Dear Highlander Community,
It is an exciting time for innovation in higher education. Advancements in technology that accelerate research, enhance student learning, facilitate collaboration, better protect data, and automate workflows are increasingly within reach.
When I joined UCR at this time last year, I was asked to develop a new strategic plan and vision for IT that would support and strengthen the University’s mission and campus plans. Provost Watkins noted at the time that I would oversee a period of significant change and growth.
That change and growth is here. Information Technology Solutions has created a multi-year strategic plan, which includes leading the campus through a Digital Transformation that strives to simplify, improve, and leverage technology for the betterment of the student, faculty, and staff experience.
Digital Transformation Initiatives
Connecting our Campus Community with Slack: One of the primary goals of the campus Digital Transformation is to bring all of UCR together on common platforms so that we can learn, teach, work, and collaborate seamlessly. ITS has invested in Slack Enterprise Grid, a centralized, secure virtual space where students, faculty, and staff can communicate, collaborate, share content, and much more.
Having everyone in our Highlander community on the same platform provides the flexibility to have separate yet connected workspaces across the University. What’s more, Slack is the preferred collaboration tool within the UC system, meaning you can connect outside of UCR, too!
Research at Cloud Scale with Ursa Major: Thanks to ITS' new research computing strategy and a first-of-its-kind agreement with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), UCR will now boast pioneering research computing services. Ursa Major will provide game-changing research innovation and scale for researchers by expanding campus research computing services.
Enhanced, Sustainable Communications with Zoom Phone Services: Existing telephony services are over a decade old, impacting reliability and lacking important features that UCR needs to operate effectively and efficiently. As part of the campus' Digital Transformation, ITS has entered into a service agreement with Zoom that will unify the campus with a common, modern telephony platform: Zoom Phones.
Learn more about Zoom Phone Services
Advanced Classrooms and Meeting Spaces with Zoom Rooms: The Rooms for Increasing Student Engagement (RISE) effort has provided a jumping-off point to improve classroom technology and enhance learning. As a result of the success of this effort, along with the continued space constraints on campus and demand for flexible working and learning environments, ITS has invested in the next edition of RISE with the purchase of a unique service agreement with Zoom.
Learn more about RISE: Generation Zoom
Data-driven Decisions with Improved Data Literacy and Governance: Foundational to the ultimate success of our campus goals is the data being used to measure progress. As part of the campus Digital Transformation, ITS has developed an enterprise data strategy to bring together key data assets and ensure that they are trusted, secure, easily accessible, and of the highest quality.
Learn more about the Enterprise Data Strategy
Resilient, Agile IT Services with Google Cloud Platform: As part of the campus Digital Transformation, ITS has developed a cloud migration strategy that will utilize a new service agreement with Google Cloud Platform (GCP). GCP is a collection of cloud computing services that can be used to build, deploy, and manage applications and infrastructure on the internet. Essentially, it's a set of tools and resources that can be used to create and run software in the cloud.
Learn more about the migration to Cloud Enterprise Infrastructure
More Secure, Streamlined Identity and Access Management with IAMRiverside: IAMRiverside, UCR’s new identity and access management architecture, will greatly improve our campus’ security posture and streamline the user account lifecycle to ensure the right individuals have access to the right resources, at the right times, for the right reasons.
How Can I Learn More?
Step 1: Sign up to receive the Digital Digest newsletter, which will provide project updates, resources, and key dates as they become available.
Step 2: Visit the ITS website at https://its.ucr.edu/projects to learn more about a specific Digital Transformation effort.
Step 3: Stay tuned! There will be much more information to follow.