DIVISION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

The past two years, the Division of Information Technology has made significant progress towards the realization of its vision - advancing FIU as a leader in using technology for learning, teaching, research, and administration. We have completed a large number of University-wide technology initiatives and projects in support of the University's mission of becoming a top urban public research university. To illustrate, below are some of the major projects that the Division of Information Technology completed in the past two years:

Active Directory, which paved the way for efficiently managing desktop computer security and laid the foundation for deploying new technologies; Email Consolidation for Faculty and Staff, in which we merged two legacy email systems into one and eliminated a two-tiered email storage allocation for faculty and staff; Implementation of Student PantherMail, in which we partnered with Google to avoid spending $1.5 million per year for student email service while preserving the University's cyber identity; PantherSoft Student Administration Upgrade, which brought our students and staff new functions and features for managing student information; PantherSoft Financials Upgrade and Grants Suite Implementation, which brought our financial information system to the latest version supported by the vendor and added a new tool for effectively managing research grants and contracts; Wireless Network in Classrooms, in which we deployed wireless network access in all general purpose classrooms on MMC, BBC and Pines Center; Deployment of Intrusion Prevention System, which protects the University’s computers by identifying and stopping viruses and cyber attacks at the gate of our University's computer network; eClassrooms Project, in which we converted 58 of our classrooms into technology-enhanced classrooms; FIUchat, which offers both audio and video desktop virtual conferencing function to every

FIU faculty and staff member as well as text messaging; MyAccounts, which automatically synchronizes passwords for major FIU information sys-

tems; Call Manager Upgrade, which brought our telephone management system up to date; Over $3M in grants and contracts, used to upgrade international high-performance band-

width between the U.S. and Latin America and support 26 FIU graduate students, while en-hancing partnerships with FIU’s science and engineering academic units;

Disaster Recovery, a plan to ensure that critical University services continue to operate in the event of an emergency.

On the following pages, you will see more details about the major technology projects that we completed in the past two years and meet the staff who completed these projects. You will also get a glimpse of some of the future technology initiatives that we plan to launch. Min Yao, Ph.D. Vice President and CIO

The Division has developed a comprehensive Disaster Recovery plan to ensure that critical University services in the event of an emergency, such as a fire or hurricane, continue to operate either at full or reduced capabilities. The Division has partnered with North West Regional Data Center (NWRDC), lo-cated on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee, to provide these services. FIU’s primary website and email services will automatically fail-over to NWRDC in the event of an outage in our Data Center. PantherSoft Student and Financial services are also replicated at NWRDC and would be available shortly after. As funding permits, the Division will continue to enhance its Disaster Recovery services to

ensure that critical IT services for FIU continue to operate in the event of an emergency.

The Active Directory networking environment replaced the old IRMNT and ENCORE domains. This new technology, deployed in 2007, has allowed for better protection of the University’s network and infor-mation resources via remote installation of security patches and software applications. Additionally, features such as electronic file encryption have allowed users to increase the level of secu-rity on files that contain sensitive data. To date there have been migrated:

7,516 users and department accounts 6,073 workstations (Windows XP, Windows Vista, & Windows 7) 118 servers (Windows 2000, Windows 2003, & Windows 2008) 102 vendors, consultants, and SACS accounts.

The Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), analyzes network traffic in real-time and has the ability to intercept and stop malicious activity before it causes harm to University computers. Since its deployment in 2007, the IPS has successfully blocked and mitigated attacks and malicious traffic allowing the University to continue operations without interruption. The IPS is continuously updated and protects the University computer net-works 24 hours a day. The Division also uses the IPS to gather data which helps to determine threat-levels to the network at any point in time. In 2008/09, the Office of Media Sanitation was created. Policies and proce-dures, to address the security and destruction of sensitive data from sur-plussed machines, were also created. To date, in excess of 1,700 hard drives and other media have been sanitized. To further augment security for the University community, the Division has embarked on an ongoing emergency communications project. Pres-ently, 530 emergency phones have been installed in classrooms, open labs, and conference rooms of the University, as well as 95 external emergency notification speakers.

The University’s two email systems, student and faculty/staff, were both overhauled dur-ing 2007-2009. The Division partnered with Google to bring students an email system, PantherMail, that is free of charge and which replaced the old Webmail system. The new system, which went live in January 2008, fea-tures over seven gigabytes of storage capacity (more than 70 times that of the previous sys-tem); lifetime PantherMail accounts; and ac-cess to a suite of Google applications including a secure chat functionality and Google Docs. All faculty and staff were migrated to a new email and calendaring solution, FIUmail. All migrations, which included 8,000+ users and 400+ department mailboxes, were completed by May 2009. The new Exchange email system has provided all University employees a reli-able, scalable, secure and feature-rich messaging system that integrates seamlessly with the Active Di-rectory environment, allowing users to login with the same username and password for both systems.

