FAST FIVE for the week of January 12, 2014

News:

Breakfast with the CIO:

McGill University has voluntary breakfast meeting with the CIO. These sessions are an opportunity for IT staff to discuss processes and directions within the IT organization, share ideas, and network with other members of the department. CIO breakfasts

Better voicemail:

The University of Victoria is improving its campus telephone system. The upgrade, dubbed "Better Voicemail,"  will provide enhanced features, including integration with email and calendar. Voicemail upgrade

Mobile student services:

The University of Calgary introduced a new mobile application for student services. The app allows students to access services provided by their Student Success Centre, Career Services, Leadership and Student Engagement, and the Centre for Community-Engaged Learning. The app is designed for iPhones and iPads. Student services app

Security awareness training:

IT at the University of British Columbia has licensed a security awareness program for use by all faculty and staff. The course reviews privacy and security issues relating to encryption, passwords, social networking, wireless security, and telecommuting. Security videos

Online learning:

Ontario is providing students access to shared, transferable online courses through Ontario Online. The new service is intended to minimize duplication and improve collaboration between colleges and universities by allowing students to take the same, centralized online courses. It will operate three core services. First, a course hub will offer online courses that are fully transferable between participating colleges and universities. Second, an instruction hub will allow institutions to develop and share best practices, research, and data on how best to teach online courses. Finally, a support hub will provide academic and technical assistance to students, instructors, and institutions. Ontario online learning

FAST FIVE for the week of December 15, 2013

News:

New ERP launch:

OCAD University has selected Colleague as its new administrative ERP system. The institution is calling this endeavour "Project Chroma" and is focusing on improving their student experience through online access to information. Project Chroma

Expanded laptop program:

In other news at OCAD, the University will be expanding its laptop program for students next September. Expanded laptop program

New course management system:

The University of Calgary is replacing its Blackboard course management system with Desire2Learn in four faculties. Changing course (management)

Crowdsourcing input:

The Leadership Council for Digital Innovation is soliciting input with regards to advancing the national advanced digital infrastructure ecosystem in Canada. Have your say

New video enterprise platform:

University of North British Columbia and Douglas College have moved their Kaltura video enterprise system from pilot to production. Kaltura production

Note:

Fast Five will take a break over the holiday season and will return in the new year.

FAST FIVE for the week of December 8, 2013

News:

Mobile upgrade:

Carleton University has upgraded its mobile app with a new interface and student accounts functionality. The changes incorporate new iOS7 features, enhanced news and events (including direct download into device calendars), account student balances and details, single sign-on to all academic apps, and access to safety and student services information. Improved mobility

Improved wireless:

The University of Victoria has improved access to services from its wireless network. The new services enable students, faculty, and staff to access file shares, departmental printers, printing in student labs, and Banner. New wireless access

Eduroam upgrade:

Eduroam continues to grow with more than 1.1 million registered users and 2 million sign-ons per month across Canada. In support of this growth, three new eduroam servers to will be added to the production network. These new servers will be in full operation as of February 2014. Ever expanding Eduroam

Best CIO reading list ever:

The CIO from the University of British Columbia has submitted a holiday reading list to the UBC Library, and there aren't many technology books on the list ... Holiday reading

Page not found:

Queen's University has created a new 404 page: Fun Four-Oh-Four

FAST FIVE for the week of December 1, 2013

News:

IBM donation:

IBM is contributing a multi-million dollar private cloud computing platform to seven post-secondary institutions in Nova Scotia. The system provides a shared computing platform enabling the schools to create new curriculum, perform research and development, and provide graduates with analytics skills. It will become operational in early 2014, is being hosted at Dalhousie University. The service will be available to faculty and students at Acadia University, Cape Breton University, Mount Saint Vincent University, Nova Scotia Community College, Saint Mary’s University and St. Francis Xavier University. Clouds over Nova Scotia

National consultations:

Compute Canada is launching a national consultation process intended to develop a five year strategic plan. The plan will develop the organization's priorities, operational process, and management. CFI, Compute Canada's funding agency requires a new five year plan to be completed by April 1, 2014. High performance computing planning

