submitted on behalf of Keith W. "Mac" McIntosh
Colleagues,
Digital Instruction and Information Services (DIIS) (former Information Technology Services or ITS) is undergoing a major transformation which impacts all provided services. I am writing you today to provide you with a general update about some of the expanded services for teaching and learning that will be coming by the end of the academic year, along with a specific update about our Optical Scanning services.
We currently have a national search underway for an experienced Director for Teaching and Learning with Technology to provide leadership and management for this important area. I am pleased to say we have a large, robust pool of candidates. The search is being led by Associate Professor, Howard Kalman from the Park School of Communications. The search committee is comprised primarily of faculty and colleagues closely associated with teaching and learning. We expect to have finalists on campus during late December or early January. We hope that you will attend one of the open sessions with the candidates. More details will be posted to Intercom closer to those presentations.
We will also be expanding our Teaching and Learning support staff, by adding two instructional designers and two distributed learning technology support staff members. Collectively, these individuals will provide a much higher level of support to you and your efforts in the classroom. We hope to have many of these positions filled by the middle of the Spring semester.
This spring, our Service Desk hours will be expanding to include Sundays (Noon – 8 PM) and longer hours Monday – Thursday (8 AM to 8 PM) – Friday hours will remain the same (8 AM to 5 PM). We hope to rollout these new hours around the start of the Spring semester.
As part of our overall transition, we are transitioning how we provide Optical Scanning service within DIIS. We will continue to provide the service, but some of the details with how it is provided and the turnaround time are being changed.
Drop off hours:
Specifically, for the remainder of the semester exam drop off will be Monday - Friday between 8 AM and 5 PM at the DIIS (formerly ITS) Service Desk in Job Hall.
Turn Around Time:
We are striving to maintain the 1 business day or less turnaround time as we have in the past. During exam week the turnaround time may be a bit longer, depending on the volume of exams received at any particular times. We ask for you to plan accordingly. Also, please double-check that the keys are filled out correctly – we’ve had some recent examples where they were not, and that led to processing delays.
Priority for Exams:
During finals week priority will be given to processing exams, as such, course evaluations will be processed as time allows.
Future:
These are just some of the many changes that we are working on in the new DIIS organization. You can learn more about our efforts to Transform IT at IC on our new DIIS web site: www.ithaca.edu/diis. We will be posting periodic updates there and in Intercom as appropriate. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we transition our services!
As always, if you have any suggestions or concerns, please drop me a note – I’d love to hear from you! Thank you!
Keith W. "Mac" McIntosh
Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Digital Instruction and Information Services (DIIS)
310 Job Hall
cio@ithaca.edu
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20151117134405637