Two major upgrades took place in 2007-2009: the Student Administration system upgrade to Campus Solutions 9 completed in October 2008, and the Financials upgrade and Grants Suite Implementation completed in July 2009. The upgraded version of the Student Administration system, PantherSoft Cam-pus Solutions 9, integrates new business processes and streamlines existing processes. It provides new functionality for students with an enhanced Student Center that allows for schedule planning and sched-

ule validation before registering. The new Faculty Center features a central-ized navigation panel with access to class schedules, locations, rosters and student enrollment details. The Finan-cials upgrade from version 8.4 to 9.0 enhanced all existing modules includ-ing General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Purchasing, Asset Management, and Travel & Expenses. As part of the up-grade, a 9.0 Financial Grants Suite was implemented for the Office of Spon-sored Research. The implementation included the Grants, Contracts, Project Costing, and Billing and Receiv-able modules.

Deployed in summer 2009, FIUchat is a new online collaboration tool for faculty and staff which is powered by Microsoft Office Communicator. FIUchat offers:

desktop one-to-one or group audio and video conferencing online chat (instant messaging) document sharing while conducting audio, video or text conferencing.

FIUchat ties in to FIUmail and as a result, virtual conferencing can be scheduled within FIUmail. This ability to conduct virtual meetings between University campuses and centers is saving resources for the University community in both time and travel costs.

As part of a three-year strategic initiative, the Division embarked on a mission to continue to deploy tech-nology to the classrooms. To date 58 classrooms have been furnished with the latest in technology equip-ment as part of this initiative, totaling in 111 technology–enhanced classrooms. The newly equipped classrooms have advanced electronic control systems that control lecture display projection, Internet connection, and audio-video equipment, providing students with a technology enhanced learning envi-ronment. In addition, wireless access has been installed throughout all 206 general classrooms in the University, as well as the Chapman Graduate School of Business classrooms and study rooms.

MyAccounts is a solution that provides a centralized method for changing passwords across multiple systems. Thanks to this recent deployment faculty, staff and students can now change various passwords into one master password. The MyAccounts system allows users to have one synchronized password for Active Directory, FIUmail, PantherMail, wireless, VPN and AIRS. MyAccounts has enhanced the way in which users manage their accounts by:

combining multiple passwords into one master password improving account security by requiring strong password rules automating the creation and deletion of accounts for faculty, staff and students automating security audit reporting.

This technology has taken the Division one step closer to providing a single sign-on solution for the University community.

In an effort to continue improving the delivery of services, the Division’s Support Center upgraded their service request application (Remedy Help Desk System) for tracking service requests. To enhance the updated software version, new server hardware was implemented as well. This upgrade has yielded many benefits to the support staff and the University community who rely upon the Division for their technology support. In addition to exponentially increasing the speed with which support personnel can now create, update and view requests, there have been several helpful features added to the system. Among these, central authentication through the MyAccounts system is used to increase security and al-low automatic creation of user profiles thereby speeding up the process of getting new students and staff into the system each semester. Additionally, support personnel can now update and even create service requests simply by sending an email to the new Remedy system. Screenshots and other documents can now be attached to the Remedy Service Requests, expediting the communication of critical information to the technician, which in many cases allows a much faster resolution of these requests. There are still two convenient ways for technology users to submit service requests into this new Remedy system, by calling the UTS Help Desk at 305.348.2284, or by accessing the Remedy “self-service” feature on the FIU network at utshelp.fiu.edu.

Since its inception, the Center for Internet Augmented Research and Assessment (CIARA) has fostered a domain-specific tailoring of advanced Internet technologies to support faculty research, and in the proc-ess improve graduate education. For instance, Global CyberBridges (GCB) offers a Grid Enablement of Scientific Applications course for the benefit of FIU graduate students along with their collaborators at several universities in Brazil and in China. GCB bridges the divide between Cyberinfrastructure (CI) and domain science and engineering disciplines by teaching and applying High Performance Grid Computing, Networking, and Visualization to specific problems that the student fellows propose each year. The students from China and Brazil at-tended class sessions together with FIU’s students, overcoming time zones, language, and cultural barri-ers to form productive teams and fuel a spirit of cooperation that will extend to their future research en-deavors. In another collaborative effort, GCB students met with the UCSD California Institute for Telecommunication and Infor-mation Technology (Calit2)’s Project GreenLight, a NSF Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program, on ways to mini-mize the carbon effect of computing technology on the envi-ronment. Global Cyber Bridge’s positive impact on society, is now augmented by its partnership with the Green Light pro-ject. Thus, helping reduce the carbon footprint on earth to slow and reverse global warming. In 2007/08, CIARA received $2.83M in contracts and grants revenues and supported 16 graduate students with fellow-ships and tuition waivers. In 2008/09, CIARA achieved $3.36M in contracts and grants revenue; supported 26 gradu-ate students with fellowships and tuition waivers; published

three peer-reviewed papers; and conducted 11 confer-ence presentations world wide.

The Division’s Training Center continues to offer train-ing sessions and workshops that focus on the skills re-quired to make the most effective and efficient use of computing resources and desktop applications to both faculty and staff. These courses improve the office automation skills and job performance of University personnel. To enhance the instructional mission of the University, the Division’s Resource Center offers fac-ulty training and workshops in the use of technology in the classroom. Both faculty and staff make extensive use of the classes and workshops offered (see Statisti-cal Appendix).

