Campus Chief Information Officer Laid Groundwork for Improved IT Collaboration & Student Services
Laura Dosanjh and Clarence Lam
Issue date: 6/15/08 Section: News
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When Peter Murray came to the University of Maryland, Baltimore six years ago to fill the long-vacant Chief Information Officer position, his first task was to unite the information technology (IT) resources across campus. Technology services were distributed among the individual schools, resulting in decentralized IT systems that even utilized separate email services.
UMB President David J. Ramsey recruited Murray to fill the position in early 2002 in order to provide a central person to serve as “glue” to unite the various IT departments of each school. Though Murray and others believed that bringing all of the departments together might be a difficult task, just the opposite proved to be true.
“It’s really just a matter of a conversation…when you go right to the issue at hand, people realize what should be done and what the right thing is to do. That’s the way I approached it,” said Murray.
These conversations helped Murray and others determine, “what were the issues and what were the needs and what can we do to move forward collectively.”
Another important step in uniting the individual IT departments was deciding what functions should be performed by the central campus IT department (known as the Center for Information Technology Services or CITS) and what functions should still be managed by at a more local level. Selecting items that are better managed at different levels, and deciding how to distribute the work was integral to the goals of saving money and providing better service.
Murray’s position also makes him responsible for coordinating technology services across the campus. Though he prefers to operate quietly in the background where students may not notice, his job directly influences the quality of services that students receive on campus. He has implemented many commonly used systems such as Blackboard and the Help Desk, and also has plans to implement, other services that will improve everything from password preferences to email services.
Murray stated that an important part of his job is to, “Connect with the students and make sure that we are satisfying their needs from a technology service standpoint, and making sure that service is as good as possible.”
Murray bases service improvements and other decisions on input and feedback from students, staff, and faculty from steering committees, organizations, and through surveys issued by the help desk.
Among the many changes that Murray plans to institute in the future are improvements to Webmail, the university’s email system. The first is the ability to transfer large files using a secondary system called Accelion. Large files are loaded to a website and a link is created to the file. The link is then emailed, and the receiving party follows the link and logs into the site to obtain the file. Accelion is already available to faculty and staff and should also be available to students by the end of the summer.
Webmail may also get a brand new face. According to Murray, the university is in discussions with several providers, including Google and Microsoft, to develop a new and improved email system that will eventually replace Webmail. Though no agreements have yet been made, Murray anticipates that students may expect to see the new system implemented as soon as the summer of 2009.
Another issue that Murray hopes to address soon is the development of a common online login that would allow students to access myUMB, SURFS, Webmail, Blackboard, and other online tools used by the university community.
“We heard loud and clear from students as well as many faculty and staff [regarding the need for a common login],” said Murray. The new online login will be self-created as opposed to an assigned alphanumerical or numerical username as has been previous utilized. Murray hopes to launch the common login system in the fall, but the implementation date will depend on communication with students as well as development of the software.