New online award application system:

Fanshawe College has launched a new online student awards application system. The new system makes it easier for students to search for eligible awards and apply easily. Direct integration with their ERP system (Colleague) will speed up the validation process and donor recognition profiles will be built into the system. Application-based and selection-based awards will both be supported by the system. Awards system

Technology fee:

The University of New Brunswick is conducting a student technology fee survey designed to identify new ideas for innovative uses of teaching and learning technology. The survey identifies a series of projects identified by staff and it asks students to rank them. Questions cover the need for computer and AV upgrades, classroom based text messaging, iPad usage, peer-review software, disability assistive technology, and (most intriguing) "Hackerspace." Student survey

Student safety:

Queen's University has launched a student safety app for mobile devices. The app provides instant access to Campus Security, and Emergency Services, and other safety resources. The app was develop by Queen alumni and works on iOS, Android, and Blackberry devices. SeQure

FAST FIVE for the week of November 24, 2013

News:

ERP upgrade:

Carleton University upgraded its Banner administrative systems last weekend. The upgrade impacted all University administrative systems including their portal. Banner update

Monthly status report update:

The University of Victoria's systems department has updated its monthly status report format. The news blog can be read here: News blog

Wireless shutdown:

The University of Toronto is decommissioning its legacy wireless network. The University has implemented a new wireless service and is helping users to move to the new network. Retiring wireless

Flipped classrooms:

The University of British Columbia MedIT team has implemented flipped classroom technology for its Brain and Behaviour lab. This innovative use of flipped classrooms helps students transcend some of the difficulties inherent in learning about brain functions. Flipping out for brain teaching

Big data accelerator:

Ryerson University is the founding academic partner in a new accelerator for entrepreneurs building big data enterprises. This accelerator was created to support entrepreneurs who will benefit from access to the power of high-performance computing. HPC big data

Question:

As provinces move towards more shared services for higher education, how do you feel the accountability and responsibility should be allocated among universities,colleges, ORANs, and other higher education service providers in the jurisdiction to develop, implement, and operate the services?

Please forward any comments to mprroman@gmail.com and responses will be published next week.

FAST FIVE for the week of November 17, 2013

News:

Organization and name changes:

Central IT at the University of Alberta has changed its name to Information Services and Technology to reflect the merger of two previously separate units, Administrative Information Systems and Academic Information and Communication Technologies. The name change will help evolve the University’s perception of these units and local IT units from being separate “IT only” units to one unit that will encompass all aspects of information services and technology. New identity, bigger future

Shrinking email size:

ITS at the University of Western Ontario is lowering the limit of email from 50 megabytes to 25 megabytes. There are several reasons such as helping reduce delivery failures, minimizing the impact on email services when large attachments are inadvertently emailed to a wide list of recipients, and reducing quota consumption. See page 2 of the attached newsletter: Smaller email messages

Responsive website design:

The new University of Ottawa website is a mobile friendly site utilizing responsive design technology to seamlessly adapt to the user's device of choice. The new design is based on feedback from over 5,000 community members and reflects a remarkably clean and effective home page interface. "Awesome" new website

Email upgrade:

The University of Toronto's hosted email service is being upgraded with a new look and feel. Its webmail service will be more user friendly while maintaining existing functionality. Improved web mail 

Free soup:

University of British Columbia's Information Technology team is having a free chicken noodle soup event! Soup it up: Keeping warm ...

Another response to funding question:

During this period of financial austerity throughout the higher education system, do you see IT taking a renewed interest in production support processes? Without the money to do new projects, do you feel IT has a unique opportunity to concentrate on providing the best operational service possible?

I would frame my thoughts using the key value disciplines (kvds) that were articulated by Tracey and Wiersema in their book (and HBR article) The Disciplines of Market Leaders.  In their opinion, world class organizations have to choose among three key disciplines in their quest for market dominance. The three "kvds" are, "operational excellence", "customer intimacy", and "product leadership".

Operational excellence: superb operations and execution often by providing a reasonable quality at a very low price. The focus is on efficiency, streamlining operations, Supply Chain Management, no-frills, volume counts. Most large international corporations are working out of this discipline.

