Discover how the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) tackled the challenge of outdated project websites.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.
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 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.
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
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
Explore the collaborative development of the Foundation Data Model (FDM) Mapping Solution, a vital component of the Administrative Transformation Program’s Financial Crosswalk. Learn how innovative tools and frameworks streamline data management processes through effective collaboration between development and data management teams.
Attendees will:
Gain insights into the collaborative development process
Learn about tools and frameworks used to streamline data management
Explore real-world examples of the FDM Mapping Solution’s impact
Discover how the School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) implemented a secure data enclave using DevOps, Azure cloud computing and Microsoft’s suite of security tools. SMPH’s platform enables researchers, data engineers and data scientists to utilize resources like virtual machines, databases, OpenAI, data lakes and Power BI, all while protecting patient privacy. Gain insights into creating and scaling a secure computing environment in the cloud and learn about the platform’s capabilities.
Attendees will:
Learn about the approach SMPH took in creating their secure enclave
Hear about the various resources available within the platform
Discover how the platform maintains patient privacy while providing access to powerful tools for research and analysis
Gain practical tips about how to create and scale your own secure computing enclave in your IT environment
Welcome 9:00-9:15am – IT Professionals Conference co-chairs Sarah Lien and Elizabeth Kraege-Soechting will provide introductory remarks for the conference.
Keynote 9:15-10:15am – Dr. Joe Sanfelippo, the nationally recognized superintendent of Wisconsin’s Fall Creek School District, will deliver the keynote address at this year’s IT Professionals Conference.
Keynote Description:
I’m just…It’s a phrase we hear all the time. I’m just a sysadmin, I’m just a security analyst, I’m just a instructional designer….the list is long and is often followed by reasons why something CAN’T happen. Leadership is an action and it starts with you. Leading with INTENTION creates purpose. Leading with CONNECTION creates momentum. Leading with DIRECTION creates collective efficacy. Leading with all three in mind will build your capacity and foster an environment where everyone in your organization has the best opportunity to lead from where they are.
An introduction to data and information management process mapping as a needs analysis tool for improving research workflows and cyberinfrastructure.
Participants will learn:
I am a new consultant on campus to help with research cyberinfrastructure
Basics of Process Mapping – Purpose, Capability, Use
Growth Mindset- You don’t know what you don’t know. Be Open to Curiosity and Change. Encourage opportunities to reduce redundancies, inefficiencies, and gaps as well as increase reproducibility, repeatability, and replicability.
In this presentation, I will share how our team created a Person API to improve data integrations with core identity data. Using a technique called contract-first API development, our team was able to show what the API would look like from a user perspective first, which then influenced the technical implementation “under the hood”. I’ll also cover why we chose to create an API, and the benefits behind using APIs for data integrations.
Attendees should have a basic awareness or understanding of APIs would be preferred, but isn’t required. I plan to briefly define an API as a basis for the presentation.
Attendees will learn
– Knowledge of what an API is, and why someone would consume or create one.
– Understanding of APIs compared to how most integrations are implemented at UW-Madison, and why one might prefer an API approach.
– Basic knowledge of API design, and applying UX design techniques when creating a specification for an API to make sure it addresses user needs.
– Understanding of what the Person API is, and a basic understanding of how to get access and use it.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a large place, with many staff members. One of the struggles that is familiar to many is how to balance specialized needs for divisions, colleges and other groups inside the university, with the administrative goals of simplifying services at a central level. In particular, email transmissions that are handled by software without the intervention of human hands can struggle when modernization occurs: the need for multi-factor authentication and deprecation of POP/IMAP protocols conflicts with services run by groups such as the college of Engineering.
My presentation goes over the journey I made as the sysadmin for a ticketing program that needed to be able to fetch and send emails through O365 as a computer — not a human that could perform multi-factor auth. I will discuss the basic layout of the way that I solved the issue, point out some pitfalls that arise because of the University’s bureaucracy and hierarchical structure, and offer some tips for others trying to write middleware in the trenches.
My audience will understand this better if they know the underlying mechanisms of emails and how they’re sent or accessed, as well as Office 365 authentication mechanisms.
The key takeaways are that writing middleware or API layers at the University can be quite difficult and challenging, but given the right circumstances, also successful. Another thing to learn is that challenges are almost never purely technical in nature, a lot of obstacles that come up are going to include tasks that take people-knowledge and social skill in the workplace. An appreciation for the wide variety of business needs among campus IT will be emphasized strongly.
