Allen Building Boardroom
Announcements
Tracy Futhey: At the last meeting, we mentioned we are inviting you to share names of faculty colleagues who might be great candidates for ITAC membership. Please pass along any names to me.
Victoria Szabo: We also want to congratulate Michael Greene who has accepted the role of Senior Director of Learning Innovation Systems.
4:00 - 4:45pm: OIT Response to State of IT Report from Undergraduate and Graduate Students - Duke OIT (45 mins)
What It is: OIT Leadership will share feedback and insights in response to the State of IT surveys from the Undergraduate and Graduate community. The results from these surveys were shared by our student representatives in March.
Why It is Relevant: Feedback from the students allows IT administrators to hear firsthand the challenges that students face on a regular basis. This information can help set goals and priorities for various IT projects and initiatives. Upon review of the information provided, IT leadership now has the opportunity to respond to the students' current obstacles and concerns.
Slides: "C:\Users\jbp60\Box\Information Technology Advisory Council\ITAC\Speaker Presentations\2023-24\040424 ITAC\040424 ITAC Survey Response.pptx"
Camile Jackson: I’m the Communications Director for OIT and helped compile a response to the student survey last week. These are the topics that rose to the top. It’s always good to get feedback from students and hear how we can improve our products and services. We will start with a discussion of Canvas.
Michael Greene: Thank you for the feedback. Most of it was anticipated. There were four overarching themes.
Canvas:
Canvas Login is too many clicks. This was a conscious decision to increase our ability to communicate during the transition to Canvas.
• If users have an active Shib session and go to canvas.duke.edu, they can skip go.canvas
• You can bookmark the canvas login link if you wish to avoid going to the go.canvas site
• Duke Unlock can speed up Canvas login
Faculty received limited training on designing courses. We don’t know that it was limited training, but it is a big change. We need to give faculty some grace. Duke faculty have choices in building out their Canvas site, so it is unlikely that a uniform experience will happen across campus.
• We've had over 1800 canvas workshop registrations this past year
• Training resources are available on the go.canvas site, including self-guided materials, videos, one-on-one consultations.
Assignment Notifications. There were comments about differences between Canvas and Sakai. Canvas can be customized.
• Users can switch notification frequency in Account > Notifications
• Canvas sets the default to weekly or daily notifications depending on the item, but can be changed
Straddling Sakai & Canvas. Some project sites may continue to use Sakai, but otherwise this is the last semester.
• We consciously decided to transition between platforms on an accelerated timeline
• Most universities transition within 2-3 years, Duke’s transition has been 1 year
• 66% of courses using a LMS used Canvas this spring. 100% will be on Canvas moving forward
Regarding Artificial Intelligence. This is the statement on our website. LILE can also help formulate instructor statements. We have been in conversation with students, faculty and administration, a diversity of stakeholders which has been useful.
Learning Innovation and Lifetime Education (LILE)’s guidance:
• The instructor decides what the appropriate use of AI is for their course and should include a statement in their syllabus outlining that appropriate use.
• We’re committed to facilitating conversations between all Duke stakeholders and continuing to re-evaluate the impact of AI in teaching and learning in this constantly changing space.
• As Duke's needs change, LILE's services and programs will change to meet those needs.
Tracy Futhey: It might be useful to note that Yakut Gazi and others are helping the provost plan an AI Summit, coming up in a few weeks.
John Board: I don’t think my department or CS has any kind of department level guidance about AI use in courses. It’s been up to faculty.
Evan Levine: Our stance is that we are actively working on having access to AI in the most reasonable way possible, but not to get too far ahead of what groups like LILE are doing. This tricky timing, we want to give people access as needed to do good work. We are working closely with academic units to this.
Camile Jackson: Our next topic is Duke Hub. Chris Derrickson was unable to be here today, so we will just review the slide:
• Registration
• We continue to load-test DukeHub before every registration cycle. During the November 2023 registration senior window, when 1187 students enrolled, we had 1092 students enroll in less than a minute.
• Class Search
• We will share feedback with the vendor about the efficiency and design and push for continued improvements to the design and function
• SISS will work with OIT to research the “bad request” issue in DukeHub, Canvas, and Sakai further and look for ways to address/mitigate the issue
• Degree audit/what-if reports
• Change is on the way! The University Registrar's Office took over the degree audit processes and a new tool for degree progress and planning, called Stellic
• Pratt is using already and Trinity is currently planning to use
• Course Evaluations
• Moved to the University Registrar's Office
• The Assessment team would welcome additional feedback from students to better understand concerns and suggestions for improvement.
