Tag Archives: ITS

May 2017 Newsletter: ITS Creates Altamont Center to Engage Student Interns

15SJSU students intern with the campus’ Information Technology Services team to support student success.By Barry Zepel

Classroom-based learning provides the foundation for earning a degree; learning in a hands-on, real-life setting sharpens skills to prepare a student for a career.

That is just one part of the strategy behind the creation of the Altamont Center in Information Technology Services (ITS) at San Jose State University, where 16 students majoring in a variety of disciplines are completing internships that help them develop the marketable skills desired by corporations and other organizations in Silicon Valley. Interns work on projects involving data science, business intelligence, technical writing, software testing, software development and project management. Of the students, seven are undergraduates and nine are completing graduate degrees.

The students – who are in disciplines ranging from management information systems (MIS) to computer science to engineering to statistics – work closely with ITS staff on projects that move forward the goals of the department. The strategy is in line with SJSU’s Four Pillars of Student Success plan, with initiatives that support student engagement as a key pillar. Dana Nehoran, who serves as both a faculty member in the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business and a staff member in ITS, proposed the idea a year ago as a way to engage students through internships.

“The center employs students who are able to work on technical tasks related to their areas of study, while they also help achieve important goals and make a lasting impact on the campus community,” Nehoran explained. “Our student interns take part in essential projects that help SJSU provide more effective services for the entire student body.”

The students are mentored and supervised by full-time ITS staff members. The team Nehoran moves SJSU’s Four Pillars plan forward by identifying obstacles to student success, such as financial hardships, advising processes or inability to register for needed classes. The university can then focus resources on the areas that will have the most impact on improving graduation and retention rates. The interns are compiling and analyzing data, and ITS will distribute reports to help campus administrators make decisions about student success initiatives.

Together, the Altamont interns are providing San Jose State with predictive analytics. Nehoran describes it as “a discipline that attempts to make useful predictions about the future based on statistical analysis of historical data.”

“From the ITS point of view, we have this wealth of knowledge and capacity in these students,” said Bob Wrenn, SJSU’s interim chief information officer who oversees the department. “We have a lot of work to do here and we have a finite amount of resources to get it done. I can get students here who are highly trained and highly available; they’re on site and help complete the work we need done.”

The interns play an important role in the department, according to Wrenn.

“They are delivering real-life value working side-by-side with my permanent, full-time staff, who serve as their mentors and supervisors,” he noted.

Nehoran said the interns’ use of predictive analytics could have a positive impact for thousands of their fellow SJSU students, of whom 14 percent graduate in four years with the university focused on increasing that to 35 percent by 2025. The interns are analyzing historical information to find patterns that help identify students at risk of not completing a degree in a timely manner with the objective of enabling the appropriate campus services to provide proactive intervention.

While the interns realize that the “real-life experience” they’re getting will help them when seeking their first jobs after graduation, that isn’t all that is inspiring and exciting them.

“What we do here is going to add value to the campus community,” said Ryan Quigley, a second-year graduate student majoring in statistics. “We’re working under the umbrella of predictive analytics, which is using the data that the university has, to make predictions that are going to be beneficial to students’ lives.”

“Our main goal as Altamont Center interns is to make sure that the university’s resources are allocated efficiently. We don’t want (administrators) opening up class sections that are going to be empty, and we don’t want them closing sections that are going to be in high demand,” noted Quigley, who has already been offered a full-time position with a San Francisco-based financial institution as a result of his Altamont Center experience.

The internship program has had a profound impact on Nazia Khan, who like Quigley is a second-year master’s student and statistics major.

“I am totally a different person since I started (at the Altamont Center),” said Khan, who spent two years as a teacher in her native India after completing her undergraduate studies there. “I have more experience and confidence that I can survive in industry because of Dana Nehoran and the Altamont Center. I’m working on something that I am passionate and excited about because I am helping students to acquire their degrees and complete their education while helping to prevent them from dropping out because of emotional or financial reasons. We are able to help them by providing data to the professionals on campus responsible for directly helping those students.”

Additional information about the Altamont Center internships in the ITS Department is available by contacting Nehoran at dana.nehoran@sjsu.edu.

SJSU Community Inivited to 2016 Innovation and Collaboration Expo

More than 30 San Jose State University students, faculty and staff members will share the ways they are using technology to enhance teaching and learning at the Innovation and Collaboration Expo on Oct. 5 and 6, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., in the Student Union Ballroom. Register online by Sept. 30.

In its third year, the event is open to students, staff and faculty at SJSU. The public and members of other California State University campuses are also invited to attend. The majority of speakers and panelists will be faculty and staff who will share examples of how they have incorporated technology into their teaching to support student success.

President Mary Papazian will welcome guests on the first day of the Expo at 10 a.m., followed by keynote speaker Srinivas Mukkamala at 11 a.m. Mukkamala is the co-founder and CEO of RiskSense, a pioneer and market leader in proactive cyber risk management. As October is Cybersecurity Awareness month, he will discuss research and development of security technology including malware analytics, breach exposure management, web application security and enterprise risk reduction.

The remainder of the Expo will include panels that allow students, faculty and staff to share the ways they are using technology at SJSU. Some of the scheduled panels include discussions of course design and resource selection; the use of WebEx to enhance student engagement; options for gathering and analyzing data; CSU Chancellor’s Office initiatives on affordable learning solutions and accessible technology; and more.

For the full schedule of events and to register, visit the Innovation and Collaboration Expo 2016 website. Registered attendees will have a chance to win a prize at the event.

Bob Wrenn Appointed as Inteirm AVP of ITS/CIO at SJSU

I am very pleased to announce the selection of Bob Wrenn as the interim AVP for Information Technology Services and CIO, effective Sept. 19, 2016.  Bob will succeed Terry Vahey, who has decided to retire and whose last day on campus will be Sept. 16.

