2018 Annual Report
Letter from Chief Information Officer,
Michael Barrett
Technology is constantly changing. Every day, technology becomes faster and can accomplish more and be accessed easier than the day before.
As the central IT organization for a preeminent research university, change is a big part of who we are and how we work.
In 2018, Information Technology Services (ITS) supported several progressive projects that extended the reach and depth of technology at Florida State University. We outfitted the equipment for a cutting-edge justice research and development institute, connected the Tallahassee campus to the 100Gbps Florida LambdaRail network and facilitated the allocation of funding to modernize instructional technology. We introduced new collaboration tools and upgraded bandwidth at remote campuses. From technology administration to data integrations, our organization supported strategic initiatives that propelled the university forward toward our goal of becoming one of the nation’s top 25 public universities.
Looking ahead, 2019 will continue to be a year of change and transformation.
After ten years as CIO at Florida State University, I will be retiring from the university in March. As the organization prepares for the leadership change, I’m grateful for the immensely rewarding time I’ve been able to contribute to such a dynamic service organization within Florida State University. It has been a remarkable opportunity to work with a dedicated team of professionals that led or supported a vast array of technology advances—a team that is poised for great things in the years to come. As such, it is with great anticipation that I welcome Jane Livingston as the new CIO. Jane has been a visionary leader in her role as associate CIO at Yale University, and I look forward to following her and the team’s continued successes at FSU.
And so, as technology and our organization continue to change, let us celebrate our many accomplishments and look to the future with confidence.
Michael Barrett
Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Information Technology Services
Student Success
Student Technology Fee modernizes crime scene investigation
Contrary to popular belief, watching an episode of CSI does not make you a crime scene expert. However, graduating from the FSU Panama City Campus Crime Scene Investigation Program does. And thanks to Student Technology Fee funding, students are getting to hone their forensic skills on state-of-the-art equipment. The department was awarded funding to purchase a new FARO scanner and Spectrum Two educational system. Both of these technologies are used for student training in the field, documenting items of evidence and identifying unknown substances. Sherriff Tommy Ford of the Bay County Sheriff’s Department says, “[This technology] will be of great benefit to FSU as well as the local law enforcement community. We work closely with the program, and they are available to respond to assist us with crime scenes.” The CSI equipment was one of 52 Student Technology Fee proposals awarded funding in the 2017-2018 award cycle.
“Access to crime scene technology in my forensics classes has allowed me to apply what I study in real life applications.”
New program promotes discounted course materials
It’s no secret textbooks can be pricey. To help lighten the load, FSU introduced a way for students to rent or purchase required course materials as part of their tuition. In 2018, the Office of Business Services and Office of the University Registrar engaged ITS to implement the Follett includED Textbook Program. The program allows students to use financial aid money to get textbooks and other required course materials at a discounted rate before the semester starts—which means students are prepared to learn on the first day of class, rather than scrounging the couch cushions for book money.
Internships provide hands-on experience in tech field
Gone are the days of having the intern run for coffee. In 2018, 15 interns contributed to ITS operations in big ways. From fixing broken computers to patching system vulnerabilities to managing social media accounts, these capable student interns played key roles in ITS projects and departmental decisions. Many were hired through InternFSU, a university program that provides paid experiential learning opportunities for FSU students. And while the students got hands-on experience, employees benefited from a refreshing dose of Gen-Z energy and optimism.
New tools and dashboards support student success
ITS collaborated with campus departments on numerous student success initiatives throughout the year. Working with the Office of the University Registrar, ITS developed a dashboard that improves graduation clearance procedures—saving hundreds of labor hours in the process. Conversations with the Office of Financial Aid yielded a new tool to track Pell Grants and improve grant processing efficiency. These projects highlight the importance departments place on ensuring student success through all stages of the FSU experience.
$4,126,060
Student Technology Fee dollars distributed in 2017-2018 award cycle
$1,525
IT spending per student
72,190
virtual computer lab sessions
88%
general purpose classrooms supported by ITS
Research
HPC finds harmony in music
Daniel Tompkins, an alumnus from the FSU College of Music, found a unique way to use machine learning to conduct music research. Using Research Computing Center (RCC) resources, Daniel analyzed the harmonies and chords in hundreds of early music manuscripts. To expedite his findings, he developed algorithms for his analyses to run in parallel on the High Performance Computing Cluster—which according to Daniel, “saved literally months of time.” He hopes his research will create an approach that allows others to computationally distinguish and classify music from different eras and genres.
“The RCC and its services really came into play and helped me save a great deal of time during this research.”
