ISC Progress Report, February 2018

Here’s a brief report on many of our major activities,
organized by our three strategic themes.

Modernize the IT environment that supports the University

IT Committee Portal: ISC created a portal to make it easier to locate the web presence for many major committees around campus.

Technology Roadmap: ISC’s Technology Roadmap was updated in January to help Penn’s technology professionals make contextual decisions within the overall University technology environment. 49 of the 176 tracked technologies were modified in some way.

Technology Services Strategy Review Board: ISC’s TS-SRB was formed to re-evaluate ISC’s technology strategy and to ensure we meet the evolving technology needs of the University. The most recent topic published was the Strategy for Campus Video. In addition, an ISC-wide strategy for Secure Access was published, and key areas including Virtual Private Network and Application Gateways are now in the planning stages.

Service Information Sessions: ISC has held several Service Information Sessions to provide clients and service providers the space to discuss specific services, identify challenges, and look towards the future. Sessions included Information Security, Networking, and PennO365. If you are interested in attending the upcoming PennO365 session on February 20th, please register on KnowledgeLink.

Cloud First: ISC’s Cloud First program continues in FY’19. To date 70TB of client storage has been moved to the cloud. An effort is underway to be able to create mirror copies of storage in the cloud. The project to make PennGroups more resilient in the event of a campus challenge progresses, with current PennGroups software moving into the cloud. Investigation of low-code development tools has concluded, and we have acquired OutSystems as our preferred tool. Stay tuned for an upcoming lunch‑n‑learn for more information.

Data Center Migration: The Pennovation Data Center Expansion Program was successfully completed, and the 3401 Data Center facility formally retired on January 31. In alignment with the University’s focus on sustainability, more than 27,000 pounds of recyclable material was removed as part of the closure effort. The program remained on target and under budget throughout its duration and included a cost avoidance of $225,000 as a result of repurposed assets, resource efficiencies, and utility rebates.

Next Generation Student Systems (NGSS): The Catalog team is meeting with its School partners to review, edit, and approve content prior to the University Catalog’s third and final release. These individuals, who also comprise the Curriculum Management team, are meeting with School representatives to plan the rollout of the course and program management tool that faculty and staff will use to facilitate curricular changes. As the NGSS team shifts its focus from the design phase to the build phase for Pennant Records and Pennant Aid Release 1, it continues working with Schools to clean up course-related data.

The NGSS program distributed the second issue of its community newsletter, the February 2019 NGSS Update. To learn more, sign up to receive future issues.

Human Capital Management: The Human Capital Management (HCM) project is transforming how Penn delivers services related to the broad range of human capital management, including staff recruitment, faculty and staff personnel and benefits administration, payroll, and time management. The project is currently in the Test phase, the third of the four major phases (Architect, Configure & Prototype, Test, and Deploy). Training will start during the Deployment phase in April, and we are on track to launch Workday@Penn in July 2019. We plan to commence Phase II of HCM during FY20.

Interfolio: As a complement to HCM, we are working with the Provost’s office to plan, design, and configure the next generation of faculty administration applications. Modules from Interfolio have been selected to support management of faculty recruiting, appointments, reviews, and promotions, while streamlining and documenting the processes required to support the faculty lifecycle. The Faculty Search & Review and Promotion & Tenure modules are on track to launch in alignment with the Workday@Penn implementation.

Burden Reduction Initiative: Penn initiated a Burden Reduction Initiative (BRI) aimed at reducing the amount of time required for faculty to accomplish administrative requirements associated with their research. BRI consists of three primary systems:

Burden Reduction Initiative RFIs are complete, and vendors have been selected.

Next Generation Unified Communications: The Next Generation Unified Communications Project completed technical evaluation of the features and functionality of the first vendor’s proposed solution. Learn more at the new project webpage.

PennO365: The PennO365 advisory team has been upgrading the service across campus:

Secure Penn’s operating environment while maintaining open and free sharing of information and ideas globally

Central Logging Service: ISC leverages the central logging environment to record more than 15 billion events each month, providing the ability to thoroughly investigate during security incident response and to proactively identify hostile intrusions into Penn’s network. These refinements allowed us to identify over 800 incidents when attackers compromised Penn systems and accounts in 2018 and enabled us to expel those attackers from our network.

Two-Step Verification: More than 50,000 people across campus are now using Two-Step Verification, including more than 16,000 staff and contractors, and 9,000 faculty. Approximately 70% of students have enrolled, and ISC is working with Schools to register the remaining unenrolled students this month. 

Identity & Access Management: Please see our latest update and watch for a new update coming later this month.

Penn Technology Investment Committee: ISC has worked to establish improved cost tracking, charge management systems, and processes to better understand and communicate IT costs. ISC engaged Deloitte to conduct an independent study of our financial management and cost-recovery. Deloitte recommended a committee of senior academic and administrative leaders be established to streamline the funding model, facilitate more shared governance, and ensure a sustainable technology core. PTIC defined “common good” IT and recommended which services should be included in bundles (such as Email & Calendaring, Network, and Voice).

ISC’s Priorities Program: 

Thank you for your support!

The ISC Leadership Team