Some of the University-wide technology initiatives we plan to launch:

Assessment of IT security at College of Medicine Continuation of eClassroom deployments Expand wireless network Implement PantherSoft Degree Audit System Implement PantherSoft Human Resources and Payroll Implement real-time network simulation capabilities into the Global

Environment for Network Innovation (GENI) Install course capturing program in selected classrooms Install network and media in College of Nursing & Health Sciences Provide free MS Office and anti-virus for students Provide technology training to students Re-design academic structure in PantherSoft Refresh 600 network switches Transfer Learning Management System from Blackboard/WebCT to Moodle Upgrade Active Directory to 2008R2 Upgrade Exchange/ FIUmail to 2010 Upgrade FIUchat to 2010 Upgrade SharePoint to 2010 Virtual computer labs

EMAIL SERVICES On an average day, we receive more than 1.5 million pieces of email; On a busy day, we receive more than 2.5 million pieces of email; On the average, 70% of the email we receive is junk mail. TELEPHONE STATISTICS Total number of VoIP phone/fax sets: 6,339 Total number of voice mail boxes: 4,494 Average monthly calls to FIU MM Campus phone operators: 14,242 Average monthly minutes of long-distance and international calls: 119,377 WIRELESS NETWORK USAGE Average day (excluding Student Housing):

438 average simultaneous connections 733 maximum simultaneous connections

Busy day (excluding Student Housing): 652 average simultaneous connections 1,448 maximum simultaneous connections

Student Housing wireless network usage: Average day:

605 average simultaneous connections 743 maximum simultaneous connections

Busy day: 641 average simultaneous connections 799 maximum simultaneous connections

Guest usage of FIU wireless network: Average day:

53 average simultaneous connections 378 simultaneous connections at the peak time

Busy day: 325 average simultaneous connections 677 simultaneous connections at the peak time

Unique users of FIU wireless network from February through April 2009: 22,639 Unique users of FIU wireless network from April through August 2009: 21,984 NETWORK TRAFFIC Every second, 128.27 megabits of data travel into FIU Network Every second, 38.15 megabits of data move out of FIU Network Every day, 10,822.78 gigabits of data travel into FIU Network Every day, 3,218.91 gigabits of data move out of FIU Network

Desktop Software Training

Workshop BBC MMC Total

Access 2003 7 14 21

Archiving Your Mail in Outlook 2007 1 6 7

Backing Up Your PC Files 5 5

Consulting 6 6

Custom Office 2007 Workshops 129 129

Excel 2003 1 22 23

Getting Started with FIU Mail 48 320 368

Lotus Notes Archiving 4 4

Publisher 2007 14 14

Access 2007 15 15

Excel 2007 48 48

Word 2007 - Using the Mailing Tab 1 3 4

Outlook 2007 for the Administrative As-sistant 52 52

SharePoint 2007 for Site Members/Owners 18 7 25

Upgrading to Word 2007 22 82 104

Upgrading to Access 2007 1 19 20

Upgrading to Excel 2007 15 62 77

Upgrading to PowerPoint 2007 10 33 43

Using the Security Features of Outlook 2007 1 2 3

Total Workshop Attendance 125 843 968

Blackboard CE 6 Training

Workshop BBC MMC Online Total

CE 6 Overview and Course Design Fundamentals 16 62 34 112

Creating and Managing Assessments in CE 6 2 8 15 25 Creating and Managing Groups & Assignments in CE 6 1 7 13 21

Custom CE 6 workshops 17 17

Interacting with Students in CE 6 5 17 22

Managing Students and Grades in CE 6 1 6 17 24

Presenting Content in CE 6 2 7 25 34

Grand Total 23 121 121 265

Resource Center For Educational Technology

Resource Center Usage Total

Open Lab Use (# faculty) 2,796

Conference Room Use (# meetings) 136

Workshops

Respondus 10

StudyMate 0

Dreamweaver 73

Macromedia Flash 13

Referencing Made Easy 0

Word for scholarly writing 0

Photoshop 77

Text Treatments 3 PowerPoint: Lecturing with Power-Point 1

Faculty Presentations/Workshop 7

Turnitin Workshop 11

Total Workshop Attendance 195

Call Center

Total Calls Received 71,278

Average Time to Answer 98 seconds

Field Team

Total Requests Received 4,434

Average Time to Resolve 6 Days Hardware Repair

Total Requests Received 2,346

Average Time to Resolve 15 Business Days

User Accounts Mgmt.

Total Requests Received 4,501

Average Time to Resolve 36 hrs

WEBSITES:

Division of Information Technology:

it.fiu.edu

University Technology Services:

uts.fiu.edu

IT Security Office:

security.fiu.edu

Center for Internet Augmented

Research and Assessment: ciara.fiu.edu

TECHNICAL SUPPORT:

Telephone: 305.348.2284 Online: utshelp.fiu.edu

EDITING STAFF:

utsfyi@fiu.edu