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CIO Update for the Week of Apr 28

This is the last complete week of classes

For the week of April 28, the following items of general interest are worth commenting on:

News

New

  • IT Vendors

    • A&M System IT Business Forum for IT-focused Businesses and HUB Vendors
      • Mark your calendar for June 24 from 9:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. (before the June CIO Council)
      • A registration link and updated agenda was sent through email

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

     

  • 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 is with procurement, Squiz is with with the vendor, WebFlow is on hold) 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

  • No trips scheduled this week