2004/2005 Annual Report - Services and Support - Cornell University

George Abbott Anthony Adinolfi Dan Adinolfi Rohit Ahuja Mark Allen Mike Allmendinger Mark Anbinder Moe Arif Denny Askew Jon
Atherton Jim Avery Tammy Babcock Ron Babuka Carolyn Baker Pete Baker Tom Ball Gina Banfield Bruce Barber Maureen Barger
Jason Barnello Dave Barr Steve Barrett Randy Barron Dan Bartholomew John Becker Lori Beebe Andrea Beesing Neil Belcher Beth
Bement Ami Ben-Yaacov Jacqui Benedict Tara Bennett Deepak Bhambhani Scott Birch Joe Blasz Tammy Blasz Mark Bodenstein
Jim Bohnsack Sandi Boles Dan Booth Tim Boothe Pete Bosanko Bob Bourdeau Brandon Bowers Ross Boyer Kris Boyes Scott
Bradley JP Brannan Lee Brink Greg Bronson Alan Brown Chris Brown John Buhrman Pat Bulger Leisha Burke Ruth Burroughs
Scott Burroughs Jeremy Butler Don Buttaccio Joanne Button Sally Campbell Nick Cappadona Jason Carden Sebastian Carello Bob
Carozzoni Mariann Carpenter Garry Chen Deb Chilson Jeff Christen Sarah Christen Greg Christofferson Richard Cicciarelli Dan
Clark Rick Cochran Laurie Collinsworth Jolene Comfort Steve Compos Jim Conley Teresa Craighead Linda Croll Mary Cronk Shelli
Cross Faye Cunningham Tony Damiani Karen Daniels Ceila Davila Vicky Dean Aimee Decker Tony Dellinger Josh DeMelo Atul
Deshpande Candice Dias Tom Dimock Ron DiNapoli Marilyn Dispensa Gary Domke Sunny Donenfeld Jim Doolittle Ken Downey
Kathy Drake Agelia Dumas Chad Dumont Lisa Dundon Jim Dutcher Dan Eckstrom Steve Edgar Joe Ellis Cyle Ellison Dan Elswit
Lorie Emery Doug Evans Tom Every Jeff Ewald Charlie Fahringer Joan Falkenberg Getman Kevin Feeney Mike Ferdinando Ed Fisher
Martha Fitzgerald Doug Flanagan Mark Fowler Randall Frank Dennis Frederick Eric Fredericksen Ken Friedman Ken Frost Vic
Fryzel Tammy Fuller Mike Garcia Eric Gasteiger Paul Gerbasi Chip Goines Andy Goldman Al Gonzalez Sue Gorton Pat Graham
Bobby Griffin Chris Grippin Graham Hall Aaron Hamid Jeff Hanavan Steve Haner Erick Hanftwurzel Rob Hanlon Sharon Harris
Caroline Hecht Al Heiman Mike Heisler Jill Henery Mario Hernandez Dick Herold Stephanie Herrick Ann Hill Mike Hojnowski Gene
Holleran Jim Honness Jolene Horton Jay Howell Jim Howell Al Hubberman Sasja Huijts Bryan Hutchinson Gary Ingraham Leslie
Intemann Roger Jagoda Linda Jaynes Jan Jesmer Chuck Jessop Erica Jessup Rick Jones Wes Kahle Jamie Kalousdian Judy Kany
Bill Kelemen Ed Kiefer Nancy Kimble Bobbie Kirk Ken Kline Ed Klopf Dave Koehler Jan Kossowski Ned La Celle Butch Labrecque
Kapil Ladha Glenn Larratt Kurt Larsen Kevin Leonard Nate Leonard Paula Leonard Jim Lombardi Tony Lombardo Ann Lovejoy Jim
Lovejoy Jason Lowe Alma Luckett Duane Lukosavich Linda Lukosavich Mark Lundergan Beth Goelzer Lyons Lukasz Lysakowski Rick
MacDonald Don MacLeod Celisa Manly Chris Manly Mark Mara Lori Marcin Rich Marisa Greg Marvin Chris McAuliffe Colbert
McClellan Polley McClure Teri McFall Catherine McNamara George Medlar Brian Messenger Derek Messie Vicky Mikula Tonya
Miles Wyman Miles Roberta Militello Dan Miller Eric Miller Kate Mink Tracy Mitrano Michelle Mogil Helen Mohrmann Kevin
Monaghan Jenn Moore Carl Moravec Will Morris Olia Muller Rosanne Murphy Satish Narayan Randy Negley Pat Nelson Michael
Neville Kathy Newell Eric Nobel George Norman Theresa Norman Nadine O’Brien Todd Olson Mike Oltz Margo Orzel Shannon
Osburn Glen Palmer John Parker Kathy Parker Tom Parker Ron Parks Charlie Parry Cindy Pataki Donivan Patwell Tom Payne Kevin
Pelletier Ken Pendell Stacy Pendell Tim Perry John Pfleiderer Rick Polcaro Marie Pollack Donna Poole Dave Pulleyn Joy Quigley
Maureen Quillinan Mel Radcliffe Phanindra Reddy Bert Reed James Reed Nate Reimer Michelle Reynolds Lois Rich Peggy Roberts
Phil Robinson John Romag John Rudan Helen Russler Jen Russler Shelley Ruth John Ryan Kathy Ryan Juan Salomon Keshav
Santi Ann Santiago Carrie Sanzone Teresa Sawester Chuck Sawner Jolene Scaglione Mark Scannapieco Kathy Schaufler Steve
Schuster Don Schweikert Ron Seccia Karel Sedlacek Linda Seils Diane Sempler Christine Sessler Tom Sessler Gail Shaff Karla
Sharpsteen Scott Sheavly Andy Shieh Dave Shirk Sanjeev Shukla Heather Shuler Jenny Signor Lenny Silver Jeff Simmons Mark
Sincock Jim Singleton Pete Skura Adam Smith Louann Smith Randy Smith Scott Sorrentino Cleibe Souza Scott Steiner Lisa
Stensland Jonathan Sternstein Ken Stevens Javier Streb Kathie Struble Dave Swartout Michael Swenson Rick Synakowski Donna
Taber Bob Talda Michael Tetteh Tom Theimer Chuck Thomas Kim Tilton Mike Tolomeo Jeff Truelsen Louis Truter Ted Tuazon Bill
Turner Carol Uber Clare van den Blink Casper van Wyk Barb VanEtten Nancy VanOrman Dave Vernon Joy Veronneau Franck Vidal
Noni Vidal Paul Viscuso Les Vogel Cindy Wagner Dave Wakoff Tom Walden Shawn Walker M. Scott Walters Pat Washburn Mary
Weber Steve Weidner Solomon Welch Doug Wheeler Dick White Robert Wilkinson Judy Williams Brian Witchey John Wobus Charles
Wolff Marge Wolff Luise Yacono Tom Young Paul Zarnowski Jose Zavala Joe Zawislak Irina Zhankov Don Zifchock Todd Zino
2004/2005 Annual Report

Actuate Administrative Computing Architecture Audio/Video Streaming AUDIX Bear
Access Blackboard Blue Light Phones Call Management System Cell Phones CIT-Alert-L
CIT OnSite Solutions Classroom Audiovisual Resources Database Classroom Technologies
Design ColdFusion Hosting COLTS II CommonSpot Computer Classes Computer
Recommendations Computing at Cornell Website Contact Center (HelpDesk) Copyright
Information Center Cornell Log Cornell Project Management Methodology Cornell Website
Redesign CornellC CoursEnroll CU People CU Search CUFS CUinfo Customer
Satisfaction Survey CUTV CUWebLogin CyberTower Datamarts DMTools DNS/DHCP
Edge ACL EDUCAUSE/Cornell Institute for Computer Policy and Law Electronic Directory
E-mail Employee Essentials Employee Leadership Program Eudora Express Lane EZ-
Backup EzraNet EZ-Remote Faculty Advisor Faculty Conflict of Interest Survey Faculty
Innovation in Teaching Grants Federal Work Study Warning and Termination Letters Gartner
intraWeb Global Seminar Graduate Registration Unit Recommendations System Graduate
School Special Committee and Selection Change GuestIDs Hein-On-Line High-Speed Laser
Printing Hyperion/Brio INSTRUCT Servers Instructional Design Intrusion Detection System
IT Managers Council Just the Facts Kerberos Kronos Kuali Lab Management
Conference Lynx (Student Technology Assistant Program) Mailing Lists Middleware
Napster National LambdaRail NetIDs Net-Print Network Management Network
Operations Center Network Usage Anomaly Alerts Newsgroups NUBB (Network Usage-
Based Billing) Oracle Oracle Calendar Password Complexity PEDL PeopleSoft Permit
Server Policy Development Policy Education Public Access Ports Public Computing
Labs Quality of Work Life Survey RedRover Refworks ResNet ResPhone SALSA
Satellite Uplink Schedule 25 Security Education Security Incident Response Security
Vulnerability Assessments Server Farm SideCar SkillSoft Software Licenses Spam
Blocking Special Mailboxes Storage Farm Student Employment System Symantec
AntiVirus Technical Support Provider Forums Technology Scholarship Program Telephone
Services Time Away Responder University Computer Policy and Law Program uPortal.
Cornell Video Services Videoconferencing Web Conferencing Web Survey Tools
WebMail webMethods Website Accessibility Website Design and Hosting Who I Am

Table of Contents
A Message from the Vice President for Information Technologies 2
Information Technologies Leadership 4
Administrative Computing 10
Teaching and Learning 12
Outreach 15
Research 17
General Campus Computing 18
Development of Cornell Information Technologies and the
Cornell IT community 25
Measuring What CIT Does 27

