Day 1: November 1 – Main Conference

• 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM: Registration
• 8:45 AM – 9:00 AM: Welcome
• 9:00 AM – 9:45 AM: Sessions 1
  • Microsoft Intelligent Cloud Computing
    Sundar Ramakrishnan, Microsoft; Rehan Mirza, Microsoft
    By leveraging Microsoft Azure analytics services , build an intelligent, custom advanced analytics solution for your business and transform your data into intelligent action.
    Location: Chancellor Ballroom
    Track: Fruitful Harvest: Research, Data, Content
  • Campus Monitoring Services – KNOW What is Working and What is Not!
    Eric Frahm, Tech Services; Rob Murdock, Tech Services; Jason Colwell, Library IT
    New features in the Campus Monitoring Service and a review for anyone else who hasn’t tried it out.
    
    
    Location: Lincoln Room
    Track: Fertile Ground: Hosting, Infrastructure, Networking
  • The Medusa Repository – Turning Data into Stone
    Jason Strutz, University Library
    Over the last several years, the University Library has been developing a large-scale digital repository. The Medusa system consists of the architecture needed for digital preservation, viewing digital content, and the Illinois Data Bank. In the next 18 months, we plan to migrate the infrastructure from a series of virtual servers at Tech Services with storage at NCSA, to Amazon Web Services.
    Location: Technology Room
    Track: Fertile Ground: Hosting, Infrastructure, Networking
  • Research IT Panel Update from a Technical Perspective
    Tracy Smith, Tech Services; Tim Boerner, NCSA; Nick Vance, Tech Services
    Research IT has engaged with campus on numerous strategic projects, including data analytics, high performance and throughput computing, and outreach. The team seeks to provide a status update, from a technical perspective, while soliciting feedback from the broader campus community.
    
    Location: Alma Mater Room
    Track: tbd
  • Conflict Management: Can’t We All Just Get Along?
    Candice Solomon-Strutz, AITS
    The purpose of this training is to discuss common sources of conflict, the varying levels of tension they create, fears that participants experience when addressing those sources of conflict, and conflict management strategies to help navigate situations of conflict.
    
    Location: Quad Room
    Track: Helping Hands: Support, Collaboration, Connections
• 10:00 AM – 11:45 AM: Sessions 2
  • Continuous Delivery of Mission Critical Systems: a Support, Development, and Infrastructure Perspective
    Andrew Debevec, ATLAS College of LAS; Pat Szuta, Mathematics, College of LAS
    Join us on a journey into the inner workings of Learn@Illinois Moodle, one of the most-used systems on campus, with over 5,000 unique daily users. From the perspective of support, development, and infrastructure, we will share our lessons of converting the familiar once-a-semester upgrade cycle into a continuous development pipeline. As a result, we are able to respond quickly to user requests, keep infrastructure up-to-date, and increase our team’s efficiency.
    Location: Chancellor Ballroom
    Track: Out on the Horizon: Vision, Updates, Goals
  • Web Hosting IT PowerPlant Updates
    Cordelia Geiken, Tech Services; Stephen Butler, Tech Services; David Lewis, Tech Services; Dena Strong, Tech Services
    Learn about all the new and upcoming things the Web Hosting Team has been working on. You’ll hear about updates to the Campus Wiki and Publish @ Illinois services, an upcoming cPanel service, and guidelines for the AWS and Azure web hosting offerings.
    
    Location: Lincoln Room
    Track: Fertile Ground: Hosting, Infrastructure, Networking
  • After the Harvest: Managing your (NON-RESEARCH) Data
    Rich Gegg, RIMS-Records and Information Management Services; Brent West, RIMS-Records and Information Management Services
    This session and companion poster will provide information on ways to manage, store, and dispose of data, as well as the assistance the Records and Information Management Services (RIMS) team provides. Topics include: how to determine if your data or email contains a record, orphaned information, storing digital information, and electronic media destruction. The focus is limited to NON-RESEARCH information.
    Location: Alma Mater Room
    Track: Fruitful Harvest: Research, Data, Content
  • Classroom AV and Support Open Discussion
    Drew MacGregor, Tech Services; Tracy Whittaker, Tech Services
    This session will be an open discussion forum related to AV standards and classroom support. Technology Services seeks feedback on standard AV packages and a model of better supporting ALL campus learning spaces. We NEED your input and feedback. We also want to hear how you are doing things and hear your ideas. We can all learn from each other. By the end of the conversation we hope to have a better understanding of campus needs and new ideas to support learning spaces.
    Location: Quad Room
    Track: Helping Hands: Support, Collaboration, Connections
  • SSSD for Linux Authentication with Active Directory
    Frank Penrose, Engineering IT; Casey Coughlin, Engineering IT; Erik Coleman, Tech Services
    Want to have secure Active Directory authentication and authorization with groups for your Linux environment? Come to this fertile ground presentation to learn how to use SSSD with Linux to accomplish your Active Directory integration with Linux.
    