• Upcoming Enhancements
• A self-service option for undergrads to declare their major
• A Ph.D. grad tracking tool
John Board: Even more students registered today. We can say that the system is robust. What comments were made about registration?
Andy Li: Most students were frustrated with registration in general. Even if you click the exact moment registration opens, you could get the class or can be number thirty on the waitlist. I don’t know how OIT could handle that with some many students registering at the same time. That’s general feedback.
Andy Li: We saw very few comments about issues during registration. Most comments were about people being unhappy that they didn’t get the classes they wanted.
Charlie Kneifel: There was one idea proposed about primary and secondary class to look at quickly. If you didn’t get the class you wanted, you would have a secondary.
Andy Li: There is a feature called “Drop If Enrolled’ that lets you have back-up classes
John Board: All that is policy, not technology.
Stefan Bass: Who handles that policy?
Victoria Szabo: Registrar’s Office
Andy Li: Students don’t want to fight to get into class. There are inconsistences with how it works. Sometimes a class will have fewer slots available for students than the actual classroom can hold.
Tracy Futhey: This might be a bigger conversation with the SISS office. It might be a good time to check in to make sure if we have it quite right.
Robert Wolpert: Can we get the right people in the room for this?
Colin Rundel: Duke Hub being the one repository for all this information is a headache. For our department, we have a website for our courses, but that lists every class we’ve ever offered, not necessarily what currently offered or for the next semester. The students see that and want to take one of those courses. We are keeping classes on the books so that we don’t have to go through the request process again. And then students have to go to other places to see what we are offering. An API or something that we can automatically populate and pull from the registrar's office would be immensely useful for everyone.
John Board: Let’s make a note to make this a future topic for ITAC.
Sunshine Hillygus: I want to find out how the Registrar’s Office assigns classrooms.
Bob Johnson: For cellular coverage, we are looking for feedback as to where the issues are, if they are in-building or outdoors.
• New additions to the DAS (distributed antenna system), which now T- Mobile, ATT and Verizon. It’s an enhancement of the carriers in the area. It’s primarily in building,
• Outdoor, especially off-campus in the areas around 9th Street and East Campus, continues to be a challenge and as a residential area it’s difficult for the carriers to get spots to place macros. Some improvements have been made on 9th Street, but it’s hard with new construction.
• The carriers have plans to enhance coverage in those areas but outdoor roof top installations take time due to permitting and budget concerns. We continue to try and locate advantageous locations. Blue Light Condos may be a good location for macros
• We have our first 5G installations happening in the sports complexes over the summer and will begin a multi-year project to upgrade services in our buildings. We are also working on the hospitals.
Andy Li: A few students specifically mention Bioscience 111 as a room having issues. Others were scattered. Other than that, it was the C1 bus route, East Campus and 9th street.
Bob Johnson: There are no quick fixes, these things can take up to two years. They are working on it. They did the Mill condo complex recently. They put antennas on that and it helped some.
You will start to see 5G pop up on campus.
John Board: We have a new person joining us today. We have an official GPSC rep again. Welcome to Anvita Kulshrestha. We have a second rep who isn’t in Durham now, but should be able to join us for some of the summer meetings.
Camile Jackson: Next on the list is outlet accessibility
Bob Johnson: This is an FMD issue, but here is the feedback from them.
• From Steve Palumbo, FMD:
• As any spaces are created or renewed, electrical outlet capacity is always evaluated.
• Should you find any existing outlets not working please notify Facilities Management at fixit.oit.duke.edu/category
We will talk with students and other stakeholders where outlets should be added for the campus. He also asked that if any outlets are broken to please report them immediately.
Andy Li: Overall, students were happy with accessibility. It was mostly outdoor study areas. Free fruit in Able quad
David Smith: Hi everyone, I’m David Smith the manager of the Network Engineering Team. We are responsible for Wi-Fi both in and outside. Across the board we had better results than last year in terms of WiFi. We think that is because of our approach to down APs. This time last year we were at three hundred, that seems like a lot, but we have ten thousand of them. The idea is that if we lose one, the signal strength is actually powered up by the AP near it. Our concern is the hospitality Aps in the dorm. They may not bleed through the walls as well. So, when we see a down AP there, we fix it. We have gone from three hundred to only four down right now.
