NC State 2021

IT community Event

Please note: This is the 2021 IT Community Event, maintained for reference.

See the 2022 IT Community Event for this year's event!

November 2 - 11, 2021

Join IT professionals from throughout the university to share information and discuss relevant topics.

The Opening Event on Nov. 2, at 1 p.m., will be held in person in the Talley Student Union ballroom and streamed live. It will include recognizing the nominees and recipients of this year's IT Community Awards, as well as remarks from CIO Marc Hoit, Chancellor Randy Woodson, and the chance to provide input to update the university IT strategic plan.


No registration is required for the workshops, which will all be held online via Zoom and will be recorded.


NOTE: You will need to be authenticated to Zoom with your NC State credentials to participate in these sessions. Log in to NC State's Zoom.


Jump to the day's events or view them on the IT Community Events Calendar.

Week 1 - Nov. 2-5
Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday

Week 2 - Nov. 8-11
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

Tuesday, Nov. 2

1:00 - 2:30 p.m. IT Community Event Opening Session

Zoom recording with captions (access password: ^F%bf0D^ ) | Vimeo recording (does not have captions) | Opening Session Slides

Join Chancellor Randy Woodson, CIO Marc Hoit and fellow IT professionals for the kickoff of this year's IT Community Event. Following updates from Dr. Hoit and the chancellor, we'll announce the nominees and recipients of the 2021 IT Community Awards. We'll wrap up the session by breaking into small groups to gather input that will be used to update the university IT strategic plan.

2:30 - 3:30 p.m. Informal gathering space

Thanks to those who hung around at Talley and on Zoom to chat!

Here's a chance to "mingle" with colleagues from throughout the NC State IT community.

Wednesday, Nov. 3

11:00 - 11:45 a.m. Crossing Organizational Boundaries for a Successful Large-scale Implementation

Session Slides | Zoom recording (access password: sDzS*7#8 )

Presenters: Leisa Bolles, Ron Bradley

Creating a cross functional team from multiple colleges and groups on campus with dedicated project management to rapidly design, implement and deploy new technology in a pandemic-driven reduced timeline. We will use Panopto as an example.

3:00 - 3:45 p.m. Better Practices for Hybrid Meetings & Collaboration

Session Slides | Zoom recording (access password: M.7d.8c? )

Presenters: Hillary Fox, Robin Davis, Konteh Farrar

Hybrid meetings aren't always easy, but with a few tips and tools, you can improve the hybrid meeting experience. Join NC State University Librarians Hillary Fox and Robin Davis as they present recommendations for pre-meeting prep, how to handle different meeting scenarios, and how to promote inclusive meeting behavior. Plus, they'll provide an engaging segment on collaborative tools that can be used to ease the communication challenges of the hybrid workplace. Note: This will be a pre-recorded session followed by a live Q&A.

Thursday, Nov. 4

11:00 - 11:45 a.m. NC State WordPress Theme Overview

Zoom recording (access password: zMs%6q!8 )

Presenter: Scott Thompson, McLean Lucas

An overview of the free tier of the new NC State WordPress theme, available features, documentation/training opportunities, and more. We will demo the Gutenberg-powered theme and show how to use some of the most frequently used blocks.

1:30 - 2:15 p.m. Offboarding Graduate Students

Session Slides | Zoom recording (access password: ZzZcvX5? )

Presenter: Sarah Noell, Billy Beaudoin

Since Google announced they were discontinuing unlimited storage, OIT and the Google Service Team (GST) have been working to identify where we need to focus energy to make sure that accounts are properly offboarded when employees leave, retire, or as students graduate. As OIT gets ready to roll out a limited alumni domain for graduated students, this session will focus on things to think about to properly offboard graduate students, especially those with research data.

Friday, Nov. 5

11:00 - 11:45 a.m. Secure Software Development with SonarQube and Burp Suite

Session Slides | Zoom recording (access password: 2!LM!nb1 )

Presenter: Cristian Gradisteanu

Improve your software development life cycle with static and dynamic analysis.

1:30 - 2:15 p.m. What is JupyterHub and Why is it Becoming So Popular in Academia?

Session Slides (pdf) | Zoom recording (access password: 9TDi?*1j )

Presenter: Daniel Lucio

As Python becomes the language of choice for doing scientific research, more and more faculty are introducing Python coding as part of the curriculum. Python notebooks are the ideal medium to create web-like annotated documents to explain a topic while including in-line Python code that runs instantaneously and allowing participants to change the code and immediately see the results. JupyterHub is the best way to centrally serve Jupyter notebooks for multiple users. It can be used in a class of students, a corporate data science group, or a scientific research group. It is a multi-user Hub that spawns, manages, and proxies multiple instances of the single-user Jupyter notebook server.

In this presentation, we will introduce attendees to the world of Python coding, Python notebooks, and the JupyterHub server for academic purposes. We will show how is it being used at the College of Sciences, explain why it is becoming popular and why it is so convenient for support staff.

Monday, Nov. 8

2:00 - 2:45 p.m. Moving Toward Hybrid Work

Zoom recording (access password: 52%LEYs^ )

Presenters: Dustin Gragg, Emily Lynema, Kirk Main, Ben MacNeill, Rhonda Conlon

Most of us have been participating in some form of hybrid and/or remote work since March 2020. Join a conversation with several IT staff and managers to talk about communication tools, culture and trust, distribution of onsite work, and elements of a healthy hybrid / remote work environment. We welcome audience participation on each of these topics.