    
    Location: Technology Room
    Track: Fertile Ground: Hosting, Infrastructure, Networking
• 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM: Sessions 3
  • Taking Live Classes Online with Blackboard Collaborate Ultra
    Dan Hahn, Tech Services
    Come learn about the new version of Blackboard Collaborate called “Ultra”, which is now available and free to use in Illinois Compass 2g. Blackboard Collaborate Ultra is a “Google Hangouts” for education. It is traditionally used for synchronous online courses and conferences, but it can also be used for meetings and other online collaboration or training.
    
    Location: Humanities
    Track: Helping Hands: Support, Collaboration, Connections
  • Advanced Routing Features in FormBuilder
    Tanya Wood, AITS; Mike Kammin, AITS
    In this presentation, we will demonstrate how users can use FormBuilder to collect information and/or documents in a form, and then use web services and advanced routing triggers to send that data to the University’s document management system, BDM/Xtender.
    Location: Technology Room
    Track: tbd
  • What the Students Need: In their Own Words
    James Quisenberry, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs; Dr. Daniel John Steward, Sociology
    Join us for a moderated panel with students who will answer questions about how the current technology environment at Illinois serves their need and where it falls short. Students from the Urbana campus will respond to questions from the moderator as well as the audience.
    Location: Lincoln Room
    Track: Out on the Horizon: Vision, Updates, Goals
  • Born Digital, Live Well
    Liam Moran, CITL Instructional Media Resources; Robyn Bianconi, CITL Instructional Media Resources; Jimi Jones, CITL and iSchool
    The challenges of video archiving inescapably entered the realm of IT problems once cameras stopped recording to tape or film and instead began writing to filesystems. These challenges are non-trivial: the storage needs for video data are significant and the data does not self-index: descriptive metadata needs to be generated by the camera operators and others on the production side of operations. Without the metadata, the video can’t be found and recalled and so archival systems are an essential component of long-term storage expenses. The Instructional Media Resources team at CITL has been grappling with the challenges of digital video archiving for over a decade and has begun implementing a sustainable, low-cost solution.
    
    Location: Alma Mater Room
    Track: Fruitful Harvest: Research, Data, Content
  • Cloud Strategy for Directors (and Everyone Else)
    Chris Kuehn, Tech Services
    What’s the big picture on cloud services? What can an IT organization achieve with new tools, and is it worth the effort? Do you just want to know what I’ve been telling your boss? I’ll share my vision for how we can all use commodity services to improve the quality of our service delivery and increase the value we provide to our customers.
    Location: Chancellor Ballroom
    Track: Out on the Horizon: Vision, Updates, Goals
• 11:45 AM – 1:00 PM: Vendors, Poster Sessions, Networking & Lunch
• 1:00 PM – 1:45 PM: Sessions 4
  • Team Building through Internships
    Kenn Wislander, Tech Services; Darius Summerville, tech Services; Haeran Lee, Tech Services; Ji-Hoon Jung, Tech Services.
    A overview and presentation of the Technology Services Field Consulting Internship program; What it is, how it works, and the benefits from the perspective of the team manager and past and present interns.
    
