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Information Technology @ The University of Oklahoma
IT's mission is to provide world-class information technology services that support and advance the mission of the University of Oklahoma, and to play a leadership role in providing the best educational experience for our students.
IT's organizational goals and objectives are based on the President's academic, administrative and student affairs goals, and are aligned with best practice information technology strategies in higher education. Achieving these goals will enable us to realize not only the possibilities, but prepare us for events and decisions that we can't imagine now.
These goals provide the framework for our core priorities:
- Campus computing infrastructure, including the maintenance and upgrades of the core network
- Security, securing availability and reliability, insuring appropriate information access
- Faculty support/Classroom technologies
- Student systems and services/Online student community
- Consultation, responding to units' needs in implementing administrative systems and decision-making tools
- Assistance for all departments in meeting computing needs
- Compatibility, between and among campus computing systems
IT provides central and distributed computer and information resource support for teaching, research, workplace automation, process improvement and University information requirements, while also serving as the advisor and authority for the strategic planning, integration and implementation of all aspects of information technology.
Information Technology is organized into four service teams: Operations, Project Management, IT Service Centers and Strategic Planning, which collectively advise on, plan and manage information and technology services for the campus community. All design, implementation, and operational support of these services are conducted with the goals of providing the highest levels of ease of use and effective integration of innovative educational technologies.
Strategic Planning is responsible for guiding the overall direction of IT, working with each of the teams to foster innovation, evaluate best practices, plan initiatives, prioritize activities, manage financial and staffing resources, coordinate communications, and support organizational development efforts.
Operations is charged with designing, planning, administering, and maintaining a robust, reliable network infrastructure including core systems and servers that support Internet and Internet 2 access, electronic mail, web services, course management, authentication, security, business continuity, and mainframe systems support, production control, and operations. Operations works with the Director of Technology to address issues like business process improvement, legacy administrative programs maintenance and compliance updates, secure online services such as online enrollment and online payment,and enterprise systems such as human resource management, data warehousing, and web hosting
Project Management is charged with managing the tasks that comprise a project to ensure that the overall project stays within scope, budget, and schedule, succeeds in its deliverables, exceeds expectations, and serves as a successful case study for future projects. These responsibilities include initial consultation, budget impact estimates, including assessment of Return on Investment (ROI), managing team (and executive) communications, assigning and monitoring tasks, issues resolution, project budget, resource and change management. All IT projects are now managed through a new process that starts online at http://projectrequest.ou.edu.
The IT Service Centers (ITSC), located at Couch and Felgar Hall Computing Centers, are charged with designing, planning, and implementing a comprehensive service program supporting research, teaching, and learning in all disciplines. Services include desktop computing support, faculty development and training, learning resources to raise technology competency levels, computing lab and classroom technology support, help desk, and knowledge base services. The ITSCs provide a wide variety of technology support services for the University community. Either ITSC is a one-stop shop for inquiries about services, products and other technology related issues and is available by calling 325-HELP or by visiting IT's Online Support Center at http://support.ou.edu.
Some of IT's products and services include:
Network Infrastructure: IT provides ready access to a variety of technological tools. Computer labs are plentiful, classrooms are well wired and residence hall rooms provide direct connection to the campus network. IT has installed fiber-optic campus network infrastructure to each building on campus, which provides high-speed data and Internet access to all faculty and staff. In addition, similar cabling has been run to all residential student housing, which provides approximately 8000 high-speed data ports to students living in both on and off campus residential communities.
Electronic Mail: IT manages over 52,000 email accounts for OU's students, faculty, staff, in addition to alumni and retiree accounts. Faculty and staff have the option of using Microsoft Exchange which provides standard email access, as well as a comprehensive campus-wide calendaring, task list, anti-virus protection and address book system. A Web-based email client access program allows users access to their email from any computer connected to the World Wide Web.
Internet2: There have been a number of major advancements made in Internet technology-especially in conjunction with the consortium known as Internet2 - that make teaching and research through the Internet not only a possibility, but a reality. At the University of Oklahoma, IT is actively exploring this arena and creating applications to take advantage of these exciting new developments.
Online Course Management: IT offers course management software tools to faculty who want to integrate the use of online information resources in their classes. The software enables faculty and students to communicate and collaborate through real-time chats, threaded discussions, and online file exchanges. Instructors can create and manage course Web sites without having to know HTML, and in addition, evaluate and measure student progress. Students benefit from being able to access course materials anytime, anywhere they have access to networked computers.
Computer Leasing Program: The University of Oklahoma has negotiated leasing contracts with major computer manufacturers that can further productivity and communication efforts of members of the OU community by providing up-to-date, standardized technology that the University can support in an affordable manner. This program is available to anyone on campus considering leasing or purchasing computer equipment that will be institutionally owned or located in an OU office. For more information, go to http://sin.ou.edu and click on the "Dell" icon.
Microsoft Campus Agreement: An annual subscription that allows specified Microsoft software products to be installed on university-owned computers at a significant savings to the University.. In addition, software can be installed on personal laptop or home computers for work-related use. The benefits of this agreement for the University include easily and cost-effectively providing and maintaining legal installations of current software on University-owned computers, reducing software incompatibility issues, and decreasing support complexities of obsolete software configurations.
OSCER: OU Supercomputing Center for Education and Research: OSCER provides a high level of supercomputing expertise to every OU research group that seeks the help. This approach is unique among supercomputing centers around the world; typically, research groups are expected to learn supercomputing on their own, and resources are focused on only a few top groups. OU's ability to conduct supercomputing-based research and education is greatly improved, leading to more external funding, more publications, and greater prominence for OU students, faculty and staff, as well as attracting a better pool of student, faculty and staff candidates. Students, both undergraduates and graduates, in a variety of disciplines, conduct publishable research and learn to use cutting edge technologies effectively to access, interpret and synthesize scientific information. They participate in supercomputing-based research and have opportunities to obtain feedback from supercomputing experts and are prepared to take positions in the supercomputing marketplace, or to pursue (or continue) graduate studies in supercomputing. Faculty who are developing funding proposals have resources to refer to when discussing not only hardware and software, but more importantly education plans for their projects, an issue that is becoming increasingly crucial to some funding agencies. OU graduates whose academic research has focused on supercomputing- based science are well-qualified -- uniquely so within the State of Oklahoma -- to pursue Oklahoma-based business opportunities that require supercomputing expertise. OSCER also provides a base of supercomputing expertise from which to develop interdisciplinary computational science degree programs.
Advisory Council
In 2003, a new University Technology Advisory Council was appointed on the Norman campus. The Faculty Senate currently has the Information Technology Council subcommittee that keeps the Senate advised on academic technology issues, however, IT saw the need for there to be a representative group with a broader scope of higher education technology issues that can serve as a strategic planning advisory council with the CIO. This group meets regularly with the CIO to discuss technology issues, including technology proposals, investments, resources, and priorities and is made up of the following individuals: Provost, VP and General Council, VP for Administrative Affairs, VP for Research, VP for Student Affairs, Faculty advisor to the CIO, Faculty Senate Chair, Staff Senate Chair, Chair MIS department, Associate Vice President of Administrative Affairs/Controller and a Student representative.
Additional information on these and other IT services and solutions can be found at the IT website, http://it.ou.edu, or in IT's Online Service Center at http://support.ou.edu.
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