IT Updates Services

From the expansion of storage spaces in Webmail to the improvement of mobile app services for alumni, IT services will soon undergo a series of updates.In regard to the upcoming update plans, Director of Information Technology Services, Diane Fandrich, outlined the importance of ITS work at Exeter. “The projects we work on are in support of the Academy as an academic institution of the highest regard and as a residential community,” she said. “We have a wide variety of projects this year in IT.”Fandrich also explained the role of technology at the Academy and other areas, planning on updates. “Technology is intended to enable us to communicate, collaborate and work efficiently. To those ends, we are focusing our efforts on items such as wireless—so that students, faculty and staff can be mobile (able to connect to technology anywhere on campus)—and ExeterConnect to encourage online collaboration, as well as our Reporting and Analytics environment, which provides access to data for the business of running the school.”One of the major updates concerns Exeter’s Webmail. “We are moving our email service to the cloud which will provide benefits such as updated functionality and much larger mailbox sizes—each individual with an Exeter email account will have a 50GB mailbox,” Fandrich said. “Our on-premises Microsoft Exchange email system will be migrated to Microsoft Office 365.”Along with the Webmail, the ITS department is preparing for updates in other areas of its services. “We are working with Institutional Advancement to provide new capabilities for the volunteer fundraising and a mobile app for our alumni, which will be rolled out over the spring,” Fandrich explained. “This is just a short list of many projects that keep the team very busy throughout the year.”In light of the ITS department’s plans for updates, specifically in terms of the improvement of webmail, faculty members listed the reasons why updates are needed for webmail and exexpressed their interest and excitement in the upcoming ITS updates.“One problem is finding addresses—email addresses. You have to go through that big search menu to find them and that takes a long time. Its also hard to do searches and so on,” mathematics instructor, Patricia Babecki said. “They have a plan in place to upgrade it—that’s awesome. I am looking forward to that.”History instructor Clinton Williams echoed Babecki’s views. “I tend to have a lot of attachments in a majority of my emails and I run out of storage very quickly,” Williams said. “So many times I can’t archive important emails and have to delete some of my emails.”Williams continued, “I think the updates on webmail are long overdue and I definitely think it’s necessary. It will be helpful for the faculty, students and registration at the Academy. It’s just a good plan.”Students have responded with excitement towards the IT department’s plans. “The webmail is, in my opinion, the most outdated server out of all Exeter networks,” student tech senior Jack Bright said. “The current webmail is a decade old, and I’m glad ITS has decided to update it. Students and faculty won’t need to depend on Gmail for storage anymore.”Other students commented on ITS updates on the security of Exeter’s servers. “The new Wi-Fi networks are a significant advantage,” senior Tyler Weitzman said. “In the past a student would connect to PEA wireless which was completely unsecured. That means that any random stranger who walked on to campus could basically hijack everybody's passwords: their email, their Facebook and everything. We are much better off with PEA-Secure, which is securely encrypted.”The new, secure Wi-Fi networks can prevent problems like a certain incident that occurred last year. According to Brandon Wang ’15, “Some students received fake spam emails asking for their username and password for the Exeter system and they got confused into thinking the person that was asking was from Exeter. Then what happened was these spammers used the Exeter mail servers to spam other people.”Despite these incidents, Wang indicated that network security “... is not something we have to worry about, being a small school. If someone were to convince an Exeter faculty member or student to share their email username and password, something that has happened in the past, then that could be a problem. I don't think the new system will mitigate these problems, and people will still need to be mindful of their own information.”Both students and faculty showed varied opinions on ExeterConnect. Some complained that it is too hard to navigate, while others view it as functional. “I am only using ExeterConnect for absences at the moment,” Babecki said. “It works fine to enter absences, although the interface is not great.”She continued, “I don’t think it is as intuitive as it could be and I don’t think the user interface is as sharp as it could be. I know that part of the reason for that is because they are just presenting functionality that they are tapping back into functionality, so there are some glitches.”Although updates are needed in numerous areas, it still may be a while before they are implemented into Exeter’s networks. Weitzman encouraged Exeter to be patient. “While there are many updates that ITS can do to benefit students, it is also important that nothing is rushed, because sometimes when there is a big sudden switch it can really cause trouble.”“It wouldn’t be fair for students or faculty to push ITS into, say, updating webmail only to then complain that things suddenly don't work because of the update.” Weitzman said. "ITS should take their time to make sure things are working fine before releasing updates rather than rushing it because of student or faculty opinion.”