This edition is dedicated to providing you a look at the overarching changes and activities that are currently underway within Information Technology to support ONE Maricopa.

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The spring 2011 issue of ITS InTouch is my second opportunity, since arriving just over six months ago, to share with you my thoughts.  It is also a wonderful opportunity to present to you the District-Wide Information and Instructional Technology (IIT) Strategic Plan.

While in the process of learning the MCCCD culture and landscape, I had the opportunity to work with many of the already established 21st Century Maricopa teams in the development of the new District-wide IIT Strategic Plan.  I would like to take this opportunity to again thank the many individuals involved in this effort.  Please be sure to view the names of these individuals located in Appendix L of the full text version of the District-wide IIT Strategic Plan with Appendices. (Click here to access the IIT Strategic Plan and read the brief overview article)

I look forward to your participation,  energy and creativity as we work together to implement the plan as a system.

Please enjoy this issue of ITS InTouch as we continue to work to communicate information that is both meaningful and practical.  I invite you to share your suggestions for future topics and provide any feedback.

Welcome to the fifth edition of InTouch, the DSSC ITS newsletter.  We continue to strive to bring you useful information concerning the unit.

I began my role as Vice Chancellor for Information Technology Services on
August 16, 2010. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the warm welcome and the expressions of well wishes.  My team and I are energized with wonderful dialogues that have taken place as a result of the 21st Century Maricopa efforts.  The broad participation has yielded insight into our operations and generated excitement.

Most importantly, so many individuals have expressed the desire to collaborate and move forward together strategically.  As such, we are open to doing business differently when it ultimately means serving our community of learners.  As the new Vice Chancellor for I.T., I cannot imagine anything more important than this aspect of organizational desire to move forward.

We have much work ahead and I look forward to working with everyone.  I hope you enjoy reading this newsletter as a small component of the communication with the MCCCD community.  I also encourage you to contact the individuals who are mentioned in this newsletter as a resource to you if you have specific questions or comments.  Please also use our feedback link as we look forward to the opportunity to respond to your questions and/or requests for future topics.

Welcome to our 3rd edition of the ITS in Touch newsletter.  We continue to refine our efforts to bring you “news you can use”.  Please click through the articles of interest and let us know what you think.

Best wishes to all,
Darrel

Welcome to the 2nd edition of ITS In Touch.  This past quarter we have seen a lot of progress concerning the initial rollout of email for students as powered by Google.  In July, most colleges will begin to use this capability to send official communications to students.  ITS has also been tightly focused on planning so that we can be nimble and responsive once we know our budget for the coming year.  The dominant theme is to provide options.  We have been planning a range of options for providing continuous operations for our Student Information, Human Resource Management, Financial and Budgeting systems.  We have investigated the option of streamlining contractual obligations with our vendors.  ITS is also looking at many options to improve our communications, both among our own teams and to our customers and stakeholders.  In light of the current times, we know that providing three or four options is better for MCCCD than a tunnel-vision pursuit of the one best idea.

We hope you enjoy the 2nd edition of ITS In Touch, and we welcome your feedback.

Welcome to the first edition of the District Office Information Technology Services (ITS) newsletter, ITS In Touch.  One of our Divisional goals for 2009 is to improve our communication with all of the people that interact with ITS.  In some passing conversations, I hear questions like “Who are you people” and “what do you do?”  Over time, we hope to answer these questions and more.  Our overall guiding principle is that we want to make this newsletter interesting and useful in your work.  Since this is a fresh effort, we are extremely interested in your reactions and feedback.  Once you have clicked on a few of the articles, please take a few moments to let us know what you think.  Our initial plan is to send the newsletter to you quarterly.  Your feedback will help to shape the format and content of future editions.

We tried to make navigation fluid by organizing the articles under three main categories:
- ITS is In Touch, which is further broken down into: Bridging the Gap (Tips & Info), ITS Responds (Q&A), Common ITS Acronyms, Requests for Future Topics, and Feedback.
- ITS is People, where we spotlight a different team within ITS.
- ITS is Strategic, which is further broken down into: Projects in the Works, Outreach (College Visits, Conferences, Events, etc.), and Measuring Success (Current Statistics).

We enjoyed gathering this information for you and hope you will find it to be worthwhile.