Multidivisional and Office of the CIO
Enabled Microsoft AI tool for faculty and staff
On November 8, ITS enabled a Microsoft AI tool for UNC faculty and staff. Initially launched as Bing Chat Enterprise, the tool was renamed Microsoft Copilot with Data Protection on December 1. Copilot with Data Protection is an institutionally-scoped AI-powered assistant and chatbot. Copilot with Data Protection does not store or view chats, queries are encrypted, and Microsoft does not use UNC-Chapel Hill data or queries to train any of its models. To answer questions about the tool, the Daily Tar Heel interviewed ITS CIO J. Michael Barker.
Selected new customer support tool
On December 19, ITS announced that TeamDynamix is the official, selected vendor from the customer support tool RFP process. TeamDynamix was the top scorer across every single one of the assessment groups. The resounding sentiment from scorers was the strength of TDX across the board and the fit for UNC-Chapel Hill. The contract with current vendor ServiceNow expires in September 2024.
Held vendor demonstrations for new customer support tool
ITS held customer support tool demos on four full days in October. To view recordings, visit the customer support tool website.
Held second annual Community of Practice conference
The UNC Project and Change Management Community of Practice’s second annual conference on November 3 drew as many as 47 attendees during its all-day conference held via Zoom. The conference featured a keynote from Chief Information Security Officer Paul Rivers and sessions on such topics as team collaboration, time management, prioritizing operational work and projects and working with student employees.
Added new ‘express lane’ for some risk assessments
The ITS Policy Office and the Data Governance Oversight Group (DGOG) created a new “express lane” self-assessment process for some data governance review and security risk assessments. This change enables lower risk cases to proceed more quickly while still exercising institutional due diligence. Another benefit of the new process is that security analysts and Risk Assessment Partner Program (RAPP) partners will have more time to process Tier 3 and complex cases.
Advanced policy revision
ITS is working on a major revision of the Security Controls Standard and Vulnerability Management Standard, which are backbone Information Security program policies. The Information Security Office and ITS Policy Office asked the UNC IT community for feedback and conducted office hours to discuss the drafts.
Made progress on Secure Research Workspace
The Secure Research Workspace project team completed a successful proof-of-concept (POC) with Microsoft and Island Systems early in the quarter and wrapped up a POC with Amazon and CloudHesive in December.
People
ITS leaders attended and presented at the EDUCUASE annual conference in Chicago. Staffers from four ITS divisions also attended and presented at the annual UNC CAUSE conference in Winston-Salem.
Customer Experience & Engagement
Consolidated Service Desk walk-in locations
The ITS Service Desk consolidated walk-in support locations at the end of Fall 2023 semester, permanently closing walk-in support at the R.B. House Undergraduate Library in favor of the new location in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union. Pending long-term space planning, the Undergraduate Library will remain the home for some back-of-house functions for the Service Desk, the Classroom Hotline and the Computer Repair Center.
Expanded alerts and safety notifications on campus
ITS staff contributed expertise to elevator outage tracking and notifications in the Carolina Ready app and worked with schools and units across campus to integrate Rise Vision instances into Alert Carolina. There are currently more than 60 digital signage instances configured to receive emergency notifications from Alert Carolina.
Began rolling out cookie acknowledgement banner
On October 30, ITS Digital Services began adding a cookie acknowledgement banner to the bottom of University websites hosted by ITS on WordPress to meet our compliance obligations with applicable federal, state and international laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The UNC Institutional Privacy Office created a new privacy notice and partnered with ITS to create a Cookie Statement and develop a separate cookie banner to post on all University-hosted sites. Owners of sites not hosted by Digital Services must add a cookie banner by early 2024.
Shared ITS news, updates and tips with campus
In Q4, ITS Communications published 17 articles covering news and announcements, tech tips and customer case studies. That brought the total number of articles for the year to 76, up from 70 in 2022. And those articles, which ran the gamut from personnel announcements to customer case studies to tech tips to change notifications to stories of collaboration, found audiences across the University. The HR newsletter WorkWell shared 17 ITS articles in 2023 — the majority of which were in the top-10-most clicked for the issue. At the University level, central communications shared 12 articles about ITS in The Well — eight republished from ITS News — and shared 13 ITS tidbits to “In The Know” before it was discontinued in June.
Strengthened brand alignment
ITS Communications continued to align ITS to the internal brand released in 2022. The team created internal use resources, including Zoom backgrounds, and consulted on major website redesigns. For the year, ITS Communications created 60 on-brand designs requested by ITS units and contributing to brand implementation projects like the new Service Desk space in the Student Union and revamps of the Help Portal and ConnectCarolina.