 

Product leadership: very strong in innovation and brand marketing, operating in dynamic markets. The focus is on development, innovation, design, time-to-market, high margins in a short timeframe.

 

Customer intimacy: excel in customer attention and customer service. Tailor their products and services to individual or almost individual customers. Focus is on CRM,  deliver products and services on time and above customer expectations, lifetime value concepts, reliability, being close to the customer.

The authors assert that organizations must excel at one of these three and be competent in the other two.  In the context of IT it is my belief that you do not get to the table unless you are delivering operational excellence.  Once your IT shop is known and acknowledged by your customers as delivering superior service then you have the credibility to take on new challenges that your customers will support (and fund).

Mark D. Naylor, Ph.D., President, Union Hills Enterprises Inc.

 

FAST FIVE for the week of November 10, 2013

News:

New CEO:

CANARIE (Canada's Advanced Research and Innovation Network) announced the appointment of Jim Ghadbane as its new President and CEO. Jim's appointment comes at an important time for CANARIE as the organization enters into the final year of its current mandate agreement with the federal government. Jim has led a number of strategic initiatives for CANARIE and has the experience and skills needed to make the organization a success. New CANARIE CEO

Government expectations:

The Government of Alberta has identified its expectations of higher education with specific references to implementing collaborative information technology initiatives. Specifically, they are encouraging the use of shared data centres and cloud service initiatives. The stated purpose of this collaboration is to reduce administrative costs. Shared service in Alberta

New data repositories:

The University of Guelph has created two new data repositories to promote open access to the University's research and to allow researchers to meet new funding requirements. These repositories are built in the Dataverse platform and are hosted by Scholars Portal. Significant effort went into the development of metadata to ensure improved discoverability and usability of the research. Research data at U of G

New video sharing service:

The University of British Columbia announced its new "UBC Video Share" service. Faculty can now upload, store, search, and share videos using the Kultura platform. The new system is fully integrated with UBC's Connect learning management system to enable instructors to share their educational videos and add them directly to their courses. UBC Video Share

Registration system upgrade:

Trinity Wester University is upgrading its registration system. Although many institutions upgrade their administrative systems at this time of year, this announcement is less formal and maybe a little more amusing than the usual IT systems upgrade note. Registration upgrade announcement

Response to last week's question:

During this period of financial austerity throughout the higher education system, do you see IT taking a renewed interest in production support processes? Without the money to do new projects, do you feel IT has a unique opportunity to concentrate on providing the best operational service possible?

Despite the difficulties in managing during a budget decline, there are always opportunities. Reducing IT investments in new projects is certainly frustrating. However, IT organizations traditionally focus concurrently on steady state operations and new innovations. With organizational attention typically focused on innovation, production support takes a back seat. But in the current fiscal environment, there are less distractions to the continuous improvement of operations. Now is the time to emphasize improved change control discipline, brilliance in the help desk and problem escalation processes, and pre-emptive performance and capacity management to ensure smooth uninterrupted services. Ultimately, all of these improvements lead to supremely excellent customer service. Now is a time of opportunity, not retreat.

Mark Roman

FAST FIVE for the week of November 3, 2013

News:

eCampus Alberta Grows:

The University of Alberta, the University of Calgary, and the University of Lethbridge have joined eCampusAlberta, bringing the consortium’s total number of  post-secondary system member institutions to 19. Online courses from each these institutions will be added to the eCampusAlberta inventory in the near future. eCampusAlberta connects students to more than 900 online courses and 70 programs, and in 2012/13 served more than 11,000 learners for 20,851 course registrations.  New eCampus Alberta members

New CIO:

Athabasca University appointed Mike Battistel as Vice-President of Information Technology & Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the University. Previously, Mike was the VP IS at SMART Technologies, CIO at Ritchie Bros Auctioneers and Versacold Group, and headed the IT departments at Ballard Power Systems, Motorola Canada, and the Open Learning Agency. He has been a national board member with the CIO Association of Canada, and served as president of two of its chapters. Athabasca CIO

