Pepperdine Information Technology Annual Review 2017

Annual Review | 2017

pepperdine information technology

Paper Less | 2-3 New Wave WiFi | 4-5 Phishing Expedition | 6-7 Peripheral Vision | 8-9

The Future’s So Bright...

The TechLearn Conference brings inquiring minds and new perspectives together for an eye-opening vision of the future of education, page 10.

David Perez takes a virtual test drive at the 2017 TechLearn Conference in West LA.

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Paper Less A two-year collaboration across departments and schools leads the IT department to implement a new content management system in 2018

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n aging content management system (CMS) and a growing university created the perfect opportunity at Pepperdine a couple years ago, as the school’s needs from Malibu to Shanghai were outpacing our content management system’s (CMS) capabilities.

The solution to the problem would prove to be every bit as dynamic as the road to finding it.

“We had a convergence of multiple things that brought us to a crossroads with our content management system,” said Associate Director of Client Services and Application Development Abrash Khanmalek. “Web browsers started announcing that they were going to end support for Java, and our CMS system runs on it. That was a real wake-up call for us in late 2015.

“We also recognized that there were a lot of competitors in the content management market, along with new system developments,” Khanmalek added. “When we started our discovery phase in 2016, we learned that many of the other products were night and day from Nolij, our current CMS solution.”

Apples to Apples, and Oranges The first step on this years-long journey was for the Information Technology team to conduct discovery meetings with all the relevant stakeholders across schools and departments at the university.

They examined the daily activities in each department and worked with Pepperdine staff to build a list of business processes.

“We’ve been working hand in hand with our university constituents, and they have been involved in the discovery meetings from the outset,” said Khanmalek. “They were involved in the meetings to determine how the processes would look, the planning, and all the timelines, so this was a team effort in every sense of the word.”

Next, the IT project team narrowed the field to three products that they believed could fulfill the needs established in the discovery

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phase: OnBase, Laserfiche, and Etrieve. All three vendors presented several times to various departments, and then the team provided feedback in their evaluations for the project team.

“We heard a lot about the applications’ usability, look and feel, and how each product might streamline the respective departments’ daily responsibilities,” said Information Technology Project Manager Reyn Oyadomori. “Ultimately, everything pointed to Etrieve, which is a very clean, intuitive system.”

“For example, Etrieve excels at spinning up public forms that are behind our authentication system,” said Khanmalek. “So, it can query and copy values from PeopleSoft and pre-populate forms with data such as first and last name, CWID, and email.

“Because PeopleSoft will be integrated with Etrieve,” Khanmalek continued, “all this information will be available when the student logs in. So, when we say we’re re-creating a business process, it’s not apples to apples. It’s apples to apples and oranges, because we’re getting so much more than we had in the previous system.”

Oyadomori offered a single, powerful example of the new system’s potential impact on how Pepperdine does business.

“Paperless financial aid could take a 14-day process down to two business days,” he noted. “When you remove paper, you remove mail, delivery, document handling, etc. It can create new workflows that allow multiple users to progress on a task simultaneously. It brings incredible efficiency to our processes.”

“You could spin up admissions applications that automatically trigger notifications and go through voting workflows,” added Khanmalek. “You can have business forms for Human Resources, or a tool that leverages the best of Google Forms along with the best web forms. Add Etrieve, and you have the best of both worlds.”

Khanmalek quickly cautioned that implementation will take time.

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When you add up the functionality, automation workflows, feature sets, forms, HTML5, and security, Etrieve will be a significant upgrade

Transition “This is not the type of project in which we can shut down the old system, load the new system, and then expect everyone to be able to work on the new system the next day,” Khanmalek noted. “In 2006, when we implemented PeopleSoft, we had to bring up module by module, department by department. We need to bring this system up the same way, and so this entire project will take all of 2018 and could push into 2019.

“That means that the university will be in a mixed mode environment for all of 2018,” Khanmalek said. “So, we will still be running Nolij and Etrieve concurrently. Some teams will still be running on Nolij as we implement Etrieve, from department to department.