Other updates include:
• Partnered with Student Affairs to streamline the escort process for repairs in residence halls, and reduced the number of down APs
• BIO-SCI 111 – we are very aware of that problem. We have seen over eight hundred connections in that room.
• Added two APs and replaced 4 others with the latest model. We have ordered directional APs and that should help us go to eight APs in there.
• Ciemas Labs
• Deployed APs to 4 labs that previously were without wireless access.
• Continued Wireless refresh
• More than 2,000 APs will be replaced this summer, including a deployment in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
• Areas addressed over the past year:
• Edens Quad
• Back of the Chapel
• Duke Gardens
• Keohane Quad
Areas targeted for Summer 2024
• Duke Garden expansion
• Kilgo Quad
• Craven Quad
• Few Quads
Andy Li: Do we know the specific problem with Bio-Sci 111?
David Smith: It’s the amount of devices connected. We have seen eight hundred connections on four APs. We haven’t heard any negative feedback since we added the two. We do have a plan to put in the directional and saturate it with more signals so that we can handle more. We have seen the same thing with Griffith Theater. They are teaching classes in there. We do have a plan to put in a directional there as well.
Victoria Szabo: How much redundancy do you need? Do you need to have three times the capacity?
David Smith: Yes, that’s right. Additionally, we see a spike when people come back to campus. It’s growing exponentially.
Charlie Kneifel: People just walking by the room and connect. That adds to the numbers.
Robert Wolpert: We’ve heard lots of concerns about the C1 bus route.
David Smith: We would like some feedback. We had deployed APS at the stop. We have wireless on the bus.
Bob Johnson: The issue with the buses is the same issue with the cellular signal because it is dependent on signal strength. So, there are gaps when you get closer to East Campus.
David Smith: We have cell routers in the buses connecting the cell and that propagates the Wi-Fi onto the bus.
Andy Li: Wasn’t there mention of a mesh system for that area?
David Smith: We had talked about mesh for Duke Gardens. It’s complicated for the gardens because of the distance from where the equipment is located.
Charlie Kneifel: And we have similar challenges of power along Campus Drive with the lights and power.
John Board: Do we see correlated failures of the Wi-Fi?
David Smith: We do. We do have monitoring set up. So, if a number of APs, a certain percentage of APs goes down in a building, we get an alarm. That is sent to the SOC. We have certain mechanisms internally to check on certain things like number of connections, things that aren’t bubbled up, that we use for capacity planning. We do get alerted on a percentage of APs going down.
Charlie Kneifel: The biggest cause of that is power outages.
David Smith: On wireless we have different spectrums. We have 2.4. where you see lots of clients. Five is where you see most of your machines or iPhones, it’s less congested. We turned off 2.4 on Duke Blue several years ago, on Cisco’s recommendation. However, 2.4 goes through walls better. We are investigated turning it back on.
Camille Jackson: Next up we have Duke Card
Bob Johnson: We want to get a better understanding of why there is a need a physical Duke card. There is a big cost difference between a fully functioning chip card and an ID only card. We want to understand the need for having a physical card.
Need for a physical DukeCard: We have been meeting with students and stakeholders and will continue those discussions to better understand the exceptions to “mobile first,” where a physical card may be needed
Vending Readers: We are rolling out a problem reporting tool for all vending, laundry, and door readers, starting with the vending readers and hope to have them completed in May. We hope to have all door readers completed over the summer.
Android Issues: Since the start of the year, after updates and tests, all readers should accept Apple and Android devices. If you find one that does not, please report it to us.
Victoria Szabo: People don’t like to have to use their personal device. Additionally, people may leave their phones in their bag when they go to the bathroom and get locked out of spaces. Sometimes the mobile just doesn’t work.
Robert Wolpert: Couldn’t you sell them cards for $5 or so?
Bob Johnson: Yes, that is a model with a number of our peer institutions, where they are available for a fee.
Andy Li: From a student perspective there are a few reasons. Some vending machines don’t accept the mobile, cell phones die, or people replace their phones and they are locked out. Some people want one because they like them, but they need a card that functions as a backup.
