Building from the Foundation: Achievements in IT at UB

There is a tremendous amount of pride in UB. Our faculty and staff are dedicated to giving our students the tools and IT is foundational—but the work we’re doing is more than foundational. We’re working all the time to grow the status of UB and become a better asset to the university and everyone who works or studies here.

Here are just a few ways we’ve gone above and beyond in the past year to elevate the state of the art technology here at UB.

UBIT is saving the university money.

• When it became time to accept bids for a new wired network vendor, our formal competition yielded a 20% savings over the traditional SUNY discount rate.
• Our choice to partner with Box to bring secure storage to everyone at UB saved the university $1 million over developing our own solution.

UBIT is more efficient with our resources.

• Our new IT purchasing policy and vendor questionnaire will help us make the most of centralized services.

UBIT is more transparent.

• We’ve developed a project portfolio prioritization process for better, and clearer, decision-making across departments.

UBIT is doing more to support the university.

• The UBIT Help Center processed over 55,000 requests from UB students, faculty and staff over the last year, partly thanks to our newly-modernize online self-service platform.
• Speaking of the Help Center, our service has expanded as of spring 2017 to include on-site tech help for students in the form of the UB Tech Squad.

UBIT is looking to the future.

We are currently exploring how to better accommodate students’ needs for learning spaces with ample comfortable seating, plentiful power sources and robust Wi-Fi coverage. We’re also looking at new lecture capture options that integrate mobile technology for more flexible teaching and learning.

These are just a few examples of areas where we’re looking ahead. Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated. Share your vision for the future with me at ubit-communication@buffalo.edu.