Kansas State University

The Awesomeness of Interns!

Jeff Burns and Tim Pearson
Pittsburg State University

At Pittsburg State University we run many of our support functions with a cadre of student employees. They manage the help desk, repair computers, run cabling, even teach workshops on our LMS and ERP systems. And guess what? They are awesome! So, we started to wonder, why don't we have students join our IT Leadership Team and work on strategic, complex, high-level projects? We believed that this experience would open up a window to a side of IT that many of us only encounter in leadership positions. We pitched this idea to students and faculty and got a resounding "yes, please!". This session will share the process from requesting credit to recruiting and hiring. After one semester, we also will provide lessons learned and comments from our interns.

Build a Self-Phishing Program on a Budget

Julie Fugett and Shane Fonyi
University of Kansas

After a phishing incident that resulted in direct deposit theft, the University of Kansas realized we needed to take a more aggressive approach to educating our users about social engineering and phishing. We will show you how we built a self-phishing campaign with less than $10 while helping to avoid political pitfalls that could result in your campaigns getting deep-sixed or worse. The session will provide some useful scripts and ideas for reporting metrics that will be meaningful to upper management.

Change Management is Good - You Go First

Greg Dressman and Michael Speirs
Kansas State University

Implementing a formal change management process is difficult, especially if there is a perception it will hinder implementation. Follow along as we walk through the process of developing a formal change management process. The presentation will cover the good, bad and the next generation change management process. Included are examples of why change management, definitions of changes, the processes, the technology to track changes, how we communicate change, the composition of the team and lessons learned after a 90-day implementation phase.

Chat it Up! Using a Chat Tool to Extend Help Desk Support

Becky Qualls and Nathaniel Shaw
Pittsburg State University

By using technology already available, Pittsburg State University developed a Chat Tool for use with the student-led help desk that provides longer support hours and quicker response. Join us to learn how the development process worked, overall cost involved, how the tool has been tweaked since its inception, the process for student workers using the tool, and the impact we've seen on campus so far.

Cheap, Fast, and Good - Pick All Three for In-House Video Content

Andrew Tash
Hutchinson Community College

In 2017, HutchCC Department 5 - Emergency Medical Services instructor Jon Friesen created and implemented Light Board technology for his Canvas courses. Springboarding from this initiative, ITS and Online Education started exploring Light Board creation for use with other departments. The Digital Media Team has worked on building a Light Board from scratch documenting concerns for budget limitations, appropriate building materials, production (pre-production-post), and developing workflow for turn-key use and distributing recorded lectures for online or hybrid delivery. Learn how the lessons Hutchinson Community College uncovered can assist you in creating your own Light Board technology.

CIO Panel

Cory Falldine, Associate Vice President And CIO – Emporia State University
Toney Flack, CIO – Wichita State University
Mark Griffin, Assistant VP of Technology Services and CIO - Fort Hays State University
Angela Neria, CIO – Pittsburg State University
Gary Pratt, CIO, Kansas State University - moderator
Eric Freeze, Deputy CIO for Technology – University of Kansas

Ever wonder what keeps a CIO up at night? Join the university CIOs for an interactive Q&A on this and other questions including:

• Why is the CIO the best/worst job on campus?
• What are your biggest challenges?
• How should aspiring CIOs prepare for a C-position?
• What is the one key skill that CIOs need?
• How are you attracting/retaining staff in an environment of declining resources?
• What is your proudest achievement?
• ....and questions from the attendees

Data, Data, Where's My Data?

Bob Stoller
Washburn University

Washburn University will tell it's story of the change over time in storage and location of Enterprise data (student and financial records). The resulting challenges involving roles of data owners as well as responsibility for and implementation of Data Governance will also be discussed. This will be a very interactive session with attendees invited to share what their campuses are doing to address these ever changing security and data integrity issues. History will include transitioning thru:

• Legacy system, local data
• Vendor system, local data
• Hosted applications, remote data moves to local data
• Software as a service, local data moves to remote data
• Summary of today’s environment with Enterprise data replicated across 11 on premise serves and 20+ cloud solutions

Data Owner and Data Governance portion will include:

• Informal past practices
• Setting a Data Owner mindset
• Initial Data Governance structure
• Ongoing clarification and process development.

