The 2020 edition of the IT Division Almanac is now available.
This year, we focused on division staff’s robust efforts to confront challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. As you know, when COVID-19 arrived, it changed life at Texas State dramatically.
The developers, support staff, librarians, security officers and everyone else in the division had to change their focus rapidly, putting aside various projects to instead focus on important tech and library tasks to make it possible for everyone to work, study, and teach from home.
Tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams were already available at Texas State, but the rapid increase in use meant a massive increase in training and support. The university’s virtual private network (VPN) needed to be made available to more people who were forced to work from home. Duo, our multi-factor authentication security tool, was made available to students for the first time.
A lot happened in a short amount of time. I know it was the same for you.
This is my fourth year serving as editor for the IT Almanac. My team in the IT Marketing and Communications office have enjoyed producing these every year. We work with communications professionals from throughout the division to accomplish this.
The 2020 Almanac feels different to me, though. The university continued to work after almost everyone was sent home – a testament to the hours and hours of dedicated hard work by division staff. It is my genuine pleasure to be able to share these stories with you.
One other thing is different about our Almanac this year. For the first time, we have produced it in a blog format – a format very similar to this blog. We found it is easier to read than the Almanac of previous years, which was produced in Microsoft Sway.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did putting it together.
We published the Almanac today. I’d love to hear your feedback. My email is scott.ayers@txstate.edu
Scott Ayers is director of IT Marketing and Communications.
