The office is not the same place it was before 2020. To some of us, the old routine doesn’t feel quite the same. To find our way to a new workplace culture that works for everyone, we may all need to re-examine some of our assumptions about in-person work.

At UB, the resiliency of our IT systems is the prime responsibility of the VPCIO area. But the threats—and what it means to be resilient in facing them—are evolving. How are we evolving in kind?

As one of our longest-tenured colleagues retires, we reflect on the power and positive impact of a career’s worth of insight and institutional knowledge.

Imagine it: you’re writing a paper, and your deadline is looming. Or, you’re about to join a remote class over Zoom. You open your laptop and… nothing. The screen is black. You hit the power button and wait. It won’t power on. You plug it in, but it won’t charge. What’s going through your head?

What does a remote teaching success story look like? Our talented faculty offer approaches that are as innovative as they are diverse, but the common thread is the personal connection they make with their students.

Connectivity is the lifeblood of our work as students, faculty and staff at UB. UBIT’s Network and Communication Services is always exploring new and better ways to deliver that connectivity.

A statewide commission has been working for the past year to reduce the digital divide and increase opportunity for New Yorkers. The University at Buffalo has played an important role in these efforts, and the positive impact will be felt right here in Buffalo.

If you’ve visited the UBIT website recently, you may have been greeted by Virtual Vic, UB’s new customer service chatbot. This unassuming virtual assistant hints at the power of emerging technology to boost UB’s potential in the years to come.

How do we define our role supporting students in a post-pandemic world?

At research universities like UB, we create and share knowledge and information in good faith—and we’ve been using the internet to do it since before it was the internet. But what it means to be online is changing, and as we put our information security strategy into place, we’re taking those changes into account so UB can keep sharing the right way.

UBIT is committed to advancing the university’s mission by working with our campus partners to do the right technology projects, the right way, and in the right order. The first step is a conversation.

In 2017, we were imagining the classroom of the future. Three years later, we’re seeing that vision become a reality. But we never could have predicted the path we would take to get there, or the challenges we’d face along the way.

The work of learning is necessarily challenging—and we are all learning new things this year. I want to thank two groups in particular who have been putting in the challenging work of learning how to better support our faculty in a time of great change.

We’ve all invested so much into changing the way we work and learn in the wake of COVID-19, and it’s becoming clear that these changes will leave a lasting impact on how we work. What can we do today to make the most of our investment going forward?

2020 is a year that defies comparison.

The number of Zoom meetings we've all attended has grown in recent months. With most of us working remotely, virtual meetings are a convenient and effective way to stay productive and get things done.

Within a ten-day span, UBIT worked closely with UB faculty to transition over 4,000 courses to an online format. We learned a great deal in the process about how we can help them deliver the best possible education, no matter the circumstances.

Students have faced great challenges in the transition to emergency remote learning. How have we shifted our focus to better support them? What more could we be doing?

While Governor Cuomo announced that UB and other SUNY schools would begin mandatory distance learning in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus, UBIT staff were already hard at work preparing to support students, faculty and staff for that eventuality.

Cyber threats can make our increasingly online world feel like a wild frontier. We don’t always agree how to navigate this wilderness, but there are some goals and ideals we do agree on. 

UB, like many institutions, is working proactively to respond to the international coronavirus outbreak. IT resources for working and learning remotely are an important part of the university’s continuity planning.

What are the unique opportunities and challenges facing the CIO of the future in higher education?

Few areas are as dynamic and unpredictable as IT. IT professionals today need depth and breadth, and personal skills tailored to weather the changes.

In October 2019, we welcomed Kelly Duran to our team as Assistant CIO and Director of Strategic Portfolio Management. Her appointment makes our organization more focused and better positioned to prioritize the needs of UB’s departments and decanal units.

Where do good ideas come from?

UBIT’s latest strategic report begins with a question: what will the campus of 2030 look like?

Creating and sharing knowledge, and everything we do to support that process at UB, requires trust, both on an interpersonal and institutional level.