    Location: Technology Room
    Track: Helping Hands: Support, Collaboration, Connections
  • AWS Strategies for Understanding and Controlling Costs
    Brent Tuggle, Tech Services
    Amazon Web Services makes it easier than ever to deploy IT infrastructure and provide IT services at the click of a button. How can we ensure we know what we’re running and what it costs? Can we automatically monitor spending? How can we identify what changed? In this session we’ll answer these questions and share some strategies you can use to provide services at lower costs.
    Location: Chancellor Ballroom
    Track: Fertile Ground: Hosting, Infrastructure, Networking
  • MacOS Managed Security
    Keith Mountain, Apple, Inc.; Matt Childress, Math IT; Paul Roberts, International Programs & Studies; Drew Coobs, Swanlund System Services
    Every Mac is designed with powerful and advanced technologies that work together to constantly scrutinize, encrypt, update and ultimately keep your computing experience safer. The Device Enrollment Program (DEP) and the Mobile Device Management (MDM) framework can be used to, automate, ensure compliance and centrally manage these settings over-the-air. Please join us for a security-focused presentation designed specifically for enterprise IT, delivered by Apple Systems Engineer Keith Mountin. We will discuss and demonstrate available options and tools for macOS including brand new features of macOS High Sierra 10.13.
    Location: Lincoln Room
    Track: tbd
  • Campus Mailing List Service
    Terry McLaren, Tech Services; David Gerstenecker, ACES; Tim Newcomb, Big Ten Alliance; Michael Painter, College of Education Administration
    The Campus Mailing List Service is a collaborative effort to consolidate mail lists and still provide Campus Units autonomy in branding and list management.
    
    Location: Humanities
    Track: Helping Hands: Support, Collaboration, Connections
  • Kaltura Update, Captioning, and Automated Lecture Capture
    Drew MacGregor, Tech Services; Alan Bilansky, Tech Services; Andrew Wadsworth, Tech Services
    The Kaltura Media Engine, on campus for 3 years, has seen steadily increasing adoption and use. In spring and fall of AY1617 the system delivered 152,653 hours of media, a 132% increase over the previous year. This session will introduce you to new features added in the last year, including captioning via Automatic Speech Recognition and (drumroll) Automated Lecture/Presentation recording. Yes that’s right, we are close to launching a lecture capture service using Kaltura. The system allows for scheduling in the Kaltura interface and publishing to any Kaltura endpoint. Come see how you can support your unit with Kaltura and rich media. Please come and share information with us on what your customers need as well.
    
    Location: Alma Mater Room
    Track: Fertile Ground: Hosting, Infrastructure, Networking
• 2:00 PM – 2:45 Sessions 5
  • What Graduate Students Need: In their own Words
    Candice Solomon-Strutz, Administrative Information Technology Services
    A panel session with graduate students talking about the how the technology ecosystem on campus supports or hinders their work
    
    Location: Alma Mater Room
    Track: Out on the Horizon: Vision, Updates, Goals
  • World of Automation
    Maiko Lehman, Tech Services; John Gordon, Tech Services; Neeru Batura, Tech Services; Chandrakala Maturi, Tech Services
    As our organization is moving towards continuous integration and delivery it is imperative to automate our testing which includes unit, integration and regression testing. In one of our projects at Tech Services the approach we have taken is Behavioral Driven Development (BDD). We use tools like Behave, Selenium and Python in our BDD (Behavioral Driven Development) process. In BDD (Behavioral Driven Development) examples or scenarios are expressed in the form of “given-when-then” and the term “scenario” and “specification” is used instead of tests. BDD (Behavioral Driven Development) also offers more precise guidance on establishing the dialogue between developers, QA and product owners. In our organization this approach greatly increased the collaboration between developers, QA team and product owners. And we have seen visible improvement in the turnarounds. We want to share our journey and knowledge we have gained as we adopted this process.
    Location: Technology Room
    Track: Growing Strong: Design, Programming, Development, Testing
  • Splunk Overview & Update
    Nick Vance, Tech Services
    Explaining the capabilities and availability of Splunk for use on campus. We’ll look at examples of practical applications of Splunk to campus data sources. Discuss the tools available for data analysis for Splunk and how to start using Splunk. This session will lead into a Day 2 “Bring your Data” workshop with representatives from Splunk providing hands on assistance.
    