Zoe Tishaev: Fundamentally it is a class issue. Not everyone has an NFC enabled device to use. Having an alternative is important.
Sunshine Hillygus: Can you use the Duke Card for voter i.d.?
Bob Johnson: No, those are separate.
Zoe Tishaev: Also, they can be used for student discounts.
Anvita Kulshrestha: I’m with the School of Medicine and not all cards work everywhere, sometimes the mobile apps are not always working.
Bob Johnson: The team has been working on a bar code fpr vending machines to report issues. We need to understand where the problems are quickly. The Android issues were earlier this year and seems to feel it has been resolved. But let us know if that isn’t the case.
The readers on the vending machines and the laundry need to be changed out, their end of service is soon.
Camille Jackson: Next up we have Nick Tripp to talk about Duke Unlock.
Nick Tripp:
• We are investigating the Chrome-specific issue mentioned with DukeHub.
• We now offer the 1Password password manager for free for all students which, when combined with Duke Unlock, makes issues with browsers “forgetting” Duke Unlock a thing of the past. It also makes repetitive logins easy for any website.
Frequent Authentication/Authentication Session Duration
• We will soon be increasing the duration of the “Remember Me” option for authentication to reduce the overall number of times authentication is required. We will be updating that to five days soon.
We are hearing from people that they register their browser and then the registration goes away. It’s the nature of each individual browser handling the registration. The easiest solution is the 1Password password manager. We realize there needs to be more documentation on that.
Tracy Futhey: So, we have bigger campaign coming around on how to use 1Password and Duke Unlock?
Nick Tripp: Adoption of 1Password has been higher than expected, people like the service.
Colin Rundel: The issue has come up with Chrome giving a bad pathways error. You either have to change browsers or clear your cookies. It is idiosyncratic and affects some people more than others.
Charley Kneifel: It has to do with cookie size, when you get beyond a certain volume, you have to clear the cookies.
Camille Jackson: Next up we will talk about TransLoc
Bob Johnson: Parking is not OIT. Here is the information from the parking and transportation team. They hear the issues and our working on it. As we’ve said, they are dependent on the cellular network and some of the areas have problems.
From Beth Campbell at TransLoc:
• Current staff will receive refresher training to ensure that we leverage all of TransLoc’s capabilities and brush up on the basics of schedule setting.
• The transit dispatchers are making a concentrated effort to promptly add or update notices in TransLoc when buses or vans are significantly off-schedule due to roadway construction, accidents or other factors.
• Service alerts placed in TransLoc fixed route software (i.e., Duke Transit buses) carry over to the TransLoc OnDemand app.
• TransLoc fixed route software will be upgraded significantly within the next 6 months.
• This is important because we will be required to update the location transponders on all our buses and vans which will result in displaying more accurate locations.
Camille Jackson: Our last one is ePrint
Paula Batton: You can see the numbers of work done. We aren’t seeing anything major in the tickets. But we are trying to identify what the issues are.
• 309,004 successful jobs
• 3,267,645 pages printed
• 175 support tickets
• In past year reviewed alternatives to ePrint
Support Tickets:
• 92 (How to, simple installs, general Duke Printing questions)
• 22 (Physical printer)
• 14 (Quota increase related)
• 8 (Quota refund related)
• 5 (Quota general questions)
• 9 (Reinstall or Known popup error)
• 4 (Confusion over multi-queue approach)
John Robinson: We are looking at other potential vendors of print software, and picked one to do a proof of concept with. We had a three-month engagement with them, and unfortunately, they did not qualify. We had challenges with the client install and other things. They are working on potential solutions. In the meantime, our current vendor has come up with a cloud approach and they are looking for early adopters. So, we are in discussions with them. They have worked with us over the years and are willing to make improvements. The biggest thing we are looking for is a seamless opportunity.
Andy Li: For specific details in ePrint, based on the survey, most people were okay with the mobile ePrint, it was Pharos was getting the complaints. There are issues with the app, the data transferring can be confusing and buggy. it’s not intuitive and the number of satisfied students outweighed the unsatisfied.
Charlie Kneifel: We are replacing 25live with EMS. There are pilots going on now. Working to get it integrated with Microsoft.
