Pathway to the Future

Every day, more than 10,000 people pass through the Talley Student Union. Photo by Louise Flynn.

OIT supports the goals of “The Pathway to the Future: NC State’s 2011-2020 Strategic Plan” through the following services. See the OIT 2016-17 Annual Report for more details about these services.

University Strategic Goal 1: Enhance the Success of Our Students Through Educational Innovation

• Partnered with the Department of Computer Science to assist graduate students with real-world data and business use-case scenarios that provided a new and unique way to analyze security data and to handle events.
• Developed, in collaboration with campus stakeholders, a campuswide standard that defines recommended and supported equipment for classrooms and conference spaces to project wirelessly.
• Created for the University of North Carolina (UNC) System faculty an online training course to ensure course content is fully accessible to all, including individuals with disabilities.
• Continue to expand the Project Management Lite Program, which now includes 24 interns from the Poole College of Management (PCOM) and Department of Computer Science. Wake County is also funding an intern.
• Worked on graduate research projects related to IT security with the Department of Computer Science.
• Participated in the Department of Electrical Engineering senior design projects.
• Partnered with the PCOM IT faculty on IT Club activities, class projects and technology adoption.
• Completing the final phase of WiFi installation in the remaining residence halls.

University Strategic Goal 2: Enhance Scholarship and Research by Investing in Faculty and Infrastructure

• Developing a secure IT service, in partnership with the Office of Research, Innovation and Economic Development (ORIED), to support sensitive research contracts or grants to meet NIST 800-171 compliance and other requirements by December 2017.
• Supported 136 research projects, 494 faculty and students and 18 courses via the High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster.
• Developed a self-service web interface to support the research storage and HPC services.
• Leading, in conjunction with ORIED, a campus team to implement a new cloud-based platform that will streamline research activities across the university and integrate with existing Financial and HR systems.
• Developed with ORIED a new Lab Management software application for shared equipment use in research cores.
• Began migration of research-related compliance training registration and tracking to REPORTER to support research compliance efforts.

University Strategic Goal 3: Enhance Interdisciplinary Scholarship to Address the Grand Challenges of Society

• Partnered with the Wireless Research Center, the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) – University North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the City of Raleigh, and MCNC on a National Science Foundation Advanced Wireless grant to build a $10 million test bed.
• Working with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to develop big data strategy and initiatives to support the Plant Sciences Initiative.

University Strategic Goal 4: Enhance Organizational Excellence by Creating a Culture of Constant Improvement