Message from the Vice President for
Information Technologies
Major accomplishments
When I wrote this message last year, I predicted 10 areas of priority for this year: IT
security, Workforce Planning, National LambdaRail, PeopleSoft, Employee Leadership
Program, online music, project management, distributed learning, Cornell web presence,
and e-mail. As you will read in the report, we’ve made major progress in all of these areas.
The highlights:
1. IT security began shifting from reactive to proactive mode. We said IT security
would be big, but I’m not sure any of us realized how big it would be. We have
engaged technical professionals and executive leadership across the university.
Polley Ann McClure has served as Cornell’s vice
president for information technologies since May
1999. Her professional experience spans two distinct
careers: a traditional academic faculty career in ecology
and evolutionary biology, and an IT career begun
in the early 1980s, with leadership roles at Indiana
University, the University of Virginia, and Cornell.
As I sit down to think about our
year’s accomplishments, I want to be
sure to express appreciation to the
IT staff all over Cornell who make
the basic infrastructure services so
reliable that we almost take them for
granted. Often, these staff receive
attention only when something
breaks, and I’d like to take the
opportunity to make up for that a bit
here.
That rock-solid infrastructure
doesn’t “just happen.” Hundreds of
people all across the university focus
intensely on making the underlying
communications and computing
infrastructure work—day in and day
out—and they spend many weekend
and evening hours on-call and
actually at work to that end. So this
year I thank them especially. I hope
everyone reading this report will
realize that underneath every project
and accomplishment highlighted are
the cables and computers they hardly
see and the dedicated IT folks who
make those parts of it all work.
Faculty, staff, and students have greater understanding of their responsibilities for
system security, from the moment they plug their computer’s cable into our networks.
Our new and very effective quarantine and scanning capability for new computers
being brought onto the Cornell network has saved countless hours of remediation
2. The IT Managers Council laid a foundation of trust and collaboration. In its first
year of operation the council has truly begun to bridge the gaps between the many
individual IT units across campus. We are beginning to develop a more common
purpose, shared ownership, and better appreciation for each other’s contributions.
3. We focused our PeopleSoft efforts on planning. We completely re-worked our
approach to the student systems implementation and also planned a major upgrade to
PeopleSoft 8.9. Both will consume our efforts during 2005-06, and put us in a good
place to respond to whichever direction Oracle takes recently acquired PeopleSoft. We
also developed a five-year plan for systems enhancements and replacements and made
major progress in redesigning our governance and priority-setting processes.
4. We reinstituted IT technical training. We once again are offering both officeproductivity
and professional IT training. Identifying the technical training needs of
the university was a joint project of the IT Managers Council and CIT Training.
5. Standardized project management became part of how we work. Great progress
in adopting the Cornell Project Management Methodology was achieved, both across
the university and certainly within CIT. All major projects and many smaller ones at
CIT are now using this common-sense approach. Just considering major systems projects,
we have seen much better communication and meeting of milestones as a result.
The methodology has been used, for example, for the huge EzraNet program and for
our internal CIT billing project.
6. Several big projects were successfully completed. For example, we delivered a
complete reimplementation of the cornell.edu web presence and implemented a new
spam filter that has saved us all from millions of unwanted e-mail messages. In addition,
we began a process to accommodate those who desire a more “user-friendly”
e-mail address.
7. We took values-based leadership and staff development to heart. Over half of our
staff have attended our week-long Employee Leadership Program. Reviews are generally
very positive, with most people expressing impatience that all of their colleagues
have not yet attended.
Other important changes have also contributed to producing significant improvements
in staff satisfaction, as measured by our annual “quality of work life” survey. And no
doubt related to that is the improvement in our Customer Satisfaction Survey results.
Happier people do a better job, and our users and customers notice and appreciate
that.

Priorities for next year
Taking out my crystal ball, which is
always dangerous in the fast-moving
world of IT, I see the following big clusters
of priority work in the year ahead:
1. IT security and policy: We will
continue to develop and deploy appropriate
privacy and security policies and
proactive security management tools,
such as the network quarantine, that
protect our resources in a costeffective
way. And, of course, we will
continue to be aggressive in educating
the campus community about security
and intellectual property issues.
But the largest new focus I can see
centers on extending our security
focus to the realm of data protection.
We should be advancing policies,
standards, and new institutional
practices to help us better protect our
valuable data resources.
2. Administrative systems: The People-
Soft 8.9 upgrade is a “must succeed”
project that must be accomplished as
quickly as possible because the People-
Soft Student Administration project is
queued up right behind it.
The student project will be implemented
using a new strategy that
coordinates implementation across
areas of student administration based
on the business cycle, rather than
module by module. This promises to
be quicker overall and less expensive.
First steps toward implementation of
a new financial system will be completed.
And we will be implementing
a new, more-inclusive governance
process for setting administrative
computing priorities.
3. IT collaboration: Weaving a coherent
tapestry of IT at Cornell based
on the diverse needs and capabilities
of distributed and central IT remains
a major challenge. Based on our first
year, I have great hopes that the IT
Managers Council and its various
activities will continue their good
progress on this front.
4. Networking: Cornell’s fiber connection
between Ithaca and New York
City will be lit, and National LambdaRail
will become a reality with its
promise for enabling entirely new
functionality, especially for research.
Wireless connectivity will continue to
expand, and EzraNet will continue its
steady renovation of internal building
communication infrastructure.
About OIT and CIT
www.cit.cornell.edu/oit
www.cit.cornell.edu/cit
Dedication
This year, I dedicate this report to all IT
staff on campus. More of the progress
in this report than ever before has been
achieved through collaboration and
partnership among the diverse units in
CIT and in IT units throughout Cornell.
Our combined challenges are great,
but the resources we bring to them
together are huge.
The Office of Information Technologies (OIT) provides strategic leadership for IT at Cornell University.
Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) is the university’s central IT organization. Together, OIT and CIT
have approximately 345 people.
OIT’s work includes:
• Coordinating campuswide security efforts and security education
• Exploring and recommending IT architectures and standards
• Providing university-wide guidance in technology policy development and legal and ethical uses of IT
• Building partnerships and collaborations with corporate partners and vendors
• Directing strategic human resource management for OIT and CIT and collaborating on issues affecting
IT jobs across campus
• Overseeing OIT and CIT financial and budgetary planning
• Facilitating coordination among Cornell’s IT units
CIT’s six divisions are:
• Academic Technology and Media Services
• Advanced Technology and Architectures
• Customer Service and Marketing
• Information Systems
• Network and Communication Services
• Systems and Operations
Our Mission Statement
Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) is committed to partnering with the Cornell community to provide
excellent information technology products and services. Our IT leadership and support enable the
university to uphold its high standards in teaching, research, and outreach.
Our Vision
Cornell University pursues a selective “early adopter” strategy for its information technology environment.
CIT focuses on the quality infrastructure and services that faculty and students expect to find
at a premier research university. The Cornell community expects and deserves reliable, efficient, and
well-managed technologies, and CIT ensures these needs are met. The faculty pioneers the development
and application of technology to conduct world-class research and instruction, and CIT facilitates
their work.
Our Annual Business Communications
www.cit.cornell.edu/oit/Reports
OIT/CIT publishes three annual business communications—our strategic plan, business plan, and annual
report. Together, they provide a complete picture of our long-term goals and near-term plans and
accomplishments.
Our strategic plan covers the upcoming four years, outlining at a very high level our strategic initiatives
and goals. Our business plan covers the current fiscal year, laying out our specific plans, priorities, and
timelines for enhancing OIT’s and CIT’s services and products. Our annual report covers the previous
fiscal year, detailing the progress made on both our strategic goals and our specific plans.

Information Technologies Leadership
Goal
Provide IT leadership: OIT and CIT
provide leadership to Cornell in the
IT security, policy, and architecture
arenas and in those areas where
emerging partnerships and technologies
are of strategic interest to the
university. We seek to share our leadership
experiences in these areas with
peer universities.
Progress
• Information Technology Managers
Council
• Data-centric security
• Incident response
• Password complexity
• GuestID
• Update on EzraNet
• Customer Service Strategic Review
• Lab Management Conference
• Policies and policy education
Working together to meet
Cornell’s IT needs
itmc.cornell.edu
In Sept. 2004, Sunny Donenfeld joined
us as director of distributed support.
Among his first tasks was to launch the
IT Managers Council, a new advisory
board comprised of one representative
from each college, major administrative
unit, and CIT area. The impetus for
the ITMC came from the IT workforce
planning recommendations of 2003.
The 36 ITMC representatives meet once
a month to discuss technical issues from
a strategic point of view, concentrating
primarily on the IT workforce planning
recommendations. In addition, ITMC
committees work to make tangible improvements
in areas such as IT professional
development, software acquisition,
and IT support practices.
Dan Adinolfi (left), Steve Schuster, Mark Scannapieco, Glenn Larratt, Wyman Miles, and Tom Young manage
the security of Cornell’s data networks.
As a new group charting new territory,
the ITMC has spent part of its first year
discussing how to function most effectively.
Communication and understanding within
and among the units have already improved
as have the connections and trust felt
within the ITMC.
Other first-year accomplishments include
identifying Cornell IT professional
training needs and delivering on-campus
technical training; identifying and
publishing “best practices” for desktop
support; recommending improvements
for the software licensing process; and
discussing how CIT can improve how it
communicates with IT staff.
Guarding the university’s data
www.cit.cornell.edu/security
Our top priority in security this year was
institutional data: What data do we need
to worry about? Where does it come
from? Where does it go? Who accesses it
and how?
Legislation regarding the university’s obligations
to protect certain types of data,
as well as several incidents of data loss
at other institutions, were our primary
driving forces. A new component of our
standard response when a departmental
system has been compromised is to determine
whether any institutional data may
have been put at risk.
A key strategy this year was improving
security at the desktop level, typically the
weakest link among higher-education
institutions. We are urging everyone in
the community to run a client firewall,
at least the one provided with their
operating system, or for people running
Microsoft Windows, the stronger firewall
provided as part of the site-licensed
Symantec Client Security suite.
We also took a tough stand on spyware,
drawing national attention from Oct.
2004 through May 2005 as we took
measures to prevent Marketscore from
gathering web traffic details (including
SSL-encrypted traffic) from campus
computers. Our technical analysis of
Marketscore benefited other highereducation
institutions, and our technical
maneuvering safeguarded the data of
Cornell faculty, staff, and students while
we helped the community understand the
real risks of spyware.
As part of that effort, we evaluated antispyware
solutions and began supporting
two no-cost packages for all Windows
users. For departments that want a managed
solution, we coordinated a group
purchase of Webroot’s Spy Sweeper. In
June 2005, a new version of Symantec
AntiVirus that also detects and removes
spyware was released to campus.