College of Social Work launches new kind of research institute
The Institute for Justice Research and Development (IJRD) was created to explore innovations to criminal justice practice and policy and help prepare the social work profession for leadership in smart decarceration. As a first-of-its-kind research center, the IJRD brought exponential growth to the FSU College of Social Work. Since its formation in May 2018, 60 new users and 63 new managed devices were added to the college’s IT infrastructure. As an ITAPP partner, ITS played a key role in outfitting the College of Social Work for this growth—deploying new equipment and managing the server used to gather data integral to research on prisoner reentry into society.
FSU achieves NIST 800-171 compliance
When the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released NIST SP 800-171—a special publication of rules for handling controlled unclassified information (CUI)—the Office of Research partnered with ITS to ensure the university was compliant. ITS led the implementation of a remediation plan to bring university research projects into compliance by building a dedicated, secure research enclave in the cloud. The environment—which consisted of a secure managed network, on premise server and workstations, backups, file share access and more—required a colossal team effort. ITS also provided NIST compliance training to more than 100 FSU researchers and staff, thereby protecting critical federal grant funding for continued research.
“One thing I have truly appreciated about working with the RCC is how great the support they provide is. Nothing takes longer than a day to get worked out. They respond immediately, which is incredibly refreshing…”
267 teraflops
of peak performance
Infrastructure
ITS helps power network recovery efforts after Hurricane Michael
As Hurricane Michael barreled towards the Gulf Coast on October 10, FSU braced for impact. Michael, the most powerful hurricane to ever hit the Gulf Coast, spared the Tallahassee main campus, but wiped out nearly the entire power infrastructure in Panama City. Once power was restored, ITS raced to get communications up and running at the Panama City campus as quickly as possible. Phone service was restored 12 days after landfall, and internet followed a couple days later. Restoring these services was integral to getting the Panama City campus open for classes and some semblance of normalcy on October 29. As one of the first areas in Bay County to regain internet, the campus quickly became a gathering place for people from all over the county who needed to connect to the guest Wi-Fi so they could contact family and begin submitting applications for disaster assistance.
In addition to providing vital tech support, ITS employees raised $2,150 for the Seminole Emergency Relief Fund – Panama City to support Seminoles who are still recovering from the hurricane.
Enterprise systems become mobile-friendly
Call it the year of the makeover. Several university enterprise applications saw significant system updates and new looks in 2018. Within the myFSU suite, HR and Student Central got major facelifts when each platform upgraded to a mobile-friendly design. The new layout streamlines navigation into tiles for easier access and a better user experience on mobile devices. myFSU Portal also got a new, mobile-optimized look when it migrated to a new platform. The new portal is easier and faster to access on mobile devices and supports push notifications that display timely, personalized messages about important university news or deadlines.
IT infrastructure supports campus construction
The cranes never rest on the FSU realm. With nearly 500 campus construction projects underway in 2018, ITS played an essential role in new construction. Whether it’s running fiber, programming wireless access points or installing phone lines, many campus construction projects require extensive IT planning and work. After consulting with impacted departments to understand their needs, ITS gets to work building a custom IT infrastructure. In 2018, ITS contributed to the Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science building, School of Entrepreneurship Jim Moran building, Black Student Union and Oglesby Union renovation, to name a few.
Business impact analysis helps university prepare for disasters
Whether it’s a fleeting power failure or impending hurricane, having a backup plan provides peace of mind. In 2018, ITS conducted a business impact analysis to help the university plan for the unplanned and determine which business functions, enterprise systems and technology infrastructure is needed to keep the university running. The analysis identified 187 enterprise applications supporting 147 business functions needed to maintain essential operations at FSU. This information will be critical in making informed decisions regarding operational capabilities required to support FSU in the face of future disasters.
6,288
phone lines migrated to VoIP since 2010(66%)
33,469
devices on FSU network on average day
11,844,038
visits to myFSU Portal
4,800
Wi-Fi access points across campus
Security
Email filtering protects student email accounts
We can all get a little click happy at times—which is why ITS added a new scanning service for FSU student email accounts. Proofpoint email protection scans incoming emails, links and attachments. Messages containing malicious attachments are blocked entirely, and messages with malicious links are rewritten with a new URL. This way, if a student accidentally clicks a malicious link, a notice appears letting them know the website has been blocked. The service, which has been protecting employees since 2017, helps shield FSU from phishing, ransomware and other email threats.
Vulnerability scanning helps patch security cracks
Keeping up with security updates, or patches, can be a full-time job. To help stay on top of things, ITS uses cloud-based and on-premise vulnerability scanners to check servers and other university-owned devices. The tools evaluate more than 25,000 devices for any vulnerabilities that would make the devices susceptible to malware or an intruder. Then, to ensure vulnerabilities are mitigated and remediated, ITS developed a standardized vulnerability management program that ranks the vulnerability of each device on a scale of 1-4 and makes informed decisions to triage and patch devices, starting with those that carry the highest risk.
