university of Pittsburgh
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S w a n s o n S c h o o l o f E n g i n ee r i n g
2015 Annual report
Technology Group
Technology Group
Mission Provide optimal computing environments, advanced resources, support, solutions consulting, testing, and technical guidance to support the goals and objectives laid out in the SSoE Strategic Plan.
Technology Group
Vision The Swanson School of Engineering’s technology offerings and organization will be viewed by faculty as a top tier unit supporting their education and research goals. As well by peer Schools, SSoE will be viewed as a leader in providing advanced technology resources for faculty, offering superior and effective learning environments for students, and ensuring technology alignment with industry partner needs.
2015 Annual Report This report highlights performance, accomplishments and value delivered by the Technology Group to the Swanson School Of Engineering’s faculty, students, leadership, and staff through fiscal year 2015.
Contents
Guiding Principles............................................................................................................. 4
Strategic Guidance and Business Alignment................................................................... 5
Comprehensive Contributions.......................................................................................... 6
Areas of Focus, Services Delivered
Education.................................................................................................................... 7
Research..................................................................................................................... 8
Industry & Development............................................................................................ 9
Operations................................................................................................................ 10
FY15 Goals: Defined and Accomplished........................................................................ 11
FY16 Goals: Aligned to Plan, Focused on Value............................................................. 13
About the Team.............................................................................................................. 14
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Guiding Principles
2009 The Business Dictionary defines Guiding Principles as any principles or precepts that guide an organization throughout its life in all circumstances, irrespective of changes in its goals, strategies, type of work, or the top management. The SSoE Technology Group defined the following Guiding Principles in its 1st Strategic Plan in 2009:
2014-2018 These guiding principles were critical to the success of the plan. These tenets allowed for new processes, structures, environments and policies to be established and to flourish. And as a result of these successes, we have documented a refined set of Guiding Principles to carry us through the 2014-2018 term of this plan. They represent and support a balance between structure and innovation, central and distributed services, standardization and autonomy, and security and openness. They include:
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Retain and attract talented professionals focused on service and support of School needs Leverage University standards and industry best practices to provide highest level guidance and support Persistently research and engage the most advanced technology resources that conform to School needs in education and research Continuously seek alignment with School goals and objectives, ensuring active participation across faculty and staff Ensure that technology autonomy needed by faculty is married to overall transparency and governance
Deliver Stable Yet Extensible Technical Environments so that Teaching and Research can Flourish Promote Systems Integration and Tools for Collaboration Engage the Most Advanced Technology Resources that Conform to Student, Faculty and Staff Needs Understand the School’s Lines of Business and its Areas of Strategic Emphasis Understand How the School Aligns with University Goals from the Provost and Chancellor Be Accountable, Professional, and Focused on Service
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Strategic Guidance and Business Alignment Six years ago, the Swanson School of Engineering made an institutional statement via its backing of the creation of the SSoE Technology Group. The Swanson School’s emphatic support for the establishment of the Group communicated a commitment to technology services excellence, leadership, and value focus. Over the past fiscal year, the SSoE Technology Group maintained its obligation to the commitments the School made in 2009. The Group’s broadening resource offerings, increasing institutional impact, stable platforms, and high quality services combined to deliver a year of productivity and excellence in the School’s focus areas. In Spring 2014, the School’s 2nd Strategic Technology Plan was ratified by leadership. The Plan focused on four areas referred to as “business drivers” for the school. They included: education, research, industry/development, and operations. One of the most oft-used words in the Strategic Technology Plan is “alignment.” The SSoE Technology Group’s alignment to the needs coming out of these four business driver areas are what shapes what the Group does and how we do it. Alignment ensures the personnel we have, the roles we play, the services we deliver, the resources we develop and maintain, and the projects we work are in direct association with the school’s priorities and most important activities. The breadth and depth of the SSoE Technology Group’s value to the Swanson School is evidenced by the broad nature of its contributions across these four areas. The Group contributed in varied manners to Swanson in FY15. This annual report will elaborate the SSoE Technology Group’s accomplishments through Fiscal Year 2015, reporting against Plan targets in the categories noted above. Additionally, we will list our anticipated/planned accomplishments for the coming Fiscal Year 2016.