Responding rapidly to threats
www.cit.cornell.edu/security
Systems on our campus network remain
under continuous attack from the Internet.
Two trends this past year were the
rise of the so-called “zombie PCs,” where
systems are hacked and then remotely
controlled to distribute illicit material
or mail out spam, and “rootkits,” which
make intrusions very difficult to detect
without the use of specialized tools.
As anyone in IT security knows, the
question is not whether a security breach
is going to happen, but when. Great care
is taken to minimize the frequency and
severity of breaches, but beyond that, the
next best defense is to be ready with a
rapid response.
We have taken several steps to make our
response even faster:
• The mail servers now block threats
quickly.
• Very specific support is provided to
departments under siege.
• Even better coordination among local
units, the Network Operations Center,
and the Contact Center has narrowed
the gap between detecting a problem
and acting on it.
• A locally developed technique for
analyzing traffic on our “dark nets” is
proving valuable for spotting emerging
threats. (These isolated networks offer
no valid services or hosts, so any traffic
on them is potential trouble.)
Number of cases
• Helix, a Linux tool for security incident
response, has been enhanced specifically
for the Cornell environment
and made available through Cornell’s
Security Special Interest Group.
Thwarting would-be password
thieves
www.cit.cornell.edu/services/identity/
password.html
In Apr. 2005, we began a campaign to
make Cornell passwords much harder
to crack. Passwords control access to
highly confidential data, some of which
requires protection mandated by federal
legislation. Although Cornell has had
minimum password guidelines for years,
they weren’t stringent enough to stand up
to commonly available password-guessing
tools. In consultation with campus
stakeholders and an advisory group, we
devised new standards that could.
So faculty, staff, and students who are
setting their password, whether it’s their
first time or fiftieth, must now take the
Cornell password challenge… create a
password you can remember that is at
least 8 characters long, includes at least
three of four character types (uppercase
letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and
symbols found on the keyboard), isn’t in
any dictionary, and doesn’t repeat characters
or sequences.
Each time a new password is created this
way, the owner can take pride not only
in his or her creativity but also in being
Security Cases (Fiscal Years 2004 vs. 2005)
J.P. Brannan (front left), Keshav Santi, Candice Dias,
Joy Veronneau, Leslie Intemann (back left), Tom
Parker, Andrea Beesing, and Stacy Pendell help
the campus understand and meet Cornell’s morestringent
password requirements.
a vital part of the armor that protects the
university’s electronic resources.
Providing more access to
campus visitors
identity.cit.cornell.edu/gids/
Every year, thousands of people visit the
university. Inevitably, some will want
to use Cornell resources that require a
NetID. However, the process for issuing
NetIDs is strict, and typically only
students, faculty, staff, and other groups
closely aligned with Cornell’s mission
qualify. A different approach for granting
temporary access was needed.
Enter the GuestID project, launched as
a pilot in June 2005 with the university’s
Blackboard course web site system. It
used to be that faculty and students
had to maintain separate Blackboard
accounts, since that was the only way
to also give access to “guests,” such as
distance learning students, faculty colleagues,
and Cornell Cooperative Extension
class participants. Now, Cornellians
can log in with their Cornell NetIDs, and
guests can request university GuestIDs.
Authentication for both is handled by
Kerberos.
In the future, CIT will be designing and
building the components necessary to
allow additional services to use GuestIDs.
ACL edge
Abuse
Copyright
Denial of service
Open mail relay
Open proxy
Scanning/probing
Spamming
System compromise
Viruses/worms

Shannon Osburn (left), Scott Burroughs, Michelle
Reynolds, Sasja Huijts, Tom Theimer, and Joe Blasz
gather at the completion of an EzraNet project that upgraded
the data wiring in Upson and Grumman Halls.
Upgrading wiring across the
campus
www.cit.cornell.edu/ezranet
EzraNet, the university’s $57-million initiative
to upgrade data wiring and the distribution
infrastructure in approximately
60 buildings on campus, continued to
meet with success.
This year, we completed Upson and
Grumman Halls (five telecommunications
rooms and about 1,500 faceplates)
and Biotechnology Building (two telecommunications
rooms and over 1,450
faceplates). We have also done design
work for A. D. White House, Olin Hall,
Clark Hall, Comstock Hall, Rhodes Hall,
and Willard Straight Hall. In fall 2005,
we will begin construction in Olin and
Comstock Halls. Soon after, planning
for the Vet Medical Center and the Bard,
Kimball, and Thurston Halls complex
will begin.
Tuning our customer service
approach
www.cit.cornell.edu/cit/CSMdocs/
CustSvcStratReview2005.pdf
In 2004, we interviewed key constituencies
and surveyed students and network
administrators to help determine what
the community expects from customer
service for technical services. The results
are being used to develop a strategic road
map that will detail improvements to
make over the next 2 to 3 years.
The top four most-desired attributes:
• Effective communication
• Performance of customer service
• Positive relationship with the customer
• Improved process for billing
Hosting computing lab
professionals
labmanconference.org
In June 2005, we hosted the two-day
national Lab Management Conference.
Over 170 professionals from 90 institutions
and 14 vendors came together to
discuss the challenges of managing
computing labs in the educational
environment.
Protecting people, data, and IT
resources through policy
www.cit.cornell.edu/oit/PolicyOffice.html
Preserving the integrity of the university’s
IT resources and data while respecting
the people who use them—that’s
our vision for how to craft IT policies.
Our approach joins security and privacy
policy principles in service to the overall
mission of the university as the means of
protecting and preserving institutional
assets. This year, we established one new
policy and began work on three:
• Policy 5.5, Stewardship and Custodianship
of Electronic Mail: circumstances in
which the contents of electronic mail
transmitted and stored on the university’s
network can be disclosed to third
parties; established Feb. 2005
• Policy 5.1, revision of Responsible Use of
Electronic Communications: what constitutes
appropriate management of content
on a network device; this revised
policy marries security obligations of
Policy 5.2.1, Security of Information
Technology Resources, to the obligations
users have to manage the data on their
computer
• Policy 5.x, Privacy of the Network:
university’s position on monitoring,
posting, or removing content material
from its networks and computers, as
well as the rules for disclosure of IT
data under the purview of the authority
of the vice president for information
technologies as a data steward
• Policy 5.x, Authentication of Information
Technology Resources: who can have
a Cornell NetID, what constitutes an
acceptable NetID password, password
complexity rules, and authentication
standards for four classes of data
University Computer
Policy and Law Program
www.cit.cornell.edu/oit/UCPL.html
The University Computer Policy and Law
Program (UCPL) promotes IT ethics education
and encourages campus community discussion
and debate on these topics by sponsoring
speakers for both small workshops and
university lectures.
• Sept. 2004: “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”
and “Copyright 2004,” with Steven J.
McDonald, general counsel, Rhode Island
School of Design
• Oct. 2004: “The Digital Media Crisis” and
“The Problem with the Law in Cyberspace,”
with John Palfrey, Berkman Center for Internet
and Society at Harvard Law School
• Nov. 2004: “Should ISPs Have to Police the
Internet?” and “Wiretapping the Internet: It’s
Not Whether, but HOW and HOW MUCH,”
with Lara Flint, staff counsel, Center for
Democracy and Technology
• Feb. 2005: “The Information Owner’s Guide
to Spyware Survival,” with Dan L. Burk, visiting
professor, Cornell Law School
• Mar. 2005: “Implementation and Education
of the New University E-Mail Policy,” with Pat
McClary, University Counsel’s Office; Lauran
Jacoby, Office of Human Resources Labor
Relations; Marguerite Spencer, University
Policy Office; and Tracy Mitrano, OIT
• Apr. 2005: “The Download Debate Strikes
Back: The Politics of Digital Copyright, Part
2,” with Kent Hubbell, dean of students,
moderating a panel including Alec French,
senior counsel for government relations,
NBC/Universal; Cary Sherman, president,
Recording Industry Association of America;
Avery Kotler, senior director of business and
legal affairs, Napster; Fred von Lohmann,
senior staff attorney, Electronic Frontier
Foundation; Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor
of communications, New York University; and
Fritz Attaway, executive vice president and
general counsel, Motion Picture Association
of America
• June 2005: “Solve the Mystery of the Accessible
Web,” with Deborah Buck, executive
director, Association of Assistive Technology
Act Programs; and Sharon Trerise, coordinator,
Accessible IT for Northeast Americans
with Disabilities Act and IT Center

Tracy Mitrano (center) sets the stage for a Feb. 2005 University Computer Policy and Law seminar by Dan Burk, visiting professor at the Cornell Law School, on
what spyware is and why it’s a problem.
Institute for Computer Policy and Law
www.educause.edu/icpl
What Cornell’s IT Dollar Buys:
$51.6 Million Actual Expenses
(Fiscal Year 2005)
8%
The EDUCAUSE/Cornell Institute for Computer Policy and Law provides leadership
to colleges and universities in developing technology policies. Every
summer since 1996, Cornell has hosted an intensive four-day seminar that
brings nationally recognized technologists and legal experts in higher education
together with participants to discuss perennial and emerging issues. This
year’s topics ranged from online privacy risk assessment to the politics of digital
copyright.
19%
13%
35%
25%
Campus IT Infrastructure (35%)
Administrative Computing (25%)
General Campus Computing (19%)
Teaching and Learning (13%)
Leadership and Campus Outreach (8%)
Pat McClary (left), associate university counsel, and Marguerite Spencer, director of the University
Policy Office, discuss Cornell’s new policy on e-mail stewardship and custodianship at a Mar. 2005
University Computer Policy and Law event.

Professional affiliations
ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)
ACUTA (Association for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher
Education)
ASTD (American Society for Training and Development)
Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School
BICSI (telecommunications)
CCUMC (Consortium of College and University Media Centers)
CNYCA (Central New York Communications Association)
CSG (Common Solutions Group)
E-Authentication
EDUCAUSE
EDUCAUSE/Cornell Institute for Computer Policy and Law
EDUCAUSE NLII (National Learning Infrastructure Initiative)
ICIA (International Communications Industries Association)
InCommon Federation
International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP)
Internet2
Internet2 (Big Video Group)
Ivy-Plus
JA-SIG (Java Architectures Special Interest Group)
Kuali Project
MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and
Online Teaching)
National Center for Disability and Access to Education
National LambdaRail
NMC (New Media Consortium)
NYSERNet (New York State Education and Research Network)
Pinnacle Users Group
PMI (Project Management Institute)
Sakai Project
12.8%
5.7%
SIGUCCS (Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services)
STC (Society for Technical Communication)
ViDe (Video Development Initiative)
University Computer Purchases
(Estimated Fiscal Year 2005)
2.8%
3.9%
3.9%
0.3%
Dell (70.7%)
Apple (12.8%)
IBM (5.7%)
Sun (3.9)
Compaq/HP (3.9%)
Gateway (2.8%)
Lenovo (0.3%)
70.7%
At an Apr. 2005 University Computer Policy and Law event, Kent Hubbell (top left), dean of students, moderates a
spirited debate on digital copyright among Fred von Lohmann, Electronic Frontier Foundation; Siva Vaidhyanathan,
New York University; Fritz Attaway, Motion Picture Association of America; Cary Sherman, Recording Industry
Association of America; Avery Kotler, Napster; and Alec French (not shown), NBC/Universal.
IT Funding: Fiscal Years 1996-2005 in 1996$ (in $1,000’s)
$60,000 Mainframe, Administrative Systems
Development and Maintenance
$50,000
$40,000
Special Funding (EzraNet, PAR’s,
Distributed Learning)
$30,000
Services Merged with CIT* and Internal
Services
$20,000
Cost-Recovered Services (Voice and Data
Services, EZ-Backup, ETV,* WPG*)
$10,000
$0
General Appropriations (General Campus
Services)
FY 96
FY 97
FY 98
FY 99
FY 00
FY 01
FY 02
FY 03
FY 04
FY 05
*Some eCornell staff merged with CIT in 2005. The
Educational Television Center (ETV) and Web Production
Group (WPG) migrated to CIT in 2004 from the College of
Human Ecology.

