There were dark times in Ohio University IT department. Understaffed, underfunded, hacked and the RIAA breathing down its neck.
Then came Brice Bible, OU's chief information officer.
Suddenly, it is a new day for OU when it comes to information technology.
Good news abounds as Hudson Health Center is now back online after reverting to paper records. Protected by six new firewalls, students can go to the health center assured their confidential records will remain such. In addition, the university has stopped using Social Security numbers for identification at Alden Library and the Ping Center.
With the hiring of a new director of Information Security, Bible is making sure that secure OU documents remain protected and adding personnel to the security team.
But the best news to come from the IT department might be the drop in file-sharing. Formerly the No. 1 school for illegal file-sharing, OU has dropped off the RIAA's top 100 list since March. With ongoing campus efforts to stop illegal file-sharing, look for the dropping to continue.
The school's new legal music download program, Ruckus, might be part of the reason for the decrease. Unlike its predecessor, Ctrax, many students are using the program to get music; the program had more users in its first month than Ctrax had in three years. However, it would be nice if the university would find such an alternative for Mac users.
Obviously, OU's information technology is far from perfect, but the improvement is remarkable. Bible has taken a polarized, compromised department and turned it around ' at least so far. It remains to be seen if all of his changes will have long-term positive effects. But unlike many of the top-level administrators here at OU, he is not just talking about change. He is earning his $210,000 salary. Bible is a doer, and it shows in the rapid turnaround in the university's attitude toward IT and computer security.
Kudos, IT department: you have overcome being a dysfunctional mess.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the executive editors.
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A new chief information officer has revitalized OUG