The Edge of Security- Is your Campus Prepared?

Brian Bentler
Gold Sponsor: Aruba Networks

Join Aruba and the top IT leadership from your peer Campuses around the great state of Kansas as we dive deep into the best practices in deploying and supporting a 1 to 1 infrastructure. This session will explore:

• Your network and network devices - both wired and wireless
• Security in BYOD
• Device onboarding best practices
• The impact of technology on education

Fast, Reliable, Cloud Phone System Upgrade with No Up Front Costs!

Mark Griffin, Jordan Munsch, and Kevin Karlin
Fort Hays State University

Fort Hays State University upgraded its old, Avaya, on-premise phone switch system to a hosted, VoIP, cloud solution, without paying any up-front costs, and minimally increasing their annual telecom expenditures. Actual execution of the project took less than two months. It has been an incredibly easy, very fast migration, that's cost-effective, and it upgraded the telecom solution for the University. This presentation will demonstrate the cost effectiveness of the solution including the phones we selected and their capabilities, we will explain how the project was executed, and show rough costs prior to and since the upgrade.

Foster True Collaboration: Prepare Your Classrooms to Meet the Expectations of the 1:1 Generation

Alan Landever
Gold Sponsor: Kansas City Audio Visual

With the growing interest in active learning environments instructors are ready to enable transformative learning, and harness student creativity and the power of digital information. With the single and double Span systems deployed in classrooms and common learning spaces, students collaborate from their personal devices as they work on a variety of projects across a number of subject areas, anytime and from anywhere. Imagine students gathering at the wall to discuss and refine their group ideas, grouping ideas and adding new thoughts as they emerge from a review of the contributions. During their presentation, Kansas City Audio Visual will share the system requirements, integration capabilities with personal devices, secure cloud storage, remote participation and ease of adoption.

Fostering Innovation at Every Level

Angela Neria and Jeff Burns
Pittsburg State University

Outside threats continue to impact higher education. There are daily news articles questioning the value of higher education, condemning collegial traditions, and more. Fiscal concerns at the state and federal levels have left higher education scrambling to support legacy systems as well as attract and retain experienced IT professionals. To stay relevant in our ever-changing world, higher education must innovate. Where better for that innovation cycle to begin than in higher education IT departments? Learn how PSU made a simple choice to designate time and enthusiasm to the development of innovative ideas that support and extend the University's mission to "provide transformational experiences for its students and community". A simplistic design of a professional development program for the IT department's Implementation and Development Team included buy-in at every level, led to an "innovation shift" for the entire department broadening to other sectors of campus! Today, the University's IT Strategic plan consists of a goal focused on innovation.  These endeavors are measurable in many ways, but in others they are not. Those immeasurable characteristics may be the most rewarding: motivation, cultivation of ideas, learning from failure, attitude and outlook on our future, a shift in thinking and problem solving, and much more. Learn how one simple idea, lots of enthusiasm, and patient guidance from leaders (both likely and unlikely) led our IT department to a culture of innovation!

Half a World Away: Social Learning for Faculty Training in China

Nathan Riedel
Fort Hays State University

How does an organization provide comprehensive training for a cohort of faculty on the other side of the planet? The task is daunting. Fort Hays State University hosts degree programs at two universities in China: SIAS International University and Shenyang Normal University. In the past, faculty hired to teach in China usually received two days of workshops at the FHSU main campus and then flew overseas to teach. Teaching Innovation and Learning Technologies (TILT), FHSU Educational Technology department, sought to remedy this issue. Using a social learning platform, TILT offers a four week training course that discusses FHSU policies for overseas employees, provides information about resources to ease them into their new environment, and allows them to establish connections with other faculty in China all while avoiding the technological restrictions of the Great Fire Wall. This session will provide an overview of the training delivered to faculty and highlight some of the ideas used to assist them in acclimating to their new home.

Hyper Convergence: Worth the Hype?

