The Chief Information Officer is responsible for campus IT. The CIO focuses on administering overall planning, development, coordination and implementation on all IT resources on campus. Working closely with the students, faculty, staff and administrators the CIO develops programs to address campus IT needs.
Mission: Excellence in Service
Information Technology Services inspires, encourages and supports all members of the SUNY Oneonta community to use technology in pursuit of excellence in teaching, scholarship, civic engagement, and stewardship.
Vision: Responsiveness, Innovation and Leadership
Information Technology Services strengthens SUNY Oneonta by providing innovative, reliable, secure and adaptable technology solutions to the faculty, staff, and students. We strive to build collaborative relationships with all members of the campus community so that we can fully understand and support all of the technology needs of our campus.
IT Services will be responsive, ethical and collaborative. We will minimize service interruptions and respond quickly when interruptions occur. We will respect our colleagues' and students' privacy and confidential information while also respecting SUNY Oneonta policies and legal requirements. We will find means of effective communication with our constituencies and ensure that IT operations are transparent.
We will be leaders within the learner-centered institutions of the SUNY system in the innovation, application, and implementation of information technology. IT services will work collaboratively within the SUNY system to share our innovations, discuss our challenges and work with other institutions to strengthen IT both at SUNY Oneonta and within the system.
Values: Integrity, Competence, and Collaboration
Information Technology's core value is excellent service to the faculty, staff, and students of SUNY Oneonta. Excellent service is characterized by responsiveness, but founded on integrity, competence, and collaboration. We take great pride in helping others achieve their goals through the application of information technology.
We are curious, creative and collaborative individuals who thrive in the inclusive, higher education environment and are deeply committed to the mission of SUNY Oneonta. We constantly strive to engage our users through frequent and open communication in order to gain full understanding of their technology needs and challenges. As the use of technology expands in scope and mission criticality, we seek opportunities to build relationships, internally and externally, based on respect and shared vision toward addressing challenges, implementing sustainable solutions and realizing individual potential.
IT Services is committed to an equitable, diverse and inclusive work environment for our staff. We actively support SUNY Oneonta in the creation of a civil learning environment for all.
The customer support area is responsible for end-user support. It includes the IT Service Desk, Desktop Support, Classroom Technology Support, and training activities such as the TIPS program.
The Applications & Servers area is responsible for the support and maintenance of the Campus’ application frameworks; including the Banner SIS, ANGEL LMS, EMS, wikis, blogs, and much more. We provide support and maintenance for the Campus data centers where the hardware that houses these applications and critical campus data resides. We also provide the infrastructure to deploy all desktop systems including our student and departmental computer labs. Our dedicated team strives to develop, implement and maintain a reliable computing environment while upholding the highest level of professionalism, integrity, reliability, and security while supporting the core mission and values of Information Technology Services.
WHO WE ARE
We are comprised of three groups Applications, Imaging, and Servers.
The Applications group is responsible for the support and maintenance of the Campus’ application frameworks; including the Banner SIS, ANGEL LMS, EMS, wikis, blogs, and much mor.
The Imaging group is responsible for the infrastructure to deploy all desktop systems including our student and departmental computer labs.
The Servers group is responsible for the support and maintenance for the Campus data centers where the hardware that houses these applications and critical campus data.
We provide reliable and high capacity data and voice service while managing network access and security controls. We support academic, administrative and recreational network usage for many thousands of devices, and we work closely with the rest of IT to deliver high-quality service in a challenging environment.
The mission of the Teaching, Learning, & Technology Center is to inspire, encourage, and support faculty who are integrating technology into their teaching in order to make learning more dynamic for our students. The Center serves as a catalyst for collegial exchange about innovative uses of technology in education. We strive to have appropriate support for faculty so they're in the position to do their best work.
The security of information and the hardware used to manage it is of the utmost importance to SUNY Oneonta. Faculty, Staff, Students, Guests, Contractors, Vendors - all have a part to play in safeguarding our data and computer network. The Office of IT Security's primary goals are to:
- effectively manage the risk of IT security exposure or compromise within SUNY Oneonta systems;
- communicate within the SUNY Oneonta community the responsibilities for the protection of SUNY Oneonta information;
- compliance with the statutes and policies protecting the rights of individuals.
