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April 2007 Update

In This Update


C&C's 2007 Customer Satisfaction Survey Results

C&C conducted a customer satisfaction survey in February to find out what our customers think of our services and to identify areas for improvement. The survey is part of C&C's efforts to better meet our customers' needs.

A total of 1700 UW faculty, staff, and students  randomly selected from each group on all campuses  were invited to participate. Of those, 735 responded to the online survey. This 43 percent response rate is considered high.

To ensure objectivity and confidentiality, the consulting firm MOR Associates was retained to carry out the survey, analyze the data, and prepare a report.

What we learned
The survey found that customers are generally satisfied with most services, but participants pointed to some areas for improvement, including:

  • Webmail (particularly WebPine features and interface)
  • Spam blocking
  • Information on how to use phone features
  • Integration of email and calendaring
  • Email disk quota limit

The respondents also gave high satisfaction ratings to:

  • Our wired network
  • Reliability of sending and receiving email
  • Nebula support overall
  • MyUW reliability
  • help@cac overall

C&C is developing action plans to specifically focus on improving the areas identified in the survey, and is exploring other ways to serve our customers better.

To read the report or the executive summary, please go to http://www.washington.edu/uwtech/surveys/cs07.html


Outlook/Exchange, Microsoft Collaborative Applications to Be Offered Centrally

Work is underway to offer Microsoft collaborative applications centrally to UW departments and units including Exchange, Outlook (email and calendar), Smartphones, Sharepoint, and other communication tools. This initiative is a collaborative effort between C&C and a number of different schools, colleges, and departments.

The target is to offer Outlook and SharePoint in late summer/early fall, as well as Vista and Office 2007 for managed desktop (Nebula) customers. The available product features, pricing structure, and support strategy will be developed in partnership with the UW community over the next several months.

For more information, please see http://www.washington.edu/computing/msca/


Improving Alumni Email; Offering iTunes U

C&C is collaborating with a number of UW units to make progress in two specific service areas:

  • Improved alumni email service: C&C is working with Development and Alumni Relations and other UW leaders to offer UW alumni improved email and online services. Options being investigated focus on hosted services from firms including Microsoft and Google.

  • iTunes U: C&C is working on offering Apple's iTunes U program to the UW community. Hosted by Apple, iTunes U allows people to use the popular iTunes software to access university content (audio, video, or other) stored on Apples servers. This service can include UW content available to the general public as well as content restricted to particular groups such as students taking a course. C&C is working with UW Media Relations, UW Libraries, and interested academic units on a pilot project for this summer.

This work is part of C&C's new Emerging Technology group (story below), headed by Oren Sreebny, and focused on evaluating and integrating new technologies into the services C&C offers to the UW community.

For more information, see C&C's Emerging Technology Web site, with a link to their "News" blog, at http://www.washington.edu/computing/etech


UW Web Search Expands: Includes Medicine, News, and More

The UW's Web search capability has been expanded to include uwmedicine.org, uwnews.org, henryart.org, and uwtv.org to start, as well as the entire washington.edu domain.

Increasing the coverage of the UW search was prompted by the growing number of UW-related sites not in the www.washington.edu domain. This capability is made possible by a new Google Custom Search feature. The expanded UW search became available on March 19.

To see what is included or to have a new UW domain added, please go to http://www.washington.edu/home/search.html


UW Tower Data Center: Full Funding Likely

Although not yet signed by the Governor, the proposed 2007-09 Washington State capital budget provides the full $25 million requested for the UW Tower data center ($20 million for the capital project and $5 million for connectivity). Once the state budget is signed by the Governor, the University of Washington will issue $12 million in general revenue bonds, which (along with the $500,000 in central funds already allocated for planning and pre-design) will provide the full $32.5 million required for the new data center.

The new data center:

  • Will be constructed in Building C of the UW Tower properties
  • Is scheduled to be completed in December 2009

In the interim, additional capacity has been approved at the UW's facility in Tukwila, including a reduced co-location rate for research server racks.


OIM: Work Plan Progress and Planning

With the discovery/assessment part of its three-phase work plan nearly complete, the Office of Information Management (OIM) is focused this spring on developing its organization and beginning work on a strategic roadmap that will guide the future of UW information management and information systems. Here is a quick look at what has been accomplished and what is in the works:

  • The "discovery/assessment" phase is nearly finished. The more than 500 comments collected in meetings with over 100 key UW stakeholders have been organized into four broad themes.

  • The "organizational design and transition" phase will be completed this spring/summer. OIM Vice Provost Sara Gomez is refining recommendations and completing an initial design for review with key stakeholders. The goal is for a new leadership team and organizational structure to be in place by July 1.

