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CIO Update for the Week of Apr 21

For the week of April 21, the following items of general interest are worth commenting on:

News

New

  • IT Governance

    • TAMU’s ITAC meets Tuesday at 8:30 a.m.

     

Repeats

  • IT Vendors

    • CGI
      • A Lunch & Learn on agentic AI will be held on May 20
      • A primer on CGI was sent through email
    • Adobe
      • Adobe will be in College Station June 3 from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. to showcase their products in preparation for contract renewal
      • The meeting will be at the A&M System IT Shared Services building; the building address and a Teams link was sent through email
    • SO Procurement and HUB Vendors
      • Mark your calendar for June 24 from 9:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. (before the June CIO Council)
      • Procurement will hold a HUB event to introduce HUB IT vendors to members
      • The initial agenda was sent through email

  • New System Regulation 29.01.06, Covered Applications and Prohibited Technologies

    • Approved by the chancellor and is effective April 8, 2025
    • New regulation implements Texas Government Code Chapter 620 and the Governor’s Directive to state agency heads dated December 7, 2022 and replaces the related policy letter issued by the SCIO
    • Focus is protecting the state’s sensitive information and critical infrastructure from technologies that pose a threat to the state of Texas
    • Please distribute this system regulation among your staff as appropriate

System-Wide Contracting News

In Process

  • A&M System-wide Contracts Under Development:

    • CRM (Blackbaud, Technolutions and UC Innovations executed; Anthology is with the vendor)
    • Mass Notification RFP (Rave, Everbridge, Summus agreements pending; Critical Arc agreement executed)
    • UPD RMS RFP (RFP is posted; 10 responses received, three semi-finalists identified)
      • April 13: Close RFP
      • April – May: Identify semi-finalists, hold system-wide demonstrations for finalists
      • June 11 (estimated): Select finalist, begin contract negotiations
      • July: Begin pre-planning for change management, implementation and conversion
    • Web Hosting RFP (Low Code solutions (Duda, Squiz and WebFlow agreements being finalized) WordPress solutions (Vertosoft is executed, Pantheon is with OGC))

Repeats

  • Current A&M System-wide Contracts

    • 3 Play Media provides closed captioning services (discretionary)
    • Acadeum provides access to an online education marketplace that offers courses across a network of colleges and universities to help students stay on track and graduate faster (discretionary)
    • Accelevents supports virtual and hybrid conferences (discretionary)
    • Accenture provides data management services (discretionary)
    • AdmitHub fosters student success with artificial intelligence-powered mobile messaging and chatbots (discretionary)
    • Adobe provides business software and services, including Creative Cloud, Acrobat Pro, Captivate, FrameMaker and Sign (discretionary)
    • airSlate / SignNow provides electronic signature and related workflow capabilities (discretionary)
    • AT&T provides network as a service and related services (discretionary)
    • Aten Design Group provides web development services (discretionary)
    • Barkley provides web development services (discretionary)
    • BerryDunn provides data management services (discretionary)
    • Blackbaud provides cloud-based fundraising and CRM services (discretionary)
    • Blackboard (Anthology) provides a cloud-based learning management system (discretionary)
    • Campus Works provides Banner SIS services (discretionary)
    • Canvas (Instructure) provides a cloud-based learning management system (discretionary)
    • CGI provides data management services (discretionary)
    • Cisco Strategic Relationship supports the AT&T NaaS RELLIS services and includes discounted Cisco products and services (discretionary)
    • Columbia Advisory Group provides Banner SIS services (discretionary)
    • CriticalArc provides safety, security and emergency management solutions (discretionary)
    • D2L provides a cloud-based learning management system (discretionary)
    • Daman Inc. provides data management services (discretionary)
    • Deloitte provides data management services (discretionary)
    • Diligent provides board portal functionality (discretionary)
    • DocuSign provides electronic signature and related workflow capabilities (discretionary)
    • Duo (Cisco) provides two-factor authentication (discretionary)
    • eXplorance allows students to evaluate academic courses and instructors (discretionary)
    • Fetii provides contactless scanning technology through QR codes (discretionary)
    • GoReact provides a platform for feedback, grading and critiquing of video assignments (discretionary)
    • GovQA (Granicus) is the TAMUS approved Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) solution (assessed)
    • Guardian I-9 (Equifax) provides electronic I-9 compliance verification (discretionary)
    • Honorlock provides online proctoring services (discretionary)
    • Hootsuite enables members to manage social networks, schedule messages and measure social media from a dashboard (discretionary)
    • Interfolio provides academic faculty management software (discretionary)
    • Inventive Works provides web development services (discretionary)
    • IOTA Solutions allows students to evaluate academic courses and instructors (discretionary)
    • KTech Products provides an AI-powered chatbot designed for students, managing both academic and non-academic interactions (discretionary)
    • Laserfiche provides document digitization and automated records processing, storage retrieval, security and archiving (discretionary)
    • LinkedIn Learning provides video courses taught by industry experts in software, creative and business skills (discretionary)
    • Meazure Learning provides on-line proctoring services (discretionary)
    • Microsoft provides business software and services (direct bill)
    • Modo Labs supports mobile application development (discretionary)
    • Navex provides on-line proctoring services (discretionary)
    • NewCity Media provides web development services (discretionary)
    • NextGen provides electronic signature and related workflow capabilities (discretionary)
    • OculusIT provides Banner SIS services (discretionary)
    • Oracle provides a shared hardware/software platform to host Oracle-based applications (discretionary)
    • Palo Alto provides firewalls and associated security subscription services (discretionary)
    • PlatformQ enables universities to connect with students at every stage of the recruitment process (discretionary)
    • Pluralsight offers a variety of video-based training for software developers, IT administrators and creative professionals (discretionary)
    • Proctorio provides on-line proctoring services (discretionary)
    • Proviti provides data management services (discretionary)
    • Qualtrics provides an online survey tool that supports building and distributing surveys and analyzing the responses (discretionary)
    • Salesforce Government Cloud provides customer relationship management software (discretionary)
    • SimpsonScarborough provides web development services (discretionary)
    • Siteimprove checks web pages, every five days, for spelling, grammar, broken links, and accessibility (assessed)
    • Smart Net (Cisco) provides Cisco equipment maintenance (discretionary)
    • SmarterServices provides on-line proctoring services (discretionary)
    • SmartEvals (Gap Technologies) allows students to evaluate academic courses and instructors (discretionary)
    • Sprout Social provides a social media management platform (discretionary)
    • Sterling provides background check services for employment, employment screening, drug testing, I-9 employment and education verification (discretionary)
    • Strata Information Group provides Banner SIS services (discretionary)
    • Stova supports virtual and hybrid conferences (discretionary)
    • Summus Industries provides data management services (discretionary)
    • TaxBandits (SpanEnterprises) provides e-file services for Forms W-2, W-9, 1099, 94x and 1095
    • TeamDynamix provides cloud-based IT service and project management software (discretionary)
    • Verbit provides closed captioning services (discretionary)
    • Vertosoft provides WordPress services (discretionary)
    • VisionPoint Marketing provides web development services (discretionary)
    • VMware provides various VMware software, services and training/consulting credits (discretionary)
    • WebEx (Cisco) provides online collaboration and meeting software (discretionary)

Travel

  • McKinney (Apr 25)