While students were away on spring break, members of Illinois State’s IT community gathered for the Continuous Improvement in Technology Extention event known as CITx.
“When I attend CIT and CITx, I see staff that are engaged, connected with each other and passionate about the services they provide the University – truly a group of dedicated IT professionals,” said Carla Birckelbaw, director of Client Services.
In only its second year, CITx drew 99 staff members—15 more than last year—to the State Farm Hall of Business. The half-day conference is a spinoff of the popular full-day CIT annual event held toward the end of summer.
Illinois State’s IT staff is spread across campus with many units having their own technology experts, so cross-campus communication and partnership is critical. CITx features networking time for new and veteran staffers, allowing them to connect with campus resources that can help them learn more about information they can apply within their own areas.
In addition to networking, this year’s CITx featured a 90-minute “IT News” update, and roundtable discussions on ReggieNet upgrades, Office 365 innovation and controls, and other topics.
During the roundtable discussions, there was general consensus that small, incremental change is how we most effectively make improvements in university technology on campus. This is precisely why programming like CITx is so important.
“When I attend CIT and CITx, I see staff that are engaged, connected with each other and passionate about the services they provide the University – truly a group of dedicated IT professionals,” said Carla Birckelbaw, director of Client Services for Administrative Technologies. “The planning committee envisioned all of these things for CIT from the beginning, and it is very satisfying to continue to achieve that goal.”
IT professionals gather for IT News updates during CITx.
The IT News session featured updates by several IT leaders from across campus, including:
- Updates to the ILSTU Portal: a governance structure has been put in place and My.IllinoisState.edu has been determined to be the central enterprise portal for campus; new class rosters for faculty and class schedules for students were completed January 12; Webgate was completed January 29.
- Qualtrics—a best-in-class survey tool—has been selected by a committee of faculty and staff to replace Select Survey. Everyone with an active ULID will have access to this service, which should be available this summer.
- Web and Interactive Communications (WEB) is preparing to fully transition from OmniUpdate v9 to OUv10. Most users won’t notice many differences, but the latest version provides nice back-end improvements. WEB has redesigned a number of academic sites (see Department of Geography-Geology) and will launch a completely overhauled University Advancement site before the end of the semester. They’re also working on a new University homepage that they would like to roll out “soon.”
- ReggieNet was updated this week and now has a new interface and responsive design.
Many CITx attendees went on to attend one of four roundtable discussions. Topics were selected based on submissions.
CITx is sponsored by Administrative Technologies and the Office of Academic Technologies. It’s hosted by the College of Business.
Learn more at CIT.IllinoisState.edu.
