group should be and began recruiting members for the UNC Student Technology Council (STC), which replaces the Student Technology Advisory Board (STAB). The new group will provide feedback on development and implementation of IT products, services and tools and to offer a student perspective on the future of technology at Carolina. The group will be made up of a maximum of 20 students who will be chosen for their knowledge and enthusiasm for participating in decision-making and strategic planning related to emerging campus technologies.
Amplified messages across campus
This quarter, ITS Communications published 18 ITS News articles. Campus partners, including The Well, UNC Human Resources, WorkWell and University Libraries amplified 13 ITS News articles.
Launched fun, connecting space for employees
ITS Communications created a community channel within ITS’ internal Microsoft Teams as an optional, casual and fun space for ITS employees to share and connect. Employees share news and photos about new college degrees, pets, travel, holiday plans and the like.
People
ResNET director Phil Young earned his MBA from NC State University.
The Digital Accessibility Office hired three new accessibility consultants, making the office fully staffed.
Security & Identity Management
Released new season of security podcast
The Data@Rest podcast released its sixth season. The Information Security Office produces the podcast in collaboration with Fayetteville State University. The sixth season hosted guests from ITS Communications and the Office of the CIO.
Expanded actions taken on phishing emails
The Information Security Office, in collaboration with Infrastructure & Operations, expanded the scope of a technology from Microsoft that the University has used for more than a year. The automated mailbox action targets impersonation messages sent to campus.
Continued Information Security Liaisons program
The Information Security Office continued its Information Security Liaisons (ISL) program and partnered with ITS Communications to produce another entry in the “Meet the ISL” series, which highlights IT security staff on campus.
Infrastructure & Operations
Rolled out real-time status with new service
On May 30, Infrastructure & Operations launched a new system, Opsview, that enables real-time updates to ITS Status. The team initially used Opsview to monitor services hosted by ITS Networking, which has built out complex business service monitors for the most critical functions. ITS will add other ITS systems to the monitoring system. Then ITS will evaluate whether to expand the service campuswide. This streamlining of operations through automation is a key part of ITS’ commitment to the Carolina Next strategic plan.
Enhanced ServiceNow change module
To make it easier to share upcoming maintenance notices on the ITS Status website, the ITSM Platform Team added fields to the change form that the ITS Operations Center uses to automatically create scheduled maintenance posts on ITS Status. The form fields help streamline the posting process to keep campus informed of upcoming changes.
Data Reporting Environments & Application Middleware
Migrated Confluence and Jira to the cloud
On May 6, Middleware migrated its on-premise Confluence and Jira service offerings to Atlassian’s hosted cloud solution. Middleware needed to migrate the services because Confluence changed licensing options, rendering on-prem hosting very expensive.
Educational Technologies
Renamed CCI Printing
Educational Technologies changed the name of CCI Printing to Carolina Print Hub. The new name better reflects the all-campus printing service that Educational Technologies manages. The service is not part of the CCI program.
Research Computing
Produced customer case study
Research Computing, with support from ITS Communications, produced a customer case study to promote its Longleaf cluster and illustrate how researchers across Carolina rely on the compute power of this supercomputer. In this customer case study, a UNC researcher shared how she uses Longleaf and technical expertise from Research Computing, in her floodplain development research.