Office of Information Technology 2009-10 Annual Report

O F F I C E O F I N F O R M AT I O N T E C H N O LO G Y NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY

Forward thinking.

2009-2010|Annual Report

O F F I C E O F I N F O R M A T I O N T E C H N O L O GY

Annual Report No. 2 …………………….................

Editor Tiffany Emerson ‘09 Design University Printing & Design Copy Editor Tira Rogers ’01, ‘05 Photographs Timothy D. Sofranko Jane Goode i4D Event Services, Inc. Publisher Office of Information Technology Contributors Rebecca Wilson ‘09 Rich Shivener ‘06 Kathleen Cox-Barker Correspondence Northern Kentucky University Office of Information Technology Lucas Administrative Center 507, Nunn Drive Highland Heights, Kentucky 41099 Phone: (859) 572-5272 Web: it.nku.edu E-mail: cio@nku.edu

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Copyright 2010, Northern Kentucky University.

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Contents A Letter from the CIO .................................................................................

4 Vision and Mission .................................................................................6 OIT Departments and IT Governance .................................................................................7 How we Compare .................................................................................8 What NKU says about OIT ............................................................................ 10 OIT Portfolio and Software Applications ............................................................................. 11 Achievements ............................................................................ 14 Projects in Progress ............................................................................ 30 Moving Forward ............................................................................ 34 OIT Annual Report | 3

A New Year of Possibilities ………………………......................................

A Letter from the CIO ………………………......................................

Dear Colleagues: This is an exciting time for the Office of Information Technology as we look to the future and begin working on a strategic plan for the technology needs of the university. The significant growth of our institution over the last several years and the growing impact of technology on education dictate that we need to continue to adapt to a vastly changing environment.

Below are just some of last year’s accomplishments that lay a foundation for the work that still needs to be done: • We completed the primary phases of the SAP (myNKU) implementation. This project was an enormous task for the entire campus, but collectively we succeeded in completing the most complex and largest technology project in our history.

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• We completed an iPhone application that allows students to access their course schedules, adding to the long list of ways the NKU community can stay connected on the go.

• We improved overall service to the campus by increasing service hours. We now offer 24/7 customer service and will be improving this even further in the coming months. We have made significant investments in our infrastructure that increase the bandwidth and reliability of our networks and other technology dependencies.

• And we won the ASUG Impact Award for our campus-wide SAP implementation, which is the first time a college or university has received this award in its 12-year history.

We have made a lot of progress, but we still have lots of work to do.

Currently, we are working toward optimizing myNKU by improving system performance, making other incremental changes and initiating a business intelligence project that we label “higher education analytics.” In partnership with many others on campus, our goal is to sustain and build upon the foundation we have created and to provide the campus community with the ability to forecast, see trends and act upon this information, which helps to drive university decisions. Because higher education is changing, we see this ability as instrumental in supporting NKU in the coming years.

Our strategic plan will also be essential. It will be a framework to guide us in offering technological solutions to NKU, especially considering the forces that

are shaping the future of education. “Digital natives” have very different expectations related to the learning environment as they expect to be able to learn anytime, anyplace. One way that we hope to surpass student expectations is to support the offering of more hybrid classes and online learning opportunities. We will work closely with all areas of the campus as we continue our planning process.

A new year of possibilities awaits, and I am excited about NKU’s future.

Sincerely, Timothy Ferguson Associate Provost, Office of Information Technology Chief Information Officer

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OIT Outlook and Objectives

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Vision

To empower and serve the university community through accessible, collaborative, innovative, and advanced technological solutions that provide an enriching academic experience to our students, and strengthen the ability to educate the public we serve.

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Mission

• The mission of the Office of Information Technology, in support of the strategic goals of the university, is to provide highest quality service and delivery through innovative and efficient technology for students, faculty, staff and the community. As an integral part of the university and as leaders in technology we will:  Improve

the learning experience for our students with effective technology solutions in both classroom and distance learning settings.

 Provide

information access for students, faculty, and staff via quality technological services, tools, and resources to support learning, decision-making, and operational effectiveness.

 Assist

and support university constituents and the metropolitan region with planning and guidance to achieve educational goals and objectives through technological solutions.

 Provide

excellent communication and infrastructure that encompass stability and security of university IT resources and information, and deliver high-quality computing, printing and media services.

 Evaluate

and implement emerging technologies to provide solutions, enhance processes, and improve services for the university and community.

• Provide training and instruction for the university community in the use of tools, systems, and software through a highly skilled technical staff and knowledgeable Service Center/Information Technology Solutions Center.

• Partner with technology-based NKU initiatives in support of the Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati community for regional educational and outreach services.

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OIT Departments OIT has five areas: service, infrastructure, research and development, myNKU and office of the chief information officer. Each area has a specific goal, and together they work toward sustaining and improving campus functionality.

Shift to enterprise systems group With major implementations of SAP (myNKU) finished for finance, human resources and, most significantly, campus management, the myNKU project is complete.

The team known as PRISM, or the myNKU team, will soon be called the Enterprise Systems Group This group will support current myNKU functions, enhance processes and establish new functionality to continue to meet the needs of the campus. Team leaders (with input from the functional areas they represent) will

prioritize enhancements and new functionality to ensure that the team is working on the right projects at the right time to support the campus. Faculty and chairs will also provide input to improve the campus management/ student management functionality of myNKU to better serve our students.

The enterprise systems group will play a critical role as NKU runs SAP to support its business processes. More information and continual updates about myNKU can be found on the myNKU website at http://it.nku.edu/ mynku/index.php. To see the benefits of myNKU, visit http://it.nku.edu/mynku/Benefits_of_myNKU.php.