“Our goal is to have the entire university working in Etrieve by 2019.

At that point, we will still have Nolij in a read-only state, so you won’t be able to perform any workflows or functions other than search and look-up. That’s just a protection against any information that may have failed to migrate during the transition. Our tentative date for completely decommissioning Nolij is July of 2019.”

Next Steps Phase 1 of the Etrieve implementation will be for Seaver Enrollment and the Registrar’s Office and will take place in the spring. Phase 2 will be in the summer of 2018, serving all academic areas that currently use Nolij. Next fall, administrative departments including Human Resources, Finance, and Advancement will be added, and any other departments that are not currently using Nolij would be scheduled in 2019 and beyond.

“Our next steps in January are to finalize the integration into PeopleSoft, which is our ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, before beginning implementation in the spring,” Khanmalek noted.

“When you add up the functionality, automation workflows, feature sets, forms, HTML5, and security, Etrieve will be a significant upgrade,” Khanmalek said. “It will improve our productivity and efficiency, and that will free up people to do bigger things.”

“Once people experience Etrieve and discover what’s possible with this software, we believe that Pepperdine users will be taking what the system can do for the university well beyond our initial vision,” Oyadomori added.

“What we bought in 2008 was a reliable sedan with an automatic transmission,” said Khanmalek. “What we have now is a top-of-the-line sports car with a stick shift. The standard features are night-and-day different from what was available 10 years ago.

“The challenge is that no one knows how to drive this car yet, so we have to train everyone on how to make this outstanding machine do all the great things that it’s capable of doing for us. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do, one person at a time,” Khanmalek concluded.

CMS Implementation Schedule (Subject to Change)

Phase 1: Spring 2018 – Seaver Enrollment & Registrar Phase 2: Summer 2018 – All academic areas that currently use the Nolij system Phase 3: Fall 2018 – All administrative departments including Human Resources, Finance, and Advancement Phase 4: 2019 and beyond – All other departments that are not currently using Nolij

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WiFiNew

Pepperdine University is making the move to Cisco for its wireless access

Wave WiFi

The Information Technology department creates a program to heighten

at all campuses, helping students,

departmental awareness in the community, and maybe even turn a few heads

faculty, and staff connect to the

Internet faster and more reliably than ever before

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ireless technology’s rapid evolution – and an opportunity for considerable savings on hardware – led Pepperdine’s

Information Technology Department to launch an institutionwide project to improve the university’s wireless Internet access.

“This is a multi-year project to replace all of our aging and existing infrastructure across all of our Southern California locations,” said Information Technology Systems and Networking Director Dave Holden. “We’re also switching our wireless access provider from Aruba to Cisco.

“Cisco is one of our main networking vendors, and when they presented us a substantial, one-time discount in mid-2017, we decided to plan for the next three or four years to determine everything we might need,” Holden said. “We spent $2.6 million on hardware, including the rest of the wireless gear we would need, along with more than a million dollars in switch architecture that we knew we would also need for our infrastructure.

“After completing the Calabasas campus installation, we have also finished Payson Library, the Thornton Administrative Center, the Center for Communication and Business, the Seaver Academic Center and a few other buildings,” Holden said. “Our plan is to keep the progress moving in January, working on two to four buildings a month as we roll it out across campus.

The Big Switch “The challenge in the residential installations is that we need to put a new switch into the telecommunications room (TR) in each location,” Holden explained. “Switches fit in racks, and as they have evolved over the years, they have gotten deeper. The problem is that some of the locations just can’t accommodate the larger equipment.

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Often, the TR’s in these dorms was a former janitorial closet, so we have to engineer a way to get the larger switches to fit.

The wireless project, which began in late 2016, required a great deal of back-end engineering for each building. After a pilot program in Calabasas, Payson Library was the first deployment in Malibu. The current plan is for all the installations to be handled by Pepperdine’s IT staff in Network Services and Network Engineering.

