IT governance roundup

Teaching and Learning Portfolio

February 27-28

• The Teaching and Learning Portfolio met over two days to deliberate the Learning Spaces / student computing fees applications and awards. Most requests were either funded or partially funded, with just a few denied due to the requests falling outside the approved funding criteria.

Strategic Information Technology Committee (SITC)

March 20 • Agenda

• Randy Arvay, Chief Information Security Officer, presented multiple items. He first explained that efforts have been made over the past few months to educate users about the free options for 2FA (Duo Push and App Passcode) and discourage use of methods that cost (‘call my phone’ and SMS), but thousands of users are still electing to use the latter, costing the University an average of $20k/year. Arvay proposed to eliminate the call/SMS 2FA options. The committee approved this proposal, with the condition that a small fund be set aside for departments that cannot afford to purchase the $23 tokens for users who are unable to use the Duo smartphone app.
• Arvay presented the challenge of de-provisioning access (relating to elevated privileges at the U) and talked about how ISO is working on making improvements to that process.
• Arvay proposed moving to a default/deny firewall policy, which is industry standard, and the committee voted to approve the proposal.
• Lastly, Arvay recommended encrypting all university-owned devices. The committee agreed (although no vote was held), and emphasized the importance of communication with this change.
• Trevor Long, associate director for UIT Network & Core, presented a proposal to move general UConnect over to private IP space (which was approved at the last ANTC meeting), and SITC then voted to approve this, as well.
• James Elder, associate director for Continuing Education, presented on his department's search for a new class registration system.
• Jon Thomas, director for Teaching & Learning Technologies, presented a review of the computer lab statistics monitoring pilot (statistics were gathered from November 1 to December 15, 2017). He proposed allowing future Learning Spaces funding to be tied to the collection of lab statistics (i.e., departments and colleges requesting funding from Learning Spaces/student computing fees must collect data from their labs before requesting funding). The committee voted to approve.
• Jim Livingston, Chief Technology Officer, gave an overview of what his area has been working on, focusing especially on the launch of UCloud, the U's new hybrid cloud service.
• Ken Pink, Deputy CIO, gave an overview of the past two Software Anywhere ad hoc committee meetings and the progress made thus far.

Architecture and New Technology Committee (ANTC)

March 26 • Agenda

• Randy Arvay, Chief Information Security Officer, presented the proposal of moving to a default/deny firewall policy (which SITC approved at its last meeting) and explained that his group will be working closely with ANTC, as well as the Network Community of Practice, to properly implement the policy.
• Dave Packham, UMail & Collaboration manager for Network & Communications Infrastructure, presented a proposal to shift all incoming/outbound SMTP mail to smtp.utah.edu, working with campus constituents and executing a communications plan, in an effort to eventually block all other incoming/outbound SMTP. The committee voted to approve.
• Trevor Long, associate director for UIT Network & Core, gave an update on the ULink pilot project.
• Arvay explained that SITC approved eliminating the Duo 2FA telephony (call/SMS) options for campus users (after a targeted communications campaign).
• Jon Thomas, director for Teaching & Learning Technologies, presented an update on the lab statistics discussion and vote from the last SITC meeting.

Enterprise Web Advisory Council (EWAC)

• The March EWAC meeting was canceled.

 

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