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Comprehensive Contributions Technology Groups are not what they were 10 or 15 years ago. Today, technology groups serving large organizations are expected to be integrated components of the overall operation, delivering value through resource optimization, process improvement efficient resource utilization, and institutional awareness of priorities. The SSoE Technology Group was formed to operate in this manner, and has done so since its inception. The comprehensive contributions of the Technology Group over the past year have illustrated how the group aligns itself with the core business processes of the school and delivers services in line with activities reflected in the 2014-18 Strategic Technology Plan. • In the educational arena, the SSoE Technology Group increased its count of advanced technology classrooms maintained, and initiated a benchmarking exercise to understand how well faculty are engaging the resources in these rich environments. Overseeing the distance learning function, as well as the technical aspects of both the Annual First Year Engineering Conference and the two Senior Design Expo events provided additional evidence of the Group’s reach. • In the research arena the Group continued its broad operational and technical resources and time to the reinvigoration of the Nanoscale Fabrication and Characterization Facility, co-led school and university efforts to indentify and adopt online lab safety training and co-led efforts with the University Library System to introduce ORCID, SciVal and
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Symplectic Elements – all tools to better help SSoE and its faculty manage their research footprints. • In the business & operations arena, the Group co-led a University level initiative that will revolutionize Faculty recruitment by bringing it online into managed workflows. The Group’s leadership was also asked to help select new technology leadership at a major university school and continued to lead the Universitywide Technology Directors Forum. • In the development and corporate services arena, the Group co-led school and University efforts to establish better pathways for industrial collaborations including new service and third party agreements. In addition, the Group initiated integration of its distance learning programs with the School’s corporate relations and co-op units. • In the communications and collaborations area a new web site architecture was introduced alongside a new version of Ektron for enterprise web management. As well, the group coordinated efforts to develop promotional content for its growing distance learning programs. The result of this impact is a Technology Group that is able to be nimble in the issues it tackles across a broad spectrum, a Group whose activities and actions are impactful to the institution on important matters, and a Group whose value to the Swanson School grows substantially year after year. In the coming pages we will dive more deeply per area of focus to better illustrate the Group’s actions, accomplishments and impact.
S wa n s o n S c h o o l o f E n g i n e e r i n g
Area of Focus, Services Delivered:
Education FY15 represented the first and a very active year in our Group’s pursuit of the educational components of the 2014-18 Strategic Technology Plan’s strategies and objectives.
marketing and communications plans will be presented to Chairs and Program managers, tied directly to planned enrollments and are expected to usher in the next growth era for the School’s online programs.
Over the past fifteen years, the Swanson School has invested more than $6 million in advanced technology classrooms. Most recently, the School opened five new advanced classrooms and has plans for an additional eight to be built through 2016. The feedback from students and faculty alike to these rooms has been universally positive. What has been missing in this feedback has been a detailed understanding of the value the technology delivers to the faculty in their teaching activities. As evidenced in the strategic plan, the Group initiated a comprehensive benchmarking initiative aimed at understanding the levels of engagement by faculty of the technology presented to them, along with a qualitative marker to tie faculty engagement to student performance. Ultimately we are seeking to continually refine how we design, outfit and build these critical learning spaces. Our benchmarking will continue through FY16 and beyond.
Broadly supporting the educational function at Swanson takes many forms in the SSoE Technology Group. Two diverse examples illustrate this comprehensive approach.
