CITC News

Recent announcements regarding the organization of Information Technology services within the UNT system may have readers wondering about how they will continue to receive IT services as we move forward under this new arrangement. The good news is that for those at most UNT system campuses and offices services will continue to be provided in the same manner and in most cases by the same people and IT groups that have historically been providing this support. There are a few changes coming to the names of the IT organizations at both the UNT System and the UNT flagship campuses that will replace the Computing and information Technology Center (CITC) name that is familiar to many.

Some New Names

September also saw the launch of the name Information Technology Shared Services (ITSS) for the IT divisions now under UNT System management. A fledgling website has already been established for ITSS at http://it.untsystem.edu/. More information about the management structure of ITSS will be forthcoming as this new organization continues to be defined.

The local IT services remaining associated with the UNT flagship campuses are Academic Computing and User Services (ACUS), Administrative Information Technology Services (AITS), Classroom Support Services (CSS), and Microcomputer Maintenance Services (MMS). These former divisions of the CITC will now operate under the name, University Information Technology (UIT).

The CITC name and branding will gradually be retired in favor of these new organization names. Since it may take a while to “disentangle” the elements that were formerly parts of the CITC, you may continue to see that name in documentation and be referred to parts of the CITC website until new online resources can be created. Benchmarks Online, however, will remain accessible at http://www.unt.edu/benchmarks/.

Same Service Provision

In spite of the changes happening in the management of IT services at the UNT System and UNT Campuses, most people should not notice any day-to-day change in the IT service they are receiving or in who is providing that service. While technically separate organizations UIT and ITSS will continue to closely coordinate and work together to ensure a high-quality IT environment for the UNT campuses. Members of UNT academic departments will still continue to receive their desktop support from the academic IT staff. Furthermore, all members of the UNT community can still contact the UIT Help Desk if they have an IT question for which they can’t find an answer.

First of all, the organization once known as the Computing and Information Technology Center (CITC) has ceased to exist. Instead we have Information Technology Shared Services (ITSS), IT divisions now under UNT System management, and University Information Technology (UIT). UIT consists of local IT services associated with the UNT flagship campus. These are Academic Computing and User Services (ACUS), Administrative Information Technology Services (AITS), Classroom Support Services (CSS), and Microcomputer Maintenance Services (MMS). As the aforementioned article states, however, "The CITC name and branding will gradually be retired in favor of these new organization names. Since it may take a while to “disentangle” the elements that were formerly parts of the CITC, you may continue to see that name in documentation and be referred to parts of the CITC website until new online resources can be created."

Yesterday the quarterly status report for UNT enterprise systems became available to all campuses in the UNT System. The report includes news regarding the move of a large portion of the Computing & Information Technology Center to the UNT System. Also included is an in-depth interview with Michael Di Paolo, Associate Vice Chancellor and CIO, University of North Texas System. Di Paolo explains the creation of the new IT Shared Services department and the impact this change has on institutions throughout the UNT System.

Other topics of interest to the UNT community included in the publication are the implementation of Blackboard Analytics that will provide UNT and the UNT System with increased reporting and analytic capabilities and a series of enhancements to Blackboard, UNT’s distance learning application.

The status report is available on the EIS web site.

UNT’s Computing and Information Technology Center employees that are already providing and supporting shared services will be moving to the UNT System on September 1. This first move of IT workers to the system will include around 180 regular employees and 26 student workers from CITC. No employees from the IT organizations at the other institutions will be moving in this first wave. This is because all of the current shared services for the UNT System are provided by UNT.

To read more, please visit http://web3.unt.edu/benchmarks/issues/2011/08/computing-and-information-....

The recent resignation of Tom McElwee has presented us the opportunity to examine our organization and consider how we want to be organized going forward. Tom’s organization and the components within it were working well but his departure gave us the opportunity to consider how we might align some of our services. This included considering the direction of IT technologies, shared services, similarities in operational approaches, recent IT study organizational structure recommendations, and synergies between parts of the organization. Based on careful consideration and discussions with numerous folks including Tom and the leaders of the teams in Tom’s organization, the following organizational changes are effective immediately.

1. The Imaging Team, led by Tracy Hansen, and the Distributed Learning Team, led by Shane Jester, will report to the Robert Jones, leader of AIS Tools and User Services organization. There are many synergies within these teams in relation to technology, approaches, and enhanced integration. This is part of a larger direction to transform what was AIS into an Enterprise Applications organization larger than its original PeopleSoft mission.
2. The Messaging and Directory Service team, led by Jason Myre, will be renamed Enterprise Collaboration Services and will report to Joe Adamo. As we have seen with the recent implementation of Unified Messaging and with the growing implementations of VOIP, traditional phone technologies are converging with messaging. Consolidating these functions, as well as those in number 3 , creates an organization focusing on all aspects of Communication and Collaboration.
3. The SharePoint team, led by Susan Pierce, and Central Web Support, will report to the Enterprise Collaboration Services organization led by Jason Myre as well.
4. Tom’s position will remain vacant at this time. Craig Terrell’s organization, which is responsible for Virtualization, Storage, Backups, and Enterprise Servers, will report through that position to me.

There are no other immediate realignments planned, but we will be considering other possible moves consistent with the considerations described above. Any possible changes will be about the placement of functions and services within the organization and the larger organization model. These considerations will focus on rearrangement of functions within the organization to meet future needs and directions. These potential organizational changes will not eliminate services or positions.

Thanks,
John