CIT staff on the national scene
Jim Avery, Greg Bronson, and Tom Every (CIT Video Distribution Services).
“A Rockin Room with a Rollin View: Integrating Video Technologies with
Earthquake Studies.” Presentation at 7th Annual SURA/ViDe (Internet
Video Development) Conference, Mar. 2005.
Andrea Beesing (OIT IT Security), Tracy Mitrano (OIT IT Policy), and Steve
Schuster (OIT IT Security). “The Pieces and the Puzzle of IT Policy Development.”
Presentation at EDUCAUSE 2004, Oct. 2004.
Greg Bronson (CIT Video Distribution Services). “Interface Design Standards,”
Pro AV Magazine, May 2005.
———. Quoted by Daniel Keller in “Installation Profile: Cornell University’s
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Instructional Facility,”
Sound and Video Contractor, Mar. 2005.
Greg Bronson (CIT Video Distribution Services), Tony Cosgrave (Uris Library),
and David Schwartz (Computer Science). “Collaborative Learning,
Multimedia Development, Flexibility.” Presentation at Lab Management
Conference 2005, June 2005.
Jeff Christen (CIT Data Operations). “Cornell University’s Data Warehousing
Infrastructure.” Presentation at Best Practices in Data Warehousing in
Higher Education Forum, Apr. 2005.
Marilyn Dispensa (CIT Instructional and Web Services). “Case Studies
in Microscopy.” Presentation at New Media Consortium 2005 Summer
Conference, June 2005.
———. “Using Flash to Simulate Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for
Introductory Archaeology Students.” Presentation at New Media Consortium
2005 Summer Conference, June 2005.
Rick Cochran (CIT Designated Services). “Net-Print: Cornell’s Solution to
Student Printing.” Presentation at Lab Management Conference 2005,
June 2005.
Joan Getman (CIT Faculty Development), Marilyn Dispensa (CIT Instructional
and Web Services), and Steve Weidner (CIT Instructional and
Web Services). “Evolution in Teaching: Moving from Individual to Shared
Innovation.” Presentation at New Media Consortium 2005 Summer
Conference, June 2005.
Wyman Miles (OIT IT Security). “Vulnerability Assessments with Nmap
and Nessus,” Sys Admin Magazine, Aug. 2005.
Tracy Mitrano (OIT IT Policy Office). “The Internet, the Pope, and the
iPod,” Campus Technology, May 2005.
———. “Managing Electronic Identity: Time to Get Serious.” Presentation
at EDUCAUSE Policy 2005, Apr. 2005.
———. “The Politics of IT Policies Is the Politics of Everything Digital.” Presentation
at CUMREC 2005 (Higher Education Administrative Technology
Conference), May 2005.
———. “The Process and Substance of IT Policy: A Study in Leadership.”
Presentation at EDUCAUSE Leadership Program 2005, June 2005.
———. Presentation at Votes, Bits, and Bytes Conference, Berkman
Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, Dec. 2004.
———. Quoted by Brock Read in “Industry Executives and Copyright
Activists Debate File Sharing at a Cornell U. Colloquium,” Chronicle
of Higher Education, Apr. 2005.
———. “What Does Privacy Have to Do with IT? Privacy Risk Assessment.”
Presentation at Security Professionals 2005, Apr. 2005.
Tracy Mitrano (OIT IT Policy), Brian Hawkins (EDUCAUSE), and
Steve Worona (EDUCAUSE). “Overview of Key Policy Issues in
Information Technology.” Presentation at Frye Institute 2005, June
2005.
Tracy Mitrano (OIT IT Policy) and Steve Worona (EDUCAUSE). “Balancing
Security and Privacy in Times of Cyberterror.” Presentation
at EDUCAUSE 2004, Oct. 2004.
John Pfleiderer (CIT Video Distribution Services). “AV Consultant: Be
All End All Doctor,” INS Asia, Feb./Mar. 2005.
———. “Fibre Basics,” INS Asia, Apr./May 2005.
———. “POV: What’s in a Name?” Sound and Video Contractor, June
2005.
———. Quoted by Tim Kridel in “Navigating LANs, MANs, and WANs,”
Pro AV Magazine, Feb. 2005.
Steven Weidner (CIT Instructional and Web Services). “Clothing Apprenticeship
Online.” Presentation at New Media Consortium 2005
Summer Conference, June 2005.
———. “Restaurateur: A Gaming Approach to Hospitality Education.”
Presentation at New Media Consortium 2005 Summer Conference,
June 2005.
Marge Wolff (CIT Faculty Development). “LYNX: Between Faculty,
Teaching and Technology.” Presentation at New Media Consortium
2005 Summer Conference, June 2005.
CIT’s University Computer Policy and Law
events are attended by 20 to 50 people in
person and many more online.

Administrative Computing
Goal
Support Cornell’s administrative
computing needs: In concert with colleagues
from Cornell’s administrative
units and university leadership, CIT is
deeply engaged in the ongoing effort
to modernize administrative systems.
CIT also introduces IT products/services,
as appropriate, to assist in realizing
the goals of workforce planning.
Progress
• PeopleSoft Student project
• Hyperion/Brio upgrade and
licensing
• Kuali
Pushing ahead with
PeopleSoft
We enhanced PeopleSoft Contributor
Relations and began work on People-
Soft Student Administration. We also
continued supporting the Benefits
Administration and Human Resources/
Payroll modules. And we are planning
for the upgrade to PeopleSoft 8.9.
• PeopleSoft Contributor Relations
provides information about the
university’s alumni and benefactors.
We’ve added enhancements for the
individual giving process; corporation
and foundation processing; campaign
management; leadership gifts; the
Cornell Fund; and prospect research.
• PeopleSoft Student Administration
will provide an integrated suite
of applications for student accounts,
financial aid, admissions, student
records, course management, and
degree progress. The Office of the
University Registrar, the Undergraduate
Admissions Office, the Graduate
School Admissions Office, the Vet
School Admissions Office, and CIT
are working on this project.
In June 2004, we implemented the
Course Management module, which
is a repository of the courses offered
10
at Cornell (the online version of
Courses of Study).
We enabled our current legacy systems
to use the PeopleSoft-supplied ID
(now known as the Cornell ID) as the
identifier for an individual. That will
make the eventual merging of those
systems easier, and also greatly reduces
the administrative burden of resolving
duplicate records.
We completed the requirementsgathering
phase for business and
functional needs in admissions and
student records.
Making Hyperion reporting
available campuswide
Hyperion (formerly Brio) is a set of
reporting tools that help staff analyze
data and create reports using Cornell’s
administrative databases. This year’s
accomplishments were big ones: upgrading
from Brio version 6 to Hyperion
version 8, developing a Hyperion hosting
service that allows local units to access
their own data sources without having to
invest in a duplicate infrastructure, and
purchasing a campus license.
The campus license was the fruit of a
nine-month effort with the IT Managers
Council. We analyzed the university’s total
investment in Brio, determined that site
licensing was worth pursuing, and negotiated
a three-year license for the Hyperion
Performance Suite, Essbase, and Metrics
Builder.

Building a university-focused
financial system
www.dfa.cornell.edu/Financial_
Management_System.cfm
We have joined the Kuali consortium,
an effort led by universities to develop
a community-source, non-proprietary
financial information system designed to
meet the needs of higher education. The
project will build on the proven functionality
of Indiana University’s financial
system.
Over the next 2-3 years, the consortium
intends to release modules, which universities
can selectively adopt to replace
or supplement their existing systems.
Cornell will help develop those modules
and share in providing support services
for the project.
Rohit Ahuja (top right), CIT’s chief financial officer, oversees strategic financial
and budgetary planning. Assistant directors Pat Nelson, Scott Sheavly,
Agelia Dumas, and Erica Jessup provide financial oversight and guidance to
their particular divisions within CIT.
CIT-developed data
warehousing tool draws
national interest
In Apr. 2005, Jeff Christen, CIT Data Operations,
presented at the “Best Practices in Data
Warehousing in Higher Education” forum
at Northwestern University. His topic was
DMTools, a data warehousing infrastructure
management tool developed by Cornell’s Data
Warehousing team that solves many common
issues, such as the availability of data during
loads, failed load recovery, and the management
and support of a complex warehouse
environment.
Since the conference, so many institutions
have expressed interest in DMTools that Cornell
will be sharing the code, as open source,
through the JA-SIG Clearinghouse. We will also
be holding a two-day workshop in Sept. 2005.
11

Teaching and Learning
Goal
Support Cornell’s commitment to
teaching and learning: CIT is committed
to providing the infrastructure,
faculty support services, student
training, and classroom technologies
necessary to enhance 21st-century
teaching and learning at Cornell. CIT
is a leader among the academic and
support units that, together, bring distributed
learning into the mainstream
at Cornell. Distributed learning is
“anytime/anywhere” learning.
Progress
• Faculty Innovation grants
• Blackboard
• Faculty survey
• Technology upgrade in largeenrollment
classrooms
• Classroom technology design
• Classroom audiovisual resources
database
• Integration of eCornell staff
• RefWorks
Supporting faculty who teach
large-enrollment classes
innovation.cornell.edu
To bring fresh approaches to the common
challenges of faculty who teach
large-enrollment classes, Cornell’s fourth
cycle of Faculty Innovation in Teaching
Grants focused on leveraging instructional
technologies to substantially improve
both teaching and learning in these
classes. Some examples:
• Faculty teaching Computer Science
101 (170 students) and Economics 101
(450 students) are integrating handheld
devices that instantaneously poll a large
audience. These personal response systems
help faculty check students’ level
of understanding and pose intriguing
questions for discussion.
12
• Hotel School faculty are developing an
online tutorial to help students build
critical-thinking skills. Vet School case
studies on fluids will enable students to
make critical decisions in hypothetical
situations.
• In Agriculture and Life Sciences,
archived interviews introduce students
to “real world” entrepreneurs. In Human
Ecology, video clips of disturbed
children and adolescents in therapeutic
and family settings encourage students
to connect with patients as people,
rather than focus on their conditions.
• Education students watch selected
video clips to promote discussion of
difficult topics and broaden their perspectives.
These students, along with
those in anthropology and English
courses, also go on “virtual field trips”
and create multimedia projects.
The Faculty Innovation in Teaching
Grants program receives substantial
support from the Office of the Provost.
Twenty grants are awarded annually, 16 by
the college and school deans and 4 by the
Faculty Advisory Board on Information
Technologies (FABIT). To date, 78 grants
have been awarded to faculty who seek to
improve education by leveraging contemporary
technologies in their teaching.
Grant winners receive assistance with
project planning, instructional design, web
programming, video production and other
services from CIT’s Academic Technology
and Media Services, in partnership with
the Cornell University Library and the
Center for Learning and Teaching.
Marrying Blackboard and
Kerberos
blackboard.cornell.edu
We have made several improvements to
the university’s course web site system,
since we upgraded to Blackboard 6 in
June 2004. The biggest is that Kerberos
now protects Blackboard, which means
faculty and students can log on with their
Cornell NetID instead of maintaining a
separate Blackboard login. We are also
using Blackboard to pilot a new service
for people who are not eligible for a
NetID. These people can now request a
GuestID and password, which they can
use to access Cornell resources (currently
only Blackboard is available).
Other enhancements include features
that allow faculty to grade discussion
board postings for each student, more
easily create groups of students within a
course, and upload a folder of documents.
Gauging what faculty,
students want in instructional
technologies
We analyzed and published the results of
our 2003-04 “Teaching with Technology”
and “Student Instructional Technology”
surveys. Our response rates were 24 percent
and 27 percent, respectively.
Most students agreed that instructional
technologies, particularly web-based
materials, could enhance their learning.
The technologies students would most
like to see used in courses are multimedia
presentations and course web sites.
Among faculty, two-thirds have at least
one course web site, use e-mail lists to
communicate with their classes, and anticipate
increased use of the Internet and
other distance learning tools to supplement
in-class instruction. Three-quarters
post course materials on the Internet.
Almost all use e-mail several times a day.
Top-ranked ways the faculty would like
to be using instructional technologies
include accessing online course reserves,
doing end-of-semester evaluations, offering
interactive exercises, and conducting
online surveys. Electronic whiteboards,
videoconferencing, and in-class polling
were the technologies faculty are most
interested in trying. Finding time to
incorporate instructional technologies is
the biggest challenge faculty face.
Upgrading technology in
large-enrollment classrooms
www.dls.cornell.edu/programs
In May 2004, we completed an assessment
of the instructional technologies
provided in the 16 classrooms at Cornell
that host the most students. Fifteen of