To learn more about other OIT departments, visit http://it.nku.edu/annualreport/index.php/who-we-arewhat-we-do.

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IT Governance

The Office of Information Technology has two committees: the Information Technology Policy Council, which is the primary IT governance group for OIT, and the Information Technology Advisory Council, which is a committee that provides consultation and recommendations to OIT and the chief information officer.

Visit http://it.nku.edu/annualreport/index.php/who-we-are-what-we-do/it-governance for more information about IT governance.

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Apples to Apples: comparing .........…………………….. NKU IT with EDUCAUSE

It’s important to understand how the Office of Information Technology at NKU compares with other colleges and universities.

EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology, helps colleges, universities and educational organizations, including 250 corporations, to adhere to the best IT business practices. Every year, EDUCAUSE releases survey results for colleges and universities nationwide to see how they compare with other schools.

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Here’s how we compare.

Budget

$608

$1046

NKUʼs OIT budget per student

National average per student

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Employment

NKU has 104 full-time employees.

1:148

NKU OIT staff per student ratio

1:162 EDUCAUSE national average staff per student ratio

This means that every full-time OIT employee supports 148 students. Based on the 2008 EDUCAUSE study, one OIT employee should support no more than 162 students.

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Desktop Replacement

7½

7% universities replace desktops in 3 years or less

# of years in which NKU replaces desktops

2008

93% universities do not replace desktops every 3 years

Currently, NKU replaces desktops every 7.5 years. NKU’s annual allocation for computer replacements is $52 per student. Based on the 2008 EDUCAUSE study, 7 percent of universities nationwide replace desktops every three or four years. Best practice: desktops should be replaced every four years.

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What NKU says about OIT…

“In addition to providing excellent services for the present needs of our university, OIT is leading the way for the university’s digital future. To give one example, it is planning the advanced infrastructure necessary to support the ultra technology of the new home of the College of Informatics, Griffin Hall.”

Douglas Perry Dean, College of Informatics “As an IT student worker, I have the opportunity to apply my knowledge from classes and learn new skills. It’s a great way to gain experience and confidence in my work.”

Apoorva Sharma NKU student “OIT takes advantage of innovative ideas, using technology to achieve their goals and objectives.”

Cindy Vautrin SAP project consultant “I think IT is one of the most difficult jobs there is. It’s about more than just having computers. It’s about infrastructure and everything that people use. These aren’t always visible needs.

OIT lets us get our work done.”

Dr. Kenneth Rhee Director, Executive Leadership and Organizational Change program Chair, Information Technology Advisory Committee “Departments in Academic Affairs previously processed around 600 paper forms each semester. Now, we don’t have to because it’s all done online through myNKU. We’re saving paper and speeding up our approval processes.”

Mary Ryan Associate Provost for Administration “Because of OIT, more advisors are viewing student information online. This decreases paper and improves student/advisor interaction.”

Kimberly Taylor Student Life Cycle Management Coordinator “Internet access in university housing is very reliable and fast.”

Nadine Greenslade NKU student

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OIT Portfolio ..........…………………….............

How OIT Spends Its Time

22% Other Initiatives

56% Campus Support

22% MyNKU Project

..........……………………............. software applications

Business Services Software

NKU Custom Applications

The Office of Information Technology supports six kinds of software applications and more than 100 software components.

Hosted Services

OIT supports 150 software components Instructional Software

For a complete list of software applications, visit it.nku.edu/annualreport/index.php/it-portfolio.

Core Services

Desktop Software

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Computers

Number of Computers on Campus

2009

5,875 computers on campus

2010

5,975 computers on campus

Number of Support Staff Members for Desktops/Laptops on Campus

2009

2010

7:771

9:664

In 2009, each support staff member was responsible for 771 computers. Today, each support staff member is responsible for 664 computers.

1

According to the industry best practice, each staff member should support 150 computers.

150

is best practice

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Network and Server Network and Server Comparisons

2009

175 physical servers 75 virtual servers

125 physical servers 225 virtual servers

325 network devices

375 network devices

150 wireless access

359 wireless access

(routers & switches)

points

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2010

(routers & switches)

points

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Smart Classrooms

Number of Support Staff Members for Smart Classrooms In 2009, four support staff members were responsible for maintaining 241 smart classrooms.

2009

2010

4:241

Today, four support members are responsible for

242

4:242

smart classrooms.

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Metrics

Number of E-mails Per Day

1.65 million

e-mails per day

Because 95 percent of NKU’s e-mails are spam, around-the-clock spam filter updates and antivirus capabilities are required.

95% are spam

Number of Computer Labs

OIT=72 labs supports

Number of Training Sessions

456

training sessions in 2009

Number of OIT Service Requests Per Year

33,318 OIT service requests processed

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2009

ACHIEV

Antivirus software for PCs (Microsoft Forefront)

Last year, the Office of Information Technology made Microsoft Forefront antivirus software available to all NKU students. This was the first time that NKU offered free antivirus software and the Information Technology Solutions Center provided support.

Biographies/profiles by department/college on the web The research and development team completed its user-friendly faculty and staff directory interface for the NKU website. The new interface enables various departments on campus to achieve the same look and feel as the College of Informatics faculty and staff directories online.

To see one of the College of Informatics online directories, visit http:// informatics.nku.edu/bis/ourpeople.php.

The Office of Information Technology completed many successful projects from July 2009 to June 2010.

Here are the accomplishments.