UB’s campus is changing. The UB2020 initiative is transforming the Heart of the Campus into a learning landscape that supports student success, broadly defined. 

Some of the University at Buffalo’s most exciting work is being done in clinical and translational science: revelatory medical research, conducted in community partnership, for the betterment of patients and new professionals alike. Data is the lifeblood of that research, and our IT organization has been developing valuable new approaches to supporting this work.

The way we keep our people and technology secure at the University at Buffalo is changing. But what are we really trying to accomplish?

Multifactor authentication is coming to more of the UBIT services our community uses every day, beginning in 2019. This extra layer of security, along with our continuing efforts to promote best security practices, will benefit every single person who works or studies at UB.

The purpose of UB, like any institution of higher learning, is to create and share knowledge and information. In UB’s Information Security Office, our goal is to make sure that can happen as intended, by protecting our systems, data, and talent.

How many of us understand what happens to the data we generate—where it goes, and how it is used? The potential of people and institutions to benefit from the insight their data provides is potentially limitless—but are we ensuring the integrity of what we do with our information?

Communication is central to learning, and so much else that happens at UB. That’s why it’s central to our work in IT. Our goal is to empower the community with the tools and the knowledge to communicate how you want.

An exciting new group with members from UB’s various health IT organizations is working collaboratively to modernize, secure and better integrate the technology that supports UB’s groundbreaking medical work.

UB’s Information Security Office leads the effort keeping UB secure despite the ever-increasing risk of cyber-attacks. I want to welcome Mark Herron, UB’s new Information Security Officer, whose work will help us address this critical issue in IT and among the campus community.

At the start of each fall semester, we explore how UBIT is striving to better support students, faculty and staff. Here’s a look at the semester so far.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer the way of the future—it's here today. How can UB leverage its potential?

After its first semester, the Faculty IT Liaison program has helped us identify gaps in IT services by bringing faculty together with IT staff for collaborative design sessions. But the project’s future holds even greater potential for research and scalability.

Designing edtech solutions tailored to faculty, and communicating their value, is a challenge in every higher education institution. At UB, we’re approaching this challenge in a totally new way. 

UB is playing a leading role in the region’s “transformation into a national health sciences hub.” With that role comes new challenges and opportunities in how we manage and secure the data driving our research and clinical practice.

While looking to modernize IT structures and services at the University at Buffalo, I’ve found an invaluable resource in our successful and talented pool of alumni.

As a leading research university, the University at Buffalo is innovative in its collaboration, whether across departments, campuses, the country and the world.

The 2017-18 academic year has arrived and UB Information Technology is looking forward to working with the campus community to provide better service and support than ever before. If move-in weekend was any indicator of what’s to come, the future looks bright.

On the heels of an extensive classroom renovation project at UB, we’re looking ahead to the next generation of classrooms.

UB has done some phenomenal work over the last several years to improve the quality of our central classrooms.

To an institution like the University at Buffalo, technology is essential. Just like one professor put it when we asked about the importance of Wi-Fi: "it’s as important to a university today as ink or chalk was 100 years ago."

A little more than a week after the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) ended in Las Vegas, UBIT held its own exhibition of the latest developments in technology here at UB. While we previewed recent developments like wireless screen casting and laser light projection, we weren’t just showing off—events like these are crucial for us to solicit feedback from IT staff about new and ongoing projects.

My Technology and Innovation class with UB's School of Management recently had the pleasure of seeing a presentation by UB’s Director of Internal Audit, Kara Kearny-Saylor. Before the lecture, she cleared up a few basic yet common, questions about her work, specifically: what is an internal auditor, and what do they do?

In October 2016, my Technology and Innovation class with UB’s School of Management had the opportunity to have a Q&A with Box’s Chief Operating Officer, Dan Levin, on achieving success and being an effective leader.

Julieta Ross, senior vice president and chief technology officer of M&T Bank, recently spoke with my Technology and Innovation course with UB’s School of Management. She is a seasoned corporate veteran, having worked in over 130 countries and is currently responsible for 1,500 employees.

