Registrar David Tenney (left) works with IT’s Mir Mirhashimali (right) to improve the reporting aspects of the Cognos system.

“Every semester our office generates a Report to the President, which details enrollment and course information for that semester,” explained David Tenney, Registrar. “The report is based on census data, data captured on a unique and predetermined date each semester.  The querying of data and the assembling of this report is, and has been, an extensive and time-consuming task.  First as a ‘proof of concept’ and then as the pilot project, we worked with the Data Management team to utilize Cognos.  The Cognos tool was user-friendly and very powerful, taking tasks that used to take us several days and enabling us to instead do those in hours.  In a ‘geeky’ data sort of way, it’s been a fun project.  Looking ahead we see numerous and exciting opportunities for future application.”

Many Rice faculty and staff want to continue working on complex tasks when they are away from their office or lab, which requires some sass–not in their attitude, but for their devices. Delivering software to a device only when and while it is needed is called Software as a Service, or SaaS.  Other cloud services delivered on-demand include Platforms as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).  Using one physical device to control another is known as remote control access, but if the device being manipulated remotely is a virtual computer, then that virtual device is considered Hardware as a Service (HaaS).

As part of bringing cloud services to campus, IT evaluated and facilitated SaaS tools requested by Rice departments (see below).  Contact Barry Ribbeck to begin the risk assessment process for cloud services for your department.

Rice Cloud Services

• ACS – In Control – Athletics Compliance
• Amazon Web Services  (AWS) Cloud Services – IT Testing and Training (IaaS and PaaS)
• Backstop – Financial Management
• Backupify – Backup solution for Google Calendar and Contacts
• Box – Collaborative file sharing and work flow
• CampusPress by EduBlogs  – Jones School blog service (In Progress)
• Concur – Travel Management
• Convey – Rice Controller
• Digital Measures – Jones School Faculty Reporting
• EduRoam – International wireless authentication
• Evisions – Cayuse grant mgmt.
• Google Apps for Education
• IRB networks  (Protection of human and animal subjects)
• LawLogix  – I9 for HR  1099 management
• Mezeo (private cloud) Storage
• MIR3 – Emergency Communications
• Panopto – Video for Jones School
• Peopleworks – HR
• Piazza (In Progress) Course comm. – Sakai integration
• Qualtrics – Survey tool
• Schipul – Web CMS hosting services
• Technolutions – Slate – Admissions
• Terra Dotta – Study Abroad
• WCOnline – TwentySix LLC – Scheduling app
• Zoom – Video Conferencing

Right now, how many wireless devices do you have in your hands, pocket, backpack, briefcase, car, office, room, or purse?  More than 2?  More than 5?

Each person that walks or rolls onto the Rice campus carries multiple mobile devices.  Each of these mobile devices attempt to connect to the Internet, inciting a new type of traffic jam.  Although the traffic jam is unseen, it is certainly not undetected.  According to a March 19 Rice Thresher article, the division of Information Technology began testing the quality of wireless service in the residential colleges in December and continued the wireless service surveys during spring break.

William Deigaard, Director of Networking, Telecommunications and Data Center, talked about the survey tools and process with Jieya Wen, a Thresher writer. “We acquired a new tool to analyze the wireless quality, which is the passive survey tool,” Deigaard said. “It basically means a digital equipment that’s walking around and asking the wireless network, ‘Can you hear me now?’ It takes sampling of interferers and monitors our environment. It gets all the protocols that are available and the frequencies that are available. It shows you how well that network is performing.”

Networking team member surveys wireless signal strength

As the networking team discovers areas where the wireless coverage is weak, they adjust the local wireless access points (APs) that are directing wireless signals.  When the team completes the wireless service survey in the residential colleges, they will begin surveying the academic buildings.

In the mean time, each person with a mobile device can get the best performance on their wireless devices at Rice by updating the wireless driver for their laptops, refraining from the use of personal wireless networks and reporting wireless issues to the IT Help Desk.