- the consistent maintenance of data integrity and accuracy.
- assurance that authorized individuals have timely and reliable access to necessary data.
- the denial (with reasonable assurance) of unauthorized individuals' access to computing resources or other means to retrieve, modify or transfer data.
Goals and Objectives of ITS
As a large organization with multiple responsibilities to SUNY Oneonta, IT services has organized our objectives into four large thematic areas related to support, infrastructure, relationships and working environment. The four goals directly relate to our mission of excellence in service and our values of integrity, competence and collaboration.
Provide exceptional support for technology users at SUNY Oneonta.
As the name implies and mission statement reinforces, the core purpose of IT Services is to provide exceptional service to all members of the SUNY Oneonta community.
Objectives within this goal...
1.A. Continually improve resolution times for technology issues.
Technology is not foolproof, and systems regularly fail. How quickly, effectively and completely we respond to a large extent determines how quickly all members of the campus community can resume working on their primary duties. In addition, the primary influence on the perception of our service levels is the timeliness of our response. IT services will strive to minimize our response time and maximize user satisfaction levels by tracking, analyzing and continually striving to improve the time it takes to solve technology issues for our users.
1.B. Help departments create a powerful electronic presence that enhances learning and promotes SUNY Oneonta.
Every department on campus has some type of electronic presence: in some cases, this presence is a marketing function, such as our admissions information; in others, it is information for internal users such as our IT services site; still others have a mix such as academic departments which need to serve both a marketing function and internal information function. IT services needs to support all of these electronic presence functions and help the SUNY Oneonta community fully leverage electronic information presentation.
1.C. Provide a comprehensive technology training program.
As technology changes, it grows increasingly onerous for faculty and staff to learn the new interfaces and options offered through software updates. At the same time, retaining currency with technology requires updates and new software deployments. IT services needs to have a training program which helps alleviate the transition to new interfaces and new software packages as they are deployed to our user community.
1.D. Continually improve communication with our faculty, staff and students regarding our services and achievements.
Periodic maintenance requires that IT occasionally upgrade various software and hardware components of our IT infrastructure. No member of the SUNY Oneonta community should be taken by surprise when a service is down for regular maintenance. As we deploy new products and services, it is imperative that we communicate changes in services to the SUNY Oneonta community. As the volume of e-mail keeps increasing, and as fewer and fewer students read e-mail on a regular basis, it is critically important that IT finds better ways to communicate with our user community.
1.E. Promote discovery and development by faculty, staff and students.
As IT has permeated every aspect of university operations, it is no longer possible for IT services to be a domain expert in all areas where IT is heavily used. We do not have the domain expertise to know the best software for scientific instruments, or what type of system best supports heating plant operations. By promoting discovery and development efforts by all members of the SUNY Oneonta community, we can combine domain expertise from other departments with IT expertise within our staff to build a more useful set of IT services for our users.
1.F. Help leverage information technology to improve SUNY Oneonta operations.
Information technology affects almost every aspect of SUNY Oneonta operations, and new technology solutions are continually developed which have the potential of significantly improving the productivity of operations across every division of SUNY Oneonta. IT services needs to identify these opportunities and present them to our users for potential implementation within their respective department or division.
1.G. Embrace and evaluate emerging technology within IT.
Experimenting with new technology and forming collaborative development partnerships with our users is fundamental to our IT services mission, but experimental projects and new software development are both risky endeavors. These types of projects frequently experience technology failures or have usability issues which affect user work. Deploying these types of project to IT staff places the burden of resolving these issues on the people best equipped to both understand what is going wrong and resolve issues before they impact university operations.
Create and support a robust IT environment for SUNY Oneonta.
As important as the service to SUNY Oneonta is the infrastructure used to provide IT. From the networks to large application servers, SUNY Oneonta is increasingly relying on IT, and it is our responsibility to keep the systems, networks and software applications running smoothly.
Objectives within this goal...
2.A. Provide a current and reliable IT infrastructure for the needs of SUNY Oneonta.
