Choppy waters ahead! Insights on navigating IT mergers
2024-05-31 09:40 - 10:10 (America/Chicago) | WI
Virtual
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IT mergers are a reality on our campus, bringing both opportunities and challenges. In this session, seasoned IT professionals who have survived not 1 but 2 recent IT mergers will share their experiences and insights. They will discuss strategies, benefits and challenges of local IT during these IT mergers
Attendees will:

Learn about the experiences of 2 IT leaders who have navigated multiple IT mergers
Discover techniques and strategies for leading teams through mandated change
Understand the benefits and challenges of local IT in a time of IT mergers

Presenters

Mike Crawford
Kevin Breese

The DataVault: A Comprehensive, Project-Focused Approach to Research Data Management
2024-05-31 09:40 - 10:10 | WI
Virtual
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In this session, DiscoverIT and WID staff will share their expertise and insights on effectively managing research data throughout its life cycle. Attendees will learn about the DataVault, a robust environment designed to streamline data management practices and ensure data integrity, accessibility. Gain knowledge about workflows and tools to optimize your data management practices, foster collaboration, and ensure your research data’s long-term value and integrity.
Attendees will:

Understand the importance of effective data management in research
Discover best practices and tools for organizing, storing, and documenting research data
Learn about the DataVault environment and its advantages
Hear from DiscoverIT and WID staff about how they address the challenges of the data life cycle
Acquire practical knowledge and skills to implement this method in your research projects

Presenters

Derek Cooper
Em Craft

Understanding the New Federal Requirements for Research Security
2024-05-31 10:20 - 10:50 | WI
Virtual
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Join us for an informative session that will provide an overview of the upcoming federal requirements for UW–Madison’s research security program. As federal agencies implement new regulations, our institution must understand and adapt to these changes. This presentation will cover key areas such as cybersecurity, export control and other IT-related aspects of the research security landscape.
Attendees will:

Gain a comprehensive understanding of the new federal requirements and their implications for UW–Madison
Learn about the university’s response plan and how it will be implemented across campus
Discover how these changes will specifically impact the IT sector and its role in maintaining research security
Have the opportunity to ask questions and engage in discussions about the upcoming changes

Participants will leave the session with a clear understanding of the new federal requirements, the university’s response, and how these developments will affect the campus community, particularly within the IT domain. This knowledge will help attendees navigate the evolving research security landscape and contribute to successfully implementing the new program.

Presenters

Mark Rickenbach
Lois Brooks

AI: The cause of—and solution to—all of life's problems
2024-05-31 10:20 - 10:50 | WI
Virtual
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This session provides a high-level overview of artificial intelligence (AI), covering its history, concepts and various applications. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the different types of AI, using illustrated examples to demonstrate how these technologies work and explore the potential solutions and challenges associated with the effective implementation of AI. By the end of the session, you will have a clearer understanding of AI, its various types and uses and the successes and challenges you may encounter when implementing AI solutions.
Attendees will:

Learn the definitions and types of AI
Understand the history, concepts, and paradigms of machine learning (ML)
Explore deep learning, artificial neural networks, and generative AI
Discover the potential solutions and applications of AI technologies
Identify and discuss the challenges and consequences of using AI effectively

Presenter

Jay Scholz

Navigating Cybersecurity via LabArchives: Defining Roles to Strengthen Data Integrity and Risk Management
2024-05-31 11:00 - 11:30 | WI
Virtual
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“Navigate the intricacies of Software as a Service (SaaS) cybersecurity at UW Madison and discover Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M) risk remediation strategies to achieve a low-risk score while maintaining compliance. Explore the crucial role of principal investigators (PIs) and other essential stakeholders in data stewardship and discuss the challenges they encounter. Gain insights from the Research Data Governance common solution group discussion and identify ways to support PIs in safeguarding research data, improving risk management, and ensuring compliance.
Attendees will:

Learn the fundamentals of the SaaS cybersecurity review process for the LabArchives ELN
Understand the importance of defining and documenting roles and responsibilities at various levels and categories of security
Hear key takeaways from the common solutions group held two weeks ago (May 15-17)
Identify methods to better support PIs in expanding human knowledge while responsibly managing data

Presenter

Mary Murphy

I asked ChatGPT to write this presentation
2024-05-31 11:00 - 11:30 | WI
Virtual
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This session will be a presentation where the use of AI in educational settings is demonstrated in order to spark discussion on the ethical use, limits, and guidelines for AI in educational settings. The session will involve using Free AI text an image generators to build a presentation on the ethical use of AI in education, followed by giving the presentation, and then a discussion.