In the Thresher article, Deigaard said, “When you buy a PC, you want to look for something that can support a wide range of protocols,” Deigaard said. “In addition, the radio frequency space we have is finite and incredibly scarce. If people put another access point there, [the access point] is competing with the network. Finally, if you don’t have a good wireless experience, you should tell us.”

Contact the IT Help Desk at 713.348.4357 or helpdesk@rice.edu.  When you report a wireless issue, be sure to include your ethernet address, your IP address and your room number so the networking team can track the issue to its source.

IT’s Telecommunications group provides the Rice community with real-time voice communications and messaging.  Telecommunications continually seeks to provide the campus with enhanced services, while remaining respectful of the cost impact, and is committed to providing reliable and efficient telecommunication services.

Anderson-Clarke Center

This year the new Anderson-Clarke Center (ACC) opened with staff relocating from the Continuing Studies Building and the Greenbriar Building.  Telecommunications installed fiber remote cabinets at ACC, providing connectivity to the main campus telephone system (located in Mudd).  Staff had working telephones in their ‘old’ offices up to the time the movers unplugged their telephones. When the movers plugged the phones in the new offices, their extensions and voicemail had been transfered.

Blue Light Emergency Telephones

Telecommunications takes the safety of the Rice population seriously and maintains 95 blue light emergency telephones across the campus and in parking garages.  These emergency telephones connect directly to the Rice University Police Department (RUPD).  Telecommunications upgraded and replaced degrading telephone devices in 40 of these units working closely with Facilities, Engineering, and Planning’s Electrical Department regarding when blue light beacons fail and need replacement.  New blue light telephone stanchions were installed near the Turrell Skyspace and the new Anderson-Clarke Center and a wall-mounted unit was installed in the basement area of Ryon Lab.

RUPD Radio Project

Telecommunications also supports a Rice University approved radio project, spearheaded by RUPD.  The City of Houston recently changed their emergency radio system to a new Motorola digital 700-800 MHz system.  Rice University will be a subscriber on this new system, greatly enhancing our present reception and coverage.  Also participating in this project will be radio users in EMS, EHS, and BRC Security.

Uninterrupted Operations

In addition, Telecommunications replaced the UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) system servicing the main campus telephone system, ensuring smooth and uninterrupted operations if power is lost in the Mudd Building.  CenterPoint experienced three major power outages on campus this last year.  The main campus telephone switch in the Mudd Building operated without interruption.

Kate Cross (seated left) and Bridgitt Ayers (seated right) with IT’s Brian Cole and Omer Piperdi (standing, left to right).

“Boxes and piles of paper everywhere!” Bridgitt Ayers is describing her office in 2012, when graduate student requests could only be submitted through a paper-based process. “It was Kate’s brainchild, to become even more of a paperless office than we already were. All our files and documents were already being scanned and uploaded to OnBase [Rice’s document imaging and workflow solution]; and we started to think about why we continued asking departments to send in paper that we were only going to scan and destroy.”

What the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS) needed was a portal that students and department coordinators could use to submit their requests. “Since we don’t have electronic signatures, the form can be completed electronically but has to be printed in the department so they can sign it. Then they scan the signed form and send it to us using their portal,” Ayers explained. “The department coordinator just enters the student’s ID number and an auto-load from Banner fills in details from the student record, then the coordinator attaches the scanned form, answers a few specific questions about that type of request, and submits it to us. But the best part about the new system is the receipt the coordinator gets when they submit a request.”

Receipts are important because department coordinators previously had to rely on confidential paper documents traveling through the campus mail system, or as an email attachment as a last resort in a crisis. According to Ayers,“The new process is much more secure and it also assures you that your form has been submitted – the coordinator gets an email as soon as the form is sent through the portal to GPS.” The secure GPS Requests portal, available only to department coordinators and faculty or staff involved in processing graduate student requests, moves the electronic copy of the form directly into a GPS processing queue in OnBase, bypassing the earlier stacks of paper email message collection points.