“It was originally designed to be a three-year project,” Holden noted. “We have been working on it for a year, and I am hopeful that we can complete all the buildings in the project in another year, and then the outdoor areas after that.

“We could complete the project a little sooner if we outsourced the labor,” Holden noted, “but we’re saving even more money by handling it internally. And, because the Aruba and Cisco systems don’t work well together, we want to handle all the planning and then go in and knock it all out, one building at a time in one day.

“Wireless is a challenging animal and we’re still learning the Cisco architecture. Right now, we’re focusing on replacing the existing access points in all the locations, and then we handle any subsequent challenges that may arise.

“Cisco offered superior products and service, and the timing was right for us to make the change,” Holden said. “And in projecting the need and then purchasing the necessary hardware for all the campuses at once, we saved $600,000 with the discount.

“We understand that wireless is the way that most people connect to the Internet,” Holden noted. “So, we are maximizing the opportunity to refresh our infrastructure to stay current with our technology while delivering better performance to the community.”

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Phishing Expedition Pepperdine University’s Information Security team works 24/7/365 to protect our community from the millions of cyber attacks that can leave Wave users feeling

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like vulnerable phish in a very dangerous pond

he Pepperdine University Community is under attack, and the threat grows every minute of every day. In fact, we had to fight off almost six million attempted breaches in just one month this year.

That is the unfortunate reality that Pepperdine’s Information Security Office works diligently to overcome, and the battle rages on every day on all of the university’s campuses.

Plenty of Phish in the Sea

Fortunately, there are no barbarians at the gates on PCH, however our computers, smartphones and other devices are where this war is being waged.

“People find it hard to believe that anyone would target the Pepperdine community,” See continued. “But our data proves that the attacks are, in fact, on the increase.”

As Chief Information Officer Jonathan See noted, corporate America has been fighting this fight for some time, with brands such as Target and Pepperdine University Chief Equifax reeling from breaches of their databases.

“Cyber criminals understand that people are the weakest links in any online activity,” See noted. “We use our devices to do everything, and we may not notice that a URL doesn’t match an email’s content. There are countless phishing scams out there, and many are very sophisticated.”

These numbers reinforce that cyber security requires Information Officer Jonathan a tireless defense, which is why Pepperdine’s Information See offers Community Security Office (ISO) works vigilantly to protect our members a three-year community. password extension for October was National Cyber Security Awareness enrolling in SecureConnect.

Phishing is the deceptive practice of trying to obtain confidential information such as login credentials, credit card information or personal data by disguising digital messaging to appear as though it came from a trusted partner such as your bank, a large retailer, or even Pepperdine.

The lookalike emails and web pages can be very deceiving, and they wind up hooking users who take the attractive visual bait.

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That number jumped from 2.3 million attacks in September 2016 to 5.7 million attempts in August 2017: an increase of 148 percent.

Month (NCSAM), and ISO leveraged that focus to implement SecureConnect, a multi-factor authentication software that helps protect university data. The SecureConnect App confirms user identity by using two components such as a password and a personal device.

“This was our fourth year promoting NCSAM, and it is vital that we convey to students, faculty and staff how important their contribution is to staying safe,” said Pepperdine’s Information Security Officer Kim Cary.

Cyber criminals understand that people are the weakest links in any online activity

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and private accounts, Pepperdine recommends LastPass, an online password manager available through the university.

“As children, we learn to avoid a hot stove or to look both ways before crossing the street,” Cary continued. “But no one is teaching us about the traffic dangers the web can bring into our lives in just one unfocused moment.

Password managers can also generate new passwords for you, gauge the security level of your existing passwords, and alert users to site hacks as they arise.

“Counterfeit emails and camouflage websites can catch you at a busy time,” Cary continued. “Before you know it, you have given a hacker your username and password, and opened access to your personal accounts and the university system as well. We’re asking the Pepperdine Community to take a critical eye in looking at the URLs in emails and webpages to ensure that the senders are who they say they are,” Cary added.

