I&IT newsletter

Spring, 2007 Volume 4, Issue 3

In This Issue...

SPAM SLAMMED SUBSTANTIALLY – Probably the most notable recent accomplishment by I&IT, among many others listed below, has been the more than 90 per cent reduction in spam entering campus users’ email boxes. In January, 2007, I&IT Systems personnel replaced the email gateways – the collection of hardware and software at the campus entry point that scans all incoming emails for spam and viruses. Two key staffers who put spam on its back are Paul Henson, systems analyst, and Craig Rich, who is on loan to us from the Computer Science faculty. Students, faculty and staff should all be seeing much less spam in their email boxes. The biggest change has been the addition of “grey-listing,” a test that relies on legitimate email systems sending a message again if the first try is rejected, while spam systems usually only try once. This is enhanced by an upgraded SpamAssassin with all-new spam recognition rules. Users can customize the SpamAssassin settings through the User Status Page and use spam blockers that come with their email programs to block even more spam. For details, see blockers. However, don’t expect spam to completely vanish as the clever “bad guys” continue to stay up nights figuring out how to get spam into your mailbox. The email gateway replacement is part of I&IT’s major initiative to replace the Intranet, that collection of centralized services such as email, file sharing and storage and user authentication (among other services). Currently in progress is the replacement of the back-up hardware and software. This part of the project is headed by Dave Drivdahl, systems analyst.

NEW PEOPLE, ROLES – I&IT recently filled three key management positions. After a months-long, nationwide search, Joe Matsumoto was named Director of Systems. Joe comes to us from Black and Decker, where he was director of technology and operations in the firm’s Foothill Ranch, Calif., office. Also, Curtis Clark was appointed permanent Director of Web Development following an exhaustive search. Dr. Clark, a 30-year faculty member in Biology, had been interim Web Development Director. Susan Reese, who had been Interim Systems Director, moves into the new role of Projects & Services Manager. In her new role, Reese will develop project management templates, lead large projects and assist I&IT customers with relations and results with various I&IT departments. On the staff side, Chris Crudo, who had been in I&IT Support’s 2nd Tier unit, has shifted to I&IT Systems, where he joins the Windows team as a Systems Analyst. And we have our first full-time writer for eHelp, our 24/7 on-line user help service, following the hiring of Angela Chung. Angela, who will work in I&IT Support for Denny Mosier, director, joins us from Yahoo.

LEARNING CENTEREDNESS RAISES THE BAR – I&IT continues to incorporate Learning Centeredness (LC) into our daily activities. We recently developed a division LC plan that includes assessing how we achieve LC in our daily activities and major projects. Heading the implementation effort is Susan Reese, Manager of Projects and Services. I&IT’s LC Committee consists of several staff members, including student assistants that provide us valuable learning information. As part of LC’s technology component, I&IT is leading two major projects. First, working with Facilities, Planning and Management, I&IT Operations has remodeled and placed modern technology in 55 classrooms. Another 20 classrooms will be upgraded this summer. Coordinating the project are H'Sundiata Keita, Operations Director, and Heather Fannin, Classroom Technology Support Technician. Secondly, I&IT Support continues to supply incoming tenure-track faculty with laptops, thanks to President Mike Ortiz securing lottery funds. Denny Mosier, I&IT Support Director, and Marcy Wright, of 2nd Tier Support, are currently scoping specifications for the new fall, 2007 faculty to choose Windows or Macintosh laptops. Dr. Ortiz and Debra Brum, I&IT Vice President, are currently finalizing funding for a refresh cycle. This will allow upgraded replacements to the more than 500 faculty we have supplied laptops to in the last two years. First refresh cycle is expected to be in spring, 2008.

