Conference Sessions

As a seasoned staff heads towards retirement the need to document both on-premise and cloud enterprise applications and the data interchanges has become a vitally important succession planning exercise. Learn about WSU's journey to document our homemade "spaghetti" of data integrations.

Security and IT teams collaborate to navigate Account Take Over procedure by implementing the following process. When a compromised account for phishing attempt is identified, the Security team disables the account in Active Directory and notifies the members of the Help Desk and Windows Server. The Help Desk fields the calls from the users. After the user is verified, the account is enabled in AD, and the password and security questions are reset. The Server team works to find any rules set up in Outlook and looks to identify possible patterns. Those updates are communicated back to the entire team to track resolution.

We had a unique opportunity to address accessibility issues when the Drupal migration process forced major changes for our websites. We will discuss how we addressed that opportunity, the testing process, tools and resources, and lessons learned.

Building automated response capabilities into Microsoft's security lineup doesn't necessarily require Azure Sentinel. With just Defender for Endpoint P2 licensing you can build techniques to proactively contain threats while your security teams are sleeping.

Are you a new or aspiring manager in higher education looking to learn from experienced mid-level managers? Then join us for an insightful panel discussion featuring mid-level managers from diverse areas of higher education, who will share their experiences and insights on navigating the path to management.
During this panel discussion, you will have the opportunity to learn from seasoned managers who have successfully made the transition from individual contributors to managers in higher education. Our panelists will discuss the unique challenges they faced in the higher education environment, the skills and competencies required for success, and the strategies they used to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.
This discussion will be particularly relevant for new or aspiring higher education managers seeking to develop their leadership skills, build effective teams, and navigate the complex dynamics of academia. Our panelists will also provide practical tips and advice for managing up, down, and across the organization and strategies for building a supportive network of colleagues and mentors in higher education.

Join Butler Community College for a discussion
on moving from on-premise server infrastructure to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Are you tired of spending hours on tedious tasks? Say goodbye to the grind and hello to some AI assistance! In talk, we’ll look at how ChatGPT and other AI tools can help you breeze through your to-do list and up your productivity game. We’ll cover all the juicy details on how to use these AI tools to automate menial tasks, complete code with ease, and fix pesky errors in no time. Come on down, kick back, and let the machines do the heavy lifting for once!

This is an attempt at a roundtable discussion of common strategies and challenges for higher-ed IT efforts at designing disaster recovery sites and business continuity plans.

How is project management utilized in your institution’s IT shop? This session will discuss the structure and processes utilized at K-State to facilitate projects and provide support for organizational change management. Small or maybe no Project Management Office? We will also provide some tips for accidental project managers to assist in keeping projects on track alongside the operational duties you must perform. This will be an interactive session where we can all learn from our collective successful and not so successful experiences.

Generative AI can create natural language text (ChatGPT) and emulative visual images (CrAIyon, DALL-E, MidJourney, and others). Controversies are swirling around various aspects:

How the generative AI tools are made and run:
• uses of copyrighted seeding texts and visuals in databases to train the AIs (without the permission of the original authors, in some cases),
• guardrails around generative contents (such as those against x-rated content, against hate speech, against various dimensioned stereotypes) vs. those without any guardrails,

How the generative AI tools are used:
• academic honesty, citations,
• commercial applications,
• authorship

A typical sequence in using a text-seeded generative AI that creates digital visuals is to use seeding phrases to describe the desired visual (often multiple iterations)…selecting the image…downloading the image as a .webp format, and directly using the image with citation…or using the image as an inspiration, reference, or base. (One creates a derived image, by borrowing some visual concepts from the generative AI.) “Photorealistic” asks the AI for create an image that looks like an actual photo. “after Picasso” or “in the style of Georgia Totto O’Keeffe” asks for a style transfer from the known works of the artist into a different context. [Please see “Co-Creating Common Art with the CrAIyon AI” on SlideShare: https://www.slideshare.net/ShalinHaiJew/cocreating-common-art-with-the-craiyon-ai for a clearer visual gist of this phenomenon.] The presenter wrote an article titled “CrAIyon: Putting an art-making AI through its paces” on the C2C Digital Magazine at (https://scalar.usc.edu/works/c2c-digital-magazine-fall-2022---winter-2023/craiyon-paces). As a former college faculty member and current instructional designer, the presenter introduces the topic and throws a conversation around the complexities.