Technology Week:

The University of Saskatchewan is holding its annual Technology Week this week. This year the annual showcase of innovation and cyber culture features a keynote address by Ken Steele. Technology Week provides instructors, researchers, staff, and students the opportunity to examine current issues and future trends in information and communications technology. It is a wonderful opportunity for IT stakeholders and consumers to give input into how technology is applied and supported at the University. Tech Week at U of S 

More Space:

Carleton University is increasing the email storage for its students again. Microsoft is upgrading Carleton student email inboxes from 25GB to 50GB. They had recently upgraded student email from 10Gb to 25Gb in June. The web interface is also being updated to be consistent with other Microsoft services. No significant service interruption is expected and the cutover will happen mid-November. Growing storage at Carleton

Mobile student assistants:

Wilfrid Laurier University introduced new mobile assistants to help Library users. This pilot program provides a mobile team of student Library assistants with Android tablets. These roving assistants help users with tasks such as using the self-checkout machines and finding reserve and hold items. They will also monitor noise levels in the Library. According to Scott James, the Library’s desk services manager, “This program means that our student assistants can help you wherever you happen to be in the Library.” Mobility in the Library

Question:

During this period of financial austerity throughout the higher education system, do you see IT taking a renewed interest in production support processes? Without the money to do new projects, do you feel IT has a unique opportunity to concentrate on providing the best operational service possible?

Please forward any comments to mprroman@gmail.com and responses will be published next week.

FAST FIVE for the week of October 27, 2013

News:

IT's boss comes for a visit:

Carleton University's Computing and Communications Services (CCS) department invited their boss to come to work with them. Duncan Watt, VP Finance and Administration at the University, joined CCS's Voice Services department to see what they do on a day-to-day basis. "Take Duncan to Work"

Changing campus-wide login policy:

The University of British Columbia updated its campus-wide login password policy. The new policy requires users to change their password at least once a year. The new policy is designed to follow industry best practices while recognizing the unique circumstances of higher ed. New password rules

Recycling IT:

Seneca College held an electronic recycling initiative designed to encourage staff and students to bring in old electronics to be recycled. Equipment such as laptops, desktops, phones, monitors, and printers were dropped off at their campus bookstore. Green IT at Seneca

Behind the scenes:

The Faculty of Medicine MedIT department at UBC updated video-conferencing equipment in three of its busiest teaching locations in the past year. With no interruption to service, they enhanced collaborative learning, engagement, and presenter capabilities. MedIT upgrade

Response to hacking:

The President of Brandon University took the unusual step of responding with an open letter to a recent hacking attack. The letter reframes the issue quite effectively and is an interesting way to close security and awareness month. Presidential hacking response

Responses to last week's question:

Last week the following question was posed: "Whether MOOCs are successful or not, do you feel they are shifting the conversations and the emphasis in higher ed IT away from administration & research to teaching & learning? Is this a change for the better?"

To answer your question, at UOIT it has always been about teaching and learning.  

A more interesting question though might be with the across the board reduction in funding, where in the future does IT spend its capital (and operating monies for that matter).  

Students are demanding more technology now so that they don't have to "dumb down" when coming to campus;  how is that going to be addressed in a time of declining budgets?  Further, most SIS implementations are ageing and the barnacles are showing; a new implementation will be needed soon and where is that money to be sourced?

Budget time in the future is going to require some very hard decisions.  

Mark D. Naylor, Ph.D., President, Union Hills Enterprises Inc.

I am not a fan of the MOOC hype - there is a place for it, but I have told senior executives that we have other things to focus our limited resources on first. A statement like this makes me rethink that position.   

