ITS team comes together at All-Staff to welcome the new CIO and to learn more about the Marymount Manhattan merger
Team ITS held its monthly All-Staff meeting on Wednesday, June 5, which featured updates and conversations on two big announcements: the new Chief Information Officer and Northeastern University – New York City. Vice President of Global Launch Services Bryan Lackaye joined ITS staff to give an update about the recent merger announcement with Marymount Manhattan College and answer ITS staff questions. The university is planning four different workstreams for the eventual campus integration, each with implications for technology services and support and involving ITS. The second half of the meeting featured Northeastern’s new CIO, Jennifer Brant-Gargan, whose tenure started this week and from whom most IT staff had a chance to hear directly for the first time. The staff gave her a warm welcome as Jen shared more about her background and her intent to learn more about the people in the organization, and she answered questions.
Updates in Student Hub simplify payment options, reducing obstacles and frustration for students in completing administrative tasks
A collaboration between ITS and Student Financial Services, the June 13 release to the Student Hub introduces a new payment modal in the home page’s Billing tab that is expected to simplify the process of paying tuition bills. The new modal displays all payment options available to a student from the Billing tab, which typically sees approximately 116,000 monthly clicks. This improved process provides a more seamless and direct pathway to payment, making it easier for students to view their payment options. While the display on the Billing tab has been refreshed, the way in which students pay through the portals remains the same.
Positive impacts of Northeastern’s investment in Global Learning Spaces start to fully materialize over the 2023-24 year, putting Northeastern in contention for the 2024 Gartner Eye on Innovation Awards for Education
Global Learning Spaces, in combination with managed AV design and support, is Northeastern’s solution to costly installation, inconsistencies, and complexities of classroom AV across the university’s global university system. The 2023-24 academic year was the first full one in which all the most critical components of the solution were in place in nearly 200 classrooms across the network, allowing the university to begin fully reaping the benefits of its investment. The installation cost of each Global Learning Space has been cut in half of what it cost to install previous systems. Classroom support tickets have also been reduced by 33% year-over-year. Lower tickets can be attributed to less complex systems, effective communication, training, and preparations, and proactive monitoring that can often lead to resolution before a faculty member even steps into a room to discover an issue. This solution enables Northeastern to implement a much simpler and more cost-effective AV design and then scale it across all classrooms and campuses. While costs are lower, capabilities are greatly increased and more consistent across all Global Learning Spaces, creating new efficiencies and allowing one AV training and support model to be used for all rooms across all campuses. Global Learning Spaces at Northeastern has been nominated for a 2024 Gartner Eye on Innovation Award for Education, which annually recognizes institutions from across the globe for their innovative use of technology to drive best-in-class initiatives.
Hubs program continues to improve and speed up the experience for students, employees, and families with a rapid pace of regular update releases
This evening’s, June 27, operational update release on the Employee Hub marks the sixteenth release on the Hubs platform in 2024—a rapid pace aimed at keeping up with the needs and demands of the university community. Following the launch earlier this year of the Family Hub and completion of the Student and Employee Hub re-platforming project, featured improvements have included enhanced payment options for students and parents, a much sought-after Resources widget on the Student and Employee Hubs homepages that makes navigating to key university resources faster than ever, and implementation of enhanced role management which bolsters security and supports further personalization of Hub resources. Regular operational releases include small bug fixes, feature enhancements, and security and digital accessibility improvements. Each release further improves the experience for the more than 40,000 individuals who use the Hubs each week. In the last three months, Student Hub saw over two million visits, while Employee Hub fielded nearly 500,000 and Family Hub received over 65,000.