Arizona State University – September 2019

Inclusive education through digital transformation

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Driving innovation and inclusivity through digital transformation

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A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

Dr Jess Evans, Chief Operating and Digital Transformation Officer at Arizona State University (ASU)’s University Technology Office (UTO), discusses the tech and strategies that have defined ASU’s modern, inclusive and prestigious reputation

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rizona State University (ASU) has enjoyed a remarkable uptick in reputation in recent years, and its success comes

down to the efficacy of its digital transformation.

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“Over the past several years, specifically the last six, the university has grown exponentially in terms of improving both its academic presence and innovation schedule,” says Dr Jess Evans, Chief Operating and Digital Transformation Officer at ASU’s University Technology Office (UTO).

“Case in point: over the last four years, US News and World Report has rated ASU as the most innovative university in the country, ahead of giants like Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford.” Evans credits this meteoric shift to the vision of ASU President, Michael Crow. “He has set forth a strategy to truly transform the entire university, both in the way we do business and how higher education works,” she says. “The vision looks to change the model of institutions fundamentally grounding themselves in exclusivity.

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A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

“ At ASU, we are proud of who we include.We are looking to give every student an opportunity” — Dr Jess Evans, Chief Operating and Digital Transformation Officer, ASU UTO 06

At ASU, we are proud of not who we exclude, but who we include.

We are looking to give every student an opportunity.”

This strategy – which has involved the introduction of new course program structures, remote study options and partnerships with companies such as Starbucks and Uber – has led to a surge in the university’s student headcount.

“We’re now climbing above 40,000 online students, and this puts the entire ASU student count at above

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘EMPOWER – HIGHLIGHTS OF ASU IT PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITY DAY’ 07 111,000 in total,” says Evans. This

is not a simple ‘lift and shift’, noting

growth would not have been sustain-

that the transition has involved the

able with the university’s traditional

establishment of a DevSecOps

infrastructure, and tackling this

methodology, the use of automation-

challenge is the crux of Evans’s work

based tech and a people-oriented

at the UTO. “We need creative and

focus on reskilling existing staff

innovative ways to address this

to make the most of the changes.

demand, deliver excellent customer

“We have 300 code-based robots

service and keep a mindful eye toward

transitioning many of our on-prem

fiscal responsibilities.” To meet the

resources to the cloud without the

computational demands of such

need for human intervention, and this

a large student body, ASU is in the

frees up our staff to start developing

process of transferring most of its

new skills.”

on-premise infrastructure to cloud

Realigning existing staff with new

solutions. Evans stresses that this

processes is vital to the wider change w w w.uto .as u . ed u

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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION CYBERSECURITY DATA CENTER

“ Bringing our teams together and having them vested in this transition has been as crucial as some of the technical projects we have delivered” — Dr Jess Evans, Chief Operating and Digital Transformation Officer, ASU UTO

management strategy, which Evans earmarks as the keystone of the digital transformation. To that end, ASU Chief Culture Officer, Christine Whitney Sanchez, has collaborated with her throughout their transformative efforts. “She and I have partnered to align our strategic goals and objectives, as well as give the organization a vehicle of empowerment,” says Evans.

“Bringing our teams together and having them vested in this transition has been as crucial as some of the technical projects we have delivered, if not more so. Through this cultural

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Dr Jess Evans Dr Jess Evans leads the Operations and Digital Transformation (ODT) team within the University Technology Office (UTO) at ASU. Through a transparent and collaborative approach to servant leadership, Jess works with her team to advance the mission of the university. The ODT portfolio spans multiple UTO departments that includes; network, server, storage, data center, public and private cloud services, identity and access management, enterprise architecture, enterprise systems, project and portfolio management, experience center (help center), desk-side services, customer engagement teams, training and event services, classroom support, new construction design, all budget and HR within UTO, and UTO service management systems.

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A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

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transformation, we’ve given multiple

be enabling short-term success.

teams a voice and empowered them

“Sustainable success comes from

to assist with shaping how they work

working on culture, being credible,

in a truly agile way. We are iterating,

and leading in an intentional way.

we are learning, and we’re doing it

We, the UTO executive leadership

together as a group.” Evans says that

team, have made great strides

the effectiveness of ASU’s digital

in transforming how we operate,

transformation hinges on the strength

and we’re seeing the results permeate

of its cultural transformation. Any

throughout the organization.”

organization seeking to leapfrog a

Part of the challenge of effective

potent change management strategy

change management at ASU is

must address culture or they will only

reflected in a significant technological

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opportunity: the vastness of the

an ever-expanding student body and

university’s network. In Arizona,

the Internet of Things (IoT) devices

ASU’s core footprint is comprised

comprising a growing smart campus

of four major campuses in the greater

infrastructure, has necessitated the

Phoenix metro area with an expanding

advent of ASU’s NextGen Network.

campus in Lake Havasu. In addition

Evans inherited an environment

to this state-based presence, the

whereby network operations were

organization has a range of small

wholly outsourced to a service

satellite academic areas in Washington

provider, and bringing that network

DC and California, with a another one

into direct control offers myriad

due in Hawaii soon. This geographic

benefits. “With the goal of having a

range, coupled with the demand of

hybrid model, ASU will have traditional w w w.uto .as u . ed u

strategy, technology, transformation.

