About DoIT

The Division of Information Technology (DoIT) provides computer technology services to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a more limited set of services to UW System and other units of State government. DoIT delivers desktop, server, and mainframe computing services and supports networks, telecommunications, Internet connectivity, administrative and academic systems, security, instructional technology, and other functions.

DoIT serves the campus community of 2,053 faculty, 16,321 staff, and more than 41,000 students. More than 700 permanent, limited-term and student staff work at DoIT. Our annual budget is approximately $70 million, and about 75 percent of DoIT’s revenue comes from direct charges to customers.

Mission, Vision and Principles

Mission and Vision

The mission of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) is to support the primary institutional missions of teaching, research and service with innovative and creative IT services.

The vision of the Division of Information Technology is to pro-actively improve IT services and service provisioning. With an emphasis on providing visionary, scalable and sustainable services, DoIT staff, in delivery of these services, will be highly trained and educated, committed to the institutional mission and strategic initiatives, and sensitive to the diverse needs of the campus.

Guiding Principles

DoIT follows these core guiding principles in its work:

• Family and Personal Life/Work Balance
• A Welcoming, Respectful and Supportive Work Environment
• Professionalism and Accountability
• Outstanding Customer Service
• Collaboration and Community
• Responsible Stewards of Our Resources
• Exceptional and Innovative IT Services

The Campus Computing Environment

Fully connected
The campus network is built on a fully redundant Ethernet backbone, spanning three supernodes, 14 nodes and approximately 180 radial buildings. Communication speeds are 10 Gbps between supernodes, a minimum of 10 Gbps between nodes, and one Gbps from nodes to radials and telecommunication rooms.

Wireless access is available in more than 80% of campus buildings.

At the department level, every room (classroom, office, lab, etc.) is served by one or more voice/data outlets. Multicast for streaming media is available at departmental request.

The University is a member of WiscNet, a non-profit organization that provides high-speed Internet connectivity to educational institutions and government units statewide. UW-Madison maintains a direct high-speed connection to WiscNet and provides network engineering and operations and other important services for WiscNet.

WiscNet obtains its Internet access from multiple sources, ensuring good performance and reliability. WiscNet and UW-Madison also actively peer with other research, education and commercial providers, including the AADS Network Access Point in Chicago, ESNet and NASA.

WiscWaves, UW-Madison’s high-speed optical network connection to Chicago, provides researchers with 10GB dedicated research networks, or lambdas. This year, DoIT worked with the Department of Physics to deploy a dedicated lambda to the High Energy Physics Large Hadron Collider project, located at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland.

WiscWaves has become a touchstone for the Broadband Optical Research Education And Science network (BOREAS), a Regional Optical Network (RON) built by UW-Madison, the University of Minnesota, the University of Iowa and Iowa State University. BOREAS connects to the CIC OmniPoP in Chicago, a gateway to Internet2, National Lambda Rail (NLR), ESNet and other global research networks.

UW-Madison actively participates in Internet2, a consortium of more than 200 universities, to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies. With WiscNet and UW-Milwaukee, the University has established the WiscREN GigaPOP, which connects to the Internet2 nationwide research network. UW and WiscNet also connect to MREN, a consortium of Midwestern universities and research labs, providing peering with regional research and education and a redundant connection to Abilene.

Network infrastructure

DoIT Network Services manages, operates and supports the campus network, including wireless and dial-in, and coordinates the design, long-range planning and procurement of a broad range of voice services. Several technology groups support this network infrastructure. They conduct research and development for: multiple operating platforms and systems; database management systems; middleware and security tools; virus protection; personal communication tools such as calendaring, email, word processing and presentation software; and multimedia tools.

Internet services

My UW-Madison Web portal
My UW-Madison aggregates personalized information and access to University services for about 55,000 unique users who log in more than 1.5 million times per month. My UW offers academic resources and records for students and instructors, tools to assist advisors, information for applicants, and work records for employees. The portal provides easy access to student data, email, calendar, Web spaces, and other resources via single sign-on. Built on uPortal open-source software, My UW is maintained through an ongoing collaboration among DoIT and UW developers, administrators, and end-users.

Security resources
DoIT’s Security CD and downloadable security software provide antivirus, spyware, firewall software and VPN instructions to enable more secure connections for the campus community.

Email
WiscMail, the campus email service, is available to all current students and all current and retired faculty and staff. WiscMail processes about four million messages per day and has six terabytes of mail storage. There are 75,000 active WiscMail email accounts as of May 2007. WiscMail Plus, the department-administered version of WiscMail, hosts 258 domains containing 16,000 faculty and staff accounts.

My WebSpace
This service provides Web-based storage and document sharing, collaboration tools, and other features. Space available to each user is one gigabyte. In the past year, the number of My WebSpace users increased to 45,000, of whom 82% are students.