Campus computer security Office of the CIO’s policy and compliance team accomplished the following: • Enhanced technology policies and procedures as well as efforts to improve IT security for acceptable use, securing sensitive data, and using antivirus tools.

• Strengthened security plans for personal computing devices and NKU’s network.

• Created new reporting using Microsoft Forefront antivirus and monitoring analysis and response system that helps to monitor NKU’s systems and network.

• Improved infrastructure with policy and procedural initiative tools such as Forefront, Windows Server Update Services, MARS reporting and other tools.

Do-it-yourself grade-point average calculator Last year, the implementation of SAP (myNKU) enabled NKU to modify its grading policy to include plus and minus grades. To accommodate this change, the research and development team created a new gradepoint average calculator for students. To see the new GPA calculator, visit http://webapps.nku.edu/GPACalculator/index.php. Students can also use the GPA calculator in iNKU, NKU’s iPhone app.

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VEMENTS Efficiencies in faxing The infrastructure department and the business services office worked together to offer new faxing options for campus. Outgoing faxes can now be sent from your desktop, and incoming faxes can be sent to your e-mail’s inbox. To take advantage of these new options, submit a service request at http://it.nku.edu

OIT manages more than 40,000 user accounts.

These are accounts that access the NKU network.

Emergency Campus Communication (Norse Alert) The research and development team transitioned Norse Alert, NKU’s emergency contact system, to a new third-party vendor, First Call. This vendor keeps contact information for students, faculty and staff updated in real time.

Faculty/staff ordering of personal computers Faculty and staff will no longer have to submit paper order forms for computer replacements; all orders are now processed online. The Information Technology Solutions Center and the research and development team paired up and created the computer replacement order system, an online experience that allows you to not only select your replacement computer but also customize it. To find out more about the computer replacement project, visit http://webapps.nku.edu/pcorder.

Faculty and staff training in the IT Solutions Center Last fall, the Information Technology Solutions Center hosted approximately 250 workshops with more than 1,100 attendees.

Many of the faculty and staff workshops were for new functionality in myNKU. The IT Solutions Center also offered competency centers, which are walk-in sessions where individuals can receive one-on-one help.

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Functionality expansion on OIT website

Blackboard has an average of 510,000 visits per day.

The research and development team updated the Office of Information Technology website with two features last year — a services index (https://it.nku.edu/ext) and an NKU prospective student guide (http:// it.nku.edu/students/prospective/index.php). The services index is a comprehensive list of OIT services, and the NKU prospective student guide is a web manual to help prospective students examine technology offered at NKU. The NKU prospective student guide adheres to EDUCAUSE standards, which enable students to compare IT services and offerings at NKU with other universities and colleges.

Getting to ‘green’ computing To reduce NKU’s electrical, cooling and hardware maintenance expenses, the infrastructure department performs efficient computing, which uses virtualization software to consolidate servers. In 2009, the infrastructure department migrated 70 (physical) servers to five (physical) servers. Although efficient computing will be a continuous project, the infrastructure department will finish its mass migration to virtual servers near the end of 2010.

Getting to the Internet anywhere/everywhere The infrastructure department added 100 additional wireless access points to campus. Now NKU has more than 350 wireless access points, which boost wireless signals, deliver faster wireless connection speeds and allow more devices to connect to the campus network.

Improved Internet access for our resident students The infrastructure department installed wireless Internet access in student housing. Now university housing has more than 100 wireless access points. They provide denser Internet coverage and a better Internet connection speed.

Instructional course management solution (Blackboard) Last fall, nearly 2,100 course sections used Blackboard — NKU’s course management system — in online courses and as a supplement to face-toface classes.

The Information Technology Solutions Center provided various training opportunities including instructor-led sessions, manuals and online tutorials, and it provided support via phone, e-mail and in person, consultations upon request, and regular Blackboard maintenance and upgrades.

Additionally, Blackboard 9, the new upgrade, was installed on a test server in preparation for the 2010 implementation.

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Instructional course management solution (Blackboard) — Infrastructure enhancements The infrastructure department added additional web servers for Blackboard. The extra web servers implement load balancing, which equally distributes data across a network of servers to ensure that individual servers are not overworked. Overall, this improves the stability and availability of Blackboard.

Lifetime e-mail address for students The infrastructure department upgraded NKU’s student e-mail system by moving it to the Microsoft cloud — a hosted solution. The new system offers multiple features: • A lifetime e-mail address. Students can keep their NKU e-mail addresses forever.

• 10 GB e-mail quota. All e-mail accounts have a 10 GB e-mail quota; previously student e-mail accounts only had 25 megabytes.

• Simpler, better interface. The new student e-mail system is designed to fully support Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari browsers.

• Mobile phone integration. Students have the option to integrate personal mobile devices — including the iPhone, iPod Touch, Droid, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and more — to the student e-mail system.

• Enhanced desktop clients. Students are able to integrate Outlook, Entourage, Snow Leopard and other desktop e-mail clients.

• Rich calendar functionality. E-mail accounts provide students with enhanced calendaring features that also integrate with mobile devices.

• New e-mail address. Students receive one-of-a-kind domains such as username@mymail.nku.edu.

myNKU functionality rollouts Numerous functions in the myNKU information system have launched, improving university business processes. The “go lives” enhanced human resources, finance and campus management, the three business areas with which myNKU deals.

The myNKU team’s work has resulted in students, faculty and staff using myNKU to register for classes, assign grades, advise students and much more.

Employee Self Service The myNKU team improved bank information in myNKU. Now, employees can manage direct deposit accounts online. This includes adding, deleting and changing account information or changing amounts allocated to each individual account.

