Welcome back! Move-in by the numbers

Stellar support

For the first time, our new UB Tech Squad service team assisted over 150 students with getting connected to UBIT services over move-in weekend. The Tech Squad also met and interacted with over 1,000 students during move-in meet and greets. During this same time, we handled over 5,000 tickets through our UBIT Help Center. UBIT also provided dedicated support staff during move-in for the new 1Capen.

Growing networks

The university is growing, and we’re growing with it. Our networks handled 9.8 GB of Internet traffic at its peak during fall start-up, a number that’s been steadily growing by nearly 20% every year. This is something we’ve anticipated, and we’re ahead of it—we’ve nearly finished our three-year project to improve and modernize UB’s Wi-Fi, and we’re well underway updating our wired networks too.

Online services at the ready

Our online services are up and running, and being relied on by more people. On the first day of the fall semester, HUB received over 51,000 logins. 17% more people logged into HUB to check financial aid awards, grades and transcripts than they did at the beginning of the Fall 2016 semester.

There are now 31,000 active customers in UBbox, which is double the usage we saw in September 2016 (then 15,000).

Tech-ready classrooms

As of the start of the Fall 2017 semester, UBIT has upgraded the technology in 100% of all centrally scheduled classrooms. This means every centrally scheduled room has the latest cutting-edge document cameras, connections for personal devices, and lighting and audio controls, all accessible from our integrated teaching stations. 42% of our classrooms now have new laser projectors as well, which provide a clearer and brighter viewing experience.

Our classroom support is getting better too—we’re offering one-on-one orientations for instructors, and classroom tech troubleshooting with a response time of ten minutes or less.

Reaching out

Importantly, Welcome Weekend is a chance to get out and meet the new students we’ll be serving in the coming years. I had the great opportunity to speak directly with students about IT offerings and hear their feedback.

Our team shared footage of our meet and greets on social media. In a single day, that content was seen 7,400 times on Facebook and Twitter. Our Snapchat takeover of the UBuffalo account on August 30, 2017 also received over 1,200 unique views.

On the first day of fall classes, UBIT website peaked with over 42,000 page views by 18,000 individuals. 

Thanks to our security awareness campaign, I’m pleased to share that the number of compromised accounts fell this year, with only 45 compared to 78 during the same time in 2016.

The people who make it happen

Our IT staff spent countless hours helping our campus community during move-in and start-up. I want to thank them for the unequivocally dedicated work they do every day. Over 30 staff and students were on hand specifically for move-in assistance. The present and the future wouldn’t be nearly as bright without their passion and dedication.

Everyone at UB—whether student, faculty or staff, new or returning—should know how important delivering first-rate IT service is for us. It’s an exciting time, and the future will only be better. Welcome back!