Spring 2012

Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the spring 2012 issue of DoIT Now. This year, we are working on new technology projects that will further promote the University’s “Worlds

Ahead” direction.

Our community’s most important asset, our students, will save time and money with the Graduation Success Initiative, the result of a joint effort between our Division and Undergraduate

Education. Our faculty and staff’s time is also valuable therefore; we have streamlined our administrative operations through the

new Human Capital Management System implementation. As more processes move online, we are working to keep our

infrastructure more secure than ever with our upcoming security initiatives and training sessions, all designed to protect our University’s sensitive data and information resources.

To find out more about these and other initiatives, please browse

through our newsletter. Thank you for reading this issue, I hope

that you will find it useful and informative.

Robert Grillo

Vice President & CIO

In fall 2011, the DoIT Now newsletter introduced MyMajor as the first phase of the

Graduation Success Initiative (GSI), a comprehensive, University wide set of innovations

designed to improve undergraduate student academic success. The GSI was created to

provide students with a credit and course tracking system that makes it easy for them to

monitor their progress and ensure that they graduate on time. “The GSI includes a suite of

technological advising tools which help students to explore (find the right major), focus (stay

on track), and graduate (finish on time),” said Douglas Robertson, Dean of Undergraduate

Education. Additionally, “professional academic advisors who serve as an important part of

the FIU’s instructional team will proactively reach out to students to help them to explore,

focus, and graduate.”

MyMajor, MyMajorMatch, My_eAdvisor, and the Panther Degree Audit (PDA) can all be

accessed from FIU’s portal, my.fiu.edu. These advising tools allow the student to search all

FIU undergraduate majors semester-by-semester, link their occupational interest from an on

-line interest inventory list to FIU majors, and produce an automated tracking tool that will

provide feedback to both the student and the advisor.

We encourage students, faculty, and staff to explore and utilize these resources. Please visit

GSI at gsi.fiu.edu.

To ensure that our University’s online resources are protected, the Division of IT is currently

launching a multi-phase security initiative. This spring semester, workstations throughout

campus will receive the first phase of this project, designed to further protect University’s

resources from both external and internal threats.

On March 19, our Operations and Enterprise Systems department kicked off the first phase.

This first phase will accomplish two milestones: updating existing McAfee VirusScan

Enterprise systems and upgrading McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) agents to version 4.6.

These systems upgrades will assist us in effortlessly detecting intrusions to our systems,

while protecting system databases against unauthorized viewing, copying, modifying, and

deleting of information. These security upgrades will be deployed with no action needed on

the part of our users.

For more information on this security initiative, and to view our project timeline,

visit go.fiu.edu/universitysecurity . To view upcoming projects from the Division of

Information Technology, view our Project Dashboard avai lable at

go.fiu.edu/doitprojects .

During an average workweek, students, faculty, and staff receive over four million email messages. Our FIUmail servers, primarily used by faculty and staff, receive over 900,000 e-mails each week!

This February, the Division of Information Technology launched a re-designed website to

better serve the University community. The re-designed website merged our two

previous sites: uts.fiu.edu and it.fiu.edu .

Our new website, located at it.fiu.edu, is services-based, making navigating through the

site easier than ever before. When a user first visits our new website, they will notice our

new “Services” panel, which includes a map of icons similar to those on popular mobile

devices today. Users no longer have to search through pages of text; with one click on

one of these icons, the user is transported to their destination.

Additionally, we have added a “Quick Links” panel with links to our most-visited services,

including eServices, PantherSoft, and ShopUTS pages. The “Services” and “Quick Links”

panels stay on your screen, allowing users to easily navigate our site.

To browse our new website today, visit it.fiu.edu .

ShopUTS offers discounted software and hardware to our

faculty, staff, and students with just a click of the mouse. Take advantage

today and visit us at shoputs.fiu.edu .

Get the software you need without paying retail prices!

For two years, the PantherSoft HR team worked diligently to transition the University

community to a new Human Capital Management System. Thanks to the hard work and

dedication of numerous individuals in the Divisions of Human Resources and Information

Technology the PantherSoft HR implementation went live on December 24, 2011.

The new system has notably streamlined the University’s administrative business

processes by integrating with FIU’s portal, my.fiu.edu. The post go-live phase of the

implementation includes continuous monitoring to detect any potential issues of security,

access rights and system performance. Subsequent phases of the implementation will

include further upgrades and enhancements.

For additional information on the Panther HR Implementation, visit

panthersoft.fiu.edu/hr .

The Division of Information Technology is happy to announce a new online, self-paced training program

aimed at informing the University community of their duties and responsibilities as they pertain to the

proper handling and protection of valuable and sensitive data entrusted to them. The threat to data

security has never been so great. Cybercrime has become a very profitable venture and identity theft is

on the rise. Staff education is a major component to maintaining a Cyber Safe Culture at FIU.

Training for the University community will consist of 12, two-to-

four-minute self-paced modules and will be available starting April

2012. We hope everyone will partake in these online security

awareness trainings. We are all responsible for a Cyber Safe and

Worlds Ahead IT Security Program at FIU.

WEBSITES:

Division of Information Technology:

it.fiu.edu

IT Security Office:

security.fiu.edu CIARA:

ciara.fiu.edu

PantherSoft: panthersoft.fiu.edu

TECHNICAL SUPPORT:

Telephone: (305)348-2284 Online: it.fiu.edu

Walk-in Support: GL 249 (MMC) LIB InfoCommons

(BBC)

HOURS OF OPERATION: Please click on About Us located

on the homepage of the UTS website.

DoIT now Editing Staff:

utsfyi@fiu.edu

A subcommittee of FIU faculty, staff and students was formed to

standardize on a classroom response system. After extensive

research and evaluation the subcommittee recommended

iClicker. With iClicker, faculty can communicate with students via

an affordable, easy-to-use, lightweight device.

The Division of IT’s Resource Center for Educational Technology

and FIU’S Center for the Advancement of Teaching provide an

extensive list of user guides and workshops created to assist

faculty interested in transitioning to this new technology as well

as existing iClicker users. The Resource Center provides training

and support to faculty on how to use the iClicker and how to

integrate it into their courses. All classrooms have been

equipped with iClicker receivers.

For more information about iClicker and instructions on how to

integrate it to an existing course, visit go.fiu.edu/iclicker . To

learn more about the Resource Center for Educational

Technology, visit go.fiu.edu/resource_center .