those needed improvements, according to
the guidelines and standards of practice
for advanced audiovisual technologies established
by Cornell and the International
Communications Industries Association.
This year, we upgraded 6 of these largeenrollment
classrooms. Some of the
projects included deployment of student
response (“polling”) systems. Upgrades to
8 additional classrooms were expected to
be complete by the end of summer 2005.
Consulting on classroom
technology design
www.dls.cornell.edu/programs
We provided design consulting services
for the development and integration of
audiovisual presentation and conferencing
systems in over 25 facilities. These
included innovative learning environments
such as the Richard N. White Instructional
Earthquake Simulation facility,
the CIS Uris Cooperative Computing
Lab, and the Veterinary Necropsy Lab,
as well as technology upgrades to 6 large
enrollment classrooms. Student response
(polling) systems, to enhance interaction
between faculty and students, were
deployed in the Uris Auditorium, Baker
200, and Caldwell 100 lecture halls.
Launching a classroom
audiovisual resources database
avdb.cit.cornell.edu
In Jan. 2005, we launched a new database
that helps faculty and academic
staff find out more about which instructional
technologies are available in which
Audiovisual best
practices
John Pfleiderer (CIT Video Distribution
Services) was instrumental in the creation
of a new bestselling book in the audiovisual
industry—Audiovisual Best Practices: The
Design and Integration Process for the
AV and Construction Industries.
Published by the International Communications
Industries Association (ICIA), this book
reflects the contributions of a committee of
11 experts. During the year-long project, John
represented the building owner’s perspective
as projects are integrated into buildings, and
peer reviewed the final editing and content.
John chairs the ICIA’s Technology Managers/
End Users Council and is on its Board of Governors.
He is a Certified Technology Specialist
in Design (CTS-D).
The book was introduced at the InfoComm
International ’05 conference in Las Vegas, a
weeklong conference attended by over 26,000
audiovisual professionals. All 300 copies were
sold by day two.
Schedule 25 classrooms. A taskforce
from Engineering, Agriculture and Life
Sciences, Arts and Sciences, and the
University Registrar guided the development.
Currently separate from Schedule
25, the classroom technology database is
expected to be tightly integrated with the
next version of the Schedule 25 system
(Resource 25), under development by the
University Registrar.
Welcoming eCornell designers
In Nov. 2004, we welcomed 8 course
developers from eCornell, a university
subsidiary that develops online profes-
sional and executive education programs
authored by Cornell faculty. These staff
helped eCornell develop over 55 online
courses and 9 online certificate programs.
They are continuing to support
eCornell initiatives while also applying
their considerable talents to web projects
for the university’s traditional academic
programs.
Jon Glase (left), senior lecturer emeritus, Neurobiology and Behavior; Charles Walcott, dean of faculty and
professor, Neurobiology and Behavior; and Paul Chirik, assistant professor, Chemistry and Chemical Biology,
describe their Faculty Innovation in Teaching grant projects at a luncheon in Apr. 2005. Steve Weidner, CIT
instructional designer, helps faculty develop their projects, and Joan Falkenberg Getman, CIT assistant director
of Academic Technology and Media Services, coordinates the program.
13

Collaborating on scholarly
citation management
refworks.cornell.edu
In Jan. 2005, RefWorks, a citationmanagement
tool, was made available
to the Cornell community through
the joint funding efforts of Cornell
University Library (CUL) and CIT.
RefWorks helps users collect and
organize enormous amounts of bibliographic
details. It was selected from
other citation managers because it is
easy to learn, web-based, and supports
collaborative research.
In the first half of 2005, 1,180 new
users tried RefWorks, 40 percent of
whom were undergraduates. Most
were from the colleges of Arts and
Sciences and Agriculture and Life
Sciences.
CUL’s Citation Management Working
Group looked at CIT as a natural
partner in acquiring RefWorks, knowing
that we had requests from users
for software management tools. The
partnership is working well; today,
RefWorks is available in all of our
computer labs and every library. CUL
supports RefWorks and hosts monthly
workshops for new users.
Greg Bronson named “Harald
Thiel Volunteer of the Year”
In June 2005, Greg Bronson (CIT Video Distribution Services) was
awarded the Harald Thiel Volunteer of the Year Award by the International
Communications Industries Association (ICIA). The award
recognizes individuals who have demonstrated an exceptional
level of volunteerism for the association.
Among other achievements, Greg was recognized for his work as
chairman of ICIA’s Dashboard for Controls Committee, an innovative
group seeking to make it just as easy to operate different
professionally installed audiovisual presentation systems as it is
to operate different car models. Greg also serves on ICIA’s Board
of Governors, which he formerly chaired, and is an ICIA Certified
Technology Specialist in Design (CTS-D).
Faculty and CIT staff enjoy a Faculty Innovation in Teaching
luncheon in Apr. 2005. From left: Elisabeth Meyer, associate professor,
Art, and Joan Falkenberg Getman, CIT assistant director,
Academic Technology and Media Services; Clare van den Blink
(right), CIT faculty development and training coordinator, and two
faculty members; Jim Blankenship, senior lecturer, Molecular
Biology and Genetics; Marilyn Dispensa, CIT instructional
designer; and Raphael Littauer, professor emeritus, Physics.
14

Outreach
Goal
Support outreach: Through selected
communications, distributed learning,
and policy initiatives, CIT supports
Cornell’s land grant mission and extends
its reach throughout New York
State and beyond.
Progress
• Cornell web presence
• Educational Television Center
• CyberTower
Creating an open window to the world
www.cornell.edu
Cornell’s goal? To come across as a leader
on the web by Aug. 2004. The mission?
To revamp Cornell’s outdated, oftenconfusing,
and seemingly impenetrable
web site that grew up with the Internet.
How did Cornell do it? CIT’s Web Production
Group (now called Instructional
and Web Services) collaborated with
Cornell’s Office of Web Communications
(OWC) to create phase one—a new
university web site with a top layer of
navigation and a look and feel that is being
adopted by the university’s multitude
of secondary web sites.
We were engaged to design the site
and build its technical infrastructure,
guided by Diane Kubarek’s OWC team
and vice president for university communications
Tommy Bruce’s charge to
make Cornell’s web presence an “open
window to the world.” Together, we
finished a six-month job in three months.
A redesign blog kept (and continues to
keep) interested observers apprised of the
team’s thinking and progress and serves
as a discussion forum.
The site is much like an open book,
ranging from who’s who at Cornell to
details on how to apply for admission.
Navigation and searching are simple and
elegant. The quality and strength of our
academic programs and the beauty of
the campus are showcased, as is Cornell’s
commitment to knowledge transfer.
15

ETV thrives in year of tight
deadlines
etv.cornell.edu
Cornell faculty anywhere, anytime: CyberTower
cybertower.cornell.edu
As the university’s primary link to network
television around the world, the
Educational Television Center (ETV)
helps CIT further our outreach mission.
Cornell faculty share their expertise with
millions of TV viewers via our studio and
satellite uplink. The sights and sounds of
Cornell are captured by our production
team, and our editing and duplication
team turns those stories into top-quality
shows viewable in a variety of formats.
This was a year full of short deadlines
and high visibility. We created two productions
for the Cornell Board of Trustees—including
interviews with provost
Biddy Martin, vice president for university
communications Tommy Bruce, and
multiple faculty members—in Sept. 2004
and Jan. 2005.
We produced live webcasts for a variety of
seminars hosted by University Computer
Policy and Law. We also filmed the earthquake
simulator from multiple locations
in fall 2004. Other work included a video
for the Oct. 2004 land-grant meeting,
promotional videos for Campus Life, an
interactive DVD with Cornell’s Interactive
Theatre Ensemble (CITE), and a brief
history of the growth of Cornell’s research
facilities for the Life Sciences Building
ground-breaking ceremony.
We work regularly with the Cornell News
Service and other units of Cornell Media
Relations to provide video interviews and
events via satellite uplink to television
networks around the country.
During commencement and convocation,
we provided video to TimeWarner Cable
for a real-time broadcast, set up extra video
sites across campus, and released a DVD of
the entire commencement ceremony. We
also uplinked a video news release to CNN,
FoxNews, ABC, and many networks in
Thailand because crown princess Bajrakitiyabha
“Patty” Mahidol graduated from the
Law School.
Plans for fiscal year 2006 include continuing
to acquire high-definition capability,
and being heavily involved in creating
content for the Cornell channel on the
university’s new IP-based television service
(CUTV).
We work closely with Cornell’s Adult University
(CAU) to produce CyberTower, a free, webbased
service that offers noncredit study
with Cornell professors. Study rooms feature
in-depth lectures along with resources for
further self-study. Forums are moderated interviews
on current issues. Views and Reviews
are short lectures on current books, films,
breaking news, or anything else that intrigues
or inflames faculty. A look at what CyberTower
covered this year:
Study Rooms
• “Creating Jacques Brel at Cornell”
• “The Psychology of Television Realism”
• “Applied GIS: Turning Data into Information”
• “Plant Breeding Then and Now”
• “Today’s Cars: Where in the World Do They
Come From?”
• “Marketing to Generations”
• “Us vs. Them: The Immigration Debate in the
U.S.”
• “A Romance with Spiders”
Forums
• May 2005: “Promoting Democracy”
• April 2005: “Military Practices in Imperial
Germany”
• January 2005: “Cornell International Institute
for Food, Agriculture, and Development
and the System of Rice Intensification”
Colbert McClellan (left) and Joy Quigley work on one of
the Educational Television Center’s many productions.
• December 2004: “Redesigning Undergraduate
Life at Cornell”
• November 2004: “A Conversation with
Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman”
• October 2004: “New Initiatives in Social
Science”
• July 2004: “The Trial—New Student Book
Project”
• June 2004: “The Beethoven Piano Sonata
Project”
Views and Reviews
• June 2005: “The Cornell Building Room”
• May 2005: “Animals in Translation”
“Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It
Happens, Why It Matters”
• April 2005: “A Review of the Book Eat Here”
“Uncertainty Principles from Heisenberg
(Quantum Mechanics) to Keats (Beauty vs.
Truth): A Mathematician’s Perspective”
• March 2005: “A Look Inside Cornell’s Alumni
Magazine”
“Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars”
• December 2004: “The Sun’s Role at Cornell:
Past and Present”
16