Presenter

Henry Levesque

Break
2024-05-31 11:30 - 12:30 | WI
Take a break! Go outside, grab some lunch, whatever you need or want to do! 🙂

DNS and you: A primer on website names
2024-05-31 12:30 - 12:45 | WI
Virtual
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In this session, we’ll dive into the world of Domain Name System (DNS), the crucial component that translates human-friendly website names into machine-readable IP addresses. We’ll explore the fundamentals of DNS, what it is, and how it works, and discuss UW’s policies and practices surrounding DNS. Participants will gain a better grasp of the inner workings of the internet and be equipped with knowledge to troubleshoot and manage DNS-related issues more effectively.
Attendees will:

Gain a foundational understanding of what DNS is and how it functions as the Internet’s address book
Learn about the hierarchical structure of domain names and how they are resolved into IP addresses
Discover the DNS policies and procedures specific to UW–Madison
Acquire practical skills to determine where a website is hosted using DNS tools and techniques
Develop an appreciation for the importance of DNS in the smooth functioning of the internet and its relevance to their daily online activities

Presenter

Phil Jochimsen

A Bright and Sunny Outlook: Overcoming email overwhelm with The Stack Method
2024-05-31 12:30 - 12:45 | WI
Virtual
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In 2021, Sara Hagen presented about the challenges of “Inbox Overwhelm.” Now, she’s back with the most effective solutions to manage the constant influx of emails based on The Stack Method. In this session, you’ll learn how to apply this method to streamline your email management process and boost your productivity.
Attendees will learn:
The fundamentals of The Stack Method and how it can revolutionize your email management
Practical tips for implementing The Stack Method in your daily workflow
Strategies for prioritizing and categorizing emails into action-oriented folders to ensure nothing falls through the cracks
Techniques for maintaining a clutter-free inbox and reducing email-related stress”

Presenter

Sara Hagen

Enhancing cloud security: From basics to advanced strategies
2024-05-31 12:45 - 13:30 | WI
Virtual
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As more data, applications and business components move from on-premises environments to the cloud, it’s crucial to understand and address the unique security challenges that arise. This session provides a concise overview of cloud security, starting from the basics and progressing to advanced topics. Attendees will gain a foundational understanding of cloud security principles and learn how to implement robust security measures in their cloud environments.
Attendees will:

Learn the foundational concepts of cloud security, including common threats and best practices for mitigation
Discover how to use automation for secure configuration in the cloud

Agile beyond software development: Understanding Agile's versatility
2024-05-31 12:45 - 13:45 | WI
Virtual
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Join us for a panel discussion featuring experts who are applying Agile principles in software development and other IT specialties. Expand your perspective on agile methodology and its power to boost productivity and collaboration across diverse disciplines.
Attendees will:

Discover the versatility of Agile methodology and its potential to improve workflow and teamwork in various fields
Hear about real-world examples of Agile principles applied outside of software development
Learn how to separate Agile concepts from their most common context and adapt them to different industries
Engage with panelists to gain insights and deepen their understanding of Agile applications

Presenters

Julie Johnson
Lucas Gallagher
Beth Richardson

Empowering women at UW: Celebrating 10 years of Women in IT
2024-05-31 13:55 - 14:25 | WI
Virtual

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Join us as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of UW–Madison’s Women in IT (WIT), a group dedicated to improving the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in information technology on campus. Now with more than 450 members, WIT hosts free educational and networking events in collaboration with partners such as ACM’s Women in Computing at UW-Madison (WACM) and the Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI).
Attendees will:

Learn about WIT’s origin and impact over the past decade
Gain insights on overcoming challenges faced by women in IT
Discover best practices for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in IT workplaces
Understand the importance of mentorship and networking in advancing women’s IT careers
Leave inspired to drive positive change in their work units and communities

Presenters

Amanda Thornton
Mehrnaz Ahmadi Joobaneh

Quit holding it in: How to have productive conflict in your conversations
2024-05-31 13:55 - 14:55 | WI
Virtual
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In this session, you will learn how to have productive conflict in your conversations by analyzing your interactions and adapting your approach to achieve your goals. By examining real-life examples and your own conversations, you will gain valuable insights into improving your communication skills.
Attendees will:

Analyze an example conversation and identify areas for improvement
Learn techniques to adapt future interactions for better outcomes
Examine one of their own conversations to apply the lessons learned
Understand the importance of productive conflict in conversations
Gain insights from the book Agile Conversations to enhance their communication skills

Presenter

Phil Jochimsen

Check-In for In-Person Attendees
2025-05-29 08:30 - 09:00 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Outside Alumni Lounge & Lee Lounge

Check in and then enjoy coffee, tea, water, fresh bakery selections, seasonal fresh fruit, and yogurt.