Celebrated staff members’ achievements
For the third consecutive year, ITS Communications in December produced ITS Wins, a presentation that celebrates employees’ personal and work achievements. This ITS Wins slideshow contained 76 entries collectively from every ITS unit and reflected personal wins, work milestones and team stats. ITS Communications produces ITS Wins as part of year-round efforts to boost morale and employee engagement.
People
Calvin Groves gained a new title, Director of Customer Support & Outreach, to reflect the expansion of his management portfolio. Groves’ former title was Director of the Service Desk.
Three ITS employees, Paul Cardillo and Gia Branciforte, both of ITS Digital Services; and Daniel Reeves of ResNET, and Rachell Underhill of The Graduate School led the relaunch of the Web Professionals group in late October, with the group’s first meeting since early 2020. The group is not officially affiliated with any department or campus unit, including ITS. Web Professionals is open to any member of the Carolina community who creates or contributes to Carolina’s web presence.
ResNET student worker Christopher Arraya was awarded the prestigious Morehead-Cain scholarship.
Educational Technologies
Upgraded VoiceThread
On December 20, ITS Educational Technologies upgraded VoiceThread for all campus users. The new version of VoiceThread is fully accessible and includes new features and upgrades.
Readied for Sakai’s last semester
Educational Technologies continued to transition instructors to Canvas, with 80% of courses taught in Canvas during the Fall semester. Sakai will enter a restricted state on May 15, 2024. EdTech, in partnership with the Center for Faculty Excellence, offered online and in-person training opportunities throughout the semester.
Debuted a bulk quiz creation tool for Canvas
Educational Technologies staff created a new Text Quiz Builder tool, giving instructors a faster way to create quizzes and question banks in the Canvas LMS. The tool enables instructors to bulk create quizzes using markup text instead of using the default Canvas interface. Text-based quiz creation was a frequently used Sakai feature.
People
Andy Brawn, technology support specialist, retired after 35 years with ITS.
Security & Identity Management
Celebrated Cybersecurity Awareness Month
The Information Security Office, with support from ITS Communications, celebrated Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October.
- On October 2, the Information Security Office teamed up with the ITS Service Desk, UNC Police and School of Medicine IT for an all-day tent event in Polk Place. Students dropped by for hands-on lockpicking, a demonstration of malicious Wi-Fi networks, the Data@Rest podcast and free cookies and pizza.
- The online Capture the Flag competition enticed 68 Tar Heels to test their cyber skills against their peers.
- On October 13, 62 attendees joined the webinar “Hacking Your Brain for Better Cybersecurity” with George Finney, CISO at Southern Methodist University, best-selling author and founder of Well Aware.
- The Information Security Office and ITS Communications published articles on Safe Computing and ITS News, including to promote the Capture the Flag competition, to educate on how malicious actors are exploiting the convenience of QR codes, to share what makes MFA “phish resistant” and to encourage campus users to report phishing.
- The Information Security Office hosted the annual Information Security Liaisons Luncheon on October 19.
- The Information Security Office facilitated a panel discussion, “Current and Future Challenges in Cybersecurity,” with thought leaders in higher education. Panelists included Michael Tran Duff, Chief Information Security and Data Privacy Officer at Harvard University; Allison Henry, CISO at University of California, Berkeley; and Jeremy Rosenberg, CISO of Yale University.
Infrastructure & Operations
Streamlined notifications to IT staff for major incidents
ITS continued to streamline and automate major incident procedures, including notifications to IT staff. In December, staff consolidated communications to a new Microsoft Team with an automated structure of one channel per major incident. The new structure enables more flexible notifications and makes it easier to discern which messages are related to an incident. Campus IT staff can opt in to the new Team.
Research Computing
Joined Data Science Day celebrations
ITS Research Computing participated in the first annual Data Science Day event on September 29. The event was co-hosted by the UNC School of Data Science and Society and Innovate Carolina and was held in the new Innovate Carolina Junction on Franklin Street.
Enterprise Applications
Began transitioning to new organizational model
On October 1, Enterprise Applications began transitioning to a new organizational model to realign teams and consolidate resources to better enable the division to prioritize work and serve customers. The new organizational model will create a customer engagement team and a government committee to work with the engagement team to prioritize work from a University perspective instead of by functional areas.
Improved student registration
In collaboration with campus partners, Enterprise Applications improved the course registration and setup progress in ConnectCarolina to enhance the student experience. Enterprise Applications worked with Operational Excellence, the College of Arts and Science, the Registrar’s Office and others to revamp registration appointments, reserved seats and waitlist processes.
People
Enterprise Applications’ Maribel Carrion established the first endowed fund at the Carolina Latinx Center.