Welcome back from a three-day weekend. For the week of January 20, the following items of general interest are worth commenting on:
News
New
IRMs should have received the following from DIR:
Greetings IRMs,
As you know, Texas Government Code, Section 2054.0965 requires state agencies to complete an Information Resources Deployment Review (IRDR) every two years.
On December 2, 2019, Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) provided instructions to state agencies and institutions of higher education. We hope this provided an opportunity to begin the review and circulate questions that may need input from other staff within your agency.
Institutions of Higher Education, you are required by Texas Administrative Code, Section 213.40 to complete an Electronic Information Resources (EIR) Accessibility survey. The online submission of IRDR Sections 1.03, 2.02, and 2.03 through the SPECTRIM portal satisfies this reporting requirement. IHEs are exempt from reporting additional IRDR results to DIR by Texas Education Code, 51.406, but have the option to report all completed IRDR section if desired. IHEs will not receive a separate EIR Accessibility survey and must completed the Accessibility sections in the SPECTRIM portal.
To complete the submission of the IRDR, agencies must enter the information in the Statewide Portal for Enterprise Cybersecurity Threat, Risk and Incident Management (SPECTRIM). All assigned Information Resources Managers will receive email notification when the IRDR is available in SPECTRIM. DIR will provide Part 4 IT Inventory supplemental instructions on or before the date that SPECTRIM portal opens. In addition, agencies may contact DIR at the email below for guidance for this process.
All IRDR responses must be completed in SPECTRIM on or before March 31, 2020.
Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) is hosting two webinars to provide an overview of the IRDR and answer questions. The webinars will provide an overview of the major changes in IRDR and related reporting requirements including:
- Reporting Overview
- Information Resources Deployment Review (IRDR)
- Information Resources Corrective Action Plans (IR-CAP)
- SPECTRIM Reporting Portal
Register for one or both dates:
For general inquiries about IRDR content (e.g. question clarification, process questions) please email irdr@dir.texas.gov.
For support with the SPECTRIM portal (e.g. password resets, obtaining credentials) email grc@dir.texas.gov.
In Process
RELLIS contracts update
- Contract negotiations continue with PMG (RELLIS data center) and AT&T/ Cisco (RELLIS NaaS)
System-Wide Contracting News
In Process
A&M System-wide Contracts Under Development
- Captioning Services will provide members with closed caption, transcription, and subtitling solutions to make video accessible, searchable, SEO-friendly and more engaging
- Interfolio is a self-service web database program that allows faculty (or staff) to use the Internet to maintain their teaching, research, and service records; the System Offices received a proposal for a system-wide agreement and is working with the System Procurement Office to develop a competitive bid for this product
- Qualtrics provides feedback from customers, employees and students; the System Offices is in conversations to obtain a proposal for a system-wide agreement
Repeats
Current A&M System-wide Contracts
- Access Data provides members with preservation hold software (in annual assessment)
- Adobe provides members full Creative Cloud suite and Adobe Pro software tools (discretionary)
- Banner COE provides members with Banner-related services (discretionary)
- Blackboard provides a cloud-based learning management system option to members (discretionary)
- Canvas provides a cloud-based learning management system option to members (discretionary)
- Class Climate (Scantron) provides members with tools that allows students to evaluate academic courses and instructors (discretionary)
- D2L provides a cloud-based learning management system option to members (discretionary)
- Diligent provides board portal functionality for all members (discretionary)
- DocuSign provides members with electronic signature and related workflow capabilities (discretionary)
- Duo provides two-factor authentication for all members (discretionary)
- Examity provides members with on-line proctoring services under a one-year master contract (discretionary contract)
- eXplorance provides members with tools that allows students to evaluate academic courses and instructors (discretionary)
- GovQA (WebQA) is the TAMUS approved Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) solution for all members (in annual assessment)
- Guardian I-9 (LawLogix) provides members with electronic I-9 compliance verification (discretionary).
- Hootsuite enables members to manage social networks, schedule messages and measure social media from a dashboard (discretionary)
- IOTA Solutions provides members with tools that allows students to evaluate academic courses and instructors (discretionary)
- Laserfiche provides members with the digitization of documents, the automation of records processing, storage retrieval, security and archiving (discretionary)
- Modo Labs provides mobile application development support (discretionary)
- Navex provides members with a ethics and compliance management (discretionary)
- Oracle provides members with a shared hardware/software platform to host Oracle-based applications (discretionary)
- Portfolium provides students and recent graduates with the ability to connect with businesses and employers using previous academic work and projects to supplement their communication (discretionary)
- ProctorU provides members with on-line proctoring services under a one-year master contract (discretionary)
- Proofpoint email filtering and data loss prevention tools (in annual assessment)
- Siteimprove checks web pages, every five days, for spelling, grammar, broken links and accessibility for 54 cents per web page per year (discretionary)
- Smart Net (Cisco) offers members equipment maintenance (discretionary)
- SmartEvals (Gap Technologies) provides members with tools that allows students to evaluate academic courses and instructors (discretionary)
- Syncplicity licensing is available for all members (in annual assessment)
- WebEx online collaboration and meeting software is available to all members at the low cost of $1.44 per month per license (discretionary)
- Zoom online collaboration and meeting software provides members with an alternative to WebEx, GoToMeeting and Adobe Connect
SCIO Trips/Visits
- TAMU (Jan 23)