Accreditation

IT will facilitate the upcoming accreditation cycles in the School of Education, School of Business, and the university by aiding in the procurement and institutionalization of school-specific reporting software programs.

Campaign Support

W&M IT will work closely with Advancement to support the goals of The Campaign for William & Mary. On the docket for 2016 is the development of a fundraising portal with our partner, Give Campus. The portal will allow Class Ambassadors to self-select eligible classmates and guide them through solicitations. We will also continue to assist the complex invitation sorting process for large campaign-related events and multi-tiered campaign solicitations, and support ongoing campagin reporting -- all while providing our top-notch technical support of Advancement staff.

Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) Implementation

The College of William & Mary began implementing the system components of an enterprise-wide CRM in Fall 2015 with partners ACF Solutions, Salesforce Foundation and TargetX. The multi-year project kicked-off with a Discovery phase that will run through July/August 2016 and focuses on two areas: student and advancement. The student area will focus on implementing the online application and recruitment modules for TargetX for three of our graduate schools. The advancement area will center around event and marketing management and building an online alumni community.

Phase 2 will run throughout the remainder of 2016. The student area of this phase will focus on delivering TargetX functionality to the remaining graduate school as well as functionality for student success. The advancement area will focus on the implementation of Advancement Connect.

During these phases multiple systems will be integrated with the Salesforce platform and several departments across campus will go live.

Visit our Building Bridges website for details about the CRM initiative at W&M.

Data-Informed Decision Making

William & Mary has a wealth of data that is currently used for on-going operations but not being explored effectively to make strategic decisions for the future. Many of our peer institutions are using data-informed decision making to improve student retention, predict success of applicants, determine optimum tuition rates, predict adoption of academic programs, and many other key areas of interest. W&M IT is moving forward in a multi-year process of identifying appropriate tools and data platforms, gathering data from disparate sources, cleansing data to mitigate inaccuracies, and establishing data governance procedures to facilitate the use of college data for strategic decision making.

ePayments

Currently in the works for a 2016 launch, the ePayments project will allow the College to pay vendors electronically through a commercial bank. This will reduce the cost of cutting and sending checks as well as enable vendors to get paid faster.

HR Revitalization

HR Revitalization, Finance Revitalization, and Procure-to-Pay are all business innovation projects for the College which rely heavily on IT services and systems. IT will navigate the technical aspects of these projects while providing support and expertise throughout the implementation processes.

Identity Management

To manage the needs of W&M's ever-growing population, IT is considering commercial alternatives to our current home-grown identity management system. In 2016 IT will evaluate systems in an effort to find a suitable replacement.

Migrating to the Cloud

Moving traditionally local technology services to cloud-hosted environments has been a standard course of action in W&M IT for several years now. In late 2014, the Censeo Consulting Group reinforced this movement by recommending a migration of IT services to the cloud as part of a strategic initiative for the university.

In 2015, IT took advantage of this new technology and advanced web capabilities with the Adobe Experience Manager, which utilizes Amazon’s cloud-based infrastructure to provide a centralized content database, dynamic media placement and management, as well as the ability to organize tagged content.

In 2016, IT is taking Blackboard, FAMIS (Facilities Management), Studio Abroad (Study Abroad), and Symplicity Accomodate (Accessibility Services) to the cloud and is considering Email (Google, Microsoft 365), Employee Training & Development, Performance Management, and Travel Management.

Windows 10

W&M IT is working on incorporating Windows 10 into the desktop image for faculty and staff computers and laptops. Device security, data protection, software integration, and system capatability are being evaluated as we work towards bringing Window's newest operating system onto campus. Look for Windows 10 to be incorporated in fac/staff computers on the ESP leasing program in 2016 and on podium and lab computers in 2017.

Wireless System Exploration

With a steadily increasing demand on wireless network service, W&M IT is currently exploring new products and alternative system configurations in an effort to keep up with demand and provide top-notch wireless Internet service to the campus. To help accomplish this goal, wireless access points in residence halls are moving from the hallway into individual residences. This better supports the latest wireless standards, resulting in faster and more stable connections. Initial upgrades have been completed in four residence halls. The remainder of the residence halls will be upgraded over the summer of 2016. Work in the academic and administrative areas will commence in the fall of 2016.