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Faculty Functionality The myNKU team created the following faculty functionalities: • Class lists (class roster by semester and organizational unit) This allows faculty to view their teaching schedules and class rosters and send class-wide e-mails. It also allows administrators to search faculty teaching schedules and class rosters within their department.

• Schedule of classes This allows users to export to Excel or to display classes by academic department, course, service learning, location and delivery mode. Users can view course location, instructor, capacity, enrollment and more.

• Attendance/non-attendance reporting Faculty and staff began reporting class attendance and nonattendance in myNKU via the Student Administration tab.

• Unofficial transcripts for advisors Advisors gained access to their students’ unofficial transcripts through the myNKU Academic Advising tab.

• Grading courses The myNKU team launched the grades and attendance reporting application under the Student Administration tab in myNKU. Faculty and staff now report midterm and final grades and attendance with this application.

• Quick permit entry The myNKU team created this quick and easy way for faculty to issue a permit for courses via the Advising tab in myNKU.

Interfaces The myNKU team enhanced the benefits interface; it now transmits information to Delta Dental weekly. This ensures that Delta Dental receives accurate information in a timely manner.

Manager Self Service The myNKU team made the supplemental pay and part-time faculty personnel action request forms electronic. These two forms are the start of all PAR forms becoming electronic. A committee developed electronic forms to assist in the organizational unit restructuring process to ensure the policy for organizational restructures is followed.

Student Self Service The myNKU team developed the following: • Degree audit The degree audit application became available in the Student Self Service and Academic Advising tabs in myNKU. The degree audit application allows students to see a listing of previous courses they have taken.

• Tuition calculation and billing Students began using myNKU to pay tuition bills online via the Biller Direct tab.

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• View grades Students were able to start viewing grades under “My Records” in myNKU.

Support The myNKU team assigned a “point person” to each college, providing more rapid responses to outstanding issues. These liaisons undoubtedly helped the colleges adapt to myNKU functionality.

The myNKU team also opened the SAP Competency Center (myNKU Support Center) in Founders Hall 116 to provide the best myNKU campus support.

Upgrades The OIT’s infrastructure department handles upgrades for myNKU. It oversees hardware upgrades, which help the system’s performance and keep it up to date with current standards, and software upgrades, which recently made myNKU compatible with Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8.

Personal drive expansions (J: drive) The infrastructure department expanded faculty and staff drives to 1 GB and departmental drives to 10 GB.

Regional Student Leadership Program showcase The Information Technology Solutions Center coordinated and hosted the Regional Student Leadership Program showcase at NKU. More than 500 students from local schools presented their technology projects, which were classified by community service, entrepreneurial, global connects (collaborative projects), instructional and technical.

Robust hardware for our e-mail The infrastructure department replaced backend servers for the new e-mail system. This prepared NKU for newer versions of Microsoft Exchange and boosted e-mail performance.

Smart classroom installations and updates The service department installed 50 document cameras in existing smart classrooms campus wide and replaced equipment and performed upgrades for select smart classrooms in Nunn Hall.

The service department also played an instrumental role in the design and implementation of the health informatics simulation lab in the Albright Health Center.

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Student evaluations of courses Last fall, the research and development team upgraded its custom application, online course and instructor evaluations that went campuswide in spring 2009. The upgrade works with the new administrative system, myNKU, and provides faculty with the functionality to print student evaluations for RPT folders and performance reviews.

Tool to aid in placement of incoming students based on standardized math placement test The research and development team created a custom web application that allows NKU to import math-testing scores from the KYOTE math placement test. This process assesses test scores and determines which university math course that students with math challenges should be placed.

The KYOTE test is currently being given in select local area high schools.

This enables teachers to measure students’ math abilities and create focus plans to improve math scores.

Virtual CIO Last winter, the Office of Information Technology joined the College of Informatics’ IMI to help with the Virtual CIO initiative, which offers technical support to six K-12 school districts and the early childhood development centers for three northern Kentucky counties.

ACHIEV Around-the-clock technical support The Information Technology Solutions Center started offering 24/7 support during fall and spring semesters to students, faculty and staff.

For more information about the IT Solutions Center, visit http://it.nku. edu/itsc/index.php.

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Student employees in the Information Technology Solutions Center monitor Virtual CIO phone lines as well as CuteChat — a web service that enables one-on-one conversations.

Voicemail messages to your e-mail The infrastructure department installed a new version of voicemail software. The new software increases reachability and allows users to receive voicemails via e-mail or web.

Web — Quick Links — Schedule of Classes The research and development team updated NKU’s online schedule of classes (http://www.nku.edu/class_sched). The new schedule has a fresher look and features eight search fields to find class offerings.

NKU’s e-mail servers manage an average of 5 million e-mails per day.

Web rebuild Northern Kentucky University won the excellence award for its website at the CASE-Kentucky conference. CASE-Kentucky is an organization for higher education marketing, communications and development areas.

Marketing + Communications’ web communications and the research and development team also completed the web rebuild; all academic and administrative NKU sites were finished.

VEMENTS Behind-the-scenes infrastructure upgrades Active directory The infrastructure department upgraded the Active Directory — the list of NKU accounts (faculty, staff, students and their information) — to the newest version of Windows server.

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myNKU The infrastructure department made hardware upgrades to myNKU. These upgrades improved the myNKU system and the myNKU portal (login page).

The infrastructure department also upgraded myNKU’s feature for creating reports. Now the system for creating reports is easier to use and understand.