PEOPLESOFT UPGRADE – As scheduled, I&IT Applications, in collaboration with numerous other I&IT departments (I&IT Web Development and I&IT Systems) and divisions (Student Affairs, Academic Affairs, and Administrative Affairs), successfully upgraded the PeopleSoft application. PeopleSoft is the system of record for core campus data related to students, faculty and staff. The upgrade, which was completed on March 1, 2007, was the culmination of 10 months of planning, testing and validation. The main purpose for this upgrade was to provide enhanced functionality for Human Resources, but students and faculty were not left out. Students benefit from an improved user interface using tabs to access various aspects of the application. The faculty benefit from the “Faculty Center,” a one-stop page displaying their class and grade rosters for the current quarter. In addition, faculty have the ability to view their personal demographic information. There are other improvements with the upgraded application that are currently being planned for roll-out, some as early as Summer Quarter. While the list of contributors to the success of the upgrade is very long, we would like to acknowledge the upgrade Core Team members who worked diligently throughout the past 10 months to make this transition as smooth and transparent as possible. Key players included Patricio Beltran – HRIS Manager (Administrative Affairs); Mauricio Calderon – CMS Project Director (I&IT Applications); Beverly Geuting – Lead Database Administrator (I&IT Applications); Rose Kukla – Student Administration System Administrator (Student Affairs); Jane Self – Payroll Director (Administrative Affairs); Glendy Yeh – Executive Director of Administrative Affairs Information Systems.

Noteworthy: On the first day of spring quarter (March 26, 2007), BroncoDirect serviced 39,022 logins, the most ever! This is an unduplicated count in the sense that a user was only counted once per hour, even if he/she logged in several times during the hour. The heaviest activity of the day saw a maximum of 3,222 users logged into BroncoDirect from 11 a.m. to Noon.

BRONCODATA VS. BRONCODIRECT-- When would someone use BroncoData? If you need to obtain aggregate data on a group of students use BroncoData. However, if you are only interested in retrieving information on an individual student, utilize BroncoDirect. It is as simple as that. But why is it so difficult to find what you are looking for in BroncoData or find the same report twice? We have good news. We are currently working on an important project to make BroncoData access easier. The project consists of several new components to assist you in finding the information needed quickly, provide you with a better understanding of the report and give you a new tool for requesting new reports. One of the new components is the new “Data Dictionary,” which will assist you in identifying terms such as active students, continuing students, leave of absences, academic year, etc. We are also in the process of creating a “Report Library” to assist in finding that report you retrieved last year but not sure where it might be or what information was included in the report. Finally we are working on completing an “Active Student” report that will be web-based. With this new feature, you won’t have to go searching through folder after folder for data. These new components will all be compliant to the accessibility requirements. We expect to have these new features available by the end of spring. Meanwhile, users needing assistance or question on BroncoData may contact our Data Warehouse Administrator, Diane Carter (909.979.6335). Alternatively, users may e-mail broncodata .

PRIORITIZATION & RECOVERY MOVES FORWARD – After working the process for more than a year, I&IT’s P&R committee has aligned itself with a university-wide effort. Curtis Clark and April McKettrick have taken the committee’s ideas and matched the requirements of the university-wide committee, chaired by College of Science Dean Don Straney and Dr. Clark. Two very useful functions to come out of our P&R committee have been assessing and evaluating our services and approving new positions and projects. It’s become a management consulting group that includes all our leadership as well as two or more staff members from each I&IT department.

A BETTER BLACKBOARD –A pilot is currently in progress with several faculty and students testing Blackboard version 7.2. The new version offers several advantages over our current version 6. For example, a new announcement feature in 7.2 allows teachers to send email to students while making the announcement. Another new component will allow faculty to release information based on conditions, such as a student’s performance or grade. Also, the grading section is tied more closely to the discussion board feature. An advantage here would include a faculty member being able to give faster grade credit to a student who made an outstanding point in the discussion board. I&IT expects to have 7.2 fully in place by the beginning of fall, 2007, quarter. By that time, we will have converted completely from version 6 and closed off WebCT, which will be discontinued in June, 2007.

ACCESSIBILITY FOR ALL – I&IT has taken a key role in a CSU-wide initiative on accessibility. Debra Brum, I&IT Vice President, David Levin, Director of I&IT Learning, and Curtis Clark, Director of Web Development, are helping lead the university’s Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI) Steering Committee. Among the goals are to make web pages, presentations, email documents, and all instructional materials accessible to persons with visual, hearing and other disabilities. Another aspect of the ATI is to revise the university’s procurement procedures so that each electronic/information technology item is reviewed for accessibility at the time of purchase. President Mike Ortiz has made this an important imitative and he has expressed gratitude at how quickly the university has advanced the cause. Training is available that shows users how to add accessibility capability to their web pages and PowerPoint presentations. For more information, see accessibility.