The project started in October 2012 when the GPS staff reviewed their current process. “The answer was to find a smarter way to do things,” recalled Kate Cross, Assistant Dean for GPS. “We were already using an OnBase filing cabinet to store the scanned documents, and we knew from OnBase information sessions that workflows might be the answer to our needs. “

Andrea Martin led the IT OnBase team of Brian Cole, Omer Piperdi, and Eddie Heard, and they worked with Ayers and Cross to outline a workflow, a receipt process, and a check list for each of the 15 petitions or forms.  The team also worked closely with Luigi Bai in Administrative Systems to develop an auto-load based on Banner data. Over the next twelve months, the IT and GPS teams worked together to build out the application. The workflow was developed, tested, refined and implemented for all graduate program departments.

In a nutshell, department coordinators now receive receipts when they submit forms and the process is faster and more efficient.

In 2012, Web Services staffing changes coincidentally overlapped months when new and aggressive attacks on university servers caused many Rice websites to go off line for several days.  Web Services regrouped and Andrea Martin, Director for IT Enterprise Applications, stepped in to lead the team through a time of rebuilding infrastructure and process improvement.  In addition, a Committee on Web Services was proposed by Moshe Vardi, Co-chair of the IT Advisory Committee.  He also recommended Ann Lugg, Director of Communications for the Brown School of Engineering, co-chair the committee with Martin.

Committee members included Sean Rieger and Jennifer Ongoco (Public Affairs), Jennifer Wilson (Center for Written and Oral Communications), Jon-Paul Estrada (Jones School), Kate Cross (GPS), Keri Bas (GSCS), Louma Ghandour (Faculty Development), and Pamela Jones, Sherri Kingston, and Mary Widner (Natural Sciences).

“We started by looking at Web Services’ products and services, and at their practices from a customer stand point,” remembers Lugg.  “The committee was filled with customers who could answer questions like ‘What is useful to us?’ and ‘What can be improved?’ and Andrea would bring us slides in the beginning, showing concerns or issues that had bubbled up since the last meeting.”

The committee met throughout 2013 and surveyed Web Services customers and identified common themes.  Lugg noted,  “Web Services implemented the survey as part of their follow up when projects were completed. Andrea shared those survey results with the committee.”

Communication throughout a web project was identified as a priority in need of improvement.  “Customers want to be kept abreast of developments,” Lugg said.   “Send them updates and estimate the amount of time left to completion of the project.  The way bills were presented needed clarification and explanations.  And there seemed to be little notification to the customer if project scope creep resulted in revised costs or time lines.”  The committee recommended more frequent communications between customers and members of Web Services’ development team – personal contact, not automated updates.  “Someone who could talk in every day words,” added Lugg.

The committee then tackled perceptions and products.  “We built on Andrea’s momentum,” Lugg continued.  “Drupal became available for content management, and there are improved resources for WordPress.  The people on the committee continue to make suggestions and feel they are contributing to something worthwhile.  We can see improvements are being made.”  Although there are still complaints about CMS400, no content management system is perfect.  Other CMS solutions were briefly considered before it was concluded that it would take a lot of time to look into the available products sufficiently to determine whether they’d be better than what we had, and in the end, “we had such a large Rice investment – in terms of money and time – tied up in CSM400 that it just didn’t make sense at this point to abandon it and reinvest in something else that would have another, different set of complaints.”  Instead, other options to CMS400 were offered, like Drupal and an improved WordPress, as well as improved training on CMS400.

“Our first priority was to work through issues with current Web Services customers,” reflected Lugg.  “We haven’t gotten to the point of advertising for new customers or reestablishing former customers’ confidence in the new Web Services.  It is the recent customers who have really seen the change for the better.”

Rice faculty, staff, and students now have access to a wireless network around the world.  In the fall of 2013, the university joined eduroam – a simple, safe, convenient and collaborative wireless network service that provides free, seamless access to the Internet for member institutions. To connect, find the eduroam network and login with a Rice NetID@rice.edu address and password. Similarly, guests from other eduroam institutions can access the Internet at Rice using the eduroam wireless network after logging in with their own university’s login credentials. It’s like having one large, worldwide wireless hotspot.