From email to HUB Student Center to the Internet itself, information technology is central to day-to-day life at UB. That’s why it is also essential to have a structure in place for prioritizing UBIT’s projects according to the needs and goals of the university.

In response to requests by distributed IT staff, UBIT held its first Future IT Upgrade Tech Review on Tuesday, October 25, 2016. The event was very well attended by over 100 central and distributed IT staff.

I’d like to welcome all UB students back to campus and hope you had a great summer. I was privileged to meet with some of you and your families during move-in weekend.

I’m very excited to share that UBIT has successfully launched a new file sharing and storage solution called UBbox.

UB Information Technology recently lost a talented leader in Saira Hasnain. Saira has taken an opportunity in Florida closer to family and we wish her the best of luck in her new adventures.

Innovative technology is essential in guiding our students to achieve academic success. UB's faculty and staff work to find new ways to improve education through creative thinking and collaboration. UBIT understands that advanced campus technology leads to enhanced learning outcomes for students.

We did a lot of listening in 2015. UBIT participated in meetings with UB student government groups and held focus groups with residence hall advisors and students across varying disciplines. We sent out surveys, all with one basic question at the core: how can IT do better?

Data Privacy Day is an international effort, held annually on January 28 to generate awareness on the importance of privacy and empower individuals to protect their personal information. The day puts a focus on respecting privacy, safeguarding data and enabling trust.

Dan Levin, President and Chief Operating Officer of Box.com, recently presented during my Technology and Innovation course for the School of Management via video conference.

The security needs of an institution like UB are constantly evolving. To keep the university's information safe, we must regularly adapt to handle the latest threats.

I was fortunate to have remarkable guest speakers present to my Technology and Innovation course for the School of Management during the Fall 2015 semester. Hosting these speakers gave my students exposure to different perspectives and professional experience, and the opportunity to interact directly with professionals.

IT at UB has seen considerable transformation in the past 40 years. And one pivotal member of our team, who has helped build our organization at every turn over the last 35 years, is retiring as of November 20, 2015.

As a top-tier research institution, our faculty are our greatest asset. And a lot of our work in UBIT is designed to support our diverse faculty, in everything they do.

I’d like to welcome all UB students, new and returning, to the university this semester. I enjoyed meeting some of you and your families during my tour of North and South Campus during move-in.

Every day, more people rely on the Wi-Fi technology here at UB to keep them connected throughout their day.

It’s the culmination of a great year at UB, and I’m excited as I look ahead to UBIT’s future.

As another academic year comes to a close, UBIT continues to reflect on the level of services that we provide to the institution.

Back to the Future has arrived. While there are no hover boards or flying cars today, certain predictions such as TV glasses and video conferencing have come true.

Back to the Future has arrived. While there are no hover boards or flying cars today, certain predictions such as TV glasses and video conferencing have come true.

I invite you to join your colleagues on February 17-18, 2015 for a program on instructional technology innovation. This two-day event is part of the Digital Challenges Series, co-sponsored by UB Information Technology and University Libraries.

The University at Buffalo has an excellent cadre of IT staff within both UB’s schools and across central administration. These professionals do an excellent job in seamlessly providing IT services to the institution.

Dr. Thomas Furlani has been involved in high-performance scientific computing and data visualization at UB for over 20 years. We welcome him to the UBIT blog.

As we begin a new academic year, UBIT is initiating a more active outreach to campus on new and innovative technology opportunities and issues. The goal is to understand your needs and explore ways technology can better serve the faculty and students.

UB was fortunate to have our president Dr. Satish Tripathi chosen as the Keynote Speaker for the 2014 New York State CIO (NYSCIO) Conference in July 2014.

Net neutrality is the philosophy of an open, free and unrestricted worldwide Internet, and it is a very complex issue.

It’s a great time to be at UB and I’m excited to join the UBIT team as your new Vice President and CIO. The entire institution is rallying around the UB 2020 vision and focus is becoming clear about our future.