User Services Conference 2008
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Registration
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Presenters
User Services Conference Agenda
Note: The agenda below will be finalized and session descriptions added as the additional information becomes available.
| 8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. | Registration - Dean's Hall 1 & 2 Lobby Poster Sessions & Vendor Exhibits |
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| 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. | Opening Remarks - Dean's Hall 1 & 2 - Deb Metzel, Senior Support & Training Analyst, Information Technology Services, Conference Chair |
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Keynote Address: - Ken Forstmeier, Senior Director, Consulting and Support Services, Information Technology Services |
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| 11:00 a.m. - 11:15 a.m. | Break - Second Floor Break Area | |
| 11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. | Beyond the Numbers: Making a Difference - John Williams, Director, Information Technology Services Description: Often IT professionals are caught in the daily routine trying simply to meet the "status quo" by counting the customers served, the computers touched, and the phone calls and e-mails answered. This road often leads to mediocre performance with unhappy customers, unsatisfied management, and reoccurring problems. This presentation will focus on motivating people to make customer service a top priority by re-evaluating everyday situations and looking at the outcomes by comparing average service with outstanding service. While having fun, the attendees will evaluate how they can make a difference in their environment.Prerequisite skills: Interaction with customers |
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Wikis: Practical Uses for Organizing Information - Robin Anderson, Director, Information Technology Services Description: This session will discuss the various ways that wikis are being used within the ITS Marketing and Communications group. Practical applications will include managing meeting minutes, conducting search committee activities, facilitating collaboration, organizing group projects, and more. The session will also discuss the how-to's for the creation of a wiki. Prerequisite skills: Experience with using Web browsers |
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Five (5) Minute Computer Deployment - Shawn Albright, Information Technology Specialist, Penn State Mont Alto Description: In this session the Mont Alto Information Technology Services team will present an overview showing how it utilizes automated procedures and tools to deploy administrative computers in five minutes or less without using Symantec Ghost. Prerequisite skills: Knowledge of Group Policy, MSIs, unattended Windows installations, and BartPE helpful but not necessary. |
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Security for a New Age - Jenn Stewart, IPAS Project Technical Coordinator, Information Technology Services Description: Attendees will learn about new security tools, methodologies and best practices to meet upcoming security requirements. Attendees can also expect to gain an inside view of the Data Classification Scheme that will serve as the foundation for the IPAS Phase II initiatives. Prerequisite skills: none |
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| 12:15 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. | Buffet Lunch - Dean's Hall 1 & 2 Poster Sessions & Vendor Exhibits |
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| 1:15 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. | Examining Customer Service Satisfaction - Scott Weaver, Information Technology Manager, Information Technology Services Description: The ability to provide good customer service requires knowing the qualities important to customers and developing processes to determine the degree to which customer expectations are met. This presentation will look at the process Administrative Information Services used to develop a service philosophy and the steps taken to evaluate its effectiveness in providing quality service to customers. Prerequisite skills: None |
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Digital Commons: A Common Approach to Digital Content Creation - Hannah Sloan, Multimedia Specialist, Information Technology Services Description: Digital Commons provides digital media production facilities to students and faculty across the commonwealth. The service includes support for using these tools and for integrating them into teaching and learning. In the two short semesters since its inception, the project has seen much success. This presentation will share student and faculty outcomes including videos, podcasts, best practices, and the results of a recent statewide faculty focus group. It will also include a plan for using this information to move forward. Prerequisite skills: None |
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Building Collaborative Research Portals with Plone - Brian Panulla, Senior Technologist, IST Solutions Institute, College of Information Sciences and Technology Description: There is a growing need in higher education (HE) for tools to support scholarly and research collaboration. High focus is placed by funding agencies on collaboration across geographic and institutional boundaries. A secure, flexible Web-based platform able to facilitate such collaborative work is of tremendous value to the HE research community. The Population Research Institute and the College of Information Sciences and Technology are developing an extensible design using the Plone platform to meet these needs. The presenters will share some of the specific problems faced in facilitating online collaboration including information and file sharing, dataset storage, querying and analysis, and collaborative development of publications. The approaches used to address these problems will be presented. Prerequisite skills: Basic knowledge of data management concepts and Web server systems |
