Information Technology Status
October, 2006
Library system
We have signed a contract with Innovative Interfaces; our initial conference call to begin the implementation process was on October 16; the implementation target is summer 2007. We will be the 17th library in the CSU system with the Innovative system.
Password Station/Avatier
As of October 3rd, passwords are being synched between Active Directory and LDAP. Now faculty and staff users have only one username and password to access the majority of campus systems. The next time their Exchange password is due to expire, they will receive an e-mail from User Services directing them to a new web site and procedure to change their password.
National Cyber Security Awareness Month
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. We have initiated a campaign with a 1950’s horror movie theme which includes posters, bookmarks, Orion ads and campus announcements. Additional information can be found at http://www.csuchico.edu/cybersecurity/.
Common Management Systems
Implemented Student Administration 8.0 modules including Admissions, Campus Community, Financial Aid, Student Records/Registration, Student Financials, and Advising/Transfer Credit during 2004-2006. Student Administration piloted self-service for students in April 2005 with online registration via the Chico State Portal. All administrative areas are investigating/implementing self-service capabilities for students, faculty, and staff, with the new campus portal environment increasing the usability of the CMS functions. Campus efforts are continuing to develop and expand the operational and management reporting information available in the CMS administrative data warehouses. Chico began piloting Financials in the new CSU Data Warehouse model during fall 2005. CMS HRSA 8.0 upgrade to HCM 8.9 began August 2006 with go-live in March 2007.
Baseline CMS
The ADED DBAs provide support for the CMS/PeopleSoft Finance 8.4 and HRSA 8.0 environments performing tasks such as applying fixes & updates, cloning production databases for developer use, and providing troubleshooting assistance to developers. The ADED CMS/PeopleSoft developer team provides support for the HRSA 8.0 environment; development efforts for this team are focused on the HCM 8.9 upgrade at this time.
CMS 8.9 Upgrade
The ADED DBAs provide support for the CMS/PeopleSoft HCM 8.9 environments performing tasks such as applying fixes & updates, cloning databases for developer use, and providing troubleshooting assistance to developers. The ADED CMS/PeopleSoft team is providing technical leadership & coordination of the tasks that must be performed during the upgrade effort; the team is actively engaged in performing the work necessary to convert/upgrade from HRSA to HCM. Progress to date is good but much work remains between now and the mid-March production cutover to HCM 8.9.
WebCT Vista Migration
140 faculty and approximately 400 course sections using Vista this semester with over 7500 students in those courses. Vista will be the primary LMS for Spring 2007 connected directly to the portal. We encourage faculty to take Vista training to learn how to migrate their course materials from Campus Edition for Spring 2007. A Vista upgrade to fix bugs and add more features is already being planned, perhaps around Thanksgiving week.
There is a lot of technical activity happening behind the scenes on this project in order to be ready for full-swing in Spring. ADED is a member of the Vista implementation team. Roles include participation in the overall planning, development of the technical architecture, developing CMS/PeopleSoft integration, and providing DBA support to include backup/recovery of the Oracle environment.
Smart Classrooms
We completed 8 of 10 new Smart Classrooms over the summer; FMS to complete the infrastructure for 2 remaining classrooms before we can complete that project. Currently there are 19 requests to build or upgrade departmental Smart Classrooms by January, which is huge.
In January, we will have a first draft 5-year strategic plan for a complete build-out of Smart Classrooms across campus.
Web Content Management System
December ends the first year of our pilot with the web content management system, Serena “Collage”. Current pilot projects include WASC and NCATE accreditations. ADED provides DBA support to include backup/recovery of the database. A project summary report will be complete by end of December for reflection and determination of next steps with this system.
Server Upgrades/Migrations
ADED is participating in the project to migrate the WWW environment from Sun/Solaris to Linux/Apache. Contributions include overall planning and technical support for the project.
Portal/Chico Web Presence
The ADED CMS/PeopleSoft team provides technical support for portal integration to PeopleSoft and modifying PeopleSoft self service functionality to meet Chico requirements. Student, faculty, and employee self service functions are available through the portal.
Identity Management
The ADED team is actively engaged in several IdM projects that include on-going support of the current Chico home-grown IdM technical environment and processes, the Enterprise Directory project that is addressing LDAP requirements & recommending a changed technical architecture, a project to change the processes & applications used by students for initial authentication for access to services and improved student self service account management, and participation in the CSU IAM Technical Architecture Group tasked with developing a proposed technical architecture for IdM within the CSU. The Enterprise Directory project is targeting the February timeframe for a recommendation; the target for rollout of the student IdM applications is early January. The CSU project is in progress; a Burton Group consultant has been contracted to assist in gathering requirement data from campuses.
CMS Data Warehousing and Reporting
The ADED DBA team provides ongoing support for Finance and Student Administration warehouses. Recent efforts have been focused on converting to/implementing the CSU CMS warehouse for Finance (PS/Oracle EPM and IBM Ascential ETL tool) and conversion/requirements tasks related to the HCM 8.9 upgrade. Though steady progress has been made on implementing the EPM Finance warehouse, it has been hindered by unexpected technical issues for which the vendors have not been able to provide timely solutions. The HCM 8.9 related work is just beginning.