Strategic plan outlines goals for ‘dynamic digital campus’

This is the sixth part of a continuing series on Viking Bold.  

Augustana’s ten-year strategic plan completed its first phase in 2023. In part two of Viking Bold’s physical campus and information technology pillar, Augustana plans to transform into a dynamic digital campus, using new technologies, connectivity and increased cybersecurity.

Director of IT Kevin Klawonn said as the university reaches more people, students want to gain more access to digital resources. IT enables everyone to reach their goals, Klawonn said. 

“They need to have all the right tools to accomplish what they want to accomplish, and IT is just a key component to all of that,” Klawonn said. 

According to Shannan Nelson, chief financial officer and executive vice president, the IT section of the pillar is developing on schedule, but tracking that progress is a tricky process. 

“I think different people have different perspectives of what is improvement there,” Nelson said. “I think our overall bandwidth is much stronger and better, but I think the demands keep growing.” 

Part 2a of the pillar also discusses updating IT infrastructure by creating network redundancy,  increasing the bandwidth requirements and improving network performance and Wi-Fi saturation

“Network redundancy is the backup plan for networks because we want to be able to say not only is our network able to stay functional if parts of it go down, but we want to say the same thing about the services that we provide,” Klawonn said. 

According to Klawonn, this goal was a large focus throughout this pillar because the campus relies heavily on internet access, and a loss of internet connection would cause major problems. 

Klawonn said networks are the means by which computers and other devices talk to each other. Devices connect to Augustana’s network either physically using patch cable or wirelessly, generally through Eduroam. This network is not only used by students’ personal devices, but departments like the School of Music, facilities and athletics. 

“All these people and departments have devices on the network all over campus,” Klawonn said.  “Each group of devices talking to each other, to servers and to other resources on campus. There are literally thousands of devices that are connecting and communicating using the Augustana University network.”

Klawonn said there is a primary and secondary connection located on opposite sides of campus. These separate locations make it less likely that campus would completely lose internet connectivity. Additionally, the tunnels that run underneath Augustana play a role in internet redundancy. 

Currently the tunnels are in a U-shape, starting at Bergsaker and stretching to the North side of campus before curving and ending at the Froiland Science Complex; however, Klawonn said he would like a direct connection between the FSC and Bergsker to turn the U-shape connection circular. 

“That’s what we’re working on is to create this ring which gives us redundancy, so if Humanities collapses on us, we can still provide internet connections to campus by going around the other way around this ring,” Klawonn said. 

Under the IT pillar, bandwidth requirements have been increased, allowing the university to have an increased number of connections on its networks at one time.

“We went from a one-gig connection to a two-gig connection, and now we’re up to a 10-gig connection,” Klawonn said. “We’ve increased most of the campus to 10-gig connections with the capability of increasing that even further as we need to.” 

Additionally, the plan updated the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure by replacing the access points on campus. 

“The old ones were old and wouldn’t allow us to get faster speeds that everyone was demanding, so we’ve gone through and replaced the [almost] 700 access points,” Klawonn said.

Junior Avery Gilman said she has had problems connecting to Wi-Fi despite the recent updates. 

“I haven’t been able to connect for about three weeks now,” Gilman said. “I use my [iPhone’s] hotspot every single day to do my work on campus.”

However, Gilman said she has not gone to the IT help desk in the Madsen Center yet this year, as she lives off campus and does not use the Wi-Fi on campus as much.

Junior Heather Howard said she has had similar issues, but she has gone to the IT help desk for assistance. 

“They’ve been pretty helpful,” Howard said. “They seem to answer all my questions, which I appreciate because there’s lots.”   

Cybersecurity initiatives 

Part 2a of the pillar has focused on implementing cybersecurity initiatives throughout campus. These efforts have been led by the security and disaster recovery team in the IT department. 

“Some of the things that we’ve really worked on over the last few years as far as cybersecurity is on the staff and faculty side, we’ve implemented cybersecurity training,” Klawonn said. 

Sociology professor Kelcie Vercel said she has had to do a lot of cybersecurity training since she began at Augustana in 2020, but she thinks the trainings are necessary. 

“I really do understand the necessity,” Vercel said. “I think we have all experienced even in just the last few years a really big uptick in…increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks, so I am highly sympathetic to the need that we, the university, need to be careful.” 

Additionally, after a testing period in spring 2021, the team implemented Duo Push for the Augustana community which went into effect in summer 2021. 

“We use multi-factor authentication…to help prevent people from gaining access,” Klawonn said. 

Duo Push also allows for single sign-on, meaning the same password and usernames can be used for different services without users having to remember different credentials. Those sign-ons can then be monitored with multi-factor authentication to ensure it’s the same person logging in. 

Howard said she has a love-hate relationship with the app but overall feels more secure knowing it’s there. 

“It's really nice to be like, it just pops up on my phone and I click the link and it takes me directly to the app, but if I don't have my phone, it's kind of a pain in the butt,” Howard said. 

The IT department has also implemented a weekly scheduled maintenance window on Wednesday mornings between 12-6 a.m. to address any problems that may arise. Historically the department had to schedule maintenance around different groups, but the recurring window allows for a set time for maintenance to occur. 

“If we just set this as our maintenance window, we know that we can apply patches as needed and do all the things that we need to do to help with that,” Klawonn said. 

Adopting Canvas

Part 2b of Viking Bold’s physical campus and IT pillar focuses on fostering an innovative teaching environment to include digital and hybrid learning. Throughout the first phase of this pillar, Augustana adopted the Canvas learning management system. 

Prior to the implementation of Canvas in the 2020-2021 academic year, Augustana employed an open-source software called Moodle for student and faculty use. 

“We actually hosted our own server on campus that we managed and we did all the updates to, etc.,” Klawonn said. “Then we had this kind of in between time where we went to a hosted Moodle service, which actually allowed us to do a few more things, and it freed up some of our time because we no longer had to be doing all the updates and management of the server.” 

Gilman said she used Moodle for a class while the university was still transitioning between platforms, and she said she believes the software was hard to use. 

“I think a big problem with Moodle was it didn’t give you due dates,” Gilman said. “Your professor would have to tell you when it was due, and you’d just have to remember.” 

Canvas supports online learning and teaching by allowing professors to create tabs for their class to share with enrolled students. It also allows professors to post grades, information and assignments online. 

Vercel said she enjoys how many functions the platform provides but tries to keep her course page easy for student use. 

“I’m highly aware that every professor uses it differently, which means for students they have to learn to navigate that in every class, which has to be very frustrating,” Vercel said. “So I try to make it simple and sort of as intuitive and all in one spot as it can be, so I mostly use the modules.”

Students like Gilman and Howard said they enjoy Canvas for its efficiency. 

“[I] love Canvas,” Howard said. “It gives me a to-do list and it gives me a nice little calendar, and I live off that calendar.” 

Additionally, Gilman said she likes that Canvas has an app that students can download on their phones. 

“It’s always good to have it right in your phone,” Gilman said.