Business intelligence to bring improved data organization

8th November | No Comments | posted by Caleb Bell | in About IT Staff and Student Workers, For Students, Faculty and Staff

IT Systems is currently in the planning stages for ramping up Lee’s business intelligence capabilities.

“By [improving business intelligence], you give the users a lot more control of what they see and how they see it,” said Jesse Houle, a programmer analyst and the lead on this project.

Business intelligence involves an organization using software tools to aggregate and sort tremendous amounts of data and analyzing it to help make smarter business decisions.

Right now IT Systems does that in the form of reports for the different sectors of the university. Once IT Systems finishes with the project, though, users will be able to create complex reports out of massive amounts of information.

Houle said that part of the process of improving BI is developing data warehouses. These will bring together information from various sources and pool them together to make reports easy to create, rather than requiring users to go to multiple sources for that data.

The new BI capabilities will be hosted on Portico when they’re finished, so users can log on and create reports. Users will be able to analyze and sort data on many different levels using PowerPivot, an add-on for Microsoft Excel.

PowerPivot will allow users to examine data in an almost infinite number of ways, filtering results through almost any criteria. This specification of data will help sectors pinpoint areas that need work.

This undertaking is not a small one, though. The organizational structure of the software will require much work to function correctly.

“It’s such a vast, complex setup that we need to make sure that we have those steps planned out very thoughtfully before we move forward,” Houle said.

With that said, IT Systems does not have a projected end date for the project.

New website brings good looks and accessibility

1st October | No Comments | posted by Caleb Bell | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

Lee’s new website is up and running (if you haven’t already, go check it out!). Though it’s still under construction, the site has come a long way from Lee’s first website launch in 1997.

Work on the new site began in May 2011, and has been steadily progressing since. The site went live on Aug. 6, 2012, debuting a completely new look and new features.

But while accessibility and looks are important, all of the new features have one purpose: to drive people to Lee.

“One of the things we want to do is build more of that [Lee] experience online,” said Nate Tucker, director of Information Systems.

Along with that new look come new features, making the site much more accessible. For example, Lee’s old website had around 6000 different pages, with information scattered all over the place. This new website has condensed that information, organizing it into just over 200 pages.

“With 6000 pages, we were constantly in update mode. There was never a time when we could just innovate,” Tucker said.

Now the new website is easily modifiable, so there will be room for updates on a regular basis. In fact, the site is designed so that it can be given a fresh look and feel every 18-24 months.

The website has also been set up so that individual departments and offices can update their own information, ensuring accuracy and reliable information on the website. Public Information is taking a back seat, and most of their releases have been added in to Portico.

Another feature that has been updated is the online catalog, which now looks like the rest of the new site. But the site doesn’t stop there. It also houses new social media integration features, which will allow visitors to become even more engaged through all sorts of social networks.

The usual turnaround time for a web project this size normally takes about 18-24 months, Tucker said. But Lee’s IT department used companies outside of Lee to turn that into 15-16 months.

Tucker hopes that by December 2012, all of the changes will be complete and the old website will no longer exist. However, if for some reason you need to access something on the old site prior to that date, you can visit here.

Be looking for new additions to the website over the next few months!

Title III grant – A look back

| No Comments | posted by Caleb Bell | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

After five years of helping shape the educational environment at Lee, the Title III Strengthening Institutions grant came to a close on Sept. 30. The grant, supplied by federal government, was designated to help Lee create an improved, sustainable academic setting for its students.

The highly competitive grant provided $2 million for these improvements, which Lee then matched.

Jayson VanHook, vice president of Information Services, explained that through the funding, Lee updated campus technology, switched to the Colleague computer system, created the Center for Teaching Excellence and developed the five critical thinking skills.

“It accomplished what the government intends for the money to accomplish, and that is to strengthen the institution,” VanHook said.

Stipulations for the grant money required that Lee be able to institutionalize the costs of the changes after the grant ended. VanHook explained that over the past five years, Lee has slowly created room in budgets to make sure that the institutionalization of the changes was provided for.

Lee had to meet certain requirements in order to become eligible for the grant.  According to the U.S. Department of Education website, Title III is designated for accredited institutions of higher education. Specifically for the Strengthening Institutions grant, Lee had to have at least half of its students receiving need-based aid or a large number receiving Pell grants.

Of the improvements, VanHook said that switching Lee’s system to Colleague was the largest investment. Colleague, now owned by provider Ellucian, is the system that runs the back end of Lee’s website.

Prior to the grant, Lee ran off of a program called Champlain — from Champlain College — that would not run after Lee customized a large amount of the program.

“[Switching to Colleague has] been a big part of this,” VanHook said. “[O]ne of the goals in Title III was to move to a system that would better support what we’re doing here at the institution.”

But that’s not the only technological update Lee underwent with Title III. The university also applied the grant to updating classroom technology.

Up to that point, only a few of the classrooms at Lee had any form of computer technology. VanHook said professors were having to request classrooms with computers if they needed them when classrooms were being assigned.

Now, thanks to the grant, IT Operations was able to install a technology package in most every classroom. The basic kit includes a desktop computer, DVD and VHS players and projectors, along with their screens and controls.

But the technological updates around campus were only a portion of what the grant made possible. While very obviously improving the physical learning experience at Lee, Title III funds changed the very structure of courses at Lee.

The five critical thinking skills, which are now emphasized in every course, came from the grant.

The grant money also created the Center for Teaching Excellence, a place that allows professors to come together and discuss best teaching practices and provides teaching resources.

All in all, the Title III Strengthening Institutions grant drastically changed the educational landscape at Lee University, from technology to classroom practices.

If administration so desires, Lee will be able to apply for the grant again after two years.

Moodle moves to the cloud

3rd September | No Comments | posted by Caleb Bell | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

Moodle began operating off of a cloud system this fall, giving the network added stability and new features for Lee users.

Nate Tucker, director of IT Systems at Lee University, explained that the move will include an upgrade to the latest version of Moodle, making the system easier to use.

“The added benefits for faculty and students include better formatting of the site for mobile devices, quicker access to Moodle courses based upon faster synchronizations from Colleague [Lee’s main operating system], better reporting of progress, etc.” Tucker said.

On the operational side of things, running Moodle off of a cloud service provides stability to the system, allowing it to remain functional even while being updated. Director of IT Operations Chris Golden explained that this move will keep Moodle running 99.9 percent of the time.

“While it will help relieve some of the strain that’s on these servers, it also ensures that whatever we do, whatever updates or things like that, that we never go down,” Golden said.

Cloud storage is rapidly becoming a popular option for today’s technology-driven world. It offers the convenience of storing massive amounts of data and running systems without the need on the clients’ part for external hardware.

Users’ data or operating systems are stored in a remote database owned by the company they are working with, and the client can access their information or systems whenever they wish via the Internet.

Several examples of this can be seen throughout the realm of technology. Apple Inc., Adobe Systems Inc. and Amazon.com all use cloud storage systems. This not only allows users to save and back up their data, but it also allows for easier exchange of projects, ideas and overall information.

If you’d like to know more about cloud storage systems, visit How Cloud Storage Works.