Research
Goal
Support Cornell’s focus on research:
CIT supports Cornell’s excellence in
research by actively participating in
nationwide efforts in support of scientific
and experimental activity.
Progress
• National LambdaRail and regional
optical networks
A sampling of how
researchers use CIT
services
• Lab of Ornithology (www.birds.cornell.edu):
Its web-based “Citizen Science” projects
and multimedia resources rely on our
server hosting services to engage millions
of people in the study of birds.
• Nanobiotechnology Center (www.nbtc.
cornell.edu): Our videoconferencing bridge
enables the center to hold virtual meetings
involving more than three sites.
• High-energy physics: Researchers tap the
connection to Internet2, and soon, National
LambdaRail, to collaborate with researchers
at other institutions.
• Northeast Regional Climate Center: Its
historical climate data for the northeastern
United States, as well as daily and hourly
data about the Ithaca climate, is stored
and disseminated via our server hosting
services.
Legend:
National LambdaRail (NLR)
Point of Presence (POP)
NLR-Owned Fiber Route
Cornell-Owned Fiber Route
Existing Regional Optical Network
Future Regional Optical Network
Special Regional Optical Network
Leading the Northeast’s
connection to the nation’s
premier research network
www.nlr.net
National LambdaRail (NLR) is a set of
fiber-optic networks stretching across the
country that can transmit up to 40 simultaneous
light wavelengths (called lambdas),
each of which can transmit 10 gigabits per
second. NLR’s production network provides
such speed that researchers, such as
Cornell’s high-energy physicists, can share
massive amounts of data, do visualizations,
even control equipment, with researchers
at other universities as if they were in the
same lab. NLR’s experimental network
provides a national test bed for new networking
technologies.
Cornell has served as the NLR sponsor
for New York and New England since
May 2004. This year, we engineered a
Cornell optical fiber path to Syracuse.
Not only will this link us to NLR, but via
NLR pathways will also create a dedicated
network between researchers on
Iowa City
Milwaukee
Madison
Chicago
Jackson
Grand
Rapids
Kalamazoo
Urbana
Indianapolis
Terre Haute
Gary
South
Bend
Mount Ayr
West
Lafayette
Paxton
Nashville
Johnson
City
Cookeville Knoxville Winston- Greensboro
Salem
Durham
Murfreesboro
Chapel Hill
Bloomington
Evansville
Lansing
Durand
Southfield
Albion
Dexter
Troy
Detroit
Blacksburg
Altoona
Pittsburgh
Charlottesvile
Roanoke
State College
Ashburn
Tullahoma
Fort
Wayne
Muncie
Dayton
Cincinnati
Jeffersonville
Toledo
Akron
Columbus
Portsmouth
Ironton
Athens
the Ithaca campus and at Weill Medical
Center, more powerful than what either
campus has now. We expect to light these
pathways in Dec. 2005.
In June 2005, we chartered the North
East LamdaRail (NeLR) consortium to
support Cornell’s NLR membership.
Institutions that want to tap into NLR
will pay a membership fee to join the
consortium, which serves as an advisory
board to Cornell. The fee will support
the Syracuse and New York City NLR
points of presence.
Cornell, in partnership with NYSER-
Net, is also facilitating the development
and interconnection of regional optical
networks (RONs) in New York and New
England. For institutions that want to use
NLR but are off its main route, RONs
provide an alternative to leasing fiber
connectivity from a traditional telecommunications
carrier. NYSERNet’s new
RON, for example, enables other upstate
institutions to connect to Internet2 (and
NLR) through Syracuse, rather than
through New York City.
National LambdaRail Northeast
Cleveland
Youngstown
Buffalo
Syracuse
Rochester
Ithaca
Baltimore
Raleigh
Mclean
Washington
Arlington
Richmond
Norfolk
Albany
Worcester Cambridge
Springfield
Hartford
Providence
Storrs
New Haven
Stamford
New York
17

General Campus Computing
Goal
Support general campus computing:
CIT supports the campus at large by
delivering and supporting a collection
of services and by maintaining a widespread
IT infrastructure. Cornell’s IT
infrastructure consists of the communication
networks that form our data
and telephone systems; the servers and
storage devices that process and store
data; and applications that integrate
a variety of systems, devices, and
processes.
Progress
• E-mail improvements
• Napster online music pilot
• CommonSpot
• Training
• uPortal.Cornell upgrade
• RedRover wireless improvements
• CIT OnSite Solutions
• Software acquisition
• Better directory search
• CoursEnroll improvements
• EMC donation
• EZ-Remote
• Television over IP
• Lower rates
Adding new e-mail services
www.cit.cornell.edu/email
We pooled many resources over the past
year to improve one of the most essential
campus services—e-mail. For starters, in
Nov. 2004, we increased the size of each
person’s mailbox on our e-mail servers
from 150 megabytes to 300 megabytes.
Most of Cornell’s peer institutions provide
half of that storage space.
Then in Feb. 2005, we came down
hard(er) on spam (junk e-mail). Since
Feb. 2003, we had been marking e-mail
that was probably spam with a distinctive
indicator to make it easy to spot, but we
were still delivering it, which meant our
e-mail systems were dealing with more
than 250,000 messages a day that almost
no one wanted anyway.
This year, with the consent of many representatives
of the campus community,
we set our e-mail systems to automatically
reject any message flagged as having
a 90 percent or higher probability of
being spam. A negative acknowledgment
is sent to the sender’s mail transfer agent
to ensure that legitimate messages aren’t
forever lost. Those who do not want to
have spam blocked can opt out of the
service.
In May 2005, we responded to campus
demand for a vacation auto-responder
service. Our service, Time Away Responder,
is for people who won’t be
checking their e-mail for a while, perhaps
because they’re away on business, vacation,
or medical leave.
Time Away Responder automatically
sends a message to anyone who e-mails
in the meantime. It keeps track of whom
it has notified, so that it doesn’t send another
notice for 7 days. The person who
is away can still check and respond to
e-mail at any time, without affecting the
Time Away Responder notifications.
Also in May, we added SMTP authentication
to bolster the security of the
community’s computers. SMTP authentication
ensures that Cornell’s faculty, staff,
and students are recognized by the e-mail
system as authorized senders of e-mail.
That extra step prevents the e-mail they
send from being accidentally marked as
spam by our mail system, even if they
send it using a non-Cornell network
connection. It also addresses problems
experienced by people who were using
e-mail while off-campus.
Our Messaging Services group meets regularly with a cross-CIT group to discuss changes to e-mail services. Together, the team ensures that changes happen
as smoothly and easily as possible for the campus community.
18

Bringing music to students
www.cit.cornell.edu/services/music
Number of messages
Gigabytes
Part of Lee Brink’s work includes supporting e-mail
clients, including the very popular WebMail.
June 04
FY 96
July 04
E-mail Messages via CIT’s Postoffices (Fiscal Years 1996-2005)
August 04
FY 97
E-mail Traffic via CIT’s Postoffices (Fiscal Year 2005)
September 04
FY 98
October 04
FY 99
November 04
December 04
FY 00
January 05
FY 01
February 05
FY 02
March 05
April 05
FY 03
May 05
FY 04
June 05
FY 05
July 05
We continue to support the Student Assembly
and the Dean of Students in their
pilot program to offer students a legal
music downloading service. During academic
year 2004-05, students could tap
into Napster’s library of 1 million songs
and listen to its web-based radio stations.
A local caching server kept most Napster
traffic within the campus network.
About 11,000 students subscribed, and
an average 3,000-4,000 downloaded
music each day. In an Apr. 2005 student
survey, most ranked Napster highly and
recommended continuing it. Primary
misgivings were its incompatibility with
Macintosh, Linux, and iPod.
As a result, Napster will be on the table
during the Student Assembly’s fallsemester
deliberations over what to fund
via the student activity fee. Since those
decisions don’t take effect until academic
year 2006-07, a one-year extension of the
original Napster agreement was negotiated
for 2005-06.
CommonSpot meets Cornell
commonspot.cornell.edu
In 2004, several groups on campus,
including Engineering, Alumni Affairs
and Development, Cornell University
Library, the Vet School, Industrial and
Labor Relations, the University Registrar,
the Office of Web Communications,
and CIT, joined forces to investigate
which web content management system
would be the best fit for Cornell.
Three vendors made the cut, with
PaperThin’s CommonSpot emerging as
the final choice. The university negotiated
an unlimited user site license for the
entire campus community.
CommonSpot provides simple, sophisticated
tools for creating, publishing, and
managing web content in a controlled,
distributed, and collaborative environment.
People using it include those responsible
for updating content, programmers,
web developers, web designers, and
system administrators.
19

