In the ever-evolving IT landscape, organizations must innovate and adapt to stay relevant. This session explores how IT leaders can develop resilient organizations that embrace change. At UNC Charlotte, we recently overhauled our service desk infrastructure, implementing new call center software, a campus phone system, a ticketing solution, and a knowledge base—all within a year. We will discuss the technical and human components of this transformation, including culture, deployment, staffing, training, and communication strategies. Key topics include the general approach for adopting new systems, the importance of user feedback, and maintaining open communication with stakeholders. Our experience highlights the necessity of a holistic approach to change management, ensuring success for both the IT organization and the user community. Join us to gain practical insights and strategies for fostering resilience and adaptability in your IT operations.
This presentation aims to demonstrate that migrating from on-premise Windows device management to cloud-based management is possible and outlines the steps Universities should take to accomplish that. Any organization that has windows devices in their fleet likely uses some sort of domain binding to join their devices to a Microsoft Active Directory domain. The most basic level is Active Directory join where a device talks to an on-premise domain controller to receive authentication information, group policies, and resources. A more common way is hybrid join. This is for organizations utilizing Microsoft Entra ID, formerly known as Azure Active directory. This type of domain join sends information from on-premise servers up to the Microsoft cloud. It enables endpoint devices to authenticate with Azure and allows users to use things like Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, and Office 365. However, Windows authentication is still handled primarily by an on-premise domain controller. This mode, despite its name, has become outdated with the rise of hybrid work scenarios. Users working off campus are required to use a VPN in order to access on-premise resources. While the effects of this are not immediate, it does present challenges for users that change their password remotely or rarely, if ever, visit campus especially to log on to their device for the first time. Enter Entra-Join. This mode joins the device solely to Microsoft Entra ID and requires no connection to on-premise domain controllers. Only an internet connection is required to perform Windows authentication, not a VPN. This empowers users to change their password off campus without worrying about syncing issues. It also empowers IT staff to ship devices to users where they can perform their first login from home. The road to Entra-join is not without its challenges, however. There are many primary and secondary systems that rely on on-premise resources and must be transitioned to the cloud or restructured entirely. Examples include: automatic certificate-based WiFi connections, application deployment, group policies, provisioning and more. Each hurdle requires a unique solution and big picture planning. In our presentation, we will discuss the reasons why organizations should switch to Entra- join, the barriers to doing so, and how to overcome them.
In early 2024, we were forced to move our existing Confluence instance from on-premise to Atlassian's cloud service. This was a prime opportunity to reassess our public knowledgebase and figure out a way to make it more appealing, more accessible, and create new processes and procedures for the maintenance and upkeep of the site. This presentation or poster, will discuss the steps we took to garner buy-in from the other directors and CIO, find volunteers to work on it, and the months worth of meetings and decision making it took to get to where we are today. This project is currently ongoing and we hope to have a finished product by the time the conference occurs.
This presentation will cover the University of Hawaii's IT Service Management (ITSM) journey, starting with the selection and implementation of an ITSM platform in 2019 to our current project to move towards a new ITSM platform. The presentation will discuss the initial project requirements and goals, how our goals slowly changed as we got more experience with ITSM, and the lessons we learned throughout this journey.
The ultralight backpacking community builds their practices on the idea that, when you venture into the wilderness, you “don’t pack your fears.” This concept keeps backpackers from being weighed down by unnecessary items that, at best, hinder their progress, and, at worst, put them in danger. In college and university IT support, there are many fears that weigh down effective solutions and interfere with collaboration. Whether it’s a fear of escalating problems, customer dissatisfaction, new and threatening technologies, or internal conflict, those anxieties lead to a “backpack” full of extraneous tools, procedures, and preparation. These result in overinflated, inefficient solutions that rely on protection, rather than aspiration. In this interactive presentation, we will explore how both IT-specific and universal fears manifest in our work environments, and how we can move forward with intentional solutions. Participants will be encouraged to share real fears accompanying challenges in their workplace, allowing the group to collaborate on identifying what are essential and what are extraneous tools to address them. Participants will leave with ideas of how to incorporate fear-free approaches that lead to specific solutions at their own organizations.
Assistant Director: Service and Process, Hope College
Reagan Chesnut (she/her) is the Assistant Director: Service and Process at Hope College in Holland, MI, where she equips users with skills and knowledge to self-sustain technology use, designs training and resources for community confidence and competence, and performs as part of... Read More →
Over the past decade, the expectation of access to technology to complete coursework has grown dramatically. It is now expected that students have 24/7 access to a personal computer, laptop, or tablet. While many students can meet this expectation without issue, for others, especially those from vulnerable or low-income backgrounds, reliance on technology in a course creates significant barriers to their success.
Equitable access to technology, or the digital divide, has been studied since the emergence of public internet access in the 1990s. These studies showed that socioeconomic status and household income was the strongest predictor of individual internet use. More recent studies examine the impact of household income on the type of device that an individual has access to use, for example, a laptop or smartphone, and the type of internet access available, ie. mobile only or home broadband. Despite increased access to technology in general, the digital divide still exists.
Supervising student workers in higher ed IT goes beyond ensuring tasks get completed —it is about fostering professional growth and building valuable skills. In this session, we will share onboarding, skill-building, and engagement approaches we have found effective across multiple teams at Lewis & Clark. Discover how we create meaningful roles that encourage development, recognize leadership potential, and offer expanded responsibilities. We are proud of the environment we have built and find our team most engaged when we can cultivate a growth-oriented culture. We will also discuss how cross-department collaboration and connection keeps students motivated and supported and helps us all provide better service to our community. Join us to share your experiences, and together, we will elevate our student worker programs to set our employees up for success well beyond graduation.
Our panel discussion will be on moving from on premise network share drives to Microsoft 365 SharePoint. The panel will include viewpoints from 3 different institutions at different stages in the migration process, as well as the benefits experienced by end users.
Project management skills are essential for IT professionals in higher education. Establishing standards for technology project management is crucial for departmental success. However, many institutions lack a dedicated project management office (PMO), leading to challenges in consistently identifying, tracking, prioritizing, and completing technology projects. This panel discussion will provide valuable insights and practical strategies for effectively managing IT projects in higher education, even without a formal PMO. Attendees will learn about diverse approaches to project request management, prioritization techniques, and software solutions employed by different institutions to organize, prioritize, and drive projects forward, as well as some lessons learned along the way about some potential obstacles to success. Join us for an engaging discussion and share your own experiences in managing IT projects within higher education.
She/her/hers. Jessica joined Swarthmore College in May 2016 and coordinates sessions on G Suite, Phishing and 2-Factor Authentication, Drupal, and more. Jessica is also involved in writing, updating, and improving ITS documentation.