Welcome & Keynote - Change is The Only Constant
2025-05-29 09:00 - 10:15 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Alumni Lounge

Welcome 9:00-9:15am – IT Professionals Conference co-chairs David Berg and Elizabeth Kraege-Soechting will provide introductory remarks for the conference.
Keynote 9:15-10:15am – Lois Brooks, the outgoing CIO at UW–Madison, will deliver the keynote address.

Keynote Description:
In “Change is the Only Constant,” Lois Brooks explores how transformation in higher education IT requires both resilience and intentional adaptation. Drawing from her 40-year career in technology, Brooks shares insights on understanding institutional resistance and navigating in times of change. This keynote offers a candid look at lessons learned through major transitions—from pandemic-driven pivots to strategic realignments— with emphasis on the human elements that ultimately determine whether initiatives succeed or fail.

Keynote Speaker

Lois Brooks

Opening Remarks (9:00-9:15am)

David Berg
Elizabeth Kraege-Soechting

Recording (with captions)

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AI in Action: Two Anecdotal Experiences
2025-05-29 10:30 - 11:00 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Alumni Lounge

AI to the rescue! Hear from 2 technologists who, in a pinch, turned to AI for help and were amazed by the solutions it delivered. Discover practical examples of how AI saved the day when traditional approaches fell short.

Presenters

Scott Winger
Julie Zachman

Recording (with captions)

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It is Possible to Take Down Old Websites: How WCER Manages the Website Lifecycle
2025-05-29 10:30 - 11:00 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Lee Lounge/109

Discover how the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) tackled the challenge of outdated project websites. These unmaintained websites opened WCER to risk such as damage to reputation, cybersecurity threats, and accessibility violations. Learn our practical approach to archiving obsolete sites, securing leadership support for new standards, and establishing clear maintenance expectations for all new web projects from day 1.

Presenters

Elizabeth Kraege-Soechting
Pete Boguszewski

Recording (with captions)

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Making Digital Accessibility Work: Practical Strategies that Stick
2025-05-29 10:30 - 11:00 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room 112

Creating truly accessible digital experiences takes all of us. In this session, you’ll discover how small, practical changes to your daily workflow can make a big difference. Learn how integrating accessibility into your routine can be simple, effective and sustainable—no matter your role.

Presenters

Al Nemec
Mark Whittaker

Recording (with captions)

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Collaborating in Support of RISE
2025-05-29 11:15 - 11:45 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Alumni Lounge

Discover how our university IT community can strengthen the UW–Madison Research Innovation and Scholarly Excellence (RISE) program by building bridges between schools, colleges and institutions. We will discuss investments that will further enhance RISE, strategies for scaling to meet its demands, and initiatives our community is undertaking to facilitate research collaborations.

Presenter

Todd Shechter

Recording (with caption)

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Planned Obsolescence: Turning a Technology Fallacy into a Leadership Strategy
2025-05-29 11:15 - 11:45 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room 112

Planned obsolescence is a long-held belief that technologies are designed to fail to create a lasting need for consumers to buy a new model. Just as naturally as technology falling out of sync with modern needs, it is natural that people move on to other opportunities. Leaders must prepare for that inevitability, creating structures that enable people to seek their next steps without unintentionally creating systems that collapse when they do. This session will discuss practical approaches to collaboration, documentation, delegation, and coaching that keep the work moving forward—regardless of staffing changes, budget challenges, or new leadership priorities.

Presenter

Jay Ray

Materials

Jay’s Blog

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Present Harms and Future Risks: A Case for Responsible AI
2025-05-29 11:15 - 11:45 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Lee Lounge/109

In our session, we will:

Provide an overview of present-day AI capabilities and the risks and harms stemming from their increasingly widespread adoption, and give an approachable introduction to concepts in AI Safety, Ethics, and Security.
Present interactive, live demonstrations recently shown to Congressional Staffers in D.C. at the Center for AI Policy’s Advanced AI Expo. We will demonstrate the security risk of voice models that mimic emotional speech—posing threats to businesses, enabling floods of fake 911 calls, or misleading Congressional representatives through coordinated fake constituent campaigns. We will also show how integrating LLM agents into business workflows can create unique vulnerabilities in multi-agent systems.
Demonstrate how, even at current capability levels, AI systems already pose significant risks relevant to IT professionals.
Outline how AI capabilities have developed over recent years and present arguments for why this rapid pace will continue. We’ll briefly explore the implications for industry and society, including risks associated with frontier and future AI, and provide a high-level overview of mitigation efforts underway.

We will close with a discussion of our work at WAISI, how to get involved in responsible AI, and what this means for IT professionals.

