We are proud of the work and improvements completed by each of our ITS teams on a regular basis. Much of their work happens behind the scenes and may not always make it to the list below, but it is critical nonetheless and helps to keep systems and services running smoothly. Below are some recent examples of their continued efforts.
- The Academic Technology team has assisted 200 faculty members in over 30+ online webinars in the past month to aid in the transition to fully online instruction.
- The Administrative Computing Services team completed several successive updates to the Banner system, Oracle databases and related applications.
- The Applications Programming and Development Group worked with the Provost’s Office to create a new pass-fail grade request form for eligible students who would like this option for the spring semester instead of getting a letter grade. An email was sent to students on 4/1 with details and the form can be accessed here.
- The Client Support team is coordinating with the Networking team on a remote imaging solution that will allow for new Pace laptops to connect to internal deployment servers over the Internet, so they can continue to be properly configured and deployed to approved end-users.
- The Educational Media team completed testing and deployment of the new Zoom Video Conferencing tool for use University-wide, including for online class sessions and administrative meetings, as well as webinars. In addition, they have assisted 700+ faculty over 50+ sessions to utilize Zoom successfully.
- The Information Security team implemented a new network group policy to block malicious macros sent over the Internet that can be included in Microsoft Office attachments (e.g. in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents). They also worked with the Technical Services team to add Duo Multifactor Authentication (MFA) for additional systems, including DestinyOne, PeopleAdmin and SciQuest (see full systems list here).
- The Network Services team performed a number of equipment and software upgrades, including updating controllers, access points, switches and related firmware on all campus locations. They also upgraded the Mac OS X VPN client available through the https://vpn.pace.edu page to better support OS Catalina. The client should upgrade automatically once the user connects to VPN. In addition, Networking expanded capacity to support additional VPN connections, including configuring access to specific course software required for distance learning. Overall, there are 700-800 users connecting to VPN daily.
- The Technical Services team migrated all applications in the Citrix environment (https://virtuallab.pace.edu) from Server 2016 to 2019 and installed a number of monthly security updates and patches to all other servers. In addition, they upgraded the ADFS server environment, which provides access to Office 365 apps.
- The Telecommunications team completed a firmware update on the Cisco administrative phones University-wide and also worked with our local and long distance service provider to perform scheduled maintenance on their network. For staff/faculty who are working remotely and would like to make and receive calls as if they are using their Pace office phone, they should open a Help Desk request and the Telecommunications staff will follow up to assist.
- The Web Services team worked with Technical Services to migrate the Pace University website to new servers and update the infrastructure. They also worked with the Office of Student Assistance (OSA) to reorganize helpful links on the MyPace Portal Student tab in a more meaningful way.