Network The infrastructure department made major upgrades to the campus network. The internal campus bandwidth was upgraded to 10 GB, and a secondary Internet connection, which assists in minimizing the amount of network outages that NKU experiences, was installed. These upgrades have not only minimized network outages but have also more than doubled the connection speed to NKU’s external network. This improves video conferencing, distance learning and network-streaming performances and provides faster connections to NKU websites and other sites and services that are hosted by NKU. The infrastructure department also upgraded some campus network equipment; the team installed new switches and electric and network racks. Upgrading network equipment is what makes servers available to campus. Servers keep NKU’s website and other systems running. As NKU moves more toward virtualization, updates like this are necessary because they prepare NKU for the virtualization of desktop devices, which requires less computer equipment.

Software The infrastructure department performed system upgrades to third-party systems including Blackberry Enterprise software, which NKU uses for Blackberry synchronization; ImageNow, a tool used for document imaging; Payment Gateway, which NKU uses to process credit cards; T2 Parking Systems, software that enables faculty, staff and students to purchase parking passes; and Tivoli Storage Management, a backup solution for NKU’s databases.

Campus computer security

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Office of the CIO’s policy and compliance team accomplished the following: • Implemented plans for data protection and encryption tools as well as antitheft tools, which improved data management procedures.

• Developed a disaster recovery SharePoint site to collaborate and communicate disaster recovery planning activities between OIT departments.

• Established disaster recovery and business continuity planning efforts.

• Installed security cameras and door locks in an effort to reduce theft.

• Reduced technical threats such as malicious activities, policy violations, viruses, spam, and more with antivirus management

and intrusion detection tools, which improved system management procedures.

• Strengthened policies, procedures and efforts to reduce malware viruses, spam and other kinds of intrusions.

eScrap recycling The Office of Information Technology partnered with procurement, building services and NKU Green to offer campus-wide eScrap recycling (electronics recycling) for two days. They collected 16,196 pounds of eScrap, which included: • • • • • • •

184 computers.

38 servers.

2 laptops.

88 printers.

84 CRT monitors.

18 LCD flat-screen monitors.

21 TVs.

Faculty/staff replacement of personal computers Every year, the service department replaces outdated NKU computers and laptops. In the 2009-10 fiscal year, the service department replaced 920 computers and laptops. To find out more about the computer replacement project, visit http://webapps.nku.edu/pcorder.

Faculty and staff training in the IT Solutions Center New Trainings This spring, the Information Technology Solutions Center hosted approximately 236 workshops with more than 800 attendees. Several new workshops were featured including: Computer tips & tricks: Maximizing your Productivity; Using Excel to Enhance your Exported BW Reports; and Foundation Reporting. One of the most popular workshops, Using Excel to Enhance your Exported BW Reports, provides quick formatting tips and other helpful information to make exported business warehouse reports look better.

In preparation of the new Blackboard upgrade, the IT Solutions Center hosted more than 40 workshops and presentations covering the new features of Blackboard 9 for faculty and staff.

Training Institutes The Information Technology Solutions Center hosted the Summer Faculty Institute June 1-3 and the Summer Technology Institute June 8-10 for NKU faculty and staff. The Summer Faculty Institute featured 18 workshops and had more than 98 faculty attendees, and the Summer Technology Institute featured 16 workshops and had more than 83 faculty and staff attendees. New sessions during this year’s institutes OIT Annual Report | 23

included: Lecture Capture, Respondus/StudyMate, YouTube & Social Networking, Blended Instruction, and What’s New in Windows 7.

NKU was one of the first universities in the nation, and the only in the tri-state, to have an iPhone application.

In addition, the IT Solutions Center cosponsored two specialized weeks of Summer Faculty Institute: Building Quality Online Courses and Advanced Online Course Development with Education Outreach. More than 32 faculty members attended these three-day specialty summer faculty institutes.

Functionality expansion on OIT website The research and development team updated the Office of Information Technology website with two features this spring — IT dashboard metrics, and system status and alerts. The IT dashboard metrics is an easy way to view how the Office of Information Technology is performing throughout the year; it offers statistical data to measure OIT’s progress.

The IT systems status and alerts page provides the latest information about NKU upgrades, outage and future maintenance schedules. The infrastructure department keeps this information up to date. To see the IT dashboard metrics, visit http://it.nku.edu/metrics. To see the system status and alerts page, visit http://systemsstatus.nku.edu.

Graduate online orientation project The research and development team created an online orientation project for the Office of Graduate Programs. This supplies incoming graduate students with resources as well as information regarding myNKU, Steely Library, policies and more. To see the online orientation, visit http://library.nku.edu/students/graduate_students/welcome_ message.php.

Instructional course management solution This summer, the infrastructure department upgraded Blackboard to version 9. The new version of Blackboard features the following: • • • • • • • •

A user-friendly Web 2.0 interface.

Less scrolling.

Drag-and-drop functionality.

Blogs, wikis and journals.

Blackboard-generated student groups.

Mash-ups (resources from YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare).

Course files area.

Improved grading capabilities.

In addition, the university now has a campus license for Respondus, a powerful tool for creating and managing exams that can be printed or published directly to Blackboard, and StudyMate, which allows instructors to create flash-based activities and games using simple templates.

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The training team within the service department and the research and development team worked together to update Blackboard’s interface with NKU branding. The service department offered several workshops, which overviewed the new features of Blackboard 9 as well as how to use the new interface, navigate the site, customize courses and more.

To see a demo of Blackboard 9, visit http://www.blackboard.com/ quicktutorials/9_Your_Course%20Environment.htm.