Brian Anderson
Gold Sponsor: Eagle Technologies

There is no doubt that one of the most talked-about topics in today’s data center is Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI). In this presentation, Brian Anderson of Eagle Technologies will break through all the hype to explain why there is such a push to embrace converged models in the data center, whether or not the benefits outweigh the negatives, and the best technology use cases for hyper-convergence. Brian will also discuss what’s next in the world of converged infrastructure.

KCCIT - How Community Colleges Keep IT Together - Collaboration Between Kansas Institutions

JJ Widener
Seward Community College

Michelle R Kaiser
Barton Community College

KCCIT (Kansas Community College Information Technology) exists to be a trusted adviser to the State of Kansas while promoting, facilitating, informing and enhancing the Information Technology services at each of the Kansas Community Colleges.
KCCIT's purpose is to serve as a catalyst for change through:

• Knowledge Sharing
• Collaboration
• Networking
• Enhancing information technology practices
• Providing positive impact throughout the state
• Resource Sharing
• Leverage economies of scale
• Training Opportunities

Attendees will learn how this board is keeping KCCIT together and how it helps their institutions overcome obstacles faced by IT.

Managing Projects - Working With the Team to Have a Successful Project

Joyce Scheck
Washburn University

It's difficult to define and structure a project. Have you been asked to manage a project and wonder how to get a team to function/work together to accomplish the end result? Come learn tips and tricks to manage projects. It's not all about you and your process as a Project Manager. It is all about you working with the team to devise a structure that works for your team. We will walk through a technical project like a Red hat 7 operating system upgrade and what was involved to define project scope, task assignments, when to pull in subject-matter experts, deadlines, resources, testing and plan for the production hardware cut-over.

Managing Your Enterprise - Why Adobe's Enterprise Admin Console & Digital Literary Initiatives are so Critical to Institution and Student Outcomes

Tim Schulenburg and Steven Watson
Platinum Sponsor: Adobe

Come learn how to leverage Adobe’s Enterprise Admin Console and federated user access to empower your user community with Adobe’s full suite of software applications and services. Steven Watson and Tim Schulenburg will share how colleges and universities around the country are reducing IT overhead and driving innovation at the curricular level. This session will focus on showcasing enterprise deployment as well as “Digital Literacy” initiatives in support of student outcomes inclusive of persistence, retention, academic and career readiness. Adobe will also share a collection of best practices, peer examples and resources to assist with curricular adoption.

Moving On from Frozen Desktops: Mandatory Profiles in a Lab Environment

Alex Baker
University of Kansas

System restore software, like Deep Freeze and similar products, remains an industry standard way of securing computers and presenting a uniform experience for users in a public lab environment. However, there are downsides including licensing costs, the difficulties of implementing updates in short maintenance windows (like infinite loops on updates that require restarts), the computing overhead and resulting hit to performance, and the maddening problems when the client software becomes unhealthy. Moving away from system restore software toward the use of Mandatory Profiles, we have been able to save money, substantially improve log in times, and simplify the installation of patches, updates, and lab software. We haven’t sacrificed security or increased the hands-on maintenance on lab machines to do it. We will show how we transitioned away from system restore software to Windows Mandatory Profiles, the benefits, and necessary changes to methodology.

Needing a Better Way to Manage Your Crestron Enabled Classrooms?

Clayton Folk and Chuck Kranz
Kansas State University

IT professionals often manage multiple classrooms that are located across campus. How does IT keep up with general maintenance of these rooms? Crestron's Fusion, the Crestron Room Monitoring and Equipment Management solution, has many options to manage, monitor, and even assist faculty in a prompt manner. This presentation will describe the deployment of Crestron Fusion and lessons learned from the use of the tool.

No Stagefright: The Value of Theatrical Training to IT Service

Carl Dillman
Washburn University

Introducing public performance skills into one's arsenal can be of great benefit in the service-based world of IT. In his daily work, the presenter draws on skills learned as a theatre student and actor to improve customer service. These include following steps from a script, improvising, working as an ensemble, or fearlessly interacting with groups of potential strangers. When combined with technical knowledge, these abilities can provide an edge in the professional IT world, as well as build confidence and character.