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New Pass - Prepare Yourself Before the July 4th Migration - Jeff D'Angelo, Programmer Analyst, Information Technology Services Description: Information Technology Services (ITS) invites members of the Penn State community to participate in testing the new technology that will fully support Penn State Access Account Storage Space (PASS) as of summer 2008. The final conversion to the new file system will be done over the first weekend in July. Customers can choose to migrate their own data in advance, but over July 4th weekend, all the data for every customer currently using PASS will be moved to the new system in preparation for the fall 2008 semester. Once all of the data is moved, access to the former PASS systems will no longer exist. Therefore, ITS strongly encourages all of its current PASS users to enroll in the open beta testing before the mandatory move takes place. This presentation will provide help desk and IT support staff with information needed to support the upcoming move. Prerequisite skills: Experience using PASS space, mapping drives and/or using secure FTP for file transfer |
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| 2:15 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. | Break - Second Floor Break Area | |
| 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. | Records Management: The Penn State Way - Jackie Esposito, University Archivist, University Libraries Description: This workshop will provide attendees with background information on the capture, utilization, storage, disposal and archiving of University records as delineated in AD35. Participants will learn records management standards, will review retention schedules, will evaluate electronic records issues, and will discuss historical records maintenance. Prerequisite skills: Preliminary Review of Administrative Policy AD35 |
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MyIT is Your IT - My IT Community - Connie Welch , ITS Consultant, Information Technology Services Description: The MyIT Community presentation will introduce a new way of fostering communication and collaboration within the Penn State IT community. Using the tools in the new user-driven venue of MyIT, IT professionals and users can share ideas, projects, challenges, information, questions, and solutions. Launched in late February, the community was created to enhance currently available resources for IT professionals and users. The creators are conducting user focus groups to fine-tune the site. Prerequisite skills: Experience with web browsers |
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Button, Button - Who's Got the Button? - John Roberts, Manager of Network & I.S., Schuylkill Campus Description:The clutter of podium remote controls and options can be overwhelming to faculty and staff who are merely trying to show a video or to display a Web page on the screen. The podium has a remote for the projector, a remote for the DVD/VHS player, a remote for the video conference system, a remote for the document camera, and a PC at the core of it along with a sound system attached to the whole mess. "What button do I have to push to get what I want to come up on the screen?" Sometimes support personnel are not familiar with the variety of devices in various rooms, and this causes faculty to question the effectiveness of the help desk. In order to find an inexpensive and reasonable means to assist podium users, staff at Penn State Schuylkill have deployed a student armed with a digital camera to create a solution using PowerPoint. This simple application now guides podium users through the confusion to the light of the screen. The presenter will demonstrate this inexpensive solution that not only reduces calls to the help desk, but also provides a feeling of satisfaction to faculty and staff who realize that their concerns are being heard and their problems are being solved. Prerequisite skills: Basic knowledge of PowerPoint |
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Business Continuity Planning: A Nicety or Necessity - Pam Downs, Business Continuity Consultant, Information Technology Services Description: Recently in the news, several higher education institutions have faced various risks that threaten their ability to conduct business in a normal manner. Due to the size and complexity of Penn State, planning for an event that could hinder the University's ability to continue business as usual is more imperative than ever. Administrative Information Services (AIS) provides several tools and services that can help departments and campuses build business continuity plans and strategies for recovery. This presentation will explain the planning process used at Penn State and will introduce the tools and services available. Prerequisite skills: None |
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| 3:30 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. | Break - Second Floor Break Area |
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| 3:45 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. | Birds of a Feather Sessions | |