More than 2,300 course sections used Blackboard this spring.

myNKU functionality rollouts Advisor Functionality The myNKU team made the Quick Reference sub-tab available on the Academic Advising tab. This is the new default sub-tab when you access the student file on the advisor user interface.

The Quick Reference tab is a snapshot of the student academic record and includes the following information: students’ current program activity; previous programs (up to three); active holds; most recent, current and future admissions; progression results; and performance indices and graduation information.

Faculty Functionality The myNKU team made a change to the academic period drop-down menus for online registration and the quick permit entry in the Academic Advising tab. Both drop-down menus no longer default to a semester, allowing the user to select the semester they desire. For example, the quick permit entry drop-down menu now defaults to “blank,” not “200910, spring.” This change gives users more control over their academic period selections.

The myNKU team also made the chair view of grades application available this year. It is on the Student Administration tab, which is an Administration Services sub-tab.

The chair view of grades application does real-time reporting for midterm, attendance and final grading. It gives users the ability to search for all, completed or missing grades for each type of grading (course, faculty user name and faculty ID). The application also allows users to display results for their entire organizational unit.

Manager Self Service The myNKU team enhanced the personnel action request workflow in the Manager Self Service tab. Now when there is a cost override for a supplemental PAR or grant PAR, the responsible fund manager will receive the electronic PAR for the approval in the Universal Worklist tab in myNKU. OIT Annual Report | 25

The myNKU team also included long text in budget transfer workflow notifications this year. Requested by the SAP chairs workgroup, long text allows for easier processing of budget transfers and recognition on budget transfer notifications. Workflow notifications regarding grant and grant-related budget transfers are sent to PIs and academic chairs responsible for grant match cost centers. These notifications are sent when grant and grant-related budget transfers are posted by the grants and contracts administration unit of the comptroller’s office.

The employee compensation management function through the Manager Self Service tab also debuted this spring. Employee compensation management includes the annual staff salary process as well as the academic year faculty appointments process. Both the staff salary letters and the faculty appointment forms are printed based on the information created through ECM and are available for printing at the completion of ECM.

Student Self Service The myNKU team improved messages in online registration. Now when registering for a class, students may see a pop-up message regarding the status of course requirements they are not meeting or are meeting conditionally. Improvements to the message function include: • Sorting. Messages are now sorted by course with requirements listed under each message. Requirements are sorted in alphabetical order.

• Conditional registration. When registration is successful but conditional, a different registration message displays for the student.

It has a notice stating that the student may be dropped from the class later if the required course is not successfully completed.

Requirements that are conditionally met have the message indicating so: “Requirement X conditionally fulfilled.”

• Test scores. Test requirements have one line of code (i.e. ACT), but the system checks both tests (i.e. ACT and ACT1). When a student does not meet the test requirements, one error message displays.

• Additional information. Previously, there was no help information; now, a detailed explanation of the message is displayed.

• No display for requirements that are met. Fulfilled requirements no longer display on the Student Self Service tab.

Support The myNKU Support Center relocated to Founders Hall 220. The center— also known as the SAP Competency Center — is working with the Information Technology Solutions Center to better serve the campus community. Individuals can stop by, submit an online service request, call, text, or use web chatting to receive help.

Network specifically for university housing The infrastructure department opened a network exclusively for university housing, NKU_VILLAGE. The new network is more secure 26 | OIT Annual Report

and helps to keep housing’s network activity separate from NKU’s main network activity.

Online job board for student internships off campus The research and development team was part of a larger team to select software to better serve students and alumni looking for jobs through the Career Development Center. Since then, the infrastructure department has been integrating myNKU with the new software. The new software, Interphase, became available this summer.

Securing computer data in case of theft

The NKU homepage has an average of 45,000 visits per day.

This summer, the Office of the CIO’s policy and compliance team enabled the BitLocker Encryption feature on all new NKU-managed Windows-based laptops and desktops. This helps to keep data secure by encoding information stored within the system, making it unreadable to anyone who is not an authorized user.

BitLocker Encryption is also available for current NKU-managed desktops and laptops running Windows 7.

Sending a text message to get technical support The Information Technology Solutions Center implemented Cincinnati Bell’s R3 texting tool, which stands for “Review, Respond and Resolve.”

This system allows anyone to text keywords “NKUIT” and “myNKU” along with a question to a special five-digit number (90808) to text directly with an IT Solutions Center representative.

Smart classroom installations and updates The service department extended smart classroom support hours for students, faculty and staff. The new support hours are Monday-Thursday 7:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. and Friday 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.

During winter and summer, the service department performs preventive maintenance in all smart classrooms. This reduces the number of technology failures during the semester and prolongs the life of the equipment. Equipment failures and repairs are measured to determine the life cycle of equipment.

Student evaluations of courses The research and development team enhanced online course and instructor evaluations. Now semester terms are displayed in words rather than values. Evaluations also now have a pop-up dialog at the beginning of each evaluation. This reminds students which course they are about to evaluate.

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MyNKU’s paperless process for finance saves 624 reams of paper per year!

That’s approximately 10.4 trees!

In June, the research and development team worked with the Office of Curriculum, Accreditation and Assessment to transition online student evaluations to Digital Measures, a system with faculty information to support SACS accreditation processes. The teaching evaluation effectiveness committee, a sub-committee of the NKU Faculty Senate, determined that packaged software would best support the online evaluation processes. The new tool allows faculty to e-mail students directly and create customized surveys for their classes.

Since fall 2009, more than 9,300 students have evaluated courses, and more than 43,700 evaluations have been completed.