Access to network services
DoIT provides access to computing resources via wireless and dial connections. Users can connect wirelessly in 114 buildings (more than 80% of all campus buildings), with 1,649 access points. More buildings are being connected to the wireless network. In the third quarter of FY 2007, the number of wireless connections was almost 240,000 for students and almost 40,000 for faculty and staff.

With the growth in access via metropolitan DSL and cable services, the downward trend in dial modem pool use is likely to continue.

Web server
DoIT’s Web site is a general computing reference for UW faculty, staff and students. The site has approximately 120,000 visits each day.

DoIT’s intranet, called DoITNet, is an internal forum for information exchange, including news, internal system requirements, human resources information, project plans and minutes, and division policies and guidelines.

InfoLabs, kiosks and laptops
Sixteen conveniently located computer labs offer faculty, students and staff high-speed Internet access and a variety of hardware, software and peripherals including color printing, poster printing, slide scanning and digital audio/video editing resources. Dozens of Internet kiosks at popular campus locations provide instant Internet access. More than 500 wireless laptop computers are available for checkout at 17 convenient campus locations.

Video services

DoIT helps those at UW-Madison create and distribute high-quality streaming media, including delivery of live streaming events and content for later viewing on demand. Digital media production services include:

• Promotional and informational videos in any format
• Flash informational videos
• Presentation design and assistance
• Photography
• Screen movies for demos
• Audio recording for demos and online learning
• CD-ROM/DVD-ROM development

All of the new media samples at doit.wisc.edu/news/ were produced by DoIT.

DoIT also provides streaming of content, live and on demand. See doit.wisc.edu/streaming.

The Digital Academic Television Network (DATN) delivers video content via the campus network, live and on demand, via 18 channels. UW-Madison’s high-speed 21st Century Network can accommodate this type of high-bandwidth content delivery. See datn.wisc.edu.

As a contributing member of the ResearchChannel consortium, UW-Madison has access to an expanding, 24-hour network for broadcasting faculty research findings, institutional lectures, interviews, panel discussions and documentaries. ResearchChannel reaches more than 25 million television households in the United States and countless online viewers worldwide, using cable, satellite and web streaming technologies. Viewers have access to content via a live webstream and an on-demand library of more than 3,000 full-length programs available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Phone services

DoIT provides a full range of telecommunications services including:

• Centrex system, with 21,000 administrative lines, 3,950 student (UW Housing) lines and 650 ISDN lines.
• E911 service (room-level location information) on all Centrex and ISDN lines.
• Consulting and technical support for all telephone services.
• Voice-enabled directory assistance system, with telephone numbers and other information 24/7 for UW-Madison and State of Wisconsin agencies in Madison.
• Cellular and smartphone services, with more than 1,000 accounts.
• Voice mail system (premise-based), with over 10,000 mailboxes.
• Enabled Voice Mail (EVM), with more than 2,500 subscribers (sends notifications of new voice mail messages to a user’s email account or copies and delivers messages as attached audio files).
• Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) services for advanced call routing and call center management.
• Electronic telephone bills with enhanced information.
• Broadcast messaging service for use in limited situations.

DoIT’s major service areas

Help Desk
DoIT’s Help Desk is available via phone and email for 19 hours a day, seven days a week, for walk-in customers eight hours a day, five days a week, and via a Web knowledgebase at all hours. The Help Desk knowledgebase has more than 3,000 documents, which were accessed online more than three million times during the year.

Professional Technical Education (PTE)
PTE’s workforce training helps UW staff stay current with technology. About 3,000 people attend one or more of PTE’s 250 public classes each year or hire PTE for one-on-one consulting for training or project work. PTE creates online training courses and customizes classes to meet specific departmental needs. PTE also produces digital video training solutions and provides lab rentals.

PTE supports two student training programs. Software Training for Students (STS) offers free training in the classroom and online. Last year, more than 6,600 students attended one of STS’s 750 classes, and 1,344 students participated in online courses. On request from faculty and instructional staff, STS provides technical training to students specifically related to their timetable courses. Starting in the fall of 2007, a pilot program called “Ask a Trainer” will make STS trainers available in campus locations during peak homework times to help students with assignments using popular software programs. Trainers will be accessible by instant chat, cell phone or in person.

Student Technical Training (STT) instructs University students in information technology support and Web site development. After completing STT, students get help finding part-time campus jobs in IT support. Last year, 135 students completed STT training, and more than 25 employers used STT’s student database and listing services to hire employees.

Tech Store
The DoIT Tech Store sells a full line of steeply discounted, academic-priced software titles and a wide range of computers, printers, cables and other accessories to students, faculty and staff and departments. Tech Store consultants offer unbiased, free-of-charge assessment and advice. Customers can also shop online at the Tech Store’s Web site at techstore.doit.wisc.edu.