CIO from a large research university

FAST FIVE for the week of October 20, 2013

News:

LMS usage patterns:

The University of Calgary has published some interested usage statistics about their Desire-2-Learn implementation. The graphs illustrate visits by time of day (midnight utilization is nearly 25% of noon utilization), operating system used by the user (Mac has almost caught up to Windows), visits by day of the week (Sunday is only a little less busy than Monday), and browser type of visitor (Internet Explorer is less than Chrome, Safari, and Firefox). uCalgary D2L

BCIT is alert

The British Columbia Institute of Technology conducted its annual test of its BCIT Alert system recently. The system is used in emergency situations and snow closures to send a short message to mobile devices, email addresses, and voicemail. The annual test sends a message to all registered users. BCIT Alert is used to communicate to the BCIT community in addition to information posted on BCIT websites and other media. Emergency notification

Mobile apps for everything:

Acadia University has a mobile app designed specially their homecoming. The system was built using Yapp, and was designed specifically for this year's homecoming event at the University. Acadia homecoming

Capitalizing on Big Data:

Canada’s federal research granting agencies (SSHRC, NSERC. CIHR, and CFI), have issued a consultation document designed to address digital infrastructure challenges titled "Toward a Policy Framework for Advancing Digital Scholarship in Canada." The document proposes a collective realignment of funding policies to improve data management practices in agency-funded projects. They are asking for stakeholders’ feedback on the document with a deadline of December 16, 2013. Big data feedback

New grade scale:

The University of Windsor has implemented a new grade scale. They have moved to the 100 point scale and updated their student system as well as all related systems. New grades

Question:

Whether MOOCs are successful or not, do you feel they are shifting the conversations and the emphasis in higher ed IT away from administration & research to teaching & learning? Is this a change for the better?

Please forward any comments to mprroman@gmail.com and responses will be published next week.

FAST FIVE for the week of October 13, 2013

News:

3D Distance Learning:

Nipissing University is now using 3D computer technology to support distance learning. By using 3D rendering software, a virtual Nipissing University campus has been created simulating the library, a portion of the main campus, and other areas of campus. The technology is designed to increase the interactivity of online learning. Several pilot projects are underway, including a virtual math drop-in centre. Nipissing in 3D

New Data Centre:

The University of British Columbia is migrating to its new University Data Centre (UDC). The old data centre has become too costly to maintain and will be shut down by mid-2015. In the new UDC, storage is consolidated and re-structured from several storage islands into one storage cluster. This new storage cluster provides the infrastructure with improved scalability, performance, fault tolerance, and manageability designed to meet current and future needs. The new UDC is also energy-efficient, provides updated hardware, and has an improved backup service. New UBC Data Centre

Student System Upgrade:

Simon Fraser University is upgrading its Peoplesoft student information system (SIMS). The upgrade has new features for staff, students, and faculty. Example of new features include: students have new interactive academic progress reports, faculty have a new advisor centre that centralizes information on graduate students, and staff have improved waitlist processes. SFU SIMS Upgrade

CryptoLocker Threat:

A number of Canadian universities have recently been hit by CryptoLocker ransom-ware. It arrives as an email attachment and attempts to extort money from the computer user. When your computer is infected with CryptoLocker, the program begins encrypting any files it can access. Once the files are encrypted it presents the user with a notice giving them a limited time to pay a ransom to get a key to decrypt and access to their files. Currently, infected users are instructed to pay $100 USD to get access to their files. Ransomware Threat

CEO Search:

Compute Canada is again announcing a search for a new President and Chief Executive Officer. The role is responsible for coordinating and promoting the shared use of High Performance Computing (HPC) across Canada. The CEO would lead the creation of a national HPC platform for research and integrate HPC resources across the country. Compute Canada

Responses to last week's question:

Last week the following question was posed: "Privacy laws in some provinces are quite stringent relevant to other provinces. Such legislation makes it difficult for institutions in these provinces to use foreign-based cloud computing and other hosted services. Do you feel this puts these institutions at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of Canada?"

Yes, I think that some privacy related legislation in some provinces puts them at a competitive disadvantage.

 

It is almost universally accepted that Cloud Computing is a more effective way of delivering computing capability (whether infrastructure, platform or software as a service). Some of those benefits come from scale and scale generally means procuring from a North American (read U.S.) provider. In many of those cases (especially SaaS) there is no comparable stand alone Canadian alternative. So mandating that no private data can leave a jurisdiction denies some Canadian organizations the opportunity to leverage those providers, lower their costs, and deliver services more flexibly. (And note that in some jurisdictions “foreign” means outside of the province, further curtailing economies of scale and limiting the likelihood of a Cloud service even being offered).

