About UCS - University Computing Services

Academic Support

The Academic Support area within University Computing Services exists to provide services to the academic community that promote and enhance the intellectual, professional and personal experience of BSU faculty and students. Designed around a matrix model of support, the cross-functional teams of experts can be pulled together to assist faculty with classroom technologies, web based instruction, communication tools, assessment technologies, and application and web development. Academic Support provides leadership; planning and support for large scale academic and research projects that require Information Technology services.

Academic Support is also responsible for researching and evaluating emerging technologies that can enhance the classroom experience for both instructor and student. Exploration and evaluation of "best practices" at other institutions ensure that faculty and students have the appropriate tools that they need to meet their educational goals.

Working in a collaborative mode with faculty, staff and students, Academic Support aims to provide services that foster intellectual and personal excellence.

Administrative Services

Administrative Services area of UCS supports the general mission of UCS and the university through the responsible and prudent management of resources and related services. The unit oversees and monitors the budget; administers contracts; manages the facilities; prepares plans; develops internal policies and procedures; provides purchasing advice and counsel to the university community; and maintains channels of communication and business relations with vendors. Operating largely behind the scenes, the unit performs essential business services required by any organization.

Computer Operations and Client Support

Computer Operations - Operating largely behind the scenes, this area provides continuous computing availability to the campus community for academic and administrative information systems. This effort requires the constant monitoring of critical systems with prompt and appropriate response to alerts and problems. Control and automation of core processes within the business and academic systems including scheduling, application and system data backup, and recovery for enterprise and alternate platforms, as well as problem and change management fall within the operations division.

Client Support – Consists of the Helpdesk, Local Area Service providers (LSP), and the University Computer Labs, which include: adaptive, general and graphic. Helpdesk provides a single point of contact for students, faculty, and staff when faced with computer-related questions or problems including hardware repair. LSPs provide personalized professional Information Technology consulting services, such as, hardware/software troubleshooting, computer setup, and configuration assistance to faculty and staff. University Computer Labs provide faculty, staff, and students with computing resources at numerous locations across campus to facilitate academic endeavors. This is accomplished through our highly specialized adaptive lab, general labs, and our high-end graphic/GIS labs.

Information Security and Server Support

Enterprise Systems Technologies Group: Services provided by the Systems Technology group include direction of the university's e-mail, file sharing, web publishing, web development, and database systems as well as physical installation of new server hardware, operating system components, enterprise systems analysis and design, as well as providing the ongoing OS-level management and maintenance of all UCS supported production servers and systems besides the IBM mainframe. Additionally, the group is responsible for the evaluation and implementation of new technologies, campus-wide user account management, and overall planning of the majority of UCS production services. The group manages more than 300 production enterprise servers, more than 50,000 active user accounts, and multiple terabytes of production disk space. The campus-wide e-mail systems maintained by this group serve more than 34,000 clients. All of the enterprise production services, such as e-mail, web publishing, database services, and web application services are provided around-the-clock to students, faculty, and staff.

Office of Information Security & Policy: The Information Security and Policy group insures that the various technologies used in the learning and administrative processes will not be violated by tampering, illegal access, or malicious destruction and that the confidentially, integrity, and availably of the information resources of the university are protected. In meeting these responsibilities, the group employs a variety of policy and technology measures that underlie campus-wide systems as well as providing the individual units across the university with information assurance capabilities. The groups also helps to establish best practices and is responsible for designing and implementing all aspects of information security including physical, logical, and administrative controls for university information systems. Some of the services provided by the group include establishment of best practices for enterprise systems management, performing and interpreting security testing and process audits, and related information security management practices. The group has responsibility for threat detection, vulnerability analysis and threat assessment, forensic analysis, information security incident investigating, and coordination of efforts of the Computer Security Incident Response Team (BSU-CSIRT) in the event of a security incident. Finally, the group maintains BSU's Information Security web site, which provides the university with relevant and timely information concerning information security issues that affect the campus community.

Information Systems Development and Support

The UCS Information Systems staff is responsible for development, support, and maintenance of mainframe and server based computer applications. In addition, technical support and maintenance are provided for the IBM mainframe operating environment: z/OS, z/VM, and Linux operating systems, DB2 subsystems, and CICS regions.

Analysis and programming services include an up-to-date array of platforms, development languages, utilities and tools, and skill sets. The IS staff strives to stay abreast of emerging technologies and techniques in order to offer "best practice" solutions to the campus community in an effective and timely manner.

Programming and systems analysis functions are performed for all sectors of the university. Project requests are submitted on line by requestors, reviewed and approved by the appropriate Area Coordinator (one for every major division of the university), and then forwarded to UCS for development. UCS development schedules are built in accordance with available resources, the completion date requested, and the priority as affirmed by the Area Coordinator. Ongoing project management decisions are greatly influenced by the due date and the project's relative importance and impact as inferred by the priority.

Networking and Communication

The Network and Communications Integration area is responsible for the development, installation, maintenance, and performance of the university's networking environment. This environment connects thousands of active office, computer labs, residence halls and wireless connections to computer, video and voice services both on and off campus. The area is also responsible for various network related services such as DNS, DHCP, and authentication servers. This area also assists community based networking initiatives intended to expand connectivity within the surrounding community.

Research and Design

The Research Design staff provides consultation and data analysis services to faculty, staff, and students for research projects that are part of BSU's educational mission. These research projects include, but are not limited to, research intended for publication, dissertations, thesis, needs assessment, or evaluations. Consultation is provided in the following areas: research design, instrumentation and survey construction, techniques of data collection and entry, and statistical analysis and interpretation. The staff can also provide assistance with data analysis and technical support for statistical software such as SPSS, SAS, and AMOS.

Workforce Development/Project Assessment

The Workforce Development/Project Assessment staff assists in maintaining organizational effectiveness, functional communication between areas, and provides project-level management and reporting for UCS projects. UCS management, workforce, and University Area Coordinators work collectively to insure this approach to management of systems, computing resources, and personnel are in accordance with university and IT goals, expectations, and future needs.