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CIO Update for the Week of Jan 13

Students return this week across the Texas A&M University System

For the week of January 13, the following items of general interest are worth commenting on:

News

New

  • IT Governance

    • The Workday HCM Governance Council meets Tuesday at 9:00 a.m.
    • The TTDN Governance Board meets Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.

     

  • IT Vendors

    • Broadcom / VMware
      • We received the following message last week:
      • Happy new year, hope yours is off to a great start.We need a little bit of time here. We recently had a change to how we license Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), of which there are many users across the System. Brad Root is meeting with those groups to understand their licensing needs. Once we have that we can add those costs into the updated spreadsheet. We will also be extending the temporary keys that we’ve given to several members to continue their support until the new agreement is finalized.
    • Rackspace
      • Jason Wicker, Rackspace’s CTO, is interested in meeting with CIOs and other technology leaders at the upcoming Tech Summit. Jason works closely with me on AI and cloud computing related to legislative matters. He would be an excellent resource to bounce ideas off. If you are interested, contact me or Jason directly

  • Cybersecurity Operations has updated its FAQs related to Prohibited Technologies: click here to review the FAQs

Repeats

  • IT Vendors

    • SmartNet Renewal
      • It is time to start to work on the SmartNet renewal (expires 12/31/25)
      • Contact Mark Stone if you want to be on the renewal working group
    • InfoTech Research Group will host a one-hour “Future Trends in Higher Education: Exponential IT Change” discussion (details to come)
      • “We are experiencing IT change at a rate we have never seen before. Technologies such as generative AI and quantum computing are driving this exponential change, and education institutions are inventing novel new approaches to adapt to these changes. We are entering into an era of inspired innovation in all aspects the higher education mission. Our organizations are introducing autonomization of teaching, learning, research, student experiences, and community engagement throughout the institution. This session will examine Exponential IT as a framework to help higher education IT leaders across all IT domains on how to elevate their maturity and value creation capabilities and close the gap between the exponential progression of technological change and the linear progression of IT’s ability to successfully manage that transformation. Content delivered in this session will provide actionable principles, specific models, and roadmaps needed by IT professionals to extract value from accelerating technology advancements in higher education.”

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)
    • LMS (Canvas and D2L executed; Anthology pending)
    • Mass Notification RFP (Rave and Everbridge selected; agreements pending)
    • Proctoring (Protorio, SmarterServices and Honorlock agreements are executed; Meazure Learning is with the vendor for review)
    • UPD RMS RFP (RFP is posted)
    • Web Hosting RFP (Low Code solutions (Duda is with OGC, Squiz is with the vendor, WebFlow has not responded since November 7) and WordPress solutions (Vertosoft is executed, Pantheon is with the vendor))

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)
    • 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)
    • 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 (Jan 17)