Author: itcomm

For nearly 10 years I have worked at Michigan State University in a variety of capacities to create better learning experiences with technology. I currently work with MSU IT and the Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology as an Instructional Designer.

For the past year, I have been working with several instructors on how to utilize technology to more directly relate to students in the classroom. Read Full Article →

Qualtrics offers its users many powerful features, so many that it can be hard to keep track of them.

We’d like to highlight a couple of these useful tools for customizing your MSU Qualtrics survey using the “Look and Feel” menu and the an authenticator to limit access to your survey. Read Full Article →

MSU Information Technology has been working on several new technology services for departments, as well as faculty, staff, and IT staff.

University agreements for cloud services with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are underway. These cloud services offer exceptional compute power, database storage, content delivery features, and other functionality to fill a range of needs including servers, long-term data storage, mobile application development, and storing and analyzing large volumes of data. Read Full Article →

MSU IT launched a new technology knowledge system providing MSU students, faculty, and staff access to help and support information. This new system may be accessed one of two ways:

• The MSU IT Service Desk application or
• The Unified Self Service portal.

Articles of particular importance to individuals without an MSU NetID (e.g., Read Full Article →

The MSU IT Council met on October 5 and November 2. Below are the high-level topic summaries from the meetings.

MSU IT will replace aging open source systems and developed scripts related to the Domain Name System (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and system for Internet Protocol (IP) address requests. Read Full Article →

MSU now supports Top Hat student response system software that can be used by instructors and students at MSU. Top Hat can also be synchronized with MSU D2L grades and rosters.

The Top Hat platform can help instructors engage students inside and outside the classroom. Students can use their own mobile devices or laptops to answer questions, view annotated slides, join in discussions, and enter attendance codes. Read Full Article →

The MSU IT Council met on September 15. Below are the high-level topic summaries from the meeting.

Rob McCurdy, Interim Chief Information Officer, said the MSU Board of Trustees approved the construction budget to build a new data center for the university. Construction was scheduled to begin in September 2016 and to be completed by February 2018. Read Full Article →

The MSU IT Council met on August 3. Below are the high-level topic summaries from the meeting.

Rob McCurdy was named Interim Chief Information Officer for MSU as of August 1. He plans on continuing the strategy and projects outlined on bolderit.msu.edu. Rob says he looks forward to learning more about the broader MSU culture and being more visible to campus, the IT Exchange group, and the MSU IT Council. Read Full Article →

The MSU IT Council met on June 1. Below are the high-level topic summaries from the meeting.

Barb Dawson, Assistant Vice President of IT Strategy, reported on the “Top 15” technology projects as reported by the MSU IT Project Management Office. She explained that several criteria are used to classify a project as “Top 15” including if the project is high profile for MSU, if the project is funded, and if it is an innovation project and/or it supports the MSU Bolder IT vision to Strengthen, Align, and Innovate. Read Full Article →

The MSU IT Council met on March 2. Below are the high-level topic summaries from the meeting.

Sharan Kalwani, Director of the High Performance Computing Center, presented the services offered by the Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research (iCER). iCER is designed to help all MSU researchers do their computational work, and when appropriate scale researchers up to a national lab. Read Full Article →