 

An increasing number of provinces are focusing more on data protection rather than data residency, and if privacy can be reasonably assured in a “foreign” data centre that is sufficient. I suggest that it is important to differentiate between sensitive data and private data, as there is a lot of the latter that does not qualify as the former, and to block any private data from leaving a jurisdiction rather than blocking some (e.g. health records) is throwing the baby out with the bath water. More liberal jurisdictions appear to conclude that Cloud service providers are highly motivated to protect the privacy of all their clients’ data, and often more capable of doing so than organizations who manage their own data are, and that adequate provisions inherent in a subscription agreement are more effective and more relevant than jurisdictional boundaries. Pragmatism is a welcome approach to balancing the tradeoff between the reality of improved and more cost effective service (and indeed privacy protection) for the many against the hypothetical worst case scenarios of the few and the certainty of inefficiency and additional cost that comes with that.

 

Alastair McKeating, Regional Manager, Adaptive Planning

Despite British Columbia having quite stringent privacy legislation, some BC educational institutions have moved to foreign cloud services. Sometimes deliberately and sometimes unwittingly, they have placed personal and private data outside of Canada. By doing so, they introduce several risks to their organizations that are not present in other jurisdictions. Although they do not face immediate penalties, there are longer term risks implicit in these decisions that may place them at a competitive disadvantage in the future. 

For example, BC privacy laws are based on a complaint driven process, which means the government will not stop anyone from moving to any cloud based services. But the government can take action if they receive a complaint. Because of this model some educational institutions have been able to move to U.S.-based cloud email several years ago and have not been shut down. Despite this success, they face an ongoing concern that a complaint could shutdown the service. There is always the potential risk that if their union sees this as outsourcing, they may choose to lodge a formal complaint.

In other cases, higher ed institutions mitigate the risk through an authorization form to be signed by anyone whose personally identifiable information is entered into the system. The challenge with this approach is that a user may choose to decline consent. If they decline, do you support dissenters with a different system (and likely negating any cost savings), or choose to not support them at all?

Mark Roman

FAST FIVE for the week of October 6, 2013

October is National Cyber Awareness Month, so this week's release is dedicated to security and privacy issues.

News:

CIO Security Awareness: 

The CIO at the University of Guelph has initiated a security awareness campaign targeted at keeping private information safe and improving online security for students, faculty, and staff. The goal of the campaign is to raise overall awareness and to reduce the number of compromised accounts. To spread security awareness systemically across the institutional community, all students, faculty, and staff will be enrolled in a security awareness course on Courselink. University of Guelph

Daily Tips:

At Seneca College, the Information Technology Services (ITS) department is providing tips throughout the month of October to improve cyber awareness. Their awareness approach is intended to get the community to think about the security of computers and electronic devices, and what they can do to improve it. The first week of the campaign covered mobile security and this week the tips are focusing on phishing. Seneca College

Security Resources: 

At Carleton University, members of the community are reminded of the security services and resources available from the Computing and Communication Services department. Their site includes tips on how individuals have a responsibility in improving IT security, how to protect themselves online, and how to protect their computer against viruses. They also provide some links to external IT security resources. Carleton University

Anti-Virus Software:

Memorial University provides information about their anti-virus software services. They provide virus protection for University owned computers as well as free anti-virus software for home use. These options are available for faculty, staff, students, and alumni. Everyday is a MUN-day

Mobile Security:

The University of British Columbia has a site dedicated to Mobile Security. It reminds users of their obligation to protect personal information that may be stored on their devices and provides a series of resources explaining how to keep the information on their mobile device safe if it is lost, stolen, or hacked. University of British Columbia

Question:

Privacy laws in some provinces are quite stringent relevant to other provinces. Such legislation makes it difficult for institutions in these provinces to use foreign-based cloud computing and other hosted services. Do you feel this puts these institutions at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of Canada?

Please forward any comments to mprroman@gmail.com and responses will be published next week.