Home / CIO Blog / CIO Update for the Week of Oct 7

CIO Update for the Week of Oct 7

What a weekend for college football fans! Five of the top 11 teams lost in one weekend

For the week of October 7, the following items of general interest are worth commenting on:

News

New

  • Texas and U.S. flags were lowered to half-staff October 7 as Gov. Greg Abbott marked the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel

  • IT Governance

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

     

  • IT Vendors

    • KTech
      • The Chatbot agreement with KTech has been executed; please check the contracts site for a copy of the agreement
    • Scan13
      • Scan13 has a system-wide agreement with TAMUS
      • The System Offices will pay for the introductory risk management mitigation training
      • Any member who wants to engage Scan13 for on-going risk management reviews must pay for that on-going service themselves; TAMUS will not pick up those charges
      • Since Scan13 is being sold as a risk management mitigation service, I encourage each CIO/CISO to speak with the appropriate member representative (e.g., CHRO, CFO, etc.) engaging with Scan13

     

  • DIR is hosting a Technology Expo October 23, 2024 in Austin; more information can be found here

Repeats

  • IT Vendors

    • Wimmer Solutions
      • Wimmer Solutions will host an AI Lunch & Learn Friday, October 11 at 11:30 a.m.
      • The Lunch & Learn will focus on creating AI sandbox environments
        • A focus on reviewing the programs implemented at other R1 schools (Michigan, Florida, etc.) to compare and contrast their implementations
        • An evaluation of build it yourself vs using one of the commercial solutions (and we would like to get a back of the napkin cost estimate)
      • Contact Mark Stone for the meeting link
    • Broadcom / VMware updated timeline
      • Aug / Sep: VMware meet with members
      • Early Oct: Members “opt in” / approval process
      • Oct / Nov: TAMUS procurement process
      • Jan: Contract start date
    • Workday
      • Workday is hosting a tailgate at the Texas A&M /  LSU football game on October 26
      • Location: next to northeast entrance of Kyle Field
      • Time: 3-hours before the game through the end of the game
      • Register: Please register for the tailgate
    • Dell
      • Dell will host an executive briefing on artificial intelligence on November 19 in Austin at the Dell Executive Briefing Center
      • Contact Mark Stone if you want to attend this one-day briefing

  • There has been some misunderstanding about the purpose of the Workday Student Exploration Committee

    • Given the likelihood that Ellucian will push its customers to their SAAS solution in the future, the system is exploring SIS alternatives including Workday Student
    • A committee has been formed to explore only the technical viability of one alternative, Workday Student
    • Results of the technical exploration will be used to decide if it makes sense to continue researching the tool

System-Wide Contracting News

In Process

  • A&M System-wide Contracts Under Development:

    • CRM (OGC is reviewing Anthology; Procurement is reviewing Blackbaud and UC Innovations; Technolution and Affinaquest are with the vendor)
    • LMS (Canvas and D2L executed; Anthology pending)
    • Maestro Evolution RFP released Aug 9; responses due Oct 1
    • Mass Notification RFP (Rave and Everbridge selected; agreements pending)
    • Proctoring (Protorio, SmarterServices and Honorlock agreements are executed; Meazure Learning is with OGC for review)
    • Web Hosting RFP (Low Code solutions (Duda, Squiz, WebFlow) and WordPress solutions (Vertosoft, Pantheon) agreements pending)

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)
    • 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)
    • 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