Presenters

Lanya Yu
William Anderson
Kaushal Dasika
Alka Lakadia
Viktoria Sakman

Recording (with captions)

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Empowering Expert Authors with the KnowledgeBase API
2025-05-29 12:00 - 12:30 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room 112

Discover how the Office of Human Resources (OHR) used the KnowledgeBase API to streamline collaboration among multidisciplinary subject matter experts, empowering them to rapidly publish instructions for the transition from HRS to Workday.

Presenter

Jonathan Dedering

Recording (with captions)

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Unlocking Potential: Streamlining Processes with Low Code Solutions
2025-05-29 12:00 - 12:30 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Lee Lounge/109

The Low Code Solutions (LCS) team helps schools, colleges, and divisions modernize processes by creating custom applications–using your own IT staff or our dedicated developers. Discover how your area can leverage this fully-supported service, including integrations with PersonAPI, FinanceAPI and various Data Warehouses to pull in the data you need for powerful apps and workflows.

Presenters

Jeanne Hains
Joel Herron

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Countdown to Workday: Hot topics and a Peek of What's to Come
2025-05-29 12:00 - 12:30 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Alumni Lounge

With Workday implementation on the horizon, join us for hot topics of interest to the IT community, followed by open Q&A. Get information on Ancillary Systems resources, professional development opportunities, the data and reporting landscape, future state support models and more.

Presenters

Sabrina Messer

Recording (with captions)

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Lunch
2025-05-29 12:30 - 13:30 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Alumni Lounge

Enjoy a catered lunch and conversation with fellow IT Professionals.
For those attending in person, vegetarian and non-vegetarian options will be equally available.

From the Notebook to the Cluster
2025-05-29 13:30 - 14:30 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room 112

This session demonstrates how to move your R analysis to the Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC). Follow a workflow that simplifies the job application submission process by automating key steps. See how R can package your analysis into containers, work with UW–Madison GitLab’s registry, generate necessary files automatically, and transfer your data between your computer and CHTC’s high-performance computing environment.
You can find the presentation materials in the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/erwinlares/single-submit

Presenter

Erwin Lares

Recording (with captions)

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Meet IT Connects
2025-05-29 13:30 - 14:30 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Alumni Lounge

Learn about the many groups in IT Connects. Each group will give a flash talk and then there will be an opportunity to learn more about individual groups and talk with current members.

Presenter

Elizabeth Kraege-Soechting

Recording (with captions)
Note: Only the first half of this session was recorded.

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Flash Talks
2025-05-29 13:30 - 14:30 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Lee Lounge/109

This hour features 4 short presentations:

Practical takeaways from Kent Beck’s “Tidy First” book for improving your work: An homage to Kent Beck’s book Tidy First? and what I took from reading it and trying to apply its guidance in my work. Tidyings as refactoring but smaller. How to be less annoying to your colleagues. Thoughtful tradeoffs in when to tidy how much. The value of deferring expenses meets the value of future options. How to think about how much of software development is maintenance and what that means for our work.
How Library Search efficiently delivers results from millions of records: An overview of Library Search infrastructure and how it works to deliver results from millions of records.
Using LabArchives Electronic Lab Notebooks to enhance research collaboration and data security: The flashtalk highlights how LabArchives Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs) streamline research workflows, support interdisciplinary collaboration, and safeguard data integrity. RCI aims to facilitate smoother and more efficient research endeavors at UW–Madison.
Applying social work principles to enterprise service management for better customer interactions and process mapping: I will discuss how my background and training in social work has helped me in IT and enterprise service management design at SMPH. In particular, I will focus on how I use the person-in-environment theory of social work practice and therapy interview techniques as customer journey and process mapping tools.

Presenters

Andrew Petro
David Lee
Mary Murphy
Lindsay Bolan

Recording (with captions)
Note: Only the last half of this session was recorded, we apologize for the incovenience

Recording (with audio description)

Collaborating and Planning for AI Across the Universities of Wisconsin
2025-05-29 14:45 - 15:15 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Alumni Lounge

Join representatives from UW-Milwaukee, UW–Madison and UW-Stout as we share our unique approaches to AI implementation on our campuses. Discover real-world techniques to engage with faculty and staff as they use AI. We’ll touch on ChatGPT integration, AI literacy initiatives, Microsoft Copilot pilots, and faculty research. Look beyond the here and now and learn how these institutions are planning for an AI-enhanced future across the Universities of Wisconsin.

Presenter

Todd Shechter
Beth Schaefer
Suzanne Traxler

Recording (with captions)

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Meet the Wisconsin Cyber Response Team
2025-05-29 14:45 - 15:15 | Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room 112

Learn about CRT’s Wisconsin public sector outreach, networking, training, intel and other opportunities that CRT provides to its members. Here from UW–Madison employees who are current CRT members and the benefit it’s brought to their teams.

Presenters

Jamie Glass
Eric Franco

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