Cybersecurity training strengthens FSU data security
Effective cybersecurity awareness programs require regular training. To keep cybersecurity in the forefront in 2018, ITS hosted its fifth annual National Cybersecurity Awareness Month campaign. The campaign challenged students, faculty and staff to tackle cyberthreats in an online, football-themed game dubbed the Cyber Bowl. Nearly 2,000 Noles took the (virtual) field to test their cyber defense and compete to win. In addition, ITS partnered with security vendors to offer security and privacy training sessions throughout the year. Training attracted over 400 participants and covered everything from basic cybersecurity and mobile hacking to targeted talks on FERPA, FIPA and current cyberthreats.
Cyber insurance offers data breach protection
At approximately $245 per record lost, the U.S. education sector has a higher than average cost of recovery from data breaches than other industries (Ponemon Institute). To better protect the FSU community from the financial burden of a data breach, ITS purchased cyber risk insurance. In the event of a cybersecurity incident such as a data breach or ransomware attack, this insurance provides financial coverage, legal assistance, credit monitoring and more.
$1.68 million
invested to secure email and university data
547,022,757
threats blocked by email filtering
802,275,717
emails inspected for spam, phishing and viruses
Services
Software improves website accessibility
Studies show accessible technology can sometimes be lacking at universities (EDUCAUSE). To remedy this shortcoming, ITS implemented Siteimprove, a tool that helps FSU webmasters improve accessibility and content on university websites. Siteimprove crawls websites checking for common errors—such as accessibility issues, broken links and spelling errors—then flags issues and recommends fixes. Since its October launch, Siteimprove scanned over 120,000 university webpages and spurred a 46% increase in the average quality score of university websites. These adjustments ensure a positive and inclusive user experience for everyone visiting an FSU website.
“Siteimprove has been a great tool to add to our design and coding process. Its wide range of tools and insights will help us continually improve the web experience we present to all members of the FSU community.”
Announcement emails amass university updates
From concerts to construction, FSU is a busy place, and it can be hard keeping up with all the latest announcements. That’s why ITS collaborated with University Communications to create a university announcements digest. University updates and notices are submitted online by departments, and weekly emails are sent every Thursday—one to students and one to faculty and staff—highlighting the latest announcements and featured events. This makes it easy to keep up with university happenings and cuts down the number of single-topic emails cluttering inboxes.
SharePoint Online aids team collaboration
Intranet addicts have something to celebrate. In 2018, ITS finished a year-long migration of 75 department sites from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint Online. The new, cloud-based collaboration tool from Microsoft lets university departments securely store, share and access department files in the office and on the go, making it easy to collaborate with team members and keep projects moving. At the end of 2018 there were already over one million files with an average of 35,000 active files per month stored in the FSU SharePoint Online environment.
ITS launches social media presence
#BetterLateThanNever? ITS launched a unified social media presence in May 2018 with a Facebook and Twitter account and a mere 142 fans. By the end of 2018, Instagram and YouTube accounts had been added to the mix, and @floridastateITS had 3,118 followers across its profiles. Each platform shares info about ITS services and serves as a place people can come for “tech news, trends, tips, support and a daily dose of nerdiness.” The end goal is to increase the university’s awareness of ITS by connecting with customers in an open and real way.
Email policy defines appropriate use
In July, FSU released a new email policy. The policy outlined requirements regarding email account creation, deactivation and acceptable use—such as establishing that university-provided email addresses are to be used for all student and employee official university communications. Among other things, the policy also identified Information Technology Services as the official email service provider for university students and employees. The updated policy ensures proper use of FSU email accounts across all departments.
1,026,555
files stored in SharePoint Online
1,529
hours of support provided via Student Computing Support
1,200,488
myFSU Mobile app sessions
13,438
hours of online training streamed from Lynda.com
165,424
clicks on fla.st short URL links
Efficiencies
ITAPP welcomes two new departments
The ITAPP family grew considerably in 2018 when ITS welcomed two new departments to the program: the Office of Human Resources and the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. ITAPP, short for Information Technology Administration Partnership Program, helps individual FSU departments manage their IT environment by taking advantage of existing, central ITS resources. The program, now 13 members strong, provides customized IT solutions for each department it serves. “ITAPP assisted us with IT assessments for our Spain and Panama campuses. The results were an integral part of our IT strategic planning,” says Chuck Stratton, ITAPP Manager for FSU International Programs. And that is muy bueno.
“Through our ITAPP partnership with ITS we are now better connected to information technology resources and services.”
