IT advances ON CAMPUS A
new era began at the College of Saint Elizabeth in fall 2016 as the first coeducational traditional undergraduate class was welcomed to campus. To prepare for this class and future generations of CSE students, a review of academics, campus facilities, and sports programs began in 2015. Upgrading the technology on campus became a major priority. Working with NJEDge and a New Jersey Higher Education Technology Infrastructure (HETI) grant, the college was able to upgrade the network infrastructure by doubling its bandwidth through a purchasing agreement with NJEDge which enabled it to expand wireless capability throughout the campus, upgrade the legacy phone system and install a generator for the network operations center. Being part of the consortium allows CSE to receive significant savings for hardware and software purchases, participate in professional development programs and collaborate with the other NJ colleges and universities. The college is continually looking to NJEDge and the NJCIO Forum for guidance in current and future technologies.
C
IOs have a litany of things to worry about, but ransomware has risen to the top. A ransomware discovery in an academic shared folder surfaced as a challenge to student-faculty collaboration: should non-university controlled devices be allowed to make changes in shared teaching and research folders? The stinger was that the ransomware event took place nine months prior to discovery, and there was no unaffected backup, as it was beyond the retention window. Luckily, the files were not essential, but what if they were? Because of the NJEDge NJCIO and Security Resources Group meetings, no institution has to bear the burden alone. SRG made it clear that no foolproof prevention existed (at any price), and draconian access restrictions run counter to the collaboration culture of higher education. By collaborating with NJEDge members and developing new strategies to prepare for and mitigate security incursions, Monmouth can support faculty-student research and teaching collaboration at a reduced risk without adding cumbersome restrictions or costly preventative solutions.
20 • NJEDge.Net ANNUAL REPORT