The distance learning function at Swanson has been offered in an organized form since 2008. Noted in prior annual reports, the SSoE Technology Group played and plays a key role in the program’s growth, delivering stable platforms, learning spaces and resources that have combined to jettison the program forward. FY15 saw the transition of leadership reporting for the distance learning program into the SSoE Technology Group. With technical platforms stable and performing, the focus immediately turned to enrollments and revenue. Integration with SSoE Corporate Relations and the School’s Co-Op program were early actions, and have already begun to generate dividends. Comprehensive
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Annually, the Swanson school showcases the activities, product and achievements of its student who are just arriving and nearly departing. The annual First-Year Engineering Conference, held each spring, exhibits the work, ideas, labors, intellect and achievements of our freshman engineers. The SSoE Technology Group has played a central support role for this event to ensure the students’ work is presented and parents/visitors are exposed to the technology and learning environments their students work in every day. In addition, the Group now supports technology and related tools for the School’s two Senior Design Expo events held in December and April of each academic year. These events as well illustrate the excellence in our students – in this case graduating seniors – and represents the culmination of their academic and work experiences through their time at the Swanson School. The second example of this broad support take the shape of two of our Group’s members, Bill McGahey and Jim Lyle. Bill and Jim teach soldering classes in their department, Electrical and Computer Engineering. In FY15, Jim and Bill were engaged by new faculty in the Freshman Program to teach a class and assist students in a new entrepreneurship and maker class. Their impact was impressive and they are tagged to continue to deliver this teaching in semesters to come.
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Area of Focus, Services Delivered:
Research Ensuring researchers are resourced with all of the tools and platforms they need to perform their innovative work is a key operating focus of the SSoE Technology Group. “Strategy 4” in the Strategic Technology Plan spoke in a broad sense to the operational challenges that many research labs face and that in many cases hinder research activity. Specifically, the Group co-led school and university efforts to identify and adopt online lab safety training. Rooted in the concept that all engineering research activities could not be provided general safety training, the Group, along with SSoE leadership, worked with the University of Pittsburgh Environmental Health & Safety group to create new processes for specialty safety training. Developed locally in departments and labs, the Technology Group helped to define processes, research front-end online training options, and ensure integration capabilities were present in the tools selected. The standard processes that will result will deliver an overall safer working environment for researchers, students and staff, and reduce the overall level of risk to the University of Pittsburgh. FY15 also saw the group co-leading efforts with the University Library System to introduce the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) to the School’s faculty. ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes faculty from every other researcher and supports automated linkages between SSoE’s faculty and their professional activities. The SSoE Technology Group will lead the rollout of this key resource to faculty through FY15 and into FY16.
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The Group also played a key role at the institutional level related to the identification and pursuit of Symplectic Elements a faculty data repository that will replace the University’s current Digital Vita system. As the School with the heaviest investment in Digital Vita, the University recognized an opportunity to bring the Group to the table during the investigation and evaluation periods. What will result is an FY16 rollout to deliver a more faculty-centric and tailored resource to Swanson’s faculty population. The tool will then be rolled out to the greater University of Pittsburgh faculty community. Leadership, labor, investment and progress also continued in FY15 as the Group maintained its impactful stance with the Petersen Institute for Nanoscience and Engineering, delivering operational and technical services and support. Those efforts were a primary contribution to the University’s decision to reinvest heavily in the PINSE NanoFabrication & Characterization Facility (PINSE NFCF). And as noted in the Plan, work continued on the Internet of Things (IoT) front with events, contributions, coordination with Corporate Relations, dialogue and leadership engagement on this important worldwide initiative.
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Area of Focus, Services Delivered:
Industry & Development In the development and corporate services arena, the Group co-led school and University efforts to establish better pathways for industrial collaborations including new service and third party agreements. Attacking external user agreements was no small undertaking, as the visitor and service agreements under which self-supporting and auxiliary units (e.g., Entity 03’s) at the University of Pittsburgh operated were stifling at least, and pushing away corporate and university collaborators at worst. Tied back to the SSoE Technology Group’s time and resource investment in getting the PINSE NFCF operating at 100%, the effort of working to change these agreements yielded not only success, but signaled a University-level reaction that will see the agreements and structures coming out of the PINSE experience, help to change the way the University of Pittsburgh does business, creating engagement frameworks for business and external academic users to leverage the University’s Entity 03 areas. FY15 saw the SSoE Technology Group initiate the integration of the School’s distance learning programs with the School’s corporate relations and co-op units. This linkage has already generated fruit with new engagements in multiple area corporations, and has yielded a more unified approach to corporate customers.
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Area of Focus, Services Delivered:
Operations As mentioned in the Strategic Technology Plan, the Group maintains a focus on lean processes and improvement of services in all aspects of the Swanson School’s operations.
Group’s leadership of the University-wide Technology Directors Forum – a group that has grown to cover the entire University including branch campuses and institutes.