• The current EMS project is moving toward a central service for viewing availability and scheduling all rooms at Duke – all schools and admin programs
• In discussions with Student Affairs re: residential spaces, Broadhead, Bryan Center
• Learn more about EMS
• https://oit.duke.edu/service/ems-space-management-and-room-scheduling/
• https://oit.duke.edu/news/coming-soon-new-ems-integrations-roll-out-spring/
• Spring rollout project. The next major phase of the project will support integration of EMS and DukeHub
• Will work to onboard the schools currently using 25Live so that all non-course space scheduling will be managed in EMS.
Camille Jackson: And finally, we have this information from Student Affairs.
From Housing and Residential Life, Student Affairs:
• The Facility Planning and Operation team will establish a review and inspection process to identify the TV's that may require work or updating. Once we Identify these units we will correct the issues, including missing remotes.
• Students can contact the campus office to submit a work order, if they have issues with the residence hall TVs.
• We will also explore signage, reminding students of the proper process to follow to submit a OIT work order.
• upperclasscampus@duke.edu for West Campus
• rlhs-east@duke.edu for East Campus
4:45 - 5:00pm - Remote/Hybrid Work: Lessons Learned in 4 years - Antwan Lofton (VP, Human Resources) (10 minutes presentation, 5 minutes Q&A)
What It is: At Duke, schools and departments are still settling into a new normal with remote/hybrid work for staff, faculty and students. We've learned a lot and gained valuable insights about remote work based on the events of the past 4 years.
Why It is Relevant: We recognize that a more flexible work environment is here to stay if we are to recruit and retain the talent needed to support the goals and ambitions of Duke’s academic units.
Antwan Lofton: Thank you for inviting us today. When we talk about what did we learn during the pandemic and post pandemic about working remote, it’s interesting, anytime a university system starts borrowing from corporate America, and they’re stating that this is a new term, for most of us we know this was not a new term. It was something that became much more appropriate in higher education and lessons that we were learning. We want to discussion the survey sent out to all Duke employees regarding this topic. At the end we will answer questions.
Paul Grantham: Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been asking questions as to what employee behavior looks like. We have been doing this now for four years and this is the latest results from the survey we did in December. This includes the university and health system.
There is some transition over time:
• Closer to the pandemic more people were working five days a week remotely.
• Last two years we are settling out, we think it is becoming the new norm.
• There are fewer people working fully remote, most are hybrid.
• More are returning to the office on a five day a week basis.
• The majority of people preferred to work fully remote, followed by a hybrid schedule.
The benefits of working remotely include no commute, flexibility, enhanced productivity, improved wellbeing.
The challenges continue to focus on setting work life boundaries since the work is always there, social isolation, other is now above technology as a challenge. Thank you to the focus working to make technology better.
We also did a managing at Duke survey, just for the university. We asked managers specifically, what are you doing?
• Hybrid was the top response.
• The number one benefit of managing was employee satisfaction.
• Challenges were maintaining sense of culture and community.
That’s the number one issue, how to help new people understand what it means to work at Duke, without being onsite and engaging with people. We are looking at how do we help foster those things, how we help with that. One option is employee resource groups, to help foster a sense of belonging. One of the groups is for remote employees.
We added a new health care plan for people outside North Carolina. We have five hundred people working outside North Carolina in one of our twenty approved states, and that number is likely to grow. Our numbers are 62% range of people working hybrid or part-time remote. We are higher than the national average, but there is a lot of push in corporate America to bring people back into the office. We are cautious about mandating anything like that.
Antwan Lofton: I’m going to comment on one of the major lessons we learned.
Many years ago, there were times when getting out of my vehicle turned into an unscheduled meeting time with the CEO, which turns into other meetings with leaders and future mentors. Individuals that are joining the workforce, where they are 100% remote in many cases, are missing out on those unscheduled opportunities. So, one of the challenges that we were facing is how do we continue to purposely now schedule those check in moments to see how are things going? We are working to build out those programs. We are looking at how to help new staff learn personalities and working onsite.
Some things we didn’t prepare for were states that have different detailed items on paystubs, FMLA policies, workers comp issues, things that could be a claim while remote. The employee experience of working remotely will remain. It is not an administrative decision as to how and who comes back to the office. Duke has allowed the functional leaders to look at the positions and functions and make the decision. Thank you for helping us with the technology to help us to work remotely.
