The Department of Information Technology is always improving services to the community to ensure access to IT resources, connectivity to the network, increased communication and collaboration and that appropriate security measures are in place to protect the IT resources at the University. 

Over the academic year 2008/2009 the DoIT will be implementing many new technologies considered “best practices” in the industry to meet these goals.

What “Changes” Exactly?

• The current portal (myweb.shu.edu) is being replaced with a new portal, PirateNet.shu.edu, providing immediate access to your student, financial or payroll information, e-mail, calendar, announcements, and other services.  Blackboard will remain our course management system and access to your Blackboard resources will be integrated into PirateNet.
  
  
• The current IT directory services are being replaced with Microsoft's Active Directory. The directory service is what allows you to log into the various IT services. Active Directory will enable additional services such as the ability for users to reset their own passwords and to allow users' accounts to be generated immediately when they join the University community.
  
  
• The current Lotus Notes e-mail system is being replaced with one based on Microsoft, providing better integration with other University systems, including Banner and Blackboard.
  
  
• With this change the DoIT will change the e-mail convention used to create SHU e-mail addresses.  New e-mail addresses will be displayed as your.name@shu.edu, but your old e-mail address will continue work.
  
  
• Students will be moved to mail system offered by Microsoft called Live@EDU.  This service gives students additional resources like web space, network file space and other peer to peer collaboration tools.
  
  

When Is All This Happening?

• Cutover to the PirateNet is scheduled for the fall 2008 semester.
  
  
• Faculty and Employee Migration to Exchange Mail has been postponed until the spring 2009.
  
  
• Select “early adopters” have been migrated and using the Exchange e-mail system for several months.   This program has uncovered some problems with the current conversion and coexistence tools. University IT Services (UITS) is suspending the Microsoft Early Adopters Program while we work to resolve these problems and the migration for the University at large has been pushed to spring 2009.
  
  
• Student Migration to Live@EDU is scheduled in the late Fall 2008 semester. 
  
  

How Are We Rolling This Out?

PirateNet Migration:
The PirateNet migration all happens “behind the scenes", but the University community will see the new look, feel and advanced functionality on PirateNet as soon as it goes live.

Active Directory Migration:

The migration to Active Directory will take place "behind the scenes" as well, but this new service will help provide access to University systems for the appropriate resources depending on your role at the University; Faculty, Employee or Student.

In collaboration with the Teaching, Learning and Technology Roundtable, the Department of Information Technology will be holding public focus groups to garner feedback on the best process to migrate the community to the new e-mail systems.  Please look for announcements of these sessions in the next few weeks.