    Location: Lincoln Room
    Track: Fruitful Harvest: Research, Data, Content
  • Building a More Perfect Web Application – CANCELED
    Alina Banerjee, NCSA
    NOTE: This session has been canceled. Ever worked on a web application and thought that it really could be improved? Adding a few fixes or tests to existing code helped in the short-term but could a redesign have been far more effective? And if you had wanted to do so, how could you have gone about it? This session will present an example of how an existing web application, using the Ruby on Rails framework, was redesigned. This was done for user interface as well as the application feature set. Building an extensive set of tests at various levels i.e. the interface, the application, and the database helped ensure that existing and new features worked seamlessly. The use of a light-weight deployment system made the entire process of deploying code easy and less error-prone.
    Location:
    Track: Growing Strong: Design, Programming, Development, Testing
  • Cloud Security: What We’ve Learned
    Chris Kuehn, Tech Services
    The Urbana campus has been using AWS for almost two years. During that time, we’ve been able to observe some patterns and common oversights. This session will discuss what’s happened, how we fixed things, and how others can proactively avoid the same situations.
    
    Location: Chancellor Ballroom
    Track: Fertile Ground: Hosting, Infrastructure, Networking
  • Kanban: This Time it’s Personal
    Kay Avila, NCSA
    We’ll cover two topics. First, what is this “Kanban” everyone’s talking about? Second, how can a personal version of a project management methodology benefit you individually? Often there isn’t enough time to finish everything, and that stress can cause us to spin our wheels and accomplish nothing. Flexible and informal, Kanban can help. It doesn’t require any software or upfront training investment, and creating a personal board can reduce workload anxiety and the “existential overhead” of having too much to do. It can also help guide decisions around priorities and whether “just one more” project can be squeezed in. The speaker will discuss her experiences using personal Kanban as a tool to juggle a workload distributed across multiple projects, and as a method of organizing communication and building trust with a student intern. You’ll learn everything needed to start experimenting with your own personal Kanban board.
    
    
    Location: Quad Room
    Track: Helping Hands: Support, Collaboration, Connections
• 2:45 PM – 3:15 PM: Vendors, Poster Sessions, Networking & Break
• 3:15 PM – 4:00 PM: Sessions 6
  • Moving IT to a Leadership Role within Your Organization
    Olinda Hubbs, Office of Information Technology, SIU
    As a new technology “computing” supported the organization. As technology advanced and pushes forward, it is no longer a support entity; it is now the most powerful tool in moving organizations forward in every imaginable aspect of business. And, technology will continue to reveal its power in areas we have not yet imagined. Remarkably, many information technology units remain stuck in a support role, and go untapped as key partners and leaders in the organizational structure. Where is your organization and more importantly, how can you gain traction to move from a support role to a partnership role in your organization?
    
    Location: Lincoln Room
    Track: tbd
  • Preparing for the Worst: Disaster Planning and (Business) Climate Change
    Steve Krause, UI Foundation
    Customer expectations are rapidly changing and having your data and the services used to access it available is increasingly more critical. Long gone are the days where systems only needed to be online during “normal business” hours. A critical part of keeping things available is planning for how to get things back to (or keeping them) normal when a disaster strikes.
    Location: Humanities
    Track: tbd
  • Launch of IlliniSecure Program
    Kurt Finley, Tech Services; Taylor Judd, Tech Services
    Illini Secure is the information security program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was created with two aims in mind: 1. Settle the “best practices” question by tying information security requirements to an externally recognized framework of security controls 2. Present information security to senior administration as a business risk item, rather than as a security issue The team will discuss how IlliniSecure achieves these goals, policies, standards and risk framework as well as how data classification fits in.
    Location: Alma Mater Room
    Track: Fertile Ground: Hosting, Infrastructure, Networking
  • AWS CloudFront: Living on the Edge
    Stephen Butler, Tech Services
    Move your website out of the datacenter and to the edge! Learn about how CloudFront brings your content closer to your clients, reduces load on your servers, and gives you access to exciting security technologies. This presentation covers what CloudFront is, how to configure it for a basic web application, and some of the more advanced features it offers.
    
    
    Location: Chancellor Ballroom
    Track: Fertile Ground: Hosting, Infrastructure, Networking
  • Working Together to Cultivate a Knowledgeable Community
    Chris Burdette, AITS; Wesley Pate, AITS
    With all the changes and way to resolve issues for clients we thought it would be good to gather and have an open discussion about how we train, develop, and assess our new hires, students, staff, and customers using the Knowledge Base as a core anchor in this process. We have some talking points, but we would like to hear what is on your minds, so after a few questions from us we would like to hear what you would like to have an open discussion on.
    
