IT supports technology across campus

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased Yale’s dependency on IT to drive public health, operational, and academic activities forward.

Across all departments within IT, colleagues are working tirelessly to support these initiatives and to maintain the level of excellence we expect at Yale University—and for that, I am grateful. - John Barden

In fact, over the course of the past few months, more than 20 new activities have emerged to support Yale’s needs throughout its three phases of reactivation.

Some projects have already launched, while others remain underway, particularly those that will facilitate teaching and learning this fall.

Public Health

Before the University could initiate its highly restricted Phase One, IT launched several new tools to meet public health policy decisions, including, among other things, voluntary testing and daily health checks. IT will continue to deliver on these needs by:

• Developing a Daily Health Check website
• Establishing viral testing Epic workflow, communications, and reporting
• Pilots to experiment with augmenting manual contact tracing, using Bluetooth based proximity logging
• Assessment of broader population health management tools that may be helpful in supporting our community long term

Operations

While most Yale staff continue to work from home, IT staff members from across the university have been assisting in creating management tools for new operating procedures, including:

• Creating an authorized personnel list and data flows across multiple systems to support approvals
• Developing methods to count personnel on campus and provide an understanding of building utilization each day
• Supporting COVID-19 related training via Yale’s Training Management System (TMS)
• Advising on work-from-home technology guidelines
• Expanding online meeting coverage for large events

Academic

As we approach fall semester, Yale’s academic leaders continue to work on decisions about our academic delivery.  IT leaders across campus have been working on a number of initiatives to assure the broadest possible options remain open as discussions continue. These include:

• Readying shared classrooms the potential of teaching both in person and online
• Ordering additional laptops and teaching-related equipment to faculty
• Expanding remote to software that is typically only offered in computer labs
• Working with the Poorvu Center to add additional teaching tools 
• Working with distributed IT leaders to improve technology guidance to students in specialized programs
• Exploring the potential to expand Safety Net or similar programs to cover students with technology challenges across all academic units
• Addressing some unique challenges for the performance focused schools

John Barden reflected on this list of initiatives at the June 5 Town Hall and acknowledged that “across all departments within IT, colleagues are working tirelessly to support these initiatives and to maintain the level of excellence we expect at Yale University—and for that, I am grateful.”