When Ken Pierce arrived at Texas State University in the summer of 2015 as the new Vice President of Information Technology, he quickly worked to outline the major issues that the Division of Information Technology needed to address.
The result was the “Top 10 Investment Areas – 2016,” a document that outlined the division’s role in the university and addressed the biggest needs of 2016.
Now, at the dawn of 2018, the division is celebrating successful progress on all items in the 2016 document and is further investing in the future of many of the projects outlined in the list.
1) The Learning Commons
Learning commons is a cutting-edge concept in education and libraries that calls for creating a new, technology-focused user experience. Much of the Albert B. Alkek Library is slated to be remodeled and updated using the concept in coming years. In 2016, the entire second floor of the library – the main floor when entering from the breezeway – was remodeled with new seating areas, collaboration rooms, a 3D-printing center, and a raised floor that allows for wires and other infrastructure to be added for upcoming technology in the future.
In late 2017, the new YouStar Studio opened on the first floor. Partially funded by generous donations to the 2016 Step up for State campaign, the studio allows students and faculty to film their own presentations in just a few easy steps. Utilizing the YouStar studio anyone can now make a professional looking video presentation.
Also, in fall 2017, a new Archives and Research Center building opened at the Science, Technology, and Advanced Research (STAR) Park. That state-of-the-art storage and research facility will eventually hold thousands and thousands of
library materials and special collections, with easy and convenient same-day availability through a request at any university library. Not only will the cold storage facility preserve important materials, but it will open even more space in Alkek for future learning commons projects – many of which are in the planning stages now.
In the end, the learning commons project will create a state-of-the-art collaborative learning environment in the Alkek Library. This work will continue for several years.
2) Association of Research Libraries
Texas State’s University Libraries are seeking acceptance into the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), a nonprofit organization made up of the leading research libraries in the USA and Canada. To receive such a status, division leaders have worked to develop a scorecard to measure how Texas State is doing, moving toward meeting the criteria established by the association. That scorecard is driving many of the investment decisions in the library, including learning commons projects. Receiving ARL status will help in the university’s larger goal of becoming eligible for National Research University Funding. The scorecard put in place in 2017 will go a long way toward defining the needed improvements, funding, and investments to reach that goal.
3) Mobile Services
We live in a world where mobile has taken over as the technology of choice. The IT Division is helping take Texas State into that world.
In January 2017, we relaunched the Texas State Mobile App, also known as txstMobile, on a new platform that will help us grow the use and usefulness of the
app today and in the coming years. Since then, we have been refining and improving the app constantly, and our users are responding. More than 22,000 people downloaded the app in 2017, and another 27,000, downloaded the sister app we built for TRACS. Ratings for the app in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, rose from at or below 3 to nearly a perfect 5. People, especially students, are finding our new mobile app invaluable. The fall 2017 commencement became the first livestreamed through the app, and thousands watched. Expect more improvements moving forward. We know that everyone at Texas State is using mobile, and we are working to make it easier, more convenient, and more engaging to use mobile as a tool for success at Texas State.
4) Wireless Capabilities
We built an entirely new wireless network at the San Marcos campus in late 2016 and 2017, including, for the first time ever, wireless availability in all dormitories. The installation included replacing and installing thousands of new modules around campus, replacing the old, worn-out hardware. Since installation was complete, Network Operations staff have been hard at work fine-tuning the system to make it work even better.
5) Information Security
Two key improvements are making information more secure at Texas State. First, the Information Security Office became a stand-alone unit of the division, answering directly to the vice president. Second, a two-factor authentication system was put in place and now covers many of the things that Texas State protects, and that Texas State students, faculty, and staff must log-in to. Known as NetID 2-Step, the system offers much-needed additional protection in this time when activity from hackers and thieves interested in stealing important personal information is at an all-time high.
6) Accessibility and ADA
Making sure the technology we offer is available to everyone, regardless of disabilities, is an important emphasis for the IT Division today. With the leadership of a special assistant to the vice president assigned to this duty, we have put in place improved and more serious reviews of technology to make sure they meet requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Perhaps our biggest accomplishment in 2017 was our first two “website rodeos,” where we brought in the webmasters of many Texas State websites and helped them fixed errors on their pages that made those sites difficult to use for people with disabilities. The full-day training sessions fixed hundreds and hundreds of errors on nearly 100 websites under the Texas State banner.
7) Marketing and Communications
Our goal in the IT Division is to serve campus with the best library and technology tools available. Unfortunately, we have done a less than ideal job of communicating about those tools. In 2016 the division hired its first-ever communications coordinator and has since moved forward on important communication efforts, such as the new IT Assistance Center website, that makes it easy for students, faculty, and staff, to access IT services, and the new website for The Wittliff Collections that helps students, researchers, and the public better access the amazing collection of writing, photography, music, and art brought together under The Wittliff banner. The communications team now runs several social media feeds and promotes use of tools like Office 365 and NetID 2-Step. Look for more new and better communication efforts in the coming year.
8) Research Computing
The LEAP high performance computing cluster, opened in late 2016, was a major improvement in Texas State University’s computing capabilities, further enabling the varied pursuits of the broad and growing research community on campus. Professors and student researchers are using the new research computing resources to advance many forms of research on campus.
9) Faculty Credentialing System
The new Faculty Qualifications System was rolled out to faculty in late 2016. The system allows for faculty to store and update their CVs – the system generates a properly formatted Texas State University vita. The system also serves as the primary system for Faculty Annual Review.
10) TSUS-level services
The majority of the IT Division’s work is for Texas State, but we also take the lead in the Texas State University System for many things, such as systemwide licenses, collaborative agreements, networking, security, and other things used by the system office and other universities in the system. For example, we have worked to get all the institutions in the system using the same security and log-in tools to increase and normalize security across the system.
By Scott Ayers
