From the Vice President

With the recent university decision to conduct classes online in order to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, Information Technology has begun preparations to allow non-essential IT employees to work remotely. The Vice President and CIO, Loren Malm, and the IT leadership team have given IT supervisors a set of guidelines to use for remote work. Each supervisor will be working with their employees to implement them as needed. The Technology HelpDesk has also put together a helpful resource for faculty and staff teaching and working remotely.

From Loren Malm:

“Thank you once again for all that you do, and for remaining flexible as we work through these challenges. I realize our various units have a lot going on, even without COVID-19, and I appreciate all you are doing to prepare our students, faculty, and staff, and our environments to meet the needs of our campus. If you need resources, help, or wish to talk about anything that is needed to prepare our division to support the university to meet these challenges, please let me know.”

Preparations for remote work

Some staff will not know what issues they will encounter working remotely until they try. Employees who are deemed appropriate to work remotely should prepare for and then complete at least one “remote day” of work as soon as possible. It is important that these team members develop as quickly as possible the essential skills and tools described below that will enable them to work from home successfully.

Working remotely

For staff with job duties compatible with remote work, and on the days your supervisor feels it is appropriate, we will begin having IT employees work remotely, under the guidelines described below. All employees working remotely must prepare to be called into the office whenever the university is open, or they are needed on-site.

Office and after-hours coverage

As we saw in the president’s email, all university offices will remain open and will require full staffing coverage. Since Information Technology is at the forefront of providing the services, support, and resources to enable remote work and remote instruction for the entire university, it is vital we maintain full coverage and operational readiness for each of our offices. We may need to call-in staff, and use staff not normally assigned with front-office duties to maintain operational coverage.

Client support

Immediate client support will become both critical and possibly overwhelming, given the move to full remote instruction starting next week. We’ll need to be sure we have full staffing and coverage across all of our offices and support units and in particular those units responsible for monitoring and supporting the systems and services that enable remote work and remote teaching. Your supervisor will ensure they have updated cell phone contacts for each employee providing critical services, and require professional staff to monitor and respond to support calls, even after hours.

Now, more than ever, we need to be on top of operational monitoring and respond quickly to any outages that might happen, no matter what time of day or night such outages may occur. Also, circumstances may arise which require we ask members of our teams to serve in roles and provide support in areas of high demand, even in areas outside their normal function.

Meetings

As the president has indicated, we will be conducting meetings remotely whenever possible. Remote meetings may use a standard conference call or WebEx. If you are participating in a meeting and intend to share materials (documents, presentations), please share them via Box or email ahead of the meeting, so that those with only audio capability will have access to the materials.

Essential skills for remote work

Before attempting remote work, employees must have the necessary tools and understand how to use them effectively. At a minimum, employees working remotely should be able to:

    • Answer and make office calls from their BSU phone, and check their office voicemail remotely, using their cell phone or computer.
    • Access BSU email and other on-line systems, and be able to utilize all of the systems they would use in the office from their remote location. We have established technical standards for laptop and desktop computers as well as personally-owned laptop and desktop computers, which are included below for your reference.
    • Use the VPN if access to on-campus systems not exposed through the firewall is needed.
    • Access and use file sharing through Box.com.
    • Devote their full attention to work during the time they are working remotely.

Equipment Required For Remote Work

Employees working remotely must have access to the following resources to work remotely:

    • High-Speed Internet Access: Employees working from home must have a reliable, high-speed Internet access connection to their home. The connection must be sufficient to sustain phone and BSU systems access and should be adequate for video conferencing using WebEx.
    • Cell Phone or Laptop/Desktop Access: Most employees will choose to use their existing cell phones to take calls, forwarded automatically from their office phone. Employees who do not wish to use their cell phone in this manner, or who do not have a cell phone can use the Cisco Jabber client installed on their laptop or desktop computer if they have the hardware to support audio and video conferencing.
    • Personal Computer Requirements: Laptops owned by Ball State and which have been configured by Information Technology are preferred, and are required for those who need to access highly confidential information.

Most users do not need to access highly confidential information, and in these cases the use of personally-owned computers is acceptable, as long as they meet the following minimum specifications:

    • Be running a current operating system on the device. Examples of this are Windows 10 on PCs, MacOS 10.13.6+ on Macs, iOS 12+ on iPad/iPhone, Android 7.1.2+, and most versions of the ChromeOS, specifically anything five years old or newer.
    • Be running well-known antivirus software. Examples include Microsoft, Symantec, Carbon Black, Trend Micro, Sophos, McAfee, Kaspersky, or Cylance.
    • Be kept up-to-date with all applicable software patches

Please check with the Office of Information Security Systems if you have questions about access to highly sensitive data and the particular information security requirements in these circumstances.