Defining Technology at Ohio State During the First University-Wide IT Town Hall

Technology at Ohio State will continue to change and grow, and our IT professionals will lead that change, according to Provost Bruce McPheron and CIO Mike Hofherr.

In late October nearly 300 IT professionals from across the university gathered for the first ever IT Town Hall. The group discussed the future of Ohio State during presentations from contributors both outside of and within OCIO and ODEE. The meeting also included “Kudos Live” an opportunity for attendees to recognize great work completed by any of their IT partners. Other highlights included:

• Provost Bruce McPheron illustrated how the university’s strategic plan, Time and Change, ties into ongoing an upcoming technology initiatives.
• The OCIO/ODEE culture team shared how the organization has worked to transform its culture over the past few years to build stronger relationships with university stakeholders and other partners.
• Mike Hofherr explained the Ohio State IT Academy, an enterprise-wide initiative focused on investing in the growth of IT professionals throughout the university.
• Mike also discussed the concepts in the book “Badass: Making Users Awesome,” which is the basis of our customer service goals for FY18.
• The University IT Strategy, which is NOT a strategic plan, but a framework for how we can collectively focus our efforts, was discussed by IT Partnership members Joe Roush (College of Education and Human Ecology) and Tim Smith (College of Arts and Sciences), and OCIO representatives Bob Corbin, Diane Dagefoerde and Tracey Richardson.
• ODEE’S Liv Gjestvang and Amanda Folk from University Libraries detailed the work Ohio State is doing to create free-source online textbooks to improve affordability and access for students. Textbook prices have risen at three times the level of inflation over the past three decades.
• Steve Fischer from Enterprise Analytics Services illustrated how university leaders will be able to make better, more informed decisions as we continually improve our Data Warehouse.
• Dave Kieffer discussed the progress of The Enterprise Project, and how it will change our chartfield system and improve central data sources, reporting, analytics capabilities and administrative processes. The project will touch nearly all of the university’s current systems.
• Jen Simmons from ODEE and Cindy Anderson from the College of Nursing discussed plans for distance education enrollment, and how distance education is already making in impact for nursing students.
• ODEE’s Corey Tresser and Nicole Craft from the College of Arts and Sciences discussed Digital Flagship. Nicole shared how technology impacts her journalism students already, and she expects that impact to grow in the future.
• Jim Giuliani from the College of Engineering and Chief Information Security Officer Helen Patton talked about our “Three and Green in FY18” security initiative and how professionals throughout the university are working together to make it a reality.

Despite a packed agenda, 12 other contributors participated in “Slideshow Roulette,” a challenge to explain current projects in 30 seconds or less. CIO Mike Hofherr closed out the meeting with a short “Ask Me Anything”” session that include answering both questions submitted before the meeting and questions from anyone present.

Join us for our next IT Town Hall – look for details in 2018!