Software Licensing/WISC
DoIT coordinates more than 70 academic software licenses and hundreds more shrink-wrap licenses for UW-Madison. The Wisconsin Integrated Software Catalog (WISC) is an e-commerce site where students, faculty/staff and departments at 42 UW System and Wisconsin Technical College System campuses can purchase software at a discount through volume licensing programs. In 2006-07, WISC handled 2,665 departmental orders and 12,289 student/faculty/staff orders. Of those, orders from 2,328 students and 578 faculty/staff were handled at the DoIT Tech Store counter. See www.wisc.edu/wisc

Access to Institutional Data (InfoAccess)
DoIT manages a large “data warehouse,” and decision makers can access its data with a locally developed service called InfoAccess, which serves UW-Madison and UW System campuses. InfoAccess can display 30 gigabytes of data in more than 200 different data views; subject areas include human resources, accounting, benefits, payroll, budget, student records, timetable and admissions. InfoAccess and FASTAR collaborate to deliver the Brio toolset as an even friendlier and more powerful way for users to get the data they need, when they need it. More than 1,300 UW faculty, staff, administrators, and department customers have active InfoAccess accounts.

Application Services
DoIT analysts, designers, programmers, project managers and technical consultants develop and support an array of applications, interfaces, reports and data extracts including:

• Student-related administrative applications
• PeopleSoft’s Student Administration System for all UW System campuses
• Personnel System
• Payroll System, each year providing checks to about 60,000 employees in the UW System;
• Shared Financial System (SFS), based on the PeopleSoft Financial package, for financial transactions and accounting for UW System campuses;
• Public Health Information Network (PHIN)
• E-business, including credit card transactions, catalogs, ordering, inventory management, billing, customer service, workflow automation and other business and administrative functions.

Digital Publishing & Printing Services (DP&PS)
DP&PS, with three campus locations, serves all campus printing needs, either in-house or by contracting with external vendors. DP&PS produces booklets, brochures, forms, envelopes, cards, flyers, posters, tickets, letterheads, newsletters, business cards, custom textbooks, course packets, and other materials. Flexible on-demand printing can save money for users and make printed materials more timely and effective. DP&PS also offers complete graphic design and Web page design. File handling is all digital. DP&PS’s variable data addressing service can be useful for direct mail campaigns.

Instructional technology

Academic Technology DoIT provides a wide range of services to support teaching and learning with technology. Academic Technology (AT) supports Learn@UW (UW-Madison’s course management system); provides consultations, demonstrations, and custom eLearning development; and sponsors workshops, seminars, and training at no cost to faculty and instructional staff.

Through its Engage program, AT helps UW-Madison faculty and instructors solve teaching and learning challenges by providing:

• Financial awards
• One-on-one consultations
• Technology resources and assistance

The Digital Media Center (DMC) helps faculty, staff, and graduate students integrate multimedia into teaching and research. Its cross-platform computer classroom is free to timetable credit courses at UW-Madison and, as space is available, for educational and research events for campus audiences. The DMC sponsors an average of 40 technology events per year and last year hosted dozens of classes from many departments. The New Media Centers Consortium (NMC), an international organization dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies, recognized UW-Madison as a Center of Excellence in 2007.

Learn@UW
Learn@UW is an online course management system offering instructional tools that enhance traditional and online courses, workshops, and other training settings. Instructors use Learn@UW to share documents and media with students, post grades, deliver online quizzes and surveys, host online discussions, and track learners’ progress.

More than 2,400 Learn@UW course sites were used for timetable courses during the 2006-07 academic year, a 20% increase from the previous year.

Technology Accessibility Program (TAP)

DoIT is a nationally recognized leader in Web accessibility policy development and access. Its Technology Accessibility Program supports people with disabilities and those designing applications, instruction and Web pages. Resources, such as educational videos, an accessibility checklist, and an online course called Web Accessibility 101, help faculty and staff understand and comply with the campus Web accessibility policy.

Information Technology Academy (ITA)

Sponsored by DoIT, ITA is a four-year pre-college technology access and training program for talented students of color and low-income students attending Madison Public Schools. ITA’s dual focus is on academic excellence and technological literacy.

Each year, ITA competitively recruits 30 students in their final semester of eighth grade to participate in the program. Selected students receive four years of intensive training in preparation for high-tech, IT-related careers, in addition to intensive academic support in preparation for competitive university admissions and study.

In 2007, 14 students graduated from ITA, all of whom will attend higher education institutions. To date, 49 of ITA’s 51 graduates are enrolled at UW-Madison or other postsecondary educational institutions.

Policies

Information on various policies and guidelines regarding the use of campus computing resources can be found at cio.wisc.edu/policies/ and include:

• Access to Faculty and Staff Electronic Files
• Appropriate Use Policy
• ARMS (Archives and Records Management Services) Email Policy and Best Practices
• Campus Vulnerability Scanning Policy
• Computer Logging Statement
• Electronic Devices Policy
• Email Servers Policy
• Guest NetID Policy
• HIPAA Technical Security
• Password Policy
• State of Wisconsin Cellular Policy
• UW System Policy on the Use of Information Technology Resources
• UW-Housing ResNet Policy
• UW-Madison Policy Governing World Wide Web Accessibility
• UW-Madison Supplemental Cellular Policy

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