News Release: CSI Launches New Web Services
Release Date: Friday 2018-01-05
TWIN FALLS – This week, CSI crossed a major milestone with the launch of a redesigned public website, secure student portal, secure employee portal, and modern Identity Management system. With the launch of these systems, CSI gains instant access to an entire suite of powerful applications via Microsoft Office 365 and other software tools. Some of the new functionality available to students and employees includes a comprehensive search engine that filters on people, files, videos, and chat threads. The search also includes embedded artificial intelligence that automatically recognizes named contacts within a recorded video. Other new services include secure instant messaging between students and employees, support for mobile consumption of web content, visual data-driven dashboards, automated workflows, electronic forms, and a more seamless digital experience across desktops, tablets, and mobile devices. All of these new capabilities are expected to help drive student success, simplify and protect access to online information, improve campus collaboration, and increase operational efficiencies.
According to Kevin Mark, Chief Information Technology Officer at the college, while most of the new services are fully in production, some features and web parts are still under development. Portions of the old system are also accessible from the new web portals, but eventually the old system will phase out. As the new services stabilize, teams will begin the next phase of the project to migrate content from more than 10,000 web pages on the old system and recreate 300 paper forms into automated digital workflows. In the meantime, CSI offers extended technical support from 7am – 7pm, Monday – Friday, January 8 – 19 with agents ready to assist students and faculty for Spring semester.
Mark explained that this project represents a key part of a multi-year strategy to build an integrated enterprise architecture that will help CSI fulfill its core mission. In addition to the new technology and business processes developed, a significant portion of this project focused on improving data quality of more than 100,000 student accounts. These efforts will accelerate CSI’s long-term vision to achieve greater data integrity and support better decision-making, strategic planning, and reporting.
He went on to say that faculty, students, and administration gave strong support throughout the project, even though there were difficult challenges along the way. Mark also expressed deep gratitude for the valiant efforts of CSI IT employees who worked many nights, weekends, and holidays ahead of the launch. In the months ahead, efforts will focus on resolving issues, finishing design, and migrating content. Later in the year, there are plans to deploy additional enhancements.
For additional information about this or other projects at CSI, contact the Office of Public Information at (208) 732-6299 or submit inquiries to info@csi.edu.