  • The "strategic direction roadmap" phase has begun. The roadmap will define a vision for the future of information management and information systems and outline an action plan for how to move forward.

For detailed information on OIM activities, please visit the Office of Information Management Web site at http://www.washington.edu/provost/oim/ to read the latest OIM Update.


Global Support: Hands-on in Africa

Growing out of UW's commitment to support researchers globally, three UW staff were invited to attend the investigator Partners in Prevention conference in Africa. Ann Anderson (UW assistant vice president and controller), Sandra McGowan (C&C manager for Nebula support), and Mary Mulvihill (who oversees C&C customer account management and provisioning and support), traveled to Tanzania with UW researchers in March.

As a partner in the UW Global Support Initiative, C&C's focus is to better understand the communications technology challenges of staff working abroad in order to provide the needed support for critical UW research efforts around the world. After the conference, Sandra and Mary visited clinic sites in Tanzania and Kenya and tested different approaches and tools they brought  Voice over IP (VoIP) and "soft" phones (software on PCs)  to see if they would help improve the communications and computing capabilities of UW staff working overseas.

They learned first-hand the need to rethink some of the tools that are used at the UW everyday, but that rely on infrastructure not available in Africa and other countries. They plan to use what theyve learned to improve technology support for people working abroad and to share that knowledge with others at the UW who support people globally. In addition, they discovered that other universities such as the University of San Francisco and Indiana University are also have staff in Africa that they are trying to support, opening up even further opportunities to partner and collaborate outside the university to come up with successful solutions.

More information about the UW Global Support Initiative is online at http://www.washington.edu/admin/finmgmt/globalsupport/


UW Seattle Wireless: HUB, Red Square, and More

Under the UW Seattle Wireless Initiative, approximately 82 percent of the general assignment classrooms on the UW Seattle campus now have wireless coverage. Much of the remainder is in buildings that soon will be renovated such as Savery Hall, Clark Hall, and others. The following are recent or upcoming wireless upgrades at UW Seattle:

  • HUB: A major wireless upgrade is in progress at the HUB. Over spring break, an upgrade to current technology in existing wireless coverage was completed. Current work involves expanding coverage to include meeting rooms, the auditorium, student organization offices, and other gathering areas not previously supported.

  • Red Square: Expansion of wireless coverage for Red Square was completed in mid- April, in time for Washington Weekend and other nice weather activities.

  • Planned/in progress: Hall Health Center, Oceanography Building, Padelford Hall (includes Math Library), wireless upgrade in the Health Sciences Library, and related coverage expansion for T-Wing floors 2 and 3.

  • Summer: Architecture and Guggenheim halls (in conjunction with renovations), Meany Hall (in conjunction with lighting upgrade), and Kane Hall (if possible to schedule).

In addition, work continues with both UW Tacoma and Housing & Food Services on expanding wireless capacity in several of their respective facilities. A wireless project is also being explored for Cascadia Community College in Bothell.

To see a map showing how wireless is growing and where at UW Seattle, please go to http://www.washington.edu/computing/wireless/wifi_map.html

C&C Continues to Make Organizational Changes to Better Meet Customer Needs

C&C has made some further organizational changes in two of its divisions to serve the UW community more effectively.

  • Technology & Architecture, under Associate Vice President Terry Gray, is the new division that has evolved out of the Technology Engineering Group. It consists of two newly formed units:
    • Networking, headed by Assistant Vice President Clare Donahue, consolidates our network architecture, engineering, and support teams whose responsibilities span not only the UW but the state, region, and beyond. Also included in this unit are the groups responsible for network-based security solutions and C&Cs internal security administration initiative.

    • Emerging Technology, headed by Executive Director Oren Sreebny, collaborates with others both within and outside the university to understand where technology can help advance future work at the UW. This unit is coordinating projects that demonstrate the value of new technologies and serves as a key collection point for data on new requirements and strategies for information technology at the UW.

  • Service Delivery & Support, our primary customer-facing division led by Assistant Vice President Scott Mah, now includes (in addition to Accessible Technology Services, Communications, Customer Services, Infrastructure Initiatives, and Operations & Project Management) the engineering teams that support email, Web, and data center computing systems for our customers:
    • Distributed Systems (Lori Stevens, Director)
    • Mainframe, Database, & Storage Systems (Sid McHarg, Director)

C&C will continue to refine its organizational structure to keep pace with changing technologies and evolving customer needs. We will highlight major changes in these Updates.

For more information about C&C leadership and divisions, please see http://www.washington.edu/uwtech/contacts.html


C&C's Strategic Plan Now on the Web

C&C's strategic plan is available on C&C's Web site.

To read the plan, please see http://www.washington.edu/uwtech/splan.finalrpt.pdf to download a PDF to view or print.