IT Briefs
Blackboard Migration to the Cloud
In life, you can’t have the ups without the downs. For UMass Boston’s online course management system Blackboard, this meant you couldn’t run upgrades without downtime. The work needed to keep Blackboard updated had to be done regularly, but the problem was it required a few days of taking the system offline. Most recently this occurred this past winter, but the good news is it won’t happen again.
In Winter 2020 following months of planning, the IT staff migrated Blackboard to the cloud. Blackboard will now undergo smaller instant upgrades, rather than the large updates that required extended downtime.
“For a long time, we were a year or two behind the most updated version of Blackboard,” said Paula Thorsland, Manager of eLearning and Instructional Support. “Migrating to the cloud allows us to operate in the most updated version of Blackboard at all times.”
In addition to this constant flow of updates to Blackboard, the migration to the cloud also provides other benefits. Blackboard is expected to become more responsive and accessible for students and faculty, and because updates will be implemented more quickly, data security will increase too.
And if you think these improvements must be costly to the school, guess again. Migrating to the cloud also makes Blackboard less expensive to use than before!
Chosen Names
The names people are given at birth become deeply personal to them, and on occasion a person will have a desire to change theirs. UMass Boston believes that all students, staff, and faculty have the right to represent their identities as they choose, so a collaborative team from multiple campus units recently initiated the “Chosen Names” project. Students can now update their records at UMass Boston, and make a name change, by adding a chosen name into WISER on the school website.
No explanations are required. As University Registrar Valerie Corrente explained, “No one should have to explain why they want this change. I don’t need to know that information and the IT people don’t need to know.” The Chosen Names project is part of a larger ongoing initiative within the UMass System to address instances of misgendering trans and non-binary students and be more inclusive of gender and sexual identities.
Student Affairs, the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Academic Affairs, the Registrar’s Office, Enrollment Management, and of course IT, were all involved in this project. “I think this is a really good example of breaking down silos in a way that either establishes processes or streamlines them, so that students aren’t bounced from office to office to get the same result but through different people,” said Andrea Macone, Special Assistant to the Assistant Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Visit umb.edu/name for more information.
Learn IT
At many universities, or organizations of any kind, there is often a stated commitment to the professional development of its employees. But many of these organizations fall short of that commitment or just don’t deliver what they promise.
Not so for the Information Technology (IT) department at UMass Boston. Starting with the arrival of Ray Lefebvre as Vice Chancellor and CIO of Information Technology Services in June 2019, the department has made an extraordinary commitment to the professional development of its staff. Lefebvre quickly directed an effort to create professional development opportunities for everyone in the IT department. Professional development was offered in IT before Lefebvre arrived, but it was a very ineffective system that seldom resulted in requests being granted. That changed however with the creation of the Learn IT website, and suddenly professional development in IT took the proverbial quantum leap forward. At blogs.umb.edu/learnit, IT staff can find numerous options for not only refining their current job skills but also ways to jump-start them on their chosen career paths. And the staff not only has options, but they are also strongly encouraged to pursue them. Prominently featured on the website is the Learn IT+ 8-hour Challenge. As its name suggests, the program invites IT staff to use eight hours a month of their work schedule to pursue whatever professional development opportunities they desire. No questions asked.
When asked why he believed professional development was so important, Vice Chancellor Lefebvre replied, “Information Technology professionals need the opportunity to receive professional development on an ongoing basis. Investing in professional development equates to investing in people, and to that deserves the opportunity to learn and grow.