On September 8, 2017, Information Services hosted its annual 5S Day, a day focused on the LEAN methodology of improving efficiency and effectiveness by organizing and maintaining a clean, high-performance office environment. The five S’s stand for Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. The day started with a short lesson on the 5S Methodology by the Process and Evaluation team with additional information on the retention of records presented by Chris Muller, Manager of Enterprise Application Support. The main focus of the presentation was around the continual practice of staying...
KSUMobile is Kent State’s app for accessing information about the university across all campuses. Available on both iOS and Android platforms, over 4,000 people have downloaded the app with an average of 70 new users each day. Since the initial release of the app, IS has delivered various updates to improve performance and add new features – the latest additions being live bus tracking and book-buying capabilities released last fall. IS is currently working on a new update that strives to make KSUMobile better than ever. Historically, any new changes, features, or functionalities would need t...
Information Services has initiated a project to install a new firewall that will better protect the Kent State community from Internet threats. Kent State users are sent a barrage of malware, phishing attempts, and active hacking attacks. While the current system blocks a great number of these threats, the new firewall will be capable of intelligently, automatically, and proactively identifying and stopping most known malicious software and attacks without any intervention from IS staff, drastically reducing the impacts of these threats and increasing the safety of our network users. In add...
Beginning in Fall 2017, a portion of the university community will begin piloting a security enhancement to FlashLine called Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). MFA provides additional security protections whereby accessing an account requires a username, password and an additional factor that is randomly generated at login time. This additional factor can be distributed to a personal email address, cell phone via call or text, desk phone or through the use of an app on a smartphone. Using this additional authentication factor will drastically reduce and prevent impacts from compromised account...
The Division of Information Services once again demonstrated its strong students-first philosophy to freshman and transfer students new to Kent State University. Incoming students eased their transition to the Kent Campus by seeking help at TechHelp tents and tables located throughout campus during Welcome Weekend and the first week of classes. On Thursday and Friday of Welcome Weekend, five TechHelp tents were located near the four main Residence Hall clusters (Eastway, Tri-Towers, Centennial Court, and the Quad) and near the Kent Student Center. Information Services and Federated Support st...
Information Services has launched DocuSign, an electronic signature capture platform that replaces printing, faxing, scanning, and mailing documents, potentially making every approval and decision digital. At present, 136 templates have been published, with many more to come. The initial focus was on streamlining the onboarding process for HR, Academic Personnel, Payroll, and Student Employment. The longer manual, paper process can now operate as fast as a few mouse-clicks. ...
Software.kent.edu is a new portal for Kent State students, faculty, and staff to download free software such as Microsoft Office. Software titles are displayed based on the user’s role, so only software that is available will be visible to download. The portal automated a process that previously could take up to 72 hours to fulfill, eliminating the wait time and making for a better user experience. ...
Every day it seems another cyber security breach has been discovered that may directly impact you. Were you one of the 40 million people who used a bank card at Target in December 2013 and had your information stolen? Or one of the estimated 143 million Americans whose personal data was stolen recently in the massive Equifax data breach? October was National Cyber Security Awareness month, and Information Services participated by hosting some fun and informative events across the university. At the Haunted Library event, students had the opportunity to answer email phishing trivia questions...
Making technology services and support more accessible to faculty, staff, and students is not an easy task, but it is one for which Information Services strives. This is why IS is pleased to announce the upcoming launch of a new service catalog, ticketing system, and updated website. Over the past year, IS analyzed how services were requested and identified which services are most relevant. The result will be an improved web presence that merges elements of the IS website, support.kent.edu, and a newly reimagined service catalog. The main goal of the redesign is to put the most relevant inf...
Kent State University has been awarded the 2017 Encouraging Environmental Excellence (E3) Silver-level award from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The award recognizes Kent State as a leading university in environmental stewardship. Melanie Knowles, Kent State’s manager for sustainability, received the award on behalf of the university. According to the Ohio EPA, the goal of environmental stewardship is to reduce the impact of business or organizational activities on the environment beyond measures required by any permit or rule, produce a better environment and conserve natu...