Requests for digital signage on campus were exponentially growing. Each time we added a new digital sign, it led to more requests. This is a great “problem” to have; however, the challenge faced was finding the time to fulfill all these new requests. Our current system (Visix) had all the bells and whistles and was really powerful, but it was time consuming and technical to get up and running. Most our users wanted a simple digital sign to display full screen images and videos. They didn’t have a need for all the extra, more advanced features. After some research and exploration of possible alternatives, we decided to move forward with Xibo, a FREE open-source digital signage platform. From there, we brought together our construction department, networking team, server team, AV techs, and technical trainer to work out a streamlined process for digital signage requests. Using Xibo, and our new streamlined process, we’re now able to stay caught up with our digital signage requests. We even plan to convert most of our existing signage over to Xibo by the end of 2023.

At the University of Kansas, external tools must be reviewed for technical, security, privacy and accessibility concerns before they can be made available in the institution's learning management system. External applications, using the LTI or learning tools interoperability standard, can be a great way to add additional functionality to a LMS such as Canvas. While these tools can be easily added to the system, there are many other factors that must be considered before adding external tools to the LMS. At KU, the IT Educational Team guides a review process of new tools that considers technical, security, privacy and accessibility concerns before approval by the Academic Systems Steering Committee. This presentation will review the steps and rubric that KU IT uses in this LMS integration review process.

How Wichita State uses TDX to solve problems

Each year we see more and more cases of compromised credentials, account lockouts due to email compromises, and greater risk to student, financial, and personal information.
This panel will discuss how college institutions try to minimize these issues using another level of protection: second-factor authentication. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as turning in a control measure. We will look at the most significant benefits of multi-factor authentication or what is sometimes termed 2nd-factor authentication. We will also discuss the level of planning we have had to conduct to prepare and implement this for our student population. Lastly, we will discuss how we implement and maintain the process, whether through automation or manual actions. If you plan to expand protection for your student population, this is the session you should attend. Our panel has a variety of levels of implementation and experiences to share and answer your questions.

WSU has used the existing enterprise backup systems for many years and was over due for a refresh of capabilities. The WSU server team worked together to form requirements and desires from DR exercises, audits, and day-to-day pain points so that we could bridge as many gaps as possible and understand what we could afford.

"Presenting the process of creating our squid web/HTTP proxy for server Internet communication. Going through server and service configuration, endpoint configuration, securing the VM, and the benefits so far.

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Bringing together current students to discuss technology needs they have encountered. Where have institutions met needs, fallen short and where is there room for improvement

Join a diverse panel from Pittsburg State University to learn about our journey of leading change through the implementation of a new ERP! PSU is an Oracle Cloud campus. We have implemented: ERP (finance/purchasing) and HCM (human resources). We are the process of implementing FMC (financial aid), and will soon begin the implementation of SMC (student). Join us to hear about our journey of working with campus on re-engineering
processes, change management, and all the politics that go along with it! During the panel you will hear from the Director of Admissions and Financial Assistance, the Director of IT Process and Project Management, the Director of Development and Implementation, and the Chief Information Officer. This group will be prepared to share what we've done well and where we have learned lessons.

Join Pittsburg State University and KanREN to learn about a series of unfortunate events that happened on December 14th, 2022 aka Finals Week. We will share the timeline of events, the communication efforts, and steps we are taking to make our redundant connection extra redundant.

The How-Tos on setting up KnowBe4 for Security Training and Phishing Alerts. What all KnowBe4 can do.

User experience is a broad concept, spanning the multitude of interactions an end-user may experience within a single context. In the context of a higher education institution, our end-users may be current or prospective students, faculty, staff, members of the community, or literally anyone who steps onto our campuses, or engages with our online platforms. Colleges and universities work hard to make campuses attractive spaces, but how much effort is put into making our digital properties as appealing?

An argument could be made that more users will interact with an institution’s online presence, when compared to the number of users experiencing our campuses in person. In this panel discussion we would like to talk about how higher education IT organizations are meeting the needs of our end-users. Does your organization employ individuals whose responsibilities specifically target user experience issues? Or do you partner with other organizations within the institution, such as a marketing team, to evaluate and address users’ needs?

Panel members from KU IT will kick off the discussion by sharing details about our own UI/UX team. We’ll open the discussion and we hope you will share what your organizations are doing, and what you think the role of a user experience professional should be, in a higher education IT organization.