    Location: Technology Room
    Track: Growing Strong: Design, Programming, Development, Testing
• 4:15 PM: Closing – Chancellor Ballroom
• 4:30 PM: ITPF Connect Event at Houlihan’s (located in iHotel)

Day 2: November 2 – Post-Conference Workshops

• Accessibility Evaluation – How Bad is it?
  Tim Offenstein, Tech Services; Cordelia Geiken, Tech Services
  Many of us are familiar with accessibility, some know a fair amount and some, not so much. You may have a general idea, but do you know how bad the problems are that you find and do you know how to prioritize them? This hands-on workshop will give you an opportunity to assess a site, figure out its problems and then work as a team to rank the severity of the issues and prioritize what needs to be fixed first and what can wait till the next release. (3 hours)
  Location: Transportation 206 (AM)

• Python Testing and Continuous Integration
  Maxim Belkin, NCSA; Neal Davis, Computer Science
  Based on Dr. Katy Huff’s Software Carpentry lesson, a Software Carpentry instructor will guide participants through how to develop appropriate test types for a Python project, how to automate your tests with continuous integration principles, and how to think in test-driven development methods. Participants will need to bring a laptop and should preferably install Python before the session begins. (2 hours)
  Location: Digital Computer Lab L410
• Deep Roots Begets Bountiful Fruits: Tending Your Knowledgebase Orchard
  John Cowsert, AITS; Allison Payne, ACES; Jonathan Dixon, Tech Services; JC Steenbergen, AITS; Robert Shanahan, Tech Services
  Join us if you have the green thumb of documentation and have either never used the University KnowledgeBase (KB) or are eager to learn how to use the KB. Learn to use the University KnowledgeBase to grow your orchard and expand your use of the KB. In this multi-hour session, we will dig deep into the KB and create documents, set feature, build topics, share documents. Participants will be expected to build live documents in a training environment. (2 hours)
  Location: Undergraduate Library ICS Lab

• Bring Your Data To Splunk
  Nick Vance, Tech Services + 3 Splunk Reps
  A hands on session with representatives from Illinois and Splunk to test Splunk tools on your own data. This is an opportunity to bring a sample of your data or connect to your data source to try out Splunk with data you understand. Splunk reps will be on hand to provide a test environment and help load your data or connect to your data source. We’ll also discuss opportunities to begin using Splunk for data analysis in the near future. (4 hours)
  
  Location: Digital Computer Lab L410
• Teaching and Learning App Development with Swift & Xcode
  Keith Mountin, Apple; Matt Childress, Math IT; Dave Pugh, Apple; Paul Roberts, International Programs & Studies
  Learning to develop apps can help your students solve problems, work together in creative ways, and bring their ideas to life. Join us and explore free resources from Apple designed to help you teach iOS app development in your program. Here’s what you can expect: Learn why Swift – a powerful programming language – is great for both professional developers and students who are just learning to code. Explore course materials that can give students practical experience with app development concepts, tools, and techniques. Review the companion instructor guide with lesson plans, discussion prompts, and curriculum standards alignments. Get hands-on experience using Mac and Xcode project files included in the learning materials. Discuss how you could use these resources at your institution with other educators in your area. (4 hours)
  Location: Undergraduate Library ICS Lab
• Infrastructure as Code Using Terraform
  Jon Roma, Tech Services; David Riddle, Tech Services
  Terraform is an open source tool for defining infrastructure components (like virtual machines, networks, load balancers, and databases) in code. This code can be shared, edited, reviewed, and versioned just like any other software. Furthermore, errors in the infrastructure definition can be quickly detected and resolved through automated testing. By using code to define infrastructure, we can exploit the same tried-and-true techniques and best practices (like version control) used for application code. Because the infrastructure declarations are code, they can be built, reconfigured, and torn down simply, efficiently, and repeatably. This session provides an overview of Terraform architecture and philosophy. The overview will be followed by a comprehensive tour of Terraform’s syntax, grammar, and capabilities. (4 hours)
  Location: Transportation 203 (PM)