In Jan. 2005, a CommonSpot special interest
group was formed. Among others,
the group has members from Engineering,
Industrial and Labor Relations,
Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell
University Library, the Office of Web
Communications, and CIT. Its charter is
to manage research and decision making
around initial implementation issues, with
long-term goals of campus-wide collaboration
on content management projects.
7.1%
7.7%
Contact Center (HelpDesk) Requests
for Help (FY 2005)
4.0%
9.1%
3.2% 2.9% 1.2% 0.8%
3.4%
14.2%
Security and Viruses (46.4%)
Undefined (14.2%)
Eudora (9.1%)
ResNet (7.7%)
E-mail (Misc) (7.1%)
WebMail (4.0%)
EZ-Remote (3.4%)
Other (3.2%)
Bear Access/uPortal.Cornell (2.9%)
RedRover (1.2%)
Just the Facts (0.8%)
46.4%
Providing new options for
technical training
www.cit.cornell.edu/training
We have rolled out a new IT professional
training program and an office productivity
workshop program. Our office
productivity workshops are free of charge
and meet the demand for additional
training in tools such as Oracle Calendar
and Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
and Access.
Our IT professional courses are fee-based
but deeply discounted. Topics, selected
in collaboration with the IT Managers
Council, include security, Microsoft
Windows Server, Oracle, Microsoft networking,
FileMaker, and ColdFusion.
Our first wave of training—scheduled
from June 2005 through Jan. 2006—
encompasses over 30 courses and is
expected to serve 330 people. All courses
are open to Cornell faculty, staff, and
students.
We are also piloting a mobile lab training
service. We coordinate with Cornell units
to bring our courses to their location
using our 24 laptops and server, or to
lend them our mobile lab for their own
training needs.
Olia Muller designs and leads several of CIT’s new office
productivity workshops. Some are held in our newly renovated
classroom at 120 Maple Avenue (shown here); others are
held in conference rooms using our new mobile lab.
Student Use of the Internet (Wide Area Network) (Fiscal Years 2003-2005)
FY 2003
FY 2004
FY 2005
Megabytes
20
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Upgrading uPortal.Cornell
uportal.cornell.edu
In May 2005, uPortal.Cornell debuted
its newest version, 2.4, designed to help
Cornellians navigate through Cornell’s
web presence and the Internet at large.
To help all 37,000 users migrate, we
provided a migration channel that saved
address books, groups that were created,
e-mail settings such as signatures, and
web bookmarks.
uPortal.Cornell is Cornell’s web portal.
It offers convenient and easy access to a
wide variety of information and services
geared toward faculty, staff, and students—services
such as Just the Facts and
the entire Bear Access suite, information
about employment opportunities, Cornell
news, libraries and computer labs,
and, of course, the weather.
To help users choose what they want to
see and where they want to see it, we created
a “Welcome to the uPortal.Cornell
Tour.” Users can also choose the look of
uPortal.Cornell: several skins (graphical
interfaces, each with a different look and
feel) are available in the new version.
uPortal.Cornell is based on uPortal, a
free, open-source, sharable portal tool
being developed by higher education
institutions.
Revving up RedRover wireless
www.cit.cornell.edu/redrover
This year, we increased the number of
wireless access points around campus to
500 and upgraded them to be 3 to 5
times faster. We also deployed a muchdemanded
guest wireless access service
for visitors who do not have a Cornell
NetID and password. And we started a
pilot—in collaboration with the Vet College—to
study the provision of secure,
encrypted wireless access where required.
Serving IT customers onsite
www.cit.cornell.edu/services/onsite/
CIT OnSite Solutions is a new
service we’re offering to provide
information technology support
to Cornell departments within
the greater Ithaca area. Launched
in July 2004, Onsite Solutions
employs 3 technicians and currently
supports 17 departments. Our services
range from shared (help on a
regular basis) to transactional (help
when you call us) service agreements.
Plans for fiscal year 2006 include
continuing to add new services to
our IT support packages as well as
offering FileMaker 7.0 (and newer)
development support.
Eric Nobel (top) and Doug Evans are two of the CIT OnSite
Solutions staff who provide technical support to 17 Cornell
departments.
21

Server Farm Growth (Fiscal Years 2002-2005)
Top Ten Pages Requsted on www.cit.cornell.edu
(Fiscal Year 2005)
Number of requests
FY 02
FY 03
FY 04
FY 05
Rethinking software acquisition strategies
www.cit.cornell.edu/software/licenses
This year, we dug in, process-mapped, and came up
with a new plan for expanding our software acquisition
service. Its new name—CU Software Licensing
Services—reflects that we not only acquire software for
the university, but also provide billing, order entry and
fulfillment, and technical support consulting services.
In fiscal year 2006, we will embark on a full-scale
campaign to better acquaint the entire campus with the
service. We will also become a designated service, which
provides a funding model that enables us to scale our
services to meet the growing demands of the university.
We have been working closely with the IT Managers
Council (ITMC) and its newly created Software
Acquisition subcommittee. Chaired by Dean Krafft, the
subcommittee acts as our advisory body, offering guidance
on the changes we propose for the overall Cornell
program. Its goals are to demystify software acquisition
and provide the best service to support campus.
Major accomplishments with software contracts include
negotiating a new agreement with Hyperion (see page
10), negotiating a new academic license agreement
with Adobe Systems, and pursuing an agreement with
Microsoft to purchase site licenses for each Cornell
department or unit. Typically university-negotiated
software license agreements save the Cornell community
20 to 80 percent off academic retail pricing.
22

Searching the Cornell universe
www.cornell.edu/search
As part of the launch of the new Cornell
web site (www.cornell.edu), we worked
with the Office of Web Communications
to consolidate web-page searching to one
very familiar tool: Google. At the click of
a mouse, the community can now search
all accessible web sites within the Cornell
web space, or restrict their search to
people, units, events, or facts. Previously,
doing that meant going to different web
sites that used different search tools, and
only getting results from web sites that
were registered.
Improving course pre-enrollment
registrar.sas.cornell.edu/Student/
coursenroll.html
Several fixes made to CoursEnroll in fall
2004 substantially reduced performance
issues, even at peaks when hundreds
of students simultaneously request the
courses they want to take the following
semester.
On the technical side, we discovered
minor inefficiencies in some software
noticeable only under the heaviest load.
Upgrading the software solved that. We
also reduced the number of commands
executed when a student starts Just the
Facts (CoursEnroll is one element of
Just the Facts).
On the logistical side, smaller numbers of
students now pre-enroll at the same time.
Each class (seniors, juniors, etc.) now
has its own window for pre-enrollment,
instead of overlapping with other classes.
Staff also avoid the use of other systems
on the mainframe (where CoursEnroll is
hosted) during the first 2 hours of each
pre-enrollment period.
Adding a powerful new storage
system
www.emc.com
We are grateful for EMC Corporation’s
donation of a CLARiiON CX500 with
3 terabytes of storage. This new storage
system complements the EMC CX700
we purchased last year and provides us
with additional data protection by enabling
us to host data at two sites.
Administering modem/dial-up
subscriptions online
www.cit.cornell.edu/ezremote
We implemented online subscriptions for
the 3,300 faculty, staff, and students who
use EZ-Remote, our fee-based modem/
dial-up service. Community members can
now subscribe and renew online, using
a credit card, bursar account, or department
account.
Academic and Administrative Use of the Internet (Wide Area Network) (Fiscal Years 2003-2005)
FY 2003
FY 2004
FY 2005
Megabytes
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
23

Delivering TV to dorms over the
data network
campuslife.cornell.edu/cutv
With Campus Life, we introduced a
subscription-based television service to
students in the university’s 44 residence
halls in fall 2005. The new Internet Protocol
television (IPTV) service, dubbed
CUTV, uses Cornell’s existing data network
to deliver 50 channels of news and
entertainment programming provided by
TimeWarner Cable.
Subscribers can watch on their Windowsbased
computers or on a standard TV
equipped with a set-top box. Previously,
most undergraduates had access to TV
only in hall lounges because it would be
cost-prohibitive to wire individual residence-hall
rooms with coaxial cable.
Dropping our prices
We again lowered costs and rates for
telephone and data network services to
campus, while improving response times.
We also revamped our pricing model for
the Server Farm, which hosts 415 servers,
92 of which are owned by non-CIT
departments. The result was a 30-40
percent price reduction.
We have introduced a new look and feel for our printed
documentation about our products and services.
This is one way CIT is striving to take unnecessary
complexity out of the technologies used at Cornell.
Our first booklet to be redesigned was “Using ResNet
at Cornell University.”
Top Five Protocols on Cornell’s Commodity Internet
(Fiscal Year 2005)
HTTP is web sites.
Gigabytes
SSH provides secure remote access to other computers and servers.
Unidata-LDM is near-real-time meteorological data.
SMTP is a protocol used to transmit e-mail.
Gnutella is a file-sharing application.
IN
OUT
24

I DGoal
Support development of Cornell
Information Technologies and the
Cornell IT community: CIT is committed
to contributing to the professional
development of the IT community
campuswide. CIT also pursues
long-term internal development goals
to enhance its ability to meet customer
needs, provide IT leadership,
improve organizational and individual
performance, and manage projects
and finances.
Progress:
• Project management
• Employee Leadership Program
• Supervisor training
• Technology scholarship program
• Recruiting
evelopment of Cornell Information Technologies
and the Cornell IT community
• Customer Satisfaction Survey
results
Putting project management
into practice
projectmanagement.cornell.edu
We have made significant strides in project
management since our 2-year pilot
program began in Jan. 2004. The materials
we have developed, and the experiences
gained, are being used by Cornell’s
Organizational Development Services
to build the broader university program
and methodology, the Cornell Project
Management Methodology (CPMM).
The goal is to significantly improve the
execution of projects.
CPMM is adapted from the Princeton
University project management methodology,
which has a 7-year track record of
success in higher education and basically
follows the industry standard from the
Project Management Institute (PMI).
Some of the past year’s achievements:
• Built an internal project management
consulting practice within CIT
• Taught the “Project Management Fundamentals”
course to over 200 Cornell
staff (140 from CIT)
• Developed a 2-day “How To Use the
Cornell Project Management Methodology”
course
• Developed an extensive guidebook,
adapted from materials published by
the New York State Office of
Technology
• Developed templates for each of the five
project management process groups
• Hired two senior project managers for
administrative systems and an internal
project manager for CIT
Celebrating the leader in
everyone
We are continuing our Employee Leadership
Program. About every six weeks,
we gather 20-24 staff from across CIT
for an intense, week-long program that
covers CIT values in practice, leadership
styles, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator,
feedback, listening skills, perception versus
reality, conflict management, personal
values and trust, service relationships,
teamwork, and change management.
Since we started in March 2004, we
have held 10 sessions involving 214 staff.
In 5 more sessions, all of our staff will
have been through the program. We are
developing a series of follow-up activities
to reinforce the concepts of the program
and provide training in additional areas
requested by our staff.
Instituting best practices for
supervisors
Our management team is strengthening
its skills through a series of Cornell workshops
for anyone who supervises anyone.
Using a case-study approach developed
by Cornell’s Organizational Development
Services, our managers learn more
about expectation setting, performance
coaching, workplace climate, and Cornell
policies and state and federal laws.
In fall 2005, we will be supplementing
these workshops with supervisor roundtable
“lunch and learn” events on topics
such as ways to acknowledge stellar work
and strategies for recruiting new staff. We
will also have “just in time” refresher sessions
to assist managers with performance
reviews and career development planning.
Helping staff develop new
technical skills
Based on feedback from CIT staff, we
developed a special fund this year for staff
whose career development objectives are
within the technology field but outside
the realm of their current job responsibilities.
The CIT Technology Scholarship
Program provides grants of up to $2,500
per person per year to support participation
in courses, seminars, workshops, or
conferences. Once each fiscal year, we
call for applications, then a committee of
CIT staff determines the recipients. This
year, we were able to award scholarships
to all who met the criteria.
Getting great leads on
recruiting new staff
We have refined our strategies for finding
the best staff. In the past, we relied quite
a bit on external recruiters. Now, we’re
mostly using a combination of two powerful
forces—monster.com (the top jobseeking
web site), and our own staff. We
instituted a employee referral program
that provides a bonus to any staff member
who recommends a person whom
CIT winds up hiring. We’ve recruited 13
new staff that way.
We have also been making strides on filling
job openings with our own staff. This
year, 14 staff transferred to other positions
within CIT, up from 3 in 2003-2004.
Doing better in our customers’
eyes
Once a year, we do a customer survey
among faculty, staff, and students on the
Ithaca campus. With the help of Cornell’s
Communication and Marketing group,
we distributed a 10-question postcard in
March 2005. We offered everyone who returned
the survey by the deadline a chance
25

