Announcement – Page 128

Technology Upgrade Project

Each year, the University sets aside funding to upgrade classroom technology and designated computers. Historically, these upgrades occur all year long. OIT will introduce a new process this year to target a majority of these upgrades during the summer months.

Although compressing the schedule offers several challenges, it also offers several benefits. By ordering several hundred computers at one time, we are able to secure the hardware at a reduced cost, thus allowing us to upgrade more machines. It also allows us to minimize the impact to faculty during the heavier academic terms. The Client Architecture team, who oversees the installations, will have more time to focus on lab management and software distribution during the academic term with less oversight on upgrades. In addition, older hardware tends to be more problematic. So ensuring that the technology is refreshed regularly decreases the number of hardware related disruptions.

Under the Technology Fund, primary computer and instructional computers are eligible to be replaced after a certain timeframe. In order to receive funding, the computer must be assigned to a faculty or staff member and have a current LANDesk agent installed and functioning. Individuals with eligible machines will receive an email during the second week of April. That email will contain a link to the survey which requests additional information, and allows those individuals to recommend a date for their installation. Once the schedule has been established, they will receive a confirmation email with the date and time of the appointment. The installation itself should take one hour unless there is a very large amount of data to be transferred.

We have made several changes to our install process to expedite the process as much as possible. During the summer months, Premier Logitech will increase their staffing to accommodate the larger workload. Since this will bring a lot of new faces onto campus, each technician will be wearing a Premier Logitech badge to identify themselves. We hope to complete between 800-1200 computer upgrades during the summer months.

Elevating Inside.SMU to SharePoint in the Cloud

As part of OIT’s efforts to improve services across campus, Inside.SMU, our internal collaboration platform, will be moved to Microsoft’s SharePoint in the Cloud service.

Sharepoint Online This change allows us to offer the latest version of SharePoint (the underlying software that ran Inside.SMU) to campus. It also provides you with additional features and a more reliable means of file storage and collaboration.

In the coming weeks, departments across campus will receive information on when their department’s data within Inside.SMU will be moved to the cloud. Usually, no action is needed on your part. If action is required, you will be notified by an OIT representative.

lyndaCampus Adoption on Campus Increases

lynda.com When we at OIT introduced lyndaCampus in late 2015, we were excited to begin offering a new way to learn about all kinds of business and creative skills and software. Turns out, you were just as excited!

As of April 1, almost 800 people ranging from students, faculty, and staff have logged into Lynda.com. On top of that, over 15,000 videos have been viewed, totaling around 11,00 hours of online training reviewed since Lynda.com was first offered.

Out of all those hours of viewing, here are the top courses overall that have been viewed in Lynda. Maybe some may be of interest to you the next time you log in.

Quarterly Service Reports

In January 2016, we posted the first quarterly report by school sharing some of the service reports from the help desk ticketing system. The first set of reports gave an overview of the types of requests being entered and some general service levels. During the first week of April, new reports will be posted that dive deeper into the data. There have been some definite challenges as well as great progress over the past several months as we continue to adjust to the Shared Service model. These reports will outline both the challenges and the progress as we continue to work on improving our service to the campus community.

The reports will be posted at http://www.smu.edu/OIT/AboutUs/SharedServices no later than April 11.

Appspace Digital Signage to be Upgraded

During the week of April 18, OIT will upgrade the Appspace (formerly Nexus) software that runs the various digital displays on campus. The upgrade process is quite involved as we will move to new server hardware during the process. There are also several significant changes to the software as we upgrade to the latest version.

Anyone who currently has access to edit content in the digital signage system (digitalsigns.smu.edu) will receive direct communication throughout the project as well as an invitation to training once the upgrade is complete.

The following is a rough timeline of the upgrade project:

April 18: upgrade begins. The current system will remain online. Users can make changes as needed throughout the week. However, these changes will not be transferred to the new system.
April 25: New system goes live. Content owner will be invited to a training session that week.