The technology infrastructure of SUNY Oneonta is constantly evolving as the spectrum of technology used by our constituents evolves. Our infrastructure must evolve as well, and we need to maintain current systems and connectivity for all users at the university. This goal necessarily spans all aspects of IT, from the fiber optic lines connecting buildings to user desktop, laptop and mobile devices.
2.B. Ensure the security, confidentiality, integrity and availability of university-hosted data and systems.
SUNY Oneonta maintains a variety of data related to students, faculty and staff which is protected by federal law. Furthermore, many university operations ranging from first-year experience through alumni relations depends on the accuracy and availability of data maintained by IT services, including examples such as our student information system, learning management system, event management system and many other similar IT initiatives. IT must ensure that this data is maintained properly and available for legitimate university needs while ensuring that we maintain the privacy of the data.
Create and enhance IT partnerships that are beneficial to SUNY Oneonta.
IT relies on partnerships with the faculty, staff and students of SUNY Oneonta to ensure that IT operations meet their computing needs. Coupling our technology expertise with the domain and use expertise of our client groups allows us to effectively plan and develop IT services.
Objectives within this goal...
3.A. Continually improve collaborative IT steering structures to aid in the decision-making process.
IT services cannot possibly have global knowledge of the priorities of all areas of SUNY Oneonta. For example, how best to leverage the available funding for A/V technology to provide the greatest impact for the university is not a decision that can be made by IT services. Faculty, staff and students must all be involved in the selection of IT products and services so that the best global decisions can be made for SUNY Oneonta. Establishing formal governance structures which represent all of the constituencies and users is a necessary first step to global optimization of scarce resources and IT services needs to work to strengthen and empower IT steering committees.
3.B. Leverage relationships with vendors.
As funding for higher education IT transforms into a limited resource model, it is increasingly important to minimize hardware and software costs. IT services must actively seek to leverage vendor relationships both individually and as part of the larger SUNY and State purchasing pools to minimize expenses while maximizing software and hardware availability.
3.C. Support IT staff community service opportunities.
Our staff members have unique skills and abilities within the Oneonta community, and can support the community in ways others cannot. IT services will continue to support our staff if and when they choose to be involved in local community organizations.
Provide for a positive, collaborative and progressive IT work environment.
As the pace of IT development continues to accelerate, we need to continuously reinvest in staff development. The deployment of new products, shifting priorities and new opportunities combined with the 24x7 nature of IT operations can cause significant stress and anxiety, which IT Services will work to minimize.
Objectives within this goal...
4.A. Promote continuous IT staff development.
In order to provide our campus with the best IT services possible, IT staff members need to be up to date on technical skills and knowledge of the IT landscape. Many software products now operate on a three to six-month development cycle and the rate of change in IT is only increasing. Keeping up to date is growing increasingly difficult and must be constantly addressed. As IT continues to shift from a technology-oriented to people-oriented endeavor, we must also continue to update and develop soft skills throughout the organization.
4.B. Actively collaborate with other IT organizations within SUNY.
As systemness and shared services become increasingly important cornerstones of IT operations across the system, our interaction with both other institutions and SUNY IT services will become increasingly important contributors to our success. We need to expand our contacts across all levels of SUNY, discuss ongoing projects and both seek and provide assistance to our colleagues as we transition to increased levels of common software, hardware and operational offerings.
4.C. Enhance our external reputation for IT innovation.
Our staff frequently produces new and innovative solutions for IT issues on our campus. Within the SUNY system, we are well known as an organization which regularly presents solutions that can be adapted to and adopted by many other campuses. We need to take our reputation for IT innovation to the national level and increase name recognition - although largely intangible, having a national reputation will attract a larger pool of applicants for vacant positions, increase collaboration with higher education institutions outside of the SUNY system and enhance vendor relationships by providing opportunities for beta testing and piloting innovative technology.
4.D. Improve IT staff work-life balance and workplace satisfaction.
Our services cannot be limited to the normal workday. To minimize interruptions of service, our staff frequently performs hardware and software maintenance during nighttime or on the weekends. Many of us are implicitly on call all day, every day to respond to service emergencies. Excess night and weekend work sometimes causes issues with work-life balance and workplace satisfaction, and IT services must strive to find appropriate mechanisms to ensure a productive and satisfying work experience for our staff.