***Before you hit delete, please know...
THE UPCOMING CHANGES IN GCC COMPUTING WILL EFFECT EVERYONE WHO USES A COMPUTER ON OR OFF CAMPUS TO ACCESS OUR SYSTEMS it is in your best interest to understand the upcoming changes prior to Fall semester.***
An online formatted version of this newsletter with graphics is available
here: http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/help/update
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Welcome to the GCIS Update newsletter///// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
GCIS consists of the Office of Information Technology, Innovation Center, Instructional Computing and Training and Employee Development. As you may have heard, we are in the midst of a major upgrade to be rolled out this Fall to improve the experience of our 15,000-20,000 users. A series of newsletters delivered via email, printed and on the web will help you stay in the loop and know what to expect.
>>>GO LIVE TESTING OF THE NEW INSTRUCTIONAL PALETTE AKA "eGCC"<<<
The new Instructional Palette featuring Softricity, and all of its shiny new infrastructure will be ready for testing by mid Summer Session II. Intrepid
faculty members Phillip Brown and Betty Moller from Business and Information Technology have volunteered to do testing. Both Betty and Phillip are
teaching CIS105 in HT1-139. Pods HT1 8 and 12 and HT2-Pod 8 will be available for anyone else who wishes to test drive the new system (Contact information for test accounts will available in future updates).
The new network and palette are being built along-side the old network and palette. Second Summer Session started with everyone using the existing
system, then during the session the test computers were re-imaged overnight with the New Palette Image. Everyone using the test systems will
then log in to their accounts using their existing Palette username and password. All other Palette systems (academic workstations) will continue to
use the current palette system. Between Summer II and Fall, the remaining academic computers will be reimaged to access the new system.
It is worth noting that workstations with the "Lite" image will continue on as they are now.
>>>GOING ENTERPRISE... AND DOCUMENTING IT<<<
GCIS is rethinking, redesigning and reworking the way they deliver Information Technology Services to the campus. Instead of homegrown programming and disparate documents stored across many servers and resources, the Network Redesign Project is allowing team members to plug-in effective proprietary tools, and develop beneficial standards for thorough, agile documentation.
By creating templates, modeling after best practices, and relying on the dynamic performance of the GCC Wiki (), GCIS is crafting comprehensive documents to serve the needs of the campus. Through Service Level Agreements to proactively communicate to the customer, and Standard Operating Procedures to improve internal knowledge sharing among IT employees, at many levels, it's changing the way they do business.
For the campus customer, Service Level Agreements (SLA) illustrate to business executives, administration, and faculty the cost-to-benefit values they receive by subscribing to dependable, competent, credible service from IT support. This document lists expectations (on both ends) and standards of service, as well as the "lite" version of basic support methods.
For internal IT personnel, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) create value, if done right, by organizing everyday practices (weeding out the worst, retaining the best) and formalizing official IT service standards. Everyone in the organization, from the top down, knows their part of the puzzle and can complete it based on detailed methods, processes and procedures. This document is obviously methods-heavy, and establishes a definitive structure to the functions within the organization. The document has an internal tone and scope directed to the members of IT support, serving as a reference and source for "best practices" and standard processes, while becoming the yard stick with which to examine the IT organization.
///This Update brought to you by the GCIS Communication Team///
For more information on the Network Redesign Project, please refer to:
http://oit.gc.maricopa.edu/projects/
For planned and unplanned service outages please check the GCC Help
webpage:
http://help.gc.maricopa.edu
Or call GCC Help x53555
Option 1 Recorded message for service outages
Option 2 Student Helpdesk
Option 3 Employee Helpdesk
Option 4 Media Services
Option 5 Maintenance and Operations
Option 6 College Safety