Pepperdine Recommends LastPass “Passwords are a crucial line of defense,” See noted during the October President’s briefing at Pepperdine’s Calabasas campus. “As security requirements increase, various vendors and websites are turning to authentication software like SecureConnect in addition to requiring increasingly complicated passwords. That’s where using a password manager makes sense for everyone.”

Instead of remembering login credentials for dozens of websites

A password manager allows you to register your login information for all your accounts and sites, and it connects through a browser plugin to those accounts as you access them.

“You don’t have to remember countless, increasingly complicated passwords, and most password managers will also autofill your login credentials on the sites you register,” Cary added. “Most important, using a tool like LastPass, especially in conjunction with an authentication service such as SecureConnect creates a much stronger barrier to potential hackers.”

Reflect before You Connect One the best phishing defenses is right at your fingertips.

“You have to trust your instincts,” said Cary. “If something looks off or doesn’t feel right, take your hand off the mouse.”

Unfortunately, knowledge isn’t enough. Approximately 10 percent of people who had rigorous cyber fraud training to recognize phishing scams still fall for the scams and click dangerous links.

“There are people who are trying to steal our identities,” See said.

“So, we will continue to keep watch in IT to help Pepperdine stay safe.”

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Peripheral Vision

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hen Pepperdine University’s Information Technology department decided to promote the team’s

service offerings as a means of improving digital literacy, they didn’t want students, faculty and staff to have far to look. That concept led to the creation of Peripheral Vision: an initiative designed to advance the range of projects and services that Pepperdine’s IT department offers to the community.

“Information Technology is always here for the Pepperdine community, but we aren’t always out where people are,” said Manager of IT Training Jordan Lott. “So, we wanted to increase an awareness of our team by having our staff be more accessible. We don’t jump up and down and wave our arms to get people’s attention. But, in both the conceptual and the physical sense, we are right here in plain sight.

“If we made a strong enough impression to draw that many students who wanted to work with us, then I feel confident that the other students will know that when they have a problem, they can come down to Tech Central for support.

“Our goal is to be in everyone’s field of vision as they go through their day,” Lott observed. “If something’s in your field of vision, and you catch a little movement, it turns your head and gets you going in a different direction.”

“We are working with Sodexo to provide the beverage cups in the Tyler cafeteria for a week in the spring,” said Lott. “That will give us an opportunity to advance our brand message in a place that touches the majority of the community here in Malibu.

The core issue? Unfortunately, if a member of the Pepperdine community is interacting with the IT department, that person is probably coping with a technology challenge.

“We’re also looking at a partnership with the Athletic Department,” Lott continued. “We want to go beyond technological items like memory sticks or phone chargers. We might give away towels with our IT Service Desk phone number on it to the first 500 fans at a basketball game to create a touchpoint with people outside of the traditional IT interaction or association.”

“Many times, no one knows the IT department is there until something goes wrong,” said Lott. “We do a lot of proactive things as a department, but customer support, by nature, is very reactive.

“We want to build upon this great track record of customer support and go on the offensive,” said Lott. “We wanted to affect a subtle change between the uncertainty that someone feels when they have a technological issue, and the assurance of knowing how to reach out to IT when those challenges arise.”

The Peripheral Vision program has three different components: promotion, partnership and presence.

Promotion The first concept deals with promotional materials and how IT distributed them at events like the Seaver New Student Orientation (NSO) in August. For many students and parents, that would be their first contact with IT, and it was a positive event that ended with participants walking away with free materials that were branded with information about IT. “At that event, we gave away 3,000 tote bags, more than 1,000 magnets, boxes of note pads and thousands of custom exam books,” Lott said. “An easy way to quantify our success is that we generally get a few resumes for our student positions in IT Communications each fall. This year, we had almost 30 applicants: almost exclusively freshmen and transfer students I interacted with at NSO.

