FY10 Q2
Oliver Thomas' email to Elaine Aufiero and cc: to css-managers@mit.edu, Patricia Sheppard and Robert Smyser (dated 1/7/2010)
SUBJECT: "FSX" narrative for FY2010 Q2 QR
Hi Elaine,
Attached is a blurb of narrative: high level accomplishments for Q2 and goals for Q3. Didn’t have time to make it really short. Note that these are from a services perspective, not from the perspective of FSX as a team (although a significant portion of the work happened in FSX, we thought it would be more valuable to categorize by client-facing service). So it would be great if these could be listed as accomplishments under these service headings, rather than in a “Faculty and Student Experience” section.
Accomplishments
Service: Athena
• Q2 FY2010 represents the first full quarter of public Debathena (Athena 10) deployments
Debathena represents not only a new version of Athena, but also a fundamental re-engineering of many components of Athena. This re-engineering would not have been possible without significant student effort from SIPB. We identify as a risk going forward that with the two primary SIPB developers graduating in June 2010, reliance on the current level of student involvement is not sustainable.
• In preparation for upcoming working groups on Athena and printing, we have refined existing data collection mechanisms and developed new ones to help inform recommendations to be made by the working group and DUE in Q3 FY2010. As a preview we include a summary set of Athena utilization metrics in the metrics section of this report.
Service: Printing
• IS&T partners with Prof. Graves (Sloan School), the Baker House executive committee (dormitory) and the Undergraduate Association, and CopyTech on several student printing experiments randing from an analytics freshman seminar project (Graves) to planned deployments of Pharos printing kiosks in Baker and W20 for the spring semester, to gauge usability and student acceptance of kiosk-based hold-and-release printing.
• IS&T partners with the office of the Vice President for Finance on a pilot project to assess the value and feasibility of a fully managed business printing environment with a per-page rate structure. IS&T provides project guidance, vendor wrangling, sustainability expertise, and technical leadership to the project.
Service: Improving the Student and Faculty Experience• The Academic Computing Coordinating Group* (ACCORD) presents recommendations on a video strategy for the Institute to MITCET, which results in a position statement from MITCET and a charter to ACCORD to move forward with implementation of identified “quick wins” and detailed planning on longer-term implementations.
• In the area of improved software delivery options, we see two major developments in Q2: First, the KeyServer project moves from design and implementation to stable server deployment, ready to support pilot applications during IAP. Second, a new approach to student MATLAB delivery is documented, tested, and readied for “deployment” for spring 2010, which will allow and encourage students to directly leverage the MathWorks download system, eliminating the need for customized MIT installers and local re-delivery of student MATLAB via an MIT download site, as well as providing improved flexibility, support options, and 64-bit support to MIT students.
Goals
Service: Athena
• Work closely with the MITCET-chartered working group looking at short-term and long-term recommendations for Athena, student printing, and the student computing environment on campus and prepare for implementing any recommendations as they develop. As current stewards in this area IS&T plays a key role in informing those discussions and recommendations, providing metrics and use cases of existing services, and through its interfaces with the student community and faculty, helping to assess and represent community needs where they are not directly represented on the working group.
• Deliver the next release of Debathena, tracking the public release of Ubuntu “Karmic”
Service: Printing
• Work with VPF to assess the managed business printing pilot project in active use and collaborate on recommendations
• Deliver W20 and Baker House kiosk-based printing pilots with CopyTech and student organizations, and assess their effectiveness and potential for larger deployments
Service: Improving the Student and Faculty Experience
• Work with the Libraries, OpenCourseWare, and OEIT on implementing the “quick wins” identified by MITCET as part of the video in teaching and learning strategic recommendations
• Pilot and assess application delivery through the new KeyServer infrastructure
• Collaborate with OEIT on a pilot project placing students in hybrid IT and UROP/research roles, leveraging our supervision and training infrastructure for students as a way to better engage and partner with faculty and researchers, as well as retain student talent
That is all. Thanks!
–
Oliver Thomas
+1 617 835 9682 /m
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
FY10 Q1
From: Oliver Thomas <othomas@MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:53:01 -0400
To: Patricia Sheppard <pshepp@mit.edu>
Cc: CSS Managers <css-managers@mit.edu>
Subject: FSX fy09q1 narrative
Hi Pat,
Here is a short paragraph for FSX:
"There were two main activities the Faculty and Student Experience
(FSX) focused on: First, delivering the first version of our new Athena
environment, Debathena, to all our student computer labs (clusters),
Quickstations, and departmental Athena workstations. Second,
coordinating the orientation of the class of 2013, new graduate
students, and new faculty to computing at MIT. Both were completed
successfully through strong collaboration with the Service Desk, ITSS,
ISDA, and OIS. Over the next three months key areas on our radar are
several pilot projects on more effective printing solutions for
students and departments, along with continued attention on the
student computing environment. The latter includes a discovery effort
on delivering academic software through a virtual machine, and
coordination of the next release of Debathena for IAP. These areas
anticipate expected task force recommendations on student printing and
Athena clusters."
Hopefully that will fit, but let me know if you need it trimmed further.
Oliver
–
Oliver Thomas
Information Services and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
+1 617 253 9682
+1 617 835 9682 /m
othomas@mit.edu
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