Smart Onboarding streamlines employee hiring process
We’ve all been there: ready to start a new job only to have our excitement squelched by mounds of convoluted paperwork. That’s why the Office of Human Resources collaborated with ITS to implement Smart Onboarding—an automated, customer-centric platform within myFSU HR that makes it easier to get new employees up and running. This integrated system streamlines the completion of new hire paperwork, background checks and other pre-employment requirements. Since implementation, HR has used the new platform to give more than 600 new employees that warm Seminole welcome they deserve.
WAN upgrades deliver more bandwidth
The FSU network extends far beyond Tallahassee and Panama City to remote campuses throughout the state. As part of an ongoing initiative, ITS is working to improve connectivity speeds and decrease costs for the wide area network (WAN) at 25 off-campus locations. Twelve sites transitioned to new network transport providers in 2018, including the FSU Coastal and Marine Lab and several College of Medicine regional campuses. Many locations experienced a 10X improvement in bandwidth, and the changes constitute a total cost savings of $95K per year. Work will continue on remaining locations in 2019.
Concur modernizes travel at FSU
Traveling has never been easier. In 2018, ITS completed a multi-year project assisting the FSU Controller’s Office with data integration for Concur, the university’s new travel management system. The new system centralizes the entire business travel process, allowing employees to create travel requests, make online travel arrangements and create travel expense reports to record expenses and initiate payments. The application has greatly streamlined the travel audit process as well as improved the employee experience with the addition of mobile approvals and travel alerts.
“I'm so happy I came to see your team today because I was able to get my computer fixed in less than two hours and the service cost me a fraction of what Apple or Best Buy would have charged me!”
>8,300
campus workstations supported by ITS
$13,691,701
money saved in ITS efficiency initiatives
$90,805
dollars saved by students using on-campus computing support
Financials
ITS manages an annual budget of more than $62 million to provide critical technology support to Florida State University. Our technology spending reflects the variety of ways we support the university through a robust infrastructure, in-demand services and dedicated consulting and customer service.
2017-18 Expenses
$27,876,548
Salaries & Benefits
$9,768,282
Other Capital Outlay
$7,812,477
Telecommunications & Network
$7,487,205
Software Expendable & Maintenance
$5,091,573
Consulting & Professional Services
$2,381,834
Hardware Maintenance & Supplies
$1,024,626
General Operating
$738,772
Travel & Training
$306,501
Facilities & Fleet R&M
$62,487,819
Grand Total
* The ITS budget has remained relatively flat for more than five years. Due to the timing of non-recurring funding allocations and expenses that cross fiscal years, year-over-year expenses may fluctuate by up to 10%.
Year Ahead
Strengthen university’s research infrastructure
As FSU increasingly attracts national attention for groundbreaking research, ITS will play an important role in strengthening the university’s infrastructure and developing the resources needed to further accelerate research advances. In 2019, ITS will partner with the Office of Research to integrate the Research Administration Management Portal (RAMP), a comprehensive system for managing sponsored research projects. We will also undertake a project to connect the Research Computing Center to the 100Gbps research network for faster data transfer.
Create sustainable technology services paradigm
As demand for information technology services increases at a rapid rate, ITS will continue the pursuit of a sustainable service delivery and funding model. In the coming year, ITS will lead a unified communications project that will shift the university to centralized management of all network infrastructure and telephone services. We will also invest in new enterprise solutions, including a scalable document management platform. Finally, a long-awaited organizational move to a consolidated office complex will create new opportunities for synergy and facilitate improved communication and teamwork across the organization.
Secure and protect university data
Every year, cybersecurity threats become more sophisticated and harder to detect, and efforts to protect university data must stay a step ahead. In the coming year, ITS will implement a comprehensive cloud-based security platform to protect on- and off-network devices as well as a specialized solution for protecting university data and apps in the cloud. We will also complete campus-wide risk and vulnerability assessments to identify, classify and determine appropriate protections for enterprise data and implement data governance initiatives to facilitate the responsible use of data across the institution.
Deliver timely and personalized content
ITS will explore more options for delivering timely, personalized content to university constituents in the coming year. A new web tool called Acquia Lift will enable university departments to deliver targeted content to web visitors based on insights from past visits. A new messaging center in the myFSU app will enhance our ability to effectively reach students, faculty and staff with personalized messages regarding important alerts and user-selected events. Finally, working with the FSU Police Department, ITS will coordinate quarterly reminders to individuals to enter and update their mobile number for receiving important FSU Alerts.
Expand academic support resources
In 2019, ITS will collaborate with several campus departments to expand academic support at FSU. Partnering with the FSU Foundation, ITS will help implement a centralized scholarship management information system that streamlines the scholarship application and review process. Other applications ITS will help implement in 2019 are Follett Discover, a tool that integrates with Canvas to provide students one-click access to view and purchase course materials, and Civitas degree mapping, a tool to help keep students on track and earn their degree in a timely manner.