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Partnerships

Presence “This is where we have the most work to do,” Lott said. “We will be looking to do more tabling in high traffic areas, participating in Town Hall meetings, and even walking door to door around campus to ask if people have any technical questions. We want to start the conversation by asking how we can help. It’s about being proactive versus the perception that IT departments are just service units.”

“We strive to make people’s everyday lives better by improving business processes and working alongside them,” Lott said.

“When we did the email upgrade to Google, we handled more questions and issues on how people used email than we did for the Google product itself.

With events such as NSO and National Cyber Security Awareness Month, and partnerships like Sodexo and the Athletic Department, the IT department is raising its profile in the community.

“If we can reach the person who doesn’t understand how to maximize Google products, or a dozen other crucial variables in the university’s day-to-day business, then we can affect a shift in the way our students, faculty and staff function that can push the community’s whole effort forward,” said Lott. “Improving digital literacy improves the entire university and how we do business.”

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Improving digital literacy improves the entire university and how we do business

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Technically P

Speaking

epperdine University’s Technology and

Learning team held the 2017 TechLearn

Conference at the school’s West LA campus on October 19, promoting the concepts of Innovation, Collaboration and Education.

“Our focus is on the faculty at all five Pepperdine schools,” said Senior Manager of Technology and Learning Kristin Baliey. “The expectation is that everybody at the university is researching, learning new technology, and then trying to share that knowledge with their colleagues. The challenge can be that a professor at the law school may not be aware of what someone in the business school may be doing and vice versa.

“The Conference is our team’s biggest Community-facing event,” Bailey continued. “And it allows us to expand our efforts across all five schools in bringing faculty and staff together to share their experiences in a forum they don’t have anywhere else.

Dr. Chris Heard asks attendees to perform an exercise two different ways to illustrate the brain’s difficulty with switchtasking. of the conference breakout sessions as well. The speakers challenged traditional educational perspectives using tools like virtual reality and remote lectures to mesh technological advances into concepts as simple as the limits of a classroom.

Professors consistently comment that they want more opportunities to interact with their colleagues, but coordinating schedules with five schools and 700 faculty members cannot accommodate everyone.

Still, the faculty want to hear from more of their colleagues.

“People were excited about the Genesis Lab at Payson Library,” Bailey said. “And hearing the perspectives from our university’s leaders at the lunch session was absolutely invaluable.”

“We move the conference from campus to campus over the years,” Bailey noted, “but it can still come down to not being the right day of the week for some, or the wrong time for others. Fortunately, the trend for people who can attend has been that the experience was very positive and productive.”

One of the most revealing aspects of the post-conference faculty feedback speaks to the event’s impact on the faculty.

Going forward, Bailey indicated that other institutions and more outside vendors could be included in the conference planning.

“Attendees always want more hands-on teaching experience at the conference,” said Bailey. “Although it’s helpful to have speakers present different topics and share what different schools are doing, attendees want to get more involved at the conference so that they can apply those experiences in their classes.”

“We could open it up to a larger audience,” Bailey said. “Even if a school doesn’t use the same program that we do, learning management strategies are learning management strategies.”

The faculty thirst for interaction in the pursuit of advanced teaching methods drove the Technology and Learning team to push the limits

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“Our goal is to educate our faculty on how to incorporate technology into the curriculum,” said Bailey. “And as we continue to grow the conference, we hope to see more faculty take full advantage of the opportunity to learn from one another.”

Dr. Ardavan Asef-Vaziri, adjunct faculty from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management, discusses instructional alternatives during a TechLearn session titled, “The Flipped Classroom: a Not-for-Cost-Reduction Platform.”

Above, Michelle Blas and Dr. Lani Fraizer enjoyed more success with the team-building portion of the exercise than the innovation.

Above right, participants collaborate during a team-building activity centered around engineering a boat that would stay afloat while holding the maximum number of pennies.

Right, event organizer Kristen Bailey engages with colleagues during the Q&A portion of the session titled, “Piloting an Online Master’s Level Capstone Course in Psychology: Lessons Learned and Next Steps.”

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