• Requiring all employees, including retirees and no-pay accounts, to enroll by Oct. 31 in the university’s two-factor authentication (2FA) solutions — Google 2-Step and Duo — to access most web-based university systems and accounts. This will help to further protect university data and accounts against ongoing threats of phishing attacks and data breaches.
• Replaced an aging account management infrastructure with a new integrated Identity Management (IdM) system that delivers self-service password services. The new system also serves as the official source of record for user identification information and manages access to accounts and systems, based upon defined roles or events.
• Upgraded the MyPack Portal and the Financial System to version 9.2 and implemented a new Employee Self-Service, providing a more modern look and mobile and user friendly interfaces.
• Updated the System Access Removal Procedure and accompanying Separation Checklist, which help supervisors preserve access to separating employees’ electronically stored information, systems and applications.
• Migrated the campus telecom and IT billing system to PCR·360.
• Implemented Absence and Time Management within the Human Resources System to eliminate the signed paper copies of leave records. The time management system has been extended for use by all employees subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
• Expanding REPORTER, the internal and non-credit training system, to all units, leveraging it to provide registration and tracking that includes required training, reducing the number of systems supported on campus.
• Deploying the Service Center module to streamline management of financial activities for shared campus resources. From March 1, 2016 to July 13, 2017, there were 1,059 Service Center rate changes processed electronically.
• Deployed Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Service, along with Virtual Computing Lab images and SCCM-packaged applications to replace Citrix, saving the university significant licensing costs.
• Completed the transition from Kaspersky Antivirus to Microsoft-provided tools for campus workstations.
• Migrated 1,921 of the 3,188 machines in 42 organizational units to Windows 10. As part of the migration, each department was delivered a complete inventory of its computers, and out-of-warranty machines were highlighted. This will help OITMD client departments manage their computer inventory and comply with the UNC Combined Pricing Initiative purchasing guidelines.
• Developed a Cyber Security Liaison Program, consisting of a network of designated college, department and unit representatives who collaborate with OIT Security and Compliance to defend against cyber threats.
• Developed New Data Sensitivity Framework training to increase campus awareness about data classification, threats to digital assets, and common-sense methods to defend against these threats. More than 330 employees have taken the training.
• Developing a mandatory basic security awareness training program for campus.
• Completed the upgrade of 17,712 switch ports, the largest switch upgrade in a single year.
• Moved the OIT Help Desk from Angel to the ComTech Cisco UCCX service, saving approximately $20,000 annually.
• Continued the Appalachian State University rollout of VoIP, with 1,231 handsets deployed.
• Stood up the new infrastructure that will eventually house all of the PeopleSoft databases.
• Discontinued WRAP service and rolled out Shibboleth as the standard authentication mechanism for web services protection.
• Developed and implemented Quickbase portfolio tool to track and manage internal portfolio projects and Cybersecurity Roadmap Projects.
• Integrated two PCard enhancements in the OnBase system to reduce printing across campus. Cardholders can now directly upload electronic receipts into the Financial System and monthly statements that each card holder formerly had to print, sign and scan for processing.
• Celebrated “5 Years of Google” on NC State’s campus, offering two breakout sessions that demonstrated how students, faculty and staff maximize the tools in G Suite to communicate, collaborate and work more efficiently. There were several information booths that also gave participants the opportunity to learn more about Google Apps services.
• Improved the recording process of lecture capture services provided in ClassTech-supported classrooms. Sessions now automatically start recording at the time the course is scheduled to begin and automatically stop recording at the time the course is scheduled to end. Users can pause and/or stop the recording at any time.
• Launched free AppleTV and Roku apps on PackTV, NC State’s on-campus, cable sports channel, expanding its reach beyond the campus community.
• Overhauled several OIT websites and incorporated them into the WordPress multisite service. It now includes 19 OIT entities.
• Encouraged campus IT users to learn new ways to conserve and protect IT resources during the annual NC State Earth Fair. Sponsored interactive and fun activities to show users how to reduce the university’s carbon footprint, conserve and protect IT resources and recycle electronics.
• Reviewed 83 software purchases over $5,000 for security and accessibility compliance. Of those submissions, about 21 percent required security reviews and 58 percent required accessibility reviews.
• Negotiated enterprise agreements for Adobe Creative Cloud and Duo Security Enterprise, making popular Adobe titles available on university machines and two-factor authentication available to students, faculty and staff.
• Completed 70 ClassTech projects, including the work with the Gregg Museum and several rooms in Reynolds Coliseum.
• Updated the IT Accessibility Regulation to clarify and simplify the language. The process helped to renew awareness of the need to provide an accessible environment for everyone in the campus community.
• Made SortSite available to campus teams to evaluate websites for accessibility requirements.
• Completed a mobile API that saved University Dining about $3,000 per month. It is now used on University Dining’s website and in the OnCampus app.
• Replaced InForm with new and secure technologies, such as Google Forms, Qualtrics and WordPress Forms, which allow users to collect information that is submitted from a web-based form.
• Made the IT presentation of the New Employee Orientation into an online tutorial for all university employees.
• Shared real-time cybersecurity threat data with UNC-Chapel Hill, Appalachian State University, Duke University, and MCNC.
• Partnered with the Graduate School to implement new online application and CRM system for improved graduate recruitment.

University Strategic Goal 5: Enhance Local and Global Engagement Through Focused Strategic Partnerships

• Presented the ISC2 Safe and Secure Online curriculum to more than 150 elementary students.
• Continue to serve as members of the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center, the Research Education Network Information Sharing & Analysis Center, the ISACA, the FBI’s InfraGard, the Information Systems Security Association, the International Information System Security Certification Consortium, and the Project Management Institute.
• Continued to expand the broadband rural initiative in Asheville, the Research Triangle Park, Pembroke (UNC Pembroke), and Wake County.
• Hosted the North Carolina Classroom Summit in May, bringing in classroom tech support personnel from the UNC system and private colleges in North Carolina.
• Played a major leadership role in UNC CAUSE to promote cooperation and knowledge sharing among the IT community within the UNC system.