As we look forward to continuing to support the Kearney, Lincoln, and Omaha campuses - plus the
NU System - in 2023, here are some of the key initiatives we will focus on in the year ahead:
Recruitment and Retention
We know that getting students to NU - and keeping them here - is the top priority of the campuses. We will prioritize our support of key enhancements to CRM and other focused strategies.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
ITSM is used internally throughout ITS as well as with our distributed IT partners to provide efficient and responsive customer service. In 2023, we will implement TeamDynamix, a modern product used across the B1G, which was selected through a successful RFP in partnership with P2P.
IT Security
In order to stay ahead of new threat tactics, our cyber posture will continue to advance in 2023 through enhancements to access management, endpoint protection, and firewalls.
Workforce Development and Internships
Through the new ITS internship Program, we will focus on enabling our interns to gain skillsets within all areas of ITS, elevate customer support, distribute workload, provide leadership opportunities, and help to develop a workforce pipeline for our organization and the State of Nebraska.
Digital Learning Ecosystem
The Canvas ecosystem is used by nearly all NU faculty and students, regardless of course modality. Keeping this environment fresh, easy-to-use, and integrated with helpful tools is critical.
Research IT
IT collaboration, support, and services must be a consideration at all stages of the research lifecycle, pre- and post-award, and serves as a catalyst to advance research by reducing overhead, ensuring compliance requirements are met, and providing secure processes and infrastructure.
Operational Excellence
A continued area of emphasis with significant enhancements planned for our on-presmises data center facilities, data center networks, wide-area networks that interconnect the campuses, automation of processes, and our ability to recover quickly in the event of a disaster.
Innovation Hub
Adding additional partners and projects via our NU Applied Research in Technology Lab, we will continue to collaborate with faculty to study trends in our cyber and digital learning environments. In 2023, we will also look to add new transformational projects via the NU ITS Innovation Hub.
Customer Satisfaction Survey
We will complete our biennial user survey to faculty, staff and students at UNK, UNL, UNO and the NU System sites. We align future projects and customer support strategies based on survey feedback.
Looking back at 2022
Security
As an ITS division serving the University of Nebraska, security is in everything we do. We are committed to ensuring that our users’ equipment, data, and credentials are secure so that each individual can meet their teaching, learning, research and workplace goals. We are continually seeking to increase adoption and expand utilization of best practices and common tools so as to minimize risk. This year, our focus will be on advancing endpoint security, progressing IT policy, rolling out privileged access management, updating Splunk and Sailpoint, and enhancing security practices in application development.
In 2020-21, NU ITS made significant progress on two security-related efforts that help to mitigate our risk: DUO two-factor authentication and Cortex endpoint management deployment.
Use of DUO significantly reduces a top risk of account credential compromises. Through numerous campaigns and close partnership with Student Government and Faculty Senate, NU ITS enrolled 100% of active UNO users into two-factor authentication for all core campus services (Canvas, Box, O365, VPN) in October 2020.
Endpoint management allows for faster response and mitigation of security threats, rapid deployment of updated security features, and enhanced security communication across the organization. As of today, more than 90% of endpoints are now protected with Cortex endpoint management software. This next-generation security software reduces the risk of security incidents, such as ransomware.
ITS Senior Leadership Member(s)
Rick Haugerud, Assistant Vice President, IT Security Services
ITS Lead
Matthew Long, Network Security Specialist
External Partners
NU Legal, Compliance and Audit
Research IT
We are scaling our services and engaging with faculty and administration to empower critical research across the NU system, the country, and the world.
In partnership with research organizations, we are identifying challenges and opportunities to remove barriers, align our enterprise security efforts with the appropriate governance frameworks and compliance standards.
This project will help achieve economies of scale on core research IT services, design and build shared resources, and improve University posture for grant funding.
ITS Senior Leadership Member(s)
Heath Tuttle, Assistant Vice President and UNL CIO
ITS Lead
Lead of Research IT
External Partners
David Jackson, Vice Provost
Campus Research Officers
Holland Computing Center
Unified Network
In 2020-21, NU ITS replaced nearly all existing network equipment and services – over 2,300 switches and 10,000 wireless access points in over 325 buildings – as part of a robust network upgrade. In 2021-22, we will begin the third and most complicated phase of the network project, where we will work diligently with partners in distributed IT and across the campuses to bring legacy equipment onto the new network in order to achieve our security objectives, fully decommission old infrastructure, and enhance wireless coverage.
Networking equipment was aging and not homogenous across the NU campuses, making it difficult to manage and secure. To address this, NU-ITS negotiated a bulk purchase to upgrade all network equipment at a reduced price across the university system. The project replaced over 2,300 switches and 10,000 wireless access points in nearly 350 buildings in 2020-21. In 2021-22, legacy equipment, equipment that was not migrated onto the new network during the hardware replacement, will be migrated onto the new network in order to achieve our security objectives and fully decommission old infrastructure, in addition to further enhancements to wireless coverage on the campuses.
The unified network project standardized the equipment, enhanced its performance, made it more secure, and created $21.7M through contractual savings and incentives.
ITS Senior Leadership Member(s)
Andrew Buker, Assistant Vice President, Infrastructure Services
ITS Lead
Neil Brown, Director, Network Services
External Partners
Campus Facilities Leadership
The NU Innovation Hub aims to help our partners – students, faculty and staff across the NU community – design and deliver transformative experiences that enhance teaching, learning, research and the student experience via technology. Now in its third year, the Hub has previously launched efforts around accessibility, digital backpack, and Open Nebraska. As of Summer 2021, the Open Nebraska free and reduced-cost digital course materials program has saved NU students over $6M. This year’s Innovation Hub call for proposals is currently open to any member of the NU community through October 15.