Bob joined San Jose State University in September 2015 in a temporary position before being appointed as senior director and associate CIO of Enterprise Solutions in March 2016. In his role, he has been integral in streamlining processes in ITS while also building relationships between developers and the greater campus community.

As associate CIO, he contributed extensively to the creation of an ITS strategic plan and has established a focus on application solutions that support student success. Some of the projects completed or under way include a supplemental application process for transfer students, online advising tools, and the implementation of a student data warehouse, among other projects in line with SJSU’s Four Pillars of Student Success.

Before joining SJSU, Bob served most recently as vice president of Enterprise Business Applications at Hewlett Packard, where he was responsible for managing and leading teams in enterprise system application development and business operations management. At HP, he was responsible for managing projects, policies, budgets, user expectations and requirements, development, quality assurance and production cycles. In his time there he also held multiple senior management positions in Information Technology and Enterprise Customer Support.

Bob holds a master’s in industrial engineering from Stanford University and a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Purdue University. In addition, he has completed three continuing education courses at Stanford University on “Intelligence with Data,” and has used those skills to work closely with others on campus to start the implementation of a student data warehouse solution and predictive analytics models.

I am confident students, faculty and staff will find Bob to be a capable leader who is adept at balancing the many technology needs on our campus. Please join me in congratulating him on his appointment.

Sincerely,

Andy Feinstein

AVP of ITS/CIO Terry Vahey Set to Retire

After 32 years of distinguished service to the CSU and four and a half years at San Jose State University, Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer Terry Vahey, who has provided strong leadership and guidance to IT Services, has decided to retire. Her last day on campus will be Sept. 16.

I will be working closely with Terry and the IT Services leadership team in the coming weeks to develop a transition plan. In the meantime, please join me in congratulating Terry on her retirement and acknowledging her contributions to SJSU.

It has been my pleasure to work more closely with her since IT Services moved to Academic Affairs in December. She provided steady guidance to her team during the changeover.

Throughout her tenure at SJSU, Terry provided administrative and strategic vision and leadership for current and emerging technologies, infrastructure and security.  She oversaw the implementation of robust wireless and network infrastructure that supports the entire campus, along with an upgraded, modernized phone system. Terry has also been integral in leading our transformation of teaching and learning spaces with collaboration, video and interactive technology tools.

As AVP of IT Services and CIO, she has worked to enhance communication between IT Services and campus users, most recently with a customer service survey. She has specifically worked to highlight the ways in which technology can serve student success. Under her leadership, the SJSU Innovation and Collaboration Technology Expo was launched as a venue for students, faculty and staff to share ways they have successfully integrated tech tools to enhance teaching and learning.

Join me in thanking Terry for her service to our campus and wishing her well in her future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Andy Feinstein

March Newsletter: CS Students Become Technology Ambassadors

Samantha Flores, left, '17 Psychology, is an IT Services student assistant who is serving as a liaison for computer science students piloting new applications such as Cisco Spark.

Samantha Flores, left, ’17 Psychology, is an IT Services student assistant who is serving as a liaison for computer science students piloting new applications such as Cisco Spark.

Debra Caires, a computer science lecturer and director of the internship program in the College of Science, transformed her Technical Writing (CS 100W) courses into a service learning class so that her students would get real-life experience. Her students work with clients to identify and solve a problem in a way that is transferable, sustainable and scalable, just as they would if they were working in the programming industry.

“There has been a huge employment shift in Silicon Valley,” Caires said. “Entry-level jobs are requiring two internships or courses that have applicable projects.”

In Caires’s classes, groups of students are paired with a client – a faculty member, staff member, student organization, small business or nonprofit representative – who needs help in using technology to solve a real-life problem. Caires said the “tidal wave” of new technologies on campus can be intimidating, but her students can serve as technology ambassadors by helping their clients to implement the resources available at SJSU.

Caires selected three groups of students this semester to oversee a pilot of new online tools, including IBM’s Watson Analytics, a predictive analytics and data visualization tool; Adobe’s XD, a user experience application; Adobe’s Voice, an animated video tool; Adobe’s Slate, a visual storytelling application; and Cisco Spark, a tool that incorporates secure messaging and video conferencing.

The three groups of students will be working with their clients, and will also be reporting back to  IT Services (ITS) student assistants on any feature requests or bugs they find while using the new Cisco Spark application to improve user experience. The IT student assistants who will serve as liaisons include Sri Krishna Kadiyala, ’17 Bioinformatics Engineering, Jose Lupercio, ’17 Justice Studies, and Samantha Flores, ’17 Psychology.

“It’s completely new to me,” said Luperico, of his role as a project liaison. “I used to be at the front desk and now I am more hands on. I feel it shows I am learning something that requires a lot of responsibility.”

The students are using agile project methodology, a technique that breaks large projects into smaller milestones that must be completed in a “sprint” of two weeks. The students will conduct five sprints throughout the semester and will present the final outcomes of their projects on May 6, from 9 a.m. to noon, on the second floor of MacQuarrie Hall.

“This is my first time doing something like this,” said Justin Tennant, ’17 Computer Science. “I am unfamiliar with software development so this is eye opening for me. I feel like I am learning a lot.”

The students spent their first two-week sprint researching agile project methodology while getting familiar with Cisco Spark, as well as other applications such as Google Calendar and Slack.

“I like that we focus on what we can get done quickly rather than the whole project,” said Eric Fonseca, ’17 Computer Science.

“This IT project and working with students is providing me with a great opportunity to develop the leadership skills needed in my future endeavors,” Flores said.

“I am very happy to be assigned the task to work and lead IT students in this project,” Krishna said. “It helps me develop my managing skills and be a team player.”