The Power of Acknowledgement: Encouraging Employee Training Attendance with Power User Programs

Ali Levine
Wichita State University

How do you increase stagnating attendance in employee training sessions? After announcing a new Microsoft Office Power User program, attendance at Wichita State University's Microsoft Office training sessions skyrocketed. Employees found themselves signing up for training sessions they would not have otherwise taken, and in the process, learning more than they imagined. The benefits of digital literacy are obvious, however, the benefits of culture and communication are often understated. Creating a culture of acknowledgement and encouragement will increase attendance numbers, and build a learning environment of enthusiastic participants, rather than reluctant mandatory attendees.

Reducing Cybersecurity Risk With Multi-factor Authentication (MFA): Pilot Testing Duo at K-State

Rob Caffey and Angela Chauncey
Kansas State University

Multifactor authentication (MFA) is a method of access control where an account holder must provide more than one piece of authentication (e.g., withdrawing cash from an ATM requires an account card and a PIN). MFA increases security, reducing the ability of hackers and identity thieves to access data and computer systems. MFA also meets federal and state security requirements as well as operating standards for processes such as the Payment Card Industry(PCI). This presentation focuses on the approach and experiences for the expanded pilot of Duo, a multifactor authentication platform. Learn how we rolled out the solution over a period-of-time, measured progress and communicated with stakeholders. An overview of the project timeline and a look at successes and challenges will be shared.

Reinventing Productivity for Educators and Students Using Microsoft's Collaborative Tools

Ryan Jackson
Platinum Sponsor: ISG Technology

Microsoft is transforming the way professionals, educators, and students collaborate with their latest O365 app ecosystem. In this session, Ryan Jackson, CTO at ISG Technology will show you how O365 apps provide a single digital hub experience for creating collaborative classrooms, connecting in professional communities, and communicating between educators and students.

Risk Assessments, GLBA, GDPR, and PLEASE HELP!

JJ Widener
Seward County Community College

Proper risk management methodologies, control selection, and incident response are all needed to comply with new regulations from SAIG, Dept. of Higher ED, GDPR, and GLBA Safeguards Rule. This session will discuss ISACA and NIST principles to gain compliancy, and save your institution the embarrassment of being on Title IV Probation for not properly documenting the information security program or reporting a data breach. Plus other fun topics!

Safe, Secure, Smart - Enabling Education

Paul Wilson
Gold Sponsor: Gallagher Security

The education landscape is constantly evolving, meaning that the business challenges and risks for institutions and organizations that provide the services necessary for our youths future are also evolving. Understanding what these roadblocks and show stoppers are is the first step in developing sound strategies to mitigate or remove the chances of them affecting your organization. In this discussion, Gallagher will highlight a few of the risks we have perceived in the education environment and dive into some of the ways that an organization might have to manage these business risks in a smart way to enable a better education environment.

Standardize De-Centralized Project Management

Rebecca Grube
University of Kansas Medical Center

KUMCs PMO is comprised of a team of three, all of whom are new to the PMO in 2017, and who primarily manage projects closely associated with Information Technology. There was a need to share information with a wider audience. A new PMO intranet website to communicate and advertise project management and business analysis services was created, including considerations pertaining to new project requests. By building relationships and providing transparency into the PMO operation, in six months, we increased our project intake by 60%. The PMO now manages 51 active projects in various departments, including Compliance, Facilities, Public Safety, and Research and in coordination with the University of Kansas Health System, with an average of 2.5 new project requests each week. At this rate, it is estimated that we could have up to 92 active and new projects at this time next year. With no funds to increase staff, it is important to find alternative means to help others innovate independently of the PMO. KUMC employs approximately 120 employees who function as Project Managers, and as such, the PMO created a Project Management Academy to share project management best practices, provide guidance, share knowledge, and identify challenges and areas of need. we also help faculty/staff recognize when they can be successful without the PMO and provide insight into what the PMO can do to help and when it's beneficial, or even required, to contact us for assistance. The first session occurred in January 2018 with 55 participants and based on feedback was considered a success. The next Academy will occur in April.