This initiative helps students, faculty and staff from across the NU community by designing and delivering transformative experiences via technology that enhance teaching, learning, research or the student experience. The Innovation Hub is a mechanism for which ITS listens and collaborates with partners to align to campus goals and their missions.
It provides a vehicle by which members of the NU community can view the portfolio of pilots and innovative initiatives NU ITS is collaborating to champion, as well as offering a streamlined process for additional partners to take part in a current project.
In just two years, the Hub has received more than 65 proposals leading to three projects that have aligned with NU's Mission of affordable access to education. This includes more than $6.1 million for NU students and $168,000 in external grant funding as part of Open Nebraska, with a goal of $10 million by 2021 and course marking in spring 2022. It also helped launch the Virtual IT Accessibility Lab with training, tools, purchasing and web user experience enhancements in collaboration with campus ADA, compliance and procurement offices.
ITS Senior Leadership Member(s)
Bret Blackman, Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
ITS Lead
Jaci Lindburg, Associate Vice President of Digital Education and IT Strategy
External Partners
Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., Executive Vice President and Provost
Campus Chancellors and Executive Leadership
Campus Student Government
Campus Faculty Senates
Next Generation Digital Learning Environment
We know that student engagement, retention, and persistence to graduation are key metrics of success for the entire university community. The faculty we support are looking to create active learning environments – regardless of course modality – and humanize course content in order to connect, engage, and ultimately retain students on their way to degree completion.
The University of Nebraska Innovation Hub aims to help our partners — students, faculty and staff across the NU community — design and deliver transformative experiences that enhance teaching, learning, research and the student experience via technology. Additionally, the Hub provides a vehicle by which members of the NU community can view the portfolio of pilots and innovative initiatives we are championing, as well as offering a streamlined process for additional partners to take part in a current project.
In addition to supporting the world-class, interoperable core suite of academic technology tools in place for faculty and students today, we aim to engage with our communities to pilot and adopt emerging technologies that are student-centric and drive opportunities for deep, meaningful interactions.
ITS Senior Leadership Member(s)
Jaci Lindburg, Associate Vice President of Digital Education and IT Strategy
ITS Lead
Jane Petersen, Director, Academic Technology & Client Services
UNL's Director of Academic Technology
UNO's Director of Academic Technology
External Partners
Campus Registrars
Campus Chief Academic Officers
Campus Institutional Effectiveness and Analytics
Campus Faculty Senates
Unified Help Desk
Creating a unified NU help desk would bring scale and efficiency to the most forward-facing customer service team in our organization.
The Unified Helpdesk includes operational and coordination of an IT customer service program for a common approach. This helps increase coordination opportunities with IT professionals serving specific units across all of the ITS-supported campuses and units.
A top-quality, unified service desk helps to streamline troubleshooting for members of our community, maximizes a common knowledge base, leverages consistent training practices amongst staff, and allows for the most efficient coverage of a 24x7 operation.
ITS Senior Leadership Member(s)
Neil Wineman Assistant Vice President, IT Client Services
ITS Lead
Campus Client Services Leads
External Partners
Distributed IT Leaders
Deferred Maintenance and Sustainability
We invest in our spaces and our technology, seeking to have a strong, secure foundation in which to deliver all of our IT services.
We are partnering with NU system and campus level Business & Finance and Academic leadership to develop funding models that support the replacement of equipment and services within their scheduled lifecycles to ensure the University IT infrastructure remains highly performing, highly available, and highly secured.
This critical work ensures the long-term sustainability of IT services, the foundation that our campuses work from to achieve the academic, research, engagement and economic missions of NU.
ITS Senior Leadership Member(s)
Andrew Buker, Assistant Vice President, Infrastructure Services
ITS Leads
Campus CIOs and Teams
External Partners
University of Nebraska Business and Finance
Our People
We are committed to investing in our people so that we build an exceptional work environment with avenues for advancement and growth, and maintain an inclusive culture that embraces diversity in all forms.
We look to empower our staff to facilitate broad collaboration and be outstanding partners to students, faculty, and staff on the campuses we serve.
A recent study indicates that IT is an industry experiencing peak attrition and career shifting due to the pandemic, with NU ITS undergoing up to 20% attrition in recent years. In order to retain our top performers, we will continue to commit heavily to employee engagement, recognition, retention, and competitive compensation practices.
ITS Senior Leadership Member(s) and Lead
Heath Tuttle, UNL Chief Information Officer, and Associate VPIT
ITS Lead
Lisa Vogt, Assistant Director, HR
External Partners
Campus HR Leads and Teams
Campus Recruitment and Retention Efforts
We focus on relationships with individual people throughout the myriad of affiliations they have with the university community, and leverage technology to coordinate, manage, and report on these interactions to maximize our opportunity with each person.
To better achieve a vision of a truly connected university, NU seeks to further utilize constituent relationship management (CRM) technology designed to improve and customize the recruitment, retention, service, and lifelong learning journey for students across the university system.
Using technology to create an ecosystem to support the entire student life cycle, we are able to use data and analytics to develop an inclusive enrollment strategy to serve more and new learners by personalizing recruitment and enrollment experiences.
ITS Senior Leadership Member(s) and Leads
Bret Blackman, UNO Chief Information Officer and VPIT
Andrea Childress, UNK Chief Information Officer and Associate VPIT
Heath Tuttle, UNL Chief Information Officer, and Associate VPIT
External Partners
Campus Chief Academic Officers
Campus Student Success Leaders
