Information Technology Services activities, fall 2020
Summer’s remote work and response to the COVID-19 pandemic is instrumental for a successful fall semester
Information Technology Services’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic continued throughout the summer months, with staff working diligently on a variety of pandemic initiatives/projects to prepare for the fall semester. The ITS Team’s efforts contributed greatly to the success of Binghamton University’s fall semester start.
The successes from the spring and summer remote-learning transition enabled Technology Support to redesign the Information Commons and public computer labs to create additional sanitization/distancing measures for our users. Technology Support Services created and populated lab groups in LabStats and updated LabMaps to reflect newly arranged socially distanced areas including printing stations. A new LabFind App is now being offered to students for public computing lab (workstations and printing) availability and even includes directions on how to get to their chosen lab.
The Help Desk and Technology Support Services reengineered how they interact with students, staff and faculty by implementing an appointment-only strategy, offering virtual help, Zoom sessions and continued telephonic support, all of which minimized in-person interactions while still serving the campus and maintaining health and safety parameters. The ServiceNow Loaner App was implemented in collaboration with the Center for Learning and Teaching and ITS Operations to handle COVID-19 loaner (laptops and hot-spots) equipment. These devices are enabling students who lack the resources to continue their academic pursuits remotely during the fall semester. The Operations and Infrastructure and Help Desk staff coordinated distribution of loaner laptops and Wi-Fi hotspots (COVID-19 devices) for in-person pickup. So far, this has worked out very well, and could be an effective future business model when considering in-person class limitations due to the pandemic.
ITS, in close concert with the Business Office, completed the financial year-end processing Sept. 15 and 16. This is an annual event that requires significant effort from all areas involved as the process changes every year. Now that all year-end processing is completed, all SUNY financial statements have been processed and the Business Office is able to fully move forward with 2020-21 financial activities.
The Innovations Team was extremely busy in the past several months assisting in improving business processes and office operations. The team created online processes for 20+ manual systems utilizing E-Forms and Workflows, and created a half-dozen new additional online processes for critical functions to be compliant with changing federal, state and University policies related to COVID-19. Since April, over 23,000 electronic forms were submitted instead of paper forms, markedly improving efficiencies across the University.
ITS participated in the University’s first virtual summer orientation. The Innovations Team transitioned orientation activities online and released four new applications for asynchronous online orientation messaging, advising and other activities. The team also implemented a “Virtual Tour Guide” experience so incoming students were able to have a high-quality, in-person, customized virtual walking tour around campus — even without tour guides. ITS also provided helpful technology information for fall orientation 2020 via the main orientation and ITS websites and conducted free-format Zoom sessions daily for incoming students and parents.
Upgrades to technical infrastructure
The classroom social-distancing challenges necessitated close interaction and significant time spent between the University’s Course Building and Academic Space Management - CBASM Team and key members of the Enterprise Systems and Applications (ESA) Team to programmatically adjust classroom scheduling. ESA staff spent an extraordinary amount of time customizing countless variations in scheduling parameters per class per space that necessitated synching efforts with Infosilem and TimeTabler to remove GP classrooms and allow for a one-week onsite/one-week off-site rotation for classes this fall. These were complex changes that were made and implemented on time with no issues.
The Telecommunications Team was extremely busy this past summer by restarting projects delayed by COVID and the ‘normal’ summer projects starting at the same time. All these projects involved completing upgrades in multiple buildings, new communication/network installations in capital projects, completing the normal influx or work orders, installing new data cabling, additional installation of additional GCCTV, cabling and network, and the setup of cell phones for COVID operations.
The Operations and Infrastructure Team’s focused preparations for the fall semester start were extremely successful. Part of many projects completed includes the resolution of over 100 service tickets, a major increase in outdoor Wi-Fi coverage (parking lots G-1 and M3-5, “the spine,” the Harpur Quad, the University Union’s MarketPlace, the John Arthur Café, the patio at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center, the Union Bus Stop and the Hinman Quad), numerous switch upgrades, staged/configured/installed wireless airport devices for Clearview, Campus Pre-School, Old Rafuse, Union (East and North) and network upgrades in several areas such as the Downtown Center, Old Johnson, Johnson, Digman, ITC, Events Center and Admissions to name just a few locations. The expanded Wi-Fi implementation has taken on a new meaning at Binghamton University as students, faculty and staff are now encouraged to socially distance as much as possible and it increases the ability of the Binghamton University Community to follow this guidance during favorable weather.
Special Wi-Fi signs were placed at the outdoor Wi-FI spaces to inform students and encourage the use of Wi-Fi technology to maintain social distancing.
The Security Infrastructure and Support Team worked on several key projects such as the installation/upgrade of 50 security cameras in the Events Center and six cameras in Campus Recreation and the East Gym. Additional door access installation/readers were installed as part of capital projects in the Watson College building, Fine Arts, Science 2 and the Institute for Child Development.
The Information Security Team focused its efforts on communicating anti-phishing and “job scam” messages through social media, Dateline and B-Line, the ITS Phish Tank webpage and blog articles. Results thus far have been mixed, with individuals still falling prey to phishing and scam attacks. ITS is now receiving a feed of exposed Binghamton account credentials from Spycloud (security monitoring company), which allows ITS to take appropriate action to secure an exposed account, thus minimizing data exposure.
One major issue that Information Security resolved concerned the residence hall refunds that the campus had to quickly process in the spring 2020 semester. This led to a rush of students switching to direct deposit. There are known scams that have hit other SUNY campuses related to this, however, with the help of the Database Administration Group in ITS, a monitoring process was set up that provided the Student Accounts Office with the ability to review questionable transactions; thus reducing the number of potential fraudulent activities and theft of funds.
Technical Support worked with Information Security and the Decker Student Health Services Center (DSHSC) on the student COVID-19 testing site in the Events Center, where all on-campus students were tested prior to moving into their residence halls. ITS set up, customized and encrypted 40 laptops in support of COVID-19 testing. Networking established a special wired network infrastructure and VOIP phones/backup iPhones to protect medical data collected during the testing. A program to communicate to students how to retrieve their test results, once again maintaining data security, was implemented. In response to everchanging reporting and data collection requirements, the MEDICAT software had to be updated just as the Events Center went online for testing incoming students. ITS staff worked quickly to update and reconfigure all of the DSHSC computers — just over 100 of them. Finally, additional IT assets were procured to support BingView, a portal view mainly for students, providing increased graphic processing capabilities of COVID-19 testing results.
For the Department of Health and Wellness Studies, Technical Support set up webcams in both of its classrooms in the West Gym, and added cameras and microphones on their “rover” carts so instructors can teach online in their classrooms and both gyms.
ITS support to the University
ITS staff completed 37 projects in the past three months and completed 136 projects for the previous fiscal year. We are actively working on 69 projects with 26 additional projects waiting for resources (staff available, equipment, vendor support, etc.) and 23 projects on hold. Specifically, we completed 25 projects in direct support of COVID-19 and numerous other projects were adjusted due to COVID-19 impacts. Demand for ITS support continues, with 42 project requests approved since July 1, and another 17 project requests pending review and approval.
The ITS Help Desk saw a large volume of calls during the end of summer and beginning of the fall semester (over 2,400 incidents in ServiceNow), mainly pertaining to resolving issues with Blackboard, password help, student printing, University-owned computers, shared network drives, phishing scams and Zoom conferencing. The Help Desk’s quick attention and turnaround consisted of more than half of the calls being resolved at first level. Student printing from mid-June until mid-September was just over 10,000 B&W pages and almost 3,000 color pages printed, which echoed a major decrease in paper as compared to previous summers.