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Cal Poly Pomona

Title V Project Summary


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Improving Access to Information Systems at Hispanic-Serving Institutions: A Cooperative Arrangement

Need for Cooperative Arrangement Title V Grant

The five community colleges and state universities in the Cooperative Arrangement are located in the same geographical area of Southern California, typically called the Greater Los Angeles Region. They first came together, as a member of a national, 35-college consortium, called Advanced Networking for Minority Serving Institutions (AN-MSI) that meets to collaborate on how Information Systems (computers, network, staff) can best support the academic programs, institutional management and fiscal stability of minority-serving institutions and their students. Through analysis of their own institutional strengths and weaknesses they all discovered a common set of problems that are seriously threatening their ability to provide their constituencies, including students, with secure and reliable technology resources. Providing secure and reliable technology resources is of utmost importance to these institutions as they, through their individual Title V grants and other means, are trying to improve student outcomes through effective use of technology, reach undeserved populations through distance education, and use technology-based management information systems for more effective planning, decision-making and institutional management.

Due to limited resources and in-house expertise, the colleges are unable to address the problems related to information and network security and reliability, individually. Only by sharing resources and expertise to increase their own capacity, and by using technology effectively for communication and to cost-effectively deliver the programs that will be developed, can they ultimately overcome these problems and achieve their institutional goals and objectives. The following activity represents a holistic response to the identified problems.

Partner Colleges and Universities

California State University, San Bernardino (Coordinating Institution) - a public, four-year university that enrolls 16,927 students, 32.4% of whom are Hispanic.
California State University, Los Angeles - a public, four-year university that enrolls 20,637 students, 52.4% of whom are Hispanic.
California Polytechnic State University, Pomona - a public, four-year university that enrolls 19,804 students, 24% of whom are Hispanic.
Mt. San Antonio College - a public, two-year community college that enrolls 64,552 students, 36.8% of whom are Hispanic.
Oxnard College - a public, two-year community college that enrolls 7,061 students, 59.2% of whom are Hispanic.

Contact Person

Javier Torner, Information Security Officer - California State University, San Bernardino. Phone: (909) 880-7262, Fax: (909) 880-7189, Email: jtorner@csusb.edu

Activity

Improving Information Systems Infrastructure at Hispanic-Serving Institutions through Collaboration, Training and Awareness, and Curriculum Development

Proposed activities include:

  • Staff and faculty training and development for all aspects of this activity.
  • Conducting complete assessments of each campus' information systems to identify all of the problems within each system.
  • The purchase and installation of several hardware systems and software programs for each campus to conduct the assessments and correct the problems that are identified.
  • Developing curriculum and piloting new approaches to course delivery.
  • Assisting each campus to develop new policies and procedures, and conducting campus-wide computer user awareness programs.

Key measurable outcomes include:

  • An increase in information security as measured by reductions in the vulnerabilities in the systems that lead to security problems, number of actual attacks on the systems, amount of time the networks are down, and the amount of time that is taken to correct the problems when the occur.
  • An increase in the number of staff trained to keep the network secure.
  • An increase in the number of faculty with expertise in information security.
  • An increase in the number of courses offered and, as a result, students completing courses, that include state-of-the-art curriculum on information security.

ISSL Responsibilities (Information Systems Security Liaison)

  • Actively participate in training programs for ISSLs, including annual training retreats
  • Participate in professional networking opportunities with the other ISSLs (peer-to-peer mentoring; list server communications, etc)
  • Conduct initial and ongoing network assessments and evaluations at each of the five institutions
  • Develop corrective action measures to reduce vulnerabilities at each institution
  • Implement corrective action measures at own institution and monitor ongoing security of systems
  • Establish and chair the Campus Security Planning Committee on each campus
  • Establish and coordinate the Incident Response Teams on each campus
  • Actively participate in development and implementation of the network security awareness campaign for own campus