4:00 - 4:45 p.m. Technical Considerations for Onboarding and Offboarding Employees

Session Slides | Shared Files | Zoom recording (access password: Qbk%2r7Q )

Presenters: Alicia Lecceardone, Billy Beaudoin, Jeff Webster, Keith Medlin, Patrick Nethery

Several units will share the processes they have put into place for keeping track of the technical resources and storage when onboarding and offboarding staff in their areas. An update will also be provided of the availability of some central tools to assist with the process.

Tuesday, Nov. 9

10:00 - 10:45 a.m. The Updated Data Management Framework: What Color is Your Data?

Session Slides | Zoom recording (access password: hAp?k0%a )

Presenter: Elizabeth Cole-Walker

Learn more about the improvements to the university's data management framework. Resources and tips to helping you understand the classification of the data you use will be discussed. Whether you work with sensitive data or not, this informative presentation will help you understand how to protect NC State's most valuable resource, its Data.

11:00 - 11:45 a.m. AWS Platform Solutions

Session slides | Zoom recording (access password: wCejj*0@ )

Presenters: Chris Allen, Erik Britt, Matthew Gschwind

A discussion on how College of Engineering's ITECS is leveraging Amazon Web Services for students, researchers, labs, applications, and remote learning.

1:30 - 2:15 p.m. What's New in Zoom?

Handout: What's new in Zoom | Zoom recording (access password: Cp+6ux*Y )

Presenters: Jill Anderson, Jonathan Champ

Join the presenters as they demonstrate and talk about the latest features in Zoom including updates for inclusivity and more. Bring your Zoom questions!

3:00 - 3:45 p.m. IT Purchase Compliance and Vendor Risk Management

Session slides | Zoom recording (access password: @h3wjFF3 )

Presenter: Bill Coker

IT Purchase Compliance has been in effect at NC State since 2016 and has been used to review IT purchases prior to the purchase to verify compliance with security, IT accessibility and PCI regulations as well as ensure compatibility with enterprise applications and email systems on campus. This presentation will provide an overview of the process as well as discuss the newly implemented features that will offer better information and service. It will also demonstrate the new Vendor Risk Management system being piloted with vendors to ease the burden on departments making IT purchases that access sensitive data.

Wednesday, Nov. 10

9:00 - 9:30 a.m. NC State Help Desk's Journey into Knowledge-Centered Service

Zoom recording (access code: Wj2Hpi=V )

Presenter: Nik Davlantis

Join us for a glimpse into the NC State Help Desk's journey into a knowledge-centered service (KCS) approach to create value for ourselves and the campus community and affiliates. Learn about the key principles of KCS and how the Help Desk is using this support model to drive faster response and resolution times while also creating opportunities for self-service reducing the overall occurrences of support needs.

1:30 - 2:15 p.m. Leveraging ServiceNow's Virtual Agent for your Chatbot Needs

Session slides | Zoom recording (access password: .iH4aiV% )

Presenter: Bryce Clodfelter

A look into how the ServiceNow Virtual Agent may help drive faster solutions, drive increased deflections, and free agents to help with bigger tasks. That's just with out of box conversation. Custom conversations can be created to expand capabilities!

3:00 - 3:45 p.m. Cloud Services: An OIT Update

Session slides | Zoom recording (access password: Ef2yC^%= )

Presenters: Abraham Jacob, Billy Beaudoin, Derek Ballard

An overview of Cloud Services offerings, including Amazon Web Services (AWS Control Tower, CloudFront...), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

Thursday, Nov. 11

11:00 - 11:45 a.m. A Talkback Session on Inclusion, Equity & Diversity

Zoom recording (access password: TB=2yuQX ) Many resources are listed in the chat transcript, available from recording link.

Presenters: Jill Sexton, Chris Allen, Mark Williams, Stan North Martin

What are the big and little things we’re doing in our units to increase and encourage inclusion and diversity? Join this open discussion to share ideas on how to make progress in improving our work environments for everyone.

2:00 - 2:45 p.m. Featured Session: The Evolution of Google Workspace

We were asked not to record this session since some feature information was shared that has not been officially announced yet.

Presenter: Ken Matthews, Google Workspace Engineer

NC State has been using Google Workspace for more than 10 years, when it was originally called Google Apps for Education. To commemorate, the entire university community is invited to join Google engineer Ken Matthews as he provides insights on the past, present and future of Google Workspace in higher education. Time for Qs & As and Google door prizes will also be part of this closing session.



Please Note: You will need to be authenticated to Zoom with your NC State credentials to participate in these sessions. Log in to NC State's Zoom.

See DELTA's information about Zoom @ NC State for more information.

IT Community Events Calendar

Sessions and Zoom links are listed on the IT Community Events calendar. You can add each event to your calendar or subscribe to the itcommunity@ncsu.edu calendar from your calendar.

Disability Accommodations

In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, NC State will honor requests for reasonable accommodations made by individuals with disabilities. Requests can be served more effectively if notice is provided at least seven days before the event. Direct accommodation requests to itcommunity@ncsu.edu.


Previous NC State IT Community Events:

November 2 - 11, 2021

Join IT professionals from throughout the university to share information and discuss relevant topics.

The Opening Event on Nov. 2, at 1 p.m., will be held in person in the Talley Student Union ballroom and streamed live. It will include recognizing the nominees and recipients of this year's IT Community Awards, as well as remarks from CIO Marc Hoit, Chancellor Randy Woodson, and the chance to provide input to update the university IT strategic plan.


No registration is required for the workshops, which will all be held online via Zoom and will be recorded.


NOTE: You will need to be authenticated to Zoom with your NC State credentials to participate in these sessions. Log in to NC State's Zoom.