August 2022 update from CIS

Dear all,

We in CIS are delighted to see you all coming (back) to campus for Fall 2022, and we sincerely hope it will be a fruitful one for everyone.

Over the summer, we worked on many projects.  Here is some news and information about things that we are wrapping up in time for Fall.

New faces at CIS – On August 15, two new employees joined us at CIS.  Elizabeth (“Beth) Clark and Sara Palacios will both be technical analysts in User Support Services.  Beth joins us from Covina-Valley School District and Sara from Apple.  Read more about them on the CIS website.

Wifi – wifi infrastructure improvements are ongoing.  We have moved all of our wifi access points to “controllers” (management systems) operated by our networking staff at TCCS IT.  This will give us better insight into how things are working, as well as a clearer roadmap for improvements.  We have installed approximately 90 new wifi access points around campus. 

Sontag Cabling

You may recall that last Fall we identified Sontag as one of the areas where we expected to see wifi issues.  We did.  And this summer we have been rewiring the building, upgrading and adding new wifi access points.  I want to express deep gratitude to the summer residents whose days were disrupted by the work.  Due to complications with scheduling the contractors, we anticipate that unfortunately some of this work will spill over into the Fall.

Student Printing – we are introducing a new Papercut Mobility Print feature that addresses many of the issues students have pointed out to us.  The pictures below show student assessments from last Spring of the importance of printing and their level of satisfaction with it.  As you can see, we had room for improvement and we hope that the new Papercut Mobility Print feature will increase satisfaction.

Importance (green is very important)

Satisfaction (green is very satisfied)

ARCS projects

This summer Academic and Research Computing Services (ARCS) staff have worked on projects with Profs Adolph, Breznay, Donaldson-Matasci, Gerbode, Haddock, Haushalter, Ilton, Lynn, Schofield, Soto, Talvitie and Van Heuvelen.  ARCS staff also worked with DSA on a student orientation site, as well as preparing and delivering workshops, of which the upcoming Gradescope ones are a great example.   Read more in our recent news post ARCS Summer Projects 2022.

Network Core replacement

A network core is a device that manages network traffic at high speed.  The HMC campus has two. In partnership with our networking staff at TCCS IT, we replaced two cores on August 14.  This was the culmination of a lot of planning and preparation.  We will soon completely retire the current cores, which are almost ten years old. 

Kingston move

We will support moving people back into Kingston during the week of 8/22 (this week!).  As well as the physical setup of computers, this involves network reconfiguration and confirming that network access rules are correct. We are grateful to Lisa Burton, Daniel Madrigal and José Barajas for helping Jonathan Ebueng with coordination work on this project.

Laptop carts and lab images

We have some new laptops and a new cart coming.  Lab computers are being imaged with the software that faculty have requested.

Security Training

The President’s Cabinet recently confirmed that CIS  has responsibility for cybersecurity training at HMC. This is a complex topic and the college is increasingly required to demonstrate effective efforts to increase our level of cybersecurity. So you can expect to read more about this during the 22-23 year. “Training” can include all sorts of things, among them phishing simulation exercises.  We plan to conduct one this Fall.

Again, we’re looking forward to a wonderful Fall with you.  Get in touch with ideas, comments or questions!

On behalf of all at CIS,

Joseph