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engineers back on the table to lead

functions of the network to manage

architecture and design while

the workload of the university’s

collaborating with multiple partners

smart campus ambitions becomes

to hone our strategies and ensure our

significantly easier. “FY2019 was a

larger portfolio of services is enabled.

busy year for the network operations

The unique difference of this collabo-

teams,” Evans elaborates. “ASU

rative structure contractually requires

embarked on a very aggressive and

all parties (external and internal to

innovative approach to soliciting

ASU) to hold each other accountable

vendors through the RFP process.

for SLAs and performance metrics.”

The creative restructuring of how we

By bringing the network under

ask vendors to collaborate with other

the UTO’s influence, tailoring the

competing vendors to package the w w w.uto .as u . ed u

A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

ÂŁ500.mn+ Total research expenditures 2018

1885

Year founded

17,000+

Approximate number of employees 14

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connecting and protecting

h y e t e c h n e t w o r k s . c o m

“Our goal is to have a completely infrastructure-free network in the long term, and that is truly radical” — Dr Jess Evans, Chief Operating and Digital Transformation Officer, ASU UTO

ultimate solution was a first for the procurement and technology disciplines. Through meticulous rigor, ASU selected the top solution and transitioned to new service providers within one fiscal year. A monumental amount of proposal reviews, contract negotiations and transition planning occurred through a large team of ASU members, along with many team members from our new partners. New service providers took control on 28 June 2019.”

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A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

The vision of the NextGen Network doesn’t end there, however. “If your network isn’t designed to handle that influx of traffic, you’ll come to a crashing halt, so we are going to design a software-defined network (SDN),” says Evans. “We’re holding a proof of concept ‘bake off’ between vendors to see who has the best SDN solution in the market, and we intend to elect a provider and put the first instance into production by January 2020,” she explains. In the long-term, 18

Evans says that the aim is to achieve something that no other known higher education establishment in the world has yet managed: a fully-fledged, serverless architecture. “Our goal is to have a predominantly infrastructure free footprint in the long-term, and that is truly radical: we will leverage our code and developer power to provision hardware both in the cloud and within strategic local physical locations. These goals are reliant on a well-designed and robust network that will handle the influx of large data traversing over the network.

We plan to hire engineers to help us develop and build these NextGen

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technologies in partnership with whichever SDN partner we select.

Through this, we will become the first full-fledged higher education SDN on the planet. This transformation is truly cutting-edge.”

The breadth of ASU’s smart campus achievements and ambitions will grow exponentially with the establishment of the robust NextGen Network, but thus far they are well encapsulated in the organization’s smart stadium.

“We will become the first full-fledged higher education SDN on the planet.

This transformation is truly cutting-edge” — Dr Jess Evans, Chief Operating and Digital Transformation Officer, ASU UTO

Anyone attending games at the stadium must have ASU’s mobile app, 21

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘INSPIRING FUTURE EXPLORERS AT ASU’

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A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

powered through a partnership with Ticketmaster, for ticketing purposes.

This monumental relationship saw Ticketmaster open its API to ASU, revolutionizing the ticketing operations at the stadium and entirely removing paper tickets from the process. More widely, the app has been integrated with Canvas, ASU’s learning management system, to offer students quick access to their schedules, campus maps, information regarding financial aid and more. Under the leadership of Chris Richardson, Deputy CIO 22

for Development, Mobility and Smart Cities, the app has been a resounding success: it has thus far enjoyed over 80,000 downloads from students, with an expanding focus to include faculty and staff features in the coming year.

Not only that, but preliminary IoT solutions have been prototyped in select suites at the stadium to monitor trash volume, stadium footfall and the frequency of guests sitting and standing.

Looking forward, this breed of intelligence and data gathering will be expanded in earnest across ASU’s locations. “The development team will help us with more IoT capabilities,” says Evans. “They have built a facial recognition program that will, in the

“You need to transform your culture, your people,your back office processes.You need to be creative, and those changes must be made as a group” — Dr Jess Evans, Chief Operating and Digital Transformation Officer, ASU UTO

long-term, be combined with IoT

services,” concludes Evans. “You

programs to improve safety and

need to transform your culture, your

security on campus.” A greater

people and your back office process-

degree of smart lighting, vehicle traffic

es. You need to be creative, and those

and parking monitoring and more are

changes must be made as a group –

also in the works, and each piece of

a holistic end-to-end approach –

tech is set to upgrade the campus

in order to be sustainable.”

experience in a meaningful way.

Ultimately, this quality applies to ASU’s digital transformation across the board. “Digital transformation is not just transforming your digital

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Tempe, AZ 85281, USA T (855) 278-5080 www.uto.asu.edu