OIT News

Budget reductions impact OIT services

By Office of Information Technology

As a result of the 2013-2014 state budget reduction, OIT absorbed a $1.1 million recurring appropriated budget cut, resulting in the prioritization and realignment of its resources, including a loss of 10.75 positions. This budget reduction and accompanying loss of positions will have a lasting impact on the organization’s ability to provide timely responses to requests for various campus services.

Campus-wide services immediately impacted by this budget reduction include:

  • Antivirus software: The campus-wide license for antivirus software is being evaluated and will likely be reduced to cover only university-owned computers. The Antivirus/Malware Strategy Working Group (comprised of campus representatives and led by OIT) is evaluating free or low-cost alternatives for students and employees to use for their personally-owned computers.

  • Virtual Computing Lab (VCL): Campus will experience longer times to resolve problems and for delivery of new VCL research and teaching environments and new VCL features.

  • Optical Mark Reader: During periods of heavy usage (i.e. midterm, final exams), the turnaround time for processing the university’s Scantron-based (bubble sheet) exams and quizzes will be approximately 48 hours. The processing time for faculty and course evaluations will now be five to seven business days. Faculty and staff who use these services should plan accordingly.

  • Help Desk: Response times to resolve problems pertaining to business applications and managed desktop development and service maintenance may be extended.

  • Realm Linux: There will be reduced programming support for the enterprise, academic and research Realm Linux environment components (such as monitoring), resulting in a noticeable impact to stability and addition of features and updates in these environments.

  • Gartner Services: This subscription service, which provided access to Gartner analysts and research tools for decision-making and strategic directions, was discontinued Aug. 31, 2013.

With the ongoing development of the university IT strategic plan, OIT looks forward to forming new partnerships and IT strategies to maximize its resources to help achieve the university’s vision and strategic priorities.