Tracking New Hires and Setting Appropriate Access within Three Business Days

John Haverty and Joyce Scheck
Washburn University

In the summer of 2017, Washburn ITS started working towards a solution to gather new hire information so that requests for access to everything from computers to firewalls could be collected in one place. Prior to this discussion, customers would put through various tickets or calls to get a new person the appropriate access. We discussed various options for collecting this information and in the end set up a form where options are asked of the supervisor completing the request. The overall goal being that ITS could internally receive a single request for a new hire allowing the department to request upfront all access. This presentation will be a discussion of the processes we went through and discussion of how we are set up to take these requests. We will also discuss the allocation of assignments and communication to the new hire and supervisor.

Using PowerShell for Application Patching and Deployment Standardization

Andy Jackson and Scott Durham
University of Kansas

In the times of limited budgets how do you keep your applications up-to-date, standardize application deployments, all while learning a valuable IT management skill? PowerShell! In this session you will hear how The University of Kansas' IT Support department used PowerShell to both save money and standardize Windows application deployments. Topics discussed:

• Application Patching Processes
• PowerShell App Deploy
• Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager Applications, Collections, and Baselines
• Application Deployment Standardization

Who, Who Just Said That? A 360 Degree Approach to Synchronous Distance Learning

Nate Scherman and Eric Racki
Kansas State University, Olathe

Classes at K-State Olathe rely heavily on video conferencing to connect faculty and students for synchronous distance learning. Since the campus opened, video conferencing technology has evolved from Polycom room systems to web-based platforms like Zoom and Adobe Connect, reflecting the same transition at the Manhattan campus. In the Spring 2018 semester, over 85% of class offerings used Zoom for connectivity. A recurring criticism of the synchronous education model is the disconnectedness of the participants. Classroom technology evolved to include features ceiling microphones and extended display projection during the transition from Polycom to Zoom. The most innovative change in course delivery was the addition of 360-degree USB cameras. We will demonstrate two 360-degree cameras, an Owl Labs Meeting Owl, and a Polycom CX5500, with a discussion about benefits and limitations of each. We will also share feedback from instructors, students, and focus group leaders who have used all variations of room technology along with lessons learned from a support perspective.

Why Do We STILL Have So Many Computer Labs?!?!

Angela Neria and Tim Pearson
Pittsburg State University

Learn about a plan that a mid-sized university with an oversized number of computer labs is using to cut costs, gain space back, and meet student and faculty needs through carefully examining usage data and centralizing the delivery of applications. In an era of cutting costs and meeting high student, faculty, and staff demands, this session takes a hard look at data driven decision making and new application delivery methods to reduce the number of computer labs on the campus of Pittsburg State University.

Saving money is important. Delivering high-impact IT services is important. Using campus space strategically is important. Learn about PSU's current journey to meet all of these outcomes. By using relevant data and modern delivery of applications, through a blended approach, PSU is focused on making higher education simpler for our community to access. This approach removes obstacles like lab hours, lab applications, and lab support for our clients. Higher education must become easier for our students to engage with and delivery of applications on and off campus is critical. This journey is not just about cutting costs, it will allow us to create value, a higher level of support, and efficiencies for our students, faculty, and staff.

We ask that attendees who have recently gone through computer lab reductions come prepared to share their experiences during our session in small groups. Let's learn from each other!

Workday Cloud Architecture: Fundamentally Different

Jason Hicks
Gold Sponsor: Workday

Shouldn't enterprise applications be able to keep up with the latest trends and innovations in technology? Why can't they be easy to update, while maintaining the highest standards of security? Enter Workday. Built from the ground up for cloud computing, the modern technology architecture in Workday addresses the needs of today's institution. Workday offers real-time information, insights, and historical data all within a singular transactional system of record via mobile and modern browsers. Customers can also report on external data within Workday and even use machine learning to help understand trends within your student and employee populations. Learn why Workday's technology and architecture makes it fundamentally different to the competition - and why this should matter to you.