At any university, the most expensive time booked is that of its faculty. Uniformly, faculty are tasked with what are essentially manual processes tied to cyclical processes. One of the most time consuming and manual processes in Swanson is the faculty recruitment cycle (e.g., recruitment, evaluation, hire and onboarding).
In the communications and collaborations area, a new web site architecture was introduced alongside a new version of Ektron for enterprise web management. The SSoE web site is one of many digital marketing channels leveraged by the School’s Marketing and Communications Group. The new architecture delivered better editing environments for users, a brand new design and navigation by the Marketing and Communications Group, and a server structure that was secure, redundant and better controlled.
In FY15, the Group co-led a University level initiative that will revolutionize Faculty recruitment by bringing it online into managed workflows. Leveraging an existing enterprise system, PeopleAdmin/PittSource, the Swanson School will be one of two pilot schools that adopt these new electronic workflow tools. These tools will reduce faculty time in managing these important processes, but generate a more secure, auditable workflow to better manage the process from start to finish. It is expected that faculty time will be reduced by 40-50% once fully adopted after the pilot has completed. As the accomplishments of the Group have grown over the years, so has its impact at the University level. This report has explained how the Group’s team members and leadership have extended their work to the institutional level, while principally, and positively, impacting Swanson. The Group’s leadership was sought out to assist in evaluation and selection of new technology leadership at a major university school in FY15. The engagement proved to be significant as it highlighted the University need for positions of this scale to be vetted by leadership beyond the local school and to professionals and leaders across the University. FY15 also saw the 5th anniversary of the
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In the security arena, the Group continued to take definitive action to mitigate risk and deliver stable, high performing environments for our faculty, students and staff. Specifically, the Group continued to migrate servers to the University’s Network Operations Center, reducing local footprint of servers in Benedum Hall and delivering 24/7/365 monitoring. The Group as well took a critical look at its VLAN configurations and associated firewall rules to ensure rules in place that were not receiving traffic were eliminated to continue to reduce exposure and risk. The Group proactively ran its public-facing servers through two levels of deep security scanning, including monthly scans managed by the University. The Group also took on an accelerated re-education agenda with relation to account password management. Many other smaller securityfocused items were addressed through FY15 not noted here; but they are part and parcel of the overall stance of the SSoE Technology Group related to delivering secure, stable and flexible platforms for its customers.
S wa n s o n S c h o o l o f E n g i n e e r i n g
FY15 Goals: Defined and Accomplished As illustrated in the previous pages, the SSoE Technology Group experienced an extremely productive FY15, broadening its reach and impact, while delivering the highest level of service and high performing platforms for its faculty, students and staff. Below is an accounting of the Group’s specific goal attainment, as laid out in the FY14 Annual Report.
Policy, Structure and Operations Identify existing enterprise tools or hosted services aimed at enhancing faculty recruitment management.
RESULT:
co-University lead on engagement of PeopleAdmin for faculty recruitment.
Continue progress on revenue generating ventures including service delivery, application licensing, and server co-location.
RESULT:
McGladrey, Inc potential engagement as licensing partner for Unified Student Record.
Migrate physical server hardware from Benedum Hall to Network Operations Center to introduce 24/7 monitoring of business critical infrastructure & open up Co-Location space in Benedum Hall.
RESULT:
15 servers migrated to NOC. Virtualization activity accelerated.
Research Services Collect requirements related to establishment of enterprise source control software aimed at improving code management & sharing and project management across SSoE.
RESULT:
Resource constraints caused tabling for FY15 and will be re-added to FY16 goals.
Examine requirements similar across Centers & Institutes with cost center status (ability to work with external customers) with intent of reviewing and adopting standard invoice & lab management software.
RESUL T:
Adoption of enterprise level agreement for FOM (Facility Online Manager), expansion of tool into additional research areas, and plans for further growth in FY16.
Continue development of Blackboard as a research safety training tool for SSoE and EH&S.
RESUL T:
Vetting of multiple online resources led to University-level engagement of Qualtrics as front end survey tool. Now seeking integration priority with CSSD for FY16.