Yakut Gazi: A comment on what you said. I think we need to be honest with people that we don’t quite know the impact fully remote work has on career progression, especially those choosing to go to another state.
Stefan Bass: In my role as department chair, who sort of straddles both worlds. The worlds of the administrative staff, but also the role of faculty and students. I’ve experienced our lack of competitiveness because remote work was more appealing.
There are the number of frustrations that that I have to articulate coming from sort of the academic management side.
• The first is the hybrid work schedules always pan out that no one shows up on a Friday, staff or faculty. I walk through a building and it’s just empty hallways. And that at the institution where students or somebody for the students pays a whopping premium for bricks and mortar education. I’m having a hard time getting people back to the workplace to provide this experience that sets us apart.
• Coming back to the administrative staff, a big part of my day is problem solving involving human beings, across teams of human beings. And so much communication is non-verbal communication, you can sense how people understand. It’s so much better to work with people in person. With a hybrid schedule, you can forget it. It creates inefficacies. You can overcome that with certain procedures. The longer I am subjective to hybrid world, the less of a fan I am. There are real disadvantages for an academic institution.
Antwan Lofton: You just proved everything I just said. Which is why Duke University did not make an administrative decision as it relates to who's in the office and who's working remotely. They left it up to the functional leader of that area. And all of us that are responsible for managing and or supervising has office do share a responsibility to look to see what positions and what model is working within our units. And if we're noticing that people are supposed to be in the office on Friday, based upon the arrangement that we as the leaders approved and they are not there, we have to hold them accountable. Now, every position will not have that option of working remotely, depending upon what their job is to the example that you use. If they are student facing or patient facing seven days a week, that may not be the position that you allow to work remotely. We tried to carve it out in a manner to do exactly what you just laid out, to give you the flexibility to say, I'm not convinced that all 12 positions that report directly to me should work remotely. However, this position possibly could. Or let's look at a schedule that is built upon the business of the unit as well. So I actually agree with everything that you said. We do need to make sure that we're monitoring and watching the flow of the office or the business unit to make sure that we're meeting the needs.
Stefan Bass: I understand that I could set different rules, but the realities of the marketplace constrain what we can do. The realities tie us down.
Antwan Lofton: We ran into that during the pandemic. We were discussing with UNC who we were losing employees also. Losing people to Stanford, where they were 100% remote and with cost of living in California so high, they made more. It makes it difficult to compete.
Tracy Futhey: This whole conversation is the squeeze we are all in. We know that remote work limits those opportunities for those serendipitous conversations. We need people in-person during academic year. But people like having the flexibility. We can take a harder line, but we might lose people.
Paul Grantham: We are all responding to a new environment. We’re not advocating for remote or hybrid work, but we need consistency. People challenges are real. We are working through them. People know they are missing something by working remote full time.
Yakut Gazi: There is also an increasingly complex issue with space allocation. Even if we wanted to bring everyone back, we can’t. How do we manage that?
Victoria Szabo: I know we are about out of time, but can you speak to the “sick of zoom” comment
Paul Grantham: This was part of the open feedback, if your only experiences is through zoom, you don’t get the before or after meeting social connection. Managers need to take a few minutes and engage people.
Victoria Szabo: Thank you for joining us today. We will postpone our last topic. Meeting adjourned.
5:00 - 5:15pm - Update from Internet2/RUCC Workshop on Consortial Opportunities for Generative AI - David MacAlpine, Ph.D. & Tracy Futhey (15 minutes)
What It is: Internet2 is a collaborative project involving over 500 universities, corporations, government agencies, and other research institutions that aims to develop advanced network technologies and applications vital for research and education. It was founded in 1996 as a response to the limitations of the original Internet infrastructure, which could not keep pace with the high bandwidth and specialized requirements of the research and academic community.
Why It is Relevant: Reminiscent of the network hardware constraints faced by the original internet in 1996, acquiring GPUs at scale has become a formidable challenge for universities, as tech companies are also vying for these critical resources. Internet2 is advocating for cooperative initiatives in the field of generative AI including acquiring GPUs at scale, exploring the development of a single sign on gateway to LLMs, and the cooperative sharing of training materials, approaches, and use cases (e.g. easy buttons, chatbots, etc.).
[Topic deferred to future meeting]