to win one of five $75 gift certificates to
the local restaurant of the winner’s choice.
Over 18,800 surveys were sent out, and
about 1,750 were returned. This has been
our typical response rate since our first
survey in 2001. Of the respondents, 83%
report using a PC (Windows or DOS)
system, 14.7% Macintosh, 2% UNIX.
As in years past, the community’s overall
rating of the quality of our services and
facilities correlates most highly with
their satisfaction with the speed and
convenience of our services, as well as the
variety of services we provide.
2005 Customer Satisfaction Survey Results
2004
51.0%
2005
52.4%
I feel well informed about CIT services and facilities.
Other responses: 23.3% neither disagreed or agreed (was
22.6% in 2004); 24.3% disagreed or strongly disagreed (was
26.4% in 2004)
2004
66.5%
2005
68.8%
I can usually find the campus technology information I’m
looking for in CIT printed and web resources.
Other responses: 19.3% neither disagreed or agreed (was
20.1% in 2004); 11.8% disagreed or strongly disagreed (was
13.4% in 2004)
2004
60.4%
2005
60.9%
When I need to contact someone at CIT, it’s easy to get in
touch with the appropriate person or group.
Other responses: 23.1% neither disagreed or agreed (was
23.1% in 2004); 15.9% disagreed or strongly disagreed (was
16.4% in 2004)
2004
75.2%
2005
76.1%
CIT staff members are usually responsive and customeroriented.
Other responses: 17.1% neither disagreed or agreed (was
17.7% in 2004); 6.8% disagreed or strongly disagreed (was
7.0% in 2004)
2004
77.2%
2005
79.9%
CIT staff members seem technically competent.
Other responses: 15.4% neither disagreed or agreed (was
16.6% in 2004); 4.6% disagreed or strongly disagreed (was
6.3% in 2004)
2004
59.2%
2005
62.0%
I am satisfied with the speed and convenience of CIT
services.
Other responses: 25.1% neither disagreed or agreed (was
25.5% in 2004); 12.9% disagreed or strongly disagreed (was
15.2% in 2004)
2004
32.7%
2005
33.3%
When there is a fee for services, CIT provides fair value
for the price.
Other responses: 49.4% neither disagreed or agreed (was
48.3% in 2004); 17.5% disagreed or strongly disagreed (was
19.1% in 2004)
2004
50.1%
2005
51.3%
CIT is an innovative university technology organization.
Other responses: 39.9% neither disagreed or agreed (was
37.8% in 2004); 8.9% disagreed or strongly disagreed (was
12.1% in 2004)
2004
64.1%
2005
66.5%
Overall, I am satisfied with the variety of services and
facilities CIT provides.
Other responses: 26.2% neither disagreed or agreed (was
27.1% in 2004); 7.2% disagreed or strongly disagreed (was
8.8% in 2004)
2004
66.6%
26
2005
70.1%
Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of services and
facilities CIT provides.
Other responses: 20.5% neither disagreed or agreed (was
21.3% in 2004); 9.4% disagreed or strongly disagreed (was
12.1% in 2004)
“Graduates” of CIT’s Employee Leadership Program celebrate at a reunion
in summer 2005. From top: Michelle Reynolds (left) and Marc Whitney,
one of our ELP facilitators; Ron DiNapoli; Tammy Blasz; Steve Edgar (left)
and Keshav Santi; Linda Croll, our other ELP facilitator; and Michelle
Reynolds showing off a T-shirt emblazoned with our core values.

Measuring Information Technologies What CIT Leadership Does
Academic support
Classrooms (Schedule 25) with active
network connections: 75% … with
data and video projectors: 75%
Courses with active CIT-supported web
sites: 4,320 … number using Blackboard:
4,100
Courses using videostreaming services:
157 (110 instructors)
Surveys created with CIT survey tools:
450 (requested by 100 people)
Class sessions hosted in CIT’s instructional
computer labs: 1,091 (2,880
hours of instruction)
Computer labs—computers supported by
CIT’s lab group: 372
Academic Technologies and Media
Services workshops and events: 48 …
workshop participants: 893
Academic Technologies and Media Services
custom-requested workshops: 19
Academic Technologies and Media Services
walk-in consultations: 381 (165
individuals)
Lynx Student Technology Assistant
appointments: 129 (120 hours) …
projects: 68 (240 hours)
Video support provided: 47 two-way
videoconferences; 86 multi-site videoconferences;
6 special events
Average visits per week to CyberTower
from non-Cornell addresses: 807
Administrative system support
Data in Cornell’s central administrative
datamarts: 375 gigabytes
Human Resources/Payroll users of
Actuate/PEDL: 1,025
Actuate Human Resources/Payroll
reports delivered each month: 1,438
(131,386 pages)
Human Resources/Payroll datasets
delivered each month: 2,999 (192
megabytes)
General campus services
Bear Access (Cornell’s package of popular
Internet and local administrative
services)—times used in a year: 11.11
million
CIT/Rhodes Hall high-speed laser printing—jobs
printed: 65,755 … pages
printed: 8.59 million (average 131
pages per job)
Contact Center (HelpDesk)—requests
for help (phone, e-mail, walk-in):
150,956
Contact Center (HelpDesk)—requests
for help by constituency: 11% faculty;
31% staff; 44% students; 4% retirees;
8% alumni; 2% other
Contact Center (HelpDesk)—callers
who hung up after being put on hold:
12.1%
CU People (free web hosting for personal
pages)—accounts: 7,048 (7.9%
faculty; 14.9% staff; 62.7% students;
14.5% other)
CU Search—hits per month: 47,435
CUinfo—average visits in a year: 4.57
million
CUWebLogin—authentications in a
year: 16.39 million
Electronic directory—searches per day:
2.99 million
E-mail—messages routed in a year:
825.84 million
E-mail—mailing lists: 3,421 (368,055
subscribers, 172,072 unique addresses,
65,516 Cornell addresses)
E-mail—special mailboxes (e-mail
accounts set up for a business
purpose): 428
Employee Essentials—average visits per
month: 2,717 (2,037 unique visitors)
EZ-Backup: 79.4 terabytes of data backed
up on 2,748 computers and servers
EZ-Remote (paid, dial-up service)—
modems: 230 on 10 T1 lines …
individual users: 3,341
Express Lane (free, time-limited dial-up
service)—modems: 23 on 1 T1 line …
individual users: 800
Just the Facts—times used in a year:
805,414
NetIDs created: 11,266
Net-Print (CIT’s lab-based laser printing
service)—pages printed in CIT labs:
2.14 million pages … pages printed in
non-CIT labs: 5.77 million pages
Network—active data ports: 25,955
Network—data going over campus backbone
daily: 16 terabytes
Network—unique devices connected:
66,049
Network—work orders (moves, adds,
changes, disconnects, swaps): 14,302
Network Operations Center—complaints
made about alleged computer policy
violations, electronic copyright violations,
and other types of computerrelated
abuse: 843 a month (2nd shift
NOC)
Network Operations Center—manual
DNS entries: 62 (1st shift NOC)
Network Operations Center—network
or computer security incidents
handled via e-mail: 2,472
Network Operations Center—phone
calls: 1,629 a month (3rd shift NOC)
Network Operations Center—problem
reports: 990 (3rd shift NOC)
Oracle Calendar (university-wide personal
calendar and meeting scheduling
service) users: 9,655
27

Phones—assigned phone jacks: 28,000
Phones—AUDIX messages in a week:
86,154
Phones—calls made in a week: 63,831
local; 35,958 long distance; 1,481
international; 36,270 toll free
Phones—reliability of phone system:
100%
RedRover wireless access points: 469 in
78 buildings
Security—blocks against specific hosts’
network access: average 650 active
each day (with 450 against off-campus
systems)
Security—Edge ACL service: 255 department
subnets (representing 78 departments)
and all 100 ResNet subnets
Servers: 415
Software licensing—savings compared to
educational retail pricing: $2.1 million
(excluding enterprise agreements for
Hyperion, Oracle, Symantec, and
Eudora)
Software licensing—software titles and
packages: 24 (including major contracts
with Hyperion, Oracle, Microsoft,
Adobe, SAS Institute)
Symantec AntiVirus downloads: 32,549
files (505 gigabytes)
USENET News service (NetNews)—
articles read: 16.3 million … number
of users: 7,000
Acknowledgments
This annual report covers the July 1, 2004, to
June 30, 2005, period. All staff listings reflect staff
employed during that period.
Many thanks to
Leslie Intemann for handling photography and
assisting with production.
Jan Jesmer for gathering the metrics.
Jan Jesmer, Kurt Larsen, Duane Lukosavich, and
Donna Poole for their help with distribution.
Everyone who provided information and reviewed
drafts.
Everyone we photographed to help show the
diverse community in which we work.
CIT staff and business
measures
Staff hired: 51 (37 new to Cornell)
Average years of service by our staff:
11.57 (8.66 with CIT)
Staff with 10 years of service: 103 …
with 20: 68
Number of CIT purchasing/accounts
payable, payroll, capital assets, and facilities
transactions processed: 40,829
2004/2005 Annual Report
Written by Beth Goelzer Lyons and Leslie Intemann of CIT. Designed by Robin Werner of the Office of
Publications and Marketing. Photography by University Photography. Copyright 2005
For a copy of this report, send an e-mail to pubs-orders@cornell.edu
Produced by the Office of Publications and Marketing. Printed on recycled paper. Cornell University is an
equal-opportunity, affirmative-action educator and employer.
11/05 650 CR 060024