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FY15 Goals: Defined and Accomplished (continued) Academic Services Leverage Microsoft SCCM to replicate all 21 computing classrooms across SSoE, critically reducing staff time associated with same.
RESUL T:
SCCM leveraged and created reduction of time of 45% to replicate classrooms in anticipation of academic year start.
Migrate distance learning resources from Hosted Adobe Connect to OnPremise Adobe Connect to improve quality, control and security with all streamed and recorded classes Effectively manage/promote integration opportunities with the EERC Flipped Classroom initiative.
RESUL T:
migration complete and OnPremise Connect will be primary delivery point while cloud-based Connect will remain as backup option.
Communication and Collaboration Services Migrate Microsoft SharePoint instances from OnPremise to Hosted, reducing costs by $5,000.
RESULT:
CSSD delays of full SharePoint 365 rollout will cause goal to be re-added for FY16.
Provide technical foundation and software management services to facilitate launch of new SSoE web site in Fall 2014.
RESUL T:
Site successfully launched including new server instances, development resources and Ektron version.
Alumni/Corporate Relations Services Collaborate with Corporate Relations to develop an interactive business to business image and functionality on the SSoE web site.
RESULT:
Resource and priority constraints caused tabling of goal and will be re-added for FY16.
Develop comprehensive set of collaboration and integrated LMS offerings targeting industry-linked Project Classes with Corporate Relations.
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RESULT:
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Resource and priority constraints caused tabling of goal and will be re-added for FY16.
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FY16 Goals: Aligned to Plan, Focused on Value This and future annual reports will align the Group’s Goals with those elaborated in the Strategic Plan. That Plan is a living document, and edits are made on a regular basis. These next-year goals will consistently represent the objectives and strategies conveyed in the Plan. Area of Focus, Services Delivered: Education • School-wide rollout of the Unified Student Record to all SSoE Departments • Freshman program rollout of the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Spring semester School-wide Area of Focus, Services Delivered: Research • Collect requirements related to establishment of enterprise source control software aimed at improving code management & sharing and project management across SSoE • Co-lead efforts for Qualtrics research safety training data integration into AccessIT and Peoplesoft personnel records Area of Focus, Services Delivered: Industry & Development • Collaborate with Corporate Relations to develop an interactive business to business image and functionality on the SSoE web site • Develop comprehensive set of collaboration and integrated LMS offerings targeting industry-linked Project Classes with Corporate Relations. Area of Focus, Services Delivered: Operations • School wide pilot rollout of Faculty Recruitment workflows in PeopleAdmin/PittSource
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About the Team The Swanson School of Engineering Technology Group turned six years old in FY15. The Group did not undergo any changes but did continue to refine the roles many team members played. That constant refinement of the Group’s alignment with the school needs was evident in the strategic plan and is examined regularly.
Margie K. Bly
Janet L. Littrell
Nathan J. Pearce
SSoE Assistant Dean’s Office, Administrator
Director of Distance Learning
Educational Technology Lead
jll119@pitt.edu
npearce@pitt.edu
James A. Lyle
Peter Scalercio
ECE Department Technology Lead, Senior Electronics Specialist
MEMS Department Technology Lead
mkb49@pitt.edu Richard R. Colwell
First-Year Program Office & Student Services Technology Lead rrc2@pitt.edu
James M. Segneff Matthew McCollough
Jeremy Dennis
BioE Department Technology Lead
IE Department Technology Lead, Senior Systems Analyst
Technology Projects & Software Licensing Manager
mjm188@pitt.edu
jms2@engr.pitt.edu
jtd36@pitt.edu
Jason McDonald
Fred Tylka
ChemE Department Technology Lead
CEE Department Technology Lead
jpm83@pitt.edu
fwt@pitt.edu
William McGahey
Brian Vidic
ECE Department Technology Lead, Senior Systems Administrator
Director
J. Kenneth Doty
Distance Learning & Technology Services Lead jkd1@pitt.edu Kevin Kratz
wem@pitt.edu
Software Developer kmkratz@pitt.edu
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scalerp@pitt.edu
jal118@pitt.edu
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vidicba@pitt.edu
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The information printed in this document was accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of printing and is subject to change at any time at the University’s sole discretion. The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution. 
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