October 2022 update from CIS

We’re trying to get you an update a few days after the close of each month.  We hope you all had a good October and enjoyed Halloween.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month

October was cybersecurity awareness month and we wrapped up with a cybersecurity quiz. The quiz is still open – give it a try and see if you can do better than the average 8.79 out of 12 points.  To meet the annual training requirements that form part of the many cybersecurity laws and regulations to which the College is subject, we will soon be launching a cybersecurity awareness hub, which will provide you with several options for reaching your annual training target.

IT Infrastructure Projects

During the Board of Trustee meetings at the end of September, I presented to the PPCPC (Physical Plant and Campus Planning Committee) about the status of the IT Infrastructure Fund (ITIF) and projects we have undertaken.  You may enjoy reviewing some of the slides from that presentation.  ITIF funds things like cabling, networking equipment and wifi access points across campus.

The MISO Survey

Many will recall that last Spring we participated for the first time in the national Measurement of Information Services Outcomes (MISO) survey.   Thanks to the 540 people who took the time to complete the survey, we got a clear picture of how our services are viewed in terms of importance and satisfaction.  Laura Palucki Blake from our Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness (OIRE) did a wonderful job managing the survey and summarizing the results.  We are using them to guide our work going forward and we will refer again to the MISO survey in future updates from CIS.

Student Printing

The first MISO related example is in the area of student printing.  Laura wrote: “Just over one quarter (26%) of students indicated they were dissatisfied or somewhat dissatisfied with on campus printers. Open-ended comments reveal frustration with having to go into papercut to upload documents to print, and the variable nature of their reliability.”

What was the CIS response?  Over the summer, the User Support Team worked with the Infrastructure and Services Team to build out and test a new Mobility Print option that will allow you to print directly from both computers and mobile devices. We also made changes to the Web Print, including the ability to do double-sided printing.

We think this has produced improvement in the Student Printing Experience, but our sources of information are limited — we are mostly basing our opinion on a drop in support requests.

So, students, feel free to click below to indicate your current level of satisfaction with mobility print and web print:

• They are great!

• Could use improvement

• Not happy

Canvas at HMC

In the September update, I let you know that we are recommending that HMC begin moving from Sakai to Canvas, alongside the other Claremont Colleges.  Elizabeth Hodas and I met with the Faculty Executive Committee (FEC) on September 19 and recommended that we start exploring Canvas and begin migrating if there aren’t any issues.  All members of FEC endorsed this recommendation.

We also gave a  brief presentation on Canvas at HMC at the November Faculty meeting.  We are working to get an HMC instance of Canvas set up so that HMC can begin exploring in the Spring.  We have connected with companies and other institutions (in Claremont and across the country) that can help us with the move. Faculty, if you would like to teach your class using Canvas this Spring, please get in touch or watch for an email that will solicit interest.

I had more bullet points for this newsletter, but I’ve run on long enough.   Thank you for reading and enjoy the month of November.

Happy Thanksgiving from all at CIS!

Best,

Joseph