ONLINE CLASSES CONTINUE TO INCREASE – The university’s efforts to provide more online classes continue to increase. This spring quarter, 15 classes are totally on-line. Another 125 classes are what is called “blended” or “hybrid,” which is a mixture of live attendance and online. Spearheading the initiative is the Designing Online Learning-Centered Environments (DOLCE) program. More than 1,000 students participated in six pilot courses during the fall and winter quarters. Evaluations are still being tabulated, but so far results look quite promising with students in the last evaluation scoring higher grades in the hybrid and online classes when compared against the same class and instructor for face to face attendance only.

ONLINE COURSES DESERVE ONLINE EVALUATIONS – The Academic Senate and the President approved a plan for online evaluation of classes in 2005, and I&IT Web Development piloted a web application in winter quarter that satisfies this requirement. In the pilot, six faculty teaching 17 classes with 121 students participated. The new system insures the confidentiality of evaluations both for the student evaluators and the instructors being evaluated.

NO LONGER ONE WAY IN & OUT – We are working with our Internet Service Provider (ISP), the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), and the Chancellor’s Office who is funding a project that will give us a second entry and exit point to the Internet. On March 2, 2007, you might recall we lost connectivity to the Internet because a single network card failed at CENIC. If we had a second, redundant route to CENIC and the Internet, we would have switched over to it immediately with no loss of service other than reduced bandwidth. I&IT Operations and I&IT Systems are working with CENIC and the CO to have the new route installed by late this fall, 2007.

VISTA, OFFICE 2007 ON THE HORIZON – Microsoft has introduced Vista, a new PC operating software system that updates Windows XP, and Office 2007 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). We are currently arranging technical support training for campus technicians so that users adopting Vista and Office 2007 will be adequately supported. Then, I&IT and Organizational Development and Training will work on providing training for end-users. We expect to complete all this by late summer, 2007, and announce full support of the two new product lines at or before then. For further details, see vista.

WHY BEING AN I&IT STUDENT ASSISTANT IS GOOD FOR YOUR CAREER – Jonathan Kern worked as a developer in I&IT’s Web Development. Then he graduated and immediately got a position at Microsoft’s Business Solutions unit working on web applications. And from I&IT Systems, Andrew Perelgut recently accepted a position with Nexus IS. He is currently working on a network upgrade project for the Orange County Teachers' Federal Credit Union. This continues a trend of our student assistants immediately getting good jobs as instructional designers, systems analysts and information technology auditors, among other positions

I&IT Leadership

Debra Brum Vice President, I&IT	dabrum@csupomona.edu 909 979-6300
Stephanie Doda Associate Vice President, I&IT	sndoda@csupomona.edu 909 979-6322
Al Arboleda Information Security Officer	aarboleda@csupomona.edu 909 979-6449
Mauricio Calderon Director, I&IT Applications and CMS Technical Director	macalderon@csupomona.edu 909 979-6388
Curtis Clark Director, I&IT Web Development	jcclark@csupomona.edu 909 979-6371
H’Sundiata Keita Director, I&IT Operations	hkeita@csupomona.edu 909 979-6427
David Levin Director, I&IT Learning	dslevin@csupomona.edu 909 979-6304
Joe Matsumoto Director, I&IT Systems	jmatsumoto@csupomona.edu 909 979-6421
Denny Mosier Director, I&IT Support	dbmosier@csupomona.edu 909 979-6334
Susan Reese Manager, I&IT Projects & Services	slreese@csupomona.edu 909 979-6344

“I&IT Newsletter” is a publication of the Instructional & Information Technology (I&IT) division of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA.

Send comments to Denny Mosier at (909) 979-6334 or dbmosier@csupomona.edu.

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This page was last updated on April 4, 2007.