Student retention tool The research and development team completed a custom web application for Early Alert. This application allows Early Alert specialists to monitor students who need assistance in creating action plans and support networks to overcome current obstacles to college success.

User group for collaborating within a department or project team (SharePoint) The research and development team created the SharePoint user group to provide more support to SharePoint users at NKU. This group meets monthly to discuss technical questions and SharePoint capabilities.

Virtual CIO The Information Technology Solutions Center provided technical support to more than 20 Virtual CIO calls from local K-12 schools and early childhood development centers.

Web security The research and development team implemented Fortify, a software tool that analyzes NKU web applications and identifies security problems. The research and development team uses this software to check for vulnerabilities in web applications built in house.

Website for the Francine Shapiro Library Marketing + Communications and the research and development team branded the (online) Francine Shapiro Library with NKU style. To see the Francine Shapiro Library, visit http://emdr.nku.edu/index.php.

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NKU brought home the 2010 ASUG Impact Award at the America’s SAP User Group (ASUG) conference in Orlando this past May.

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These are a

What’s in the works…

sampling of some of the projects that the Office of Information Technology is currently working on.

Accepting credit cards online The infrastructure department and the research and development team are working with the bursar’s office to investigate software options that will allow university offices and academic departments to accept credit card payments online. This will offer NKU students, faculty and staff a more convenient way to pay for NKU services and products.

Behind-the-scenes infrastructure upgrades This summer, the infrastructure department will implement additional servers for NKU and introduce expanded clustering. (Clustering is when multiple servers work together, acting as a single computer, to enhance uptime.)

This will help increase the uptime of all NKU systems including Blackboard, myNKU, database systems and more.

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Biographies/profiles by department/college on the web

Changes to our wireless Internet networks

Marketing + Communications and the research and development team are presently creating online faculty and staff directories for the Haile/U.S. Bank College of Business and the College of Education and Human Services.

The infrastructure department is working on two secure wireless networks for NKU, NKU_SECURE and NKU_ ENCRYPT. The new networks will provide full access to internal servers, Outlook, shared drives and other university systems to anyone with an NKU account. These will be available in the fall.

Campus computer security The Office of the CIO’s policy and compliance team is currently increasing security awareness across campus via education and awareness campaigns.

Policy and compliance is also improving policies and procedures to help reduce data breaches, identity theft, equipment loss and copyright infringements as well as the inappropriate use of technical resources.

Common instant-messaging tool (Office Communicator) The infrastructure department is working on an instant messenger for NKU. Once it is complete, this tool will be available on campus and in Blackboard.

Cost to attend NKU calculator

Encrypt data on Mac

The research and development team is creating an online asset for prospective and current students, the cost to attend NKU calculator. This calculator allows individuals to estimate their expenses at NKU. It should be available later this year.

Mac OS X now includes FileVault, which secures data, making it unreadable to unauthorized users if the computer is lost or stolen.

Eliminate sensitive information The Office of the CIO’s policy and compliance team is in the process of licensing Identity Finder software for faculty and staff. This software can search for and destroy any unwanted or unnecessary sensitive data on laptops, desktops and portable storage including Social Security numbers and credit card numbers. The new product will be available in the fall.

This fall, the Office of the CIO’s policy and compliance team will enable this feature on all new Mac OS X laptops and will offer it to any current user with OS 10.5 or higher.

Faculty/staff campus e-mail upgrade This summer, the infrastructure department will upgrade Microsoft Exchange (the e-mail system). The new system will have a newer web interface and will offer more integration features for Apple.

Getting to the Internet anywhere/ everywhere The infrastructure department is installing additional wireless access points. This will help to provide better Internet coverage on campus, especially for mobile devices. Additional network upgrades to finish the 10 GB internal network will also be installed.

Griffin Hall — 1st intelligent building system The infrastructure department is working on an intelligent building system for the new College of Informatics building.

This building will use RFID (radio frequency identification) chips and digital signage, and it will be able to intelligently heat and cool itself as well as possibly interact with students.

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Mobile technology for instructional use This spring, the research and development team and the College of Informatics’ IMI created a mobile flash card application for NKU. The new app will be piloted this summer and will allow NKU faculty to make customized flash cards for class via the web. Once the application becomes available in the fall, students will be able to download their class flash cards on the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.

myNKU functionality rollouts Assigning advisors and instructors At this time, the security authorizations that NKU has in place will only allow academic departments to assign instructors to sections and assign advisors to students for faculty in their organizational unit. For instance, the department of English cannot assign a theatre instructor to a course section or a theatre advisor to students even if the theatre instructor teaches an English course cross-listed with a theatre course or the theatre advisor advises an English student.

As the Office of Information Technology works to implement a long-term solution to this issue, a temporary process is available for academic departments that have this issue.

Employee Self Service The “myNKU team” is creating additional functionalities for Working Time (in myNKU). Monthly paid faculty and staff will have the ability to submit 32 | OIT Annual Report

absences electronically for approval and processing. Biweekly paid staff and student employees will have the ability to electronically submit absences in addition to hours worked.

students and international students who are unable to attend Northern Exposure (the new-student orientation on campus) can go online for orientation. This will be available fall 2010.

New web content management system

Student retention solution

This spring, the research and development team and Marketing + Communications selected a new content management system for NKU. The new system, Day, is user friendly, offers improved functionality, and works with both PCs and Macs.

Online Northern Exposure The research and development team is creating an online orientation project for the Office of New Student Orientation and Parent Programs. Once the project is complete, undergraduate transfer

The research and development team is working with Student Affairs to implement EMAS Retention Pro — software that will further improve the university’s ability to retain students. This will support the University Connect and Persist program that was created last year to help students achieve college success.

Track and prioritize OIT projects The research and development team is implementing software for the Office of Information Technology and campus stakeholders that will analyze university

(technology) project requests and prioritize them. This will help to ensure that OIT is working on the best projects in support of the university.

Undergraduate student survey taken by seniors The research and development team is supporting the transition to a new senior survey using Digital Measure software, which contains faculty information and supports SACS accreditation processes.

The new survey will be available later this year.

University planning and assessment tool enhancement

team are working with the Office of Curriculum, Accreditation and Assessment to update WEAVEonline — a tool used for university planning and assessment. This will allow WEAVEonline users to log on using their NKU user names and passwords.

Upgrading collaboration software (SharePoint) to the latest version The infrastructure department and the research and development team are making preparations to roll out SharePoint 2010. The new version has been installed, and test-site conversions

are underway. Existing SharePoint sites will be migrated to the new version later this summer.

Because SharePoint 2010 will offer multiple new features and functionalities, extra support will be available via the SharePoint user group and the SharePoint site for SharePoint administrators.

This summer and fall, the Office of Information Technology also plans to promote SharePoint 2010 and its capabilities to potential users on campus. This will help to ensure that collaboration among NKU staff and faculty is in a secure environment (SharePoint) and that it’s backed up to ensure availability.

Currently, the infrastructure department and the research and development

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Moving Forward and Thinking Progressively At Northern Kentucky University, the Office of Information Technology thrives on the concept of forward thinking. Forward thinking is about having vision, thinking progressively and strategizing for future success. It’s also about knowing what’s happened in the past, taking into account current trends and intuitively moving forward.

Here are some of OIT’s latest forward-thinking plans.

Business continuity planning

Instructional lectures anytime/ anywhere

Last year, the Office of Information Technology made a commitment to establish a disaster recovery plan for NKU. A disaster recovery plan enables quick and efficient restoration of key systems and services in the event that a disaster or an emergency strikes. Northern Kentucky University’s current plan includes: • Planning, scope and business impact analysis.

This summer, several faculty members will be able to use a limited license of Tegrity, a cloud-based lecture capture service that allows faculty to record lectures for online classes and capture lectures in face-to-face classes. This tool will enable students to review lectures anytime, anywhere, and will especially help to improve student retention rates as well as student satisfaction.

• Policies, guidelines and emergency contacts for staff and vendors.

NKU’s iPhone application

• Emergency response teams as well as recovery plans.

• Evacuation plans and recovery documentation for key infrastructure, systems and services.

• Infrastructure readiness efforts. These are continuous improvements for system redundancy, which work to establish off-site recovery abilities for critical NKU systems and services.

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Northern Kentucky University was one of the first universities in the nation to have an iPhone app. In the tri-state, it is the only university to have an iPhone app.

The first version of iNKU was released in spring 2009 through a collaboration between the Office of Information Technology and the NKU College of Informatics’ IMI. It offered students

myNKU system. “Courses” is another added feature; it provides users with NKU’s searchable schedule of classes.

NKU students and staff who utilize Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky buses to travel to and from campus also have an added perk. This attribute offers information including TANK bus routes, maps and bus arrival times most relevant to campus. iNKU 2.3 also features an enhanced Find-It! campus directory.

The Find-It! campus directory, which allows individuals to securely search for faculty, staff or student information, now allows users to call or e-mail intended recipients.

The new version of iNKU supports Apple’s iPad. Future releases, however, will be enhanced specifically for the iPad. iNKU is available to download in the iTunes store for free (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inku/id313837856?mt=8), keyword “iNKU.”

Strategic planning

a glossary of terms used at NKU, a trivia game, an NKU fight song player and a campus map that worked with the iPhone’s GPS. Fast forward to spring 2010. The research and development team created more features and expanded functionality for NKU users. iNKU 2.0, which was released in March, offered features that include redesigned graphics and navigation buttons; NKU’s Find-It! campus directory — a tool that allows individuals to securely search for faculty, staff or student information; RSS feeds for NKU news, sports, departmental information, new library items and more; WNKU and Norse Code streaming radios; the ability for students to complete course evaluations; a GPA calculator; the university academic calendar; a portal for NKU’s athletics website; and updated graphics for the campus map.

The latest version of iNKU (2.3) was released in April. The “my classes” feature marks the first integration of myNKU with mobile devices. This allows students to view their course schedule for the current term using information derived from the

The Office of Information Technology is creating a three- to five-year strategic plan that will align with the university strategy as well as enhance it. This will support the university as it plans to address the many forces that are shaping NKU’s future including changing student expectations related to the teachinglearning process: anytime, anyplace. It will include further implementation of e-learning in addition to exploring how OIT can leverage the opportunities that technology can offer (in regard to current university challenges.)

The Office of Information Technology will present this near the end of 2010 and will make it available on the IT website.

As OIT develops its strategy, OIT will listen to constituents across the university, look to peer institutions and consider the technology industry as a whole to set direction for the future. The capacity, capability and maturity of the current OIT organization will also be considered.

This publication was prepared by Northern Kentucky University and printed with state funds (KRS 57.375). Northern Kentucky University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, religion, marital status, sexual orientation or veteran status in training activities or employment. Educational programs or activities are set forth in accordance with Title IX, Title VI, Title VII, ADA and Section 504. For more information, please contact the Office of Legal Affairs & General Counsel, Lucas Administrative Center 824, Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, KY 41099, (859) 572-5588, which has been designated to coordinate the school’s efforts to comply with the aforementioned regulations. 00094

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