Information Technology Services

Information Technology Services for New River CTC was established in mid-2007 and began with centralizing staff from individual campuses and hiring a supervisor for them (Dr. Ayersman). From 2007 to 2009, New River CTC was still organizationally part of Bluefield State College. But since 2007, the Information Technology Services staff has independently worked on a number of projects to enhance and improve services for New River. Many of these projects have been concurrent initiatives spanning multiple locations. And some projects have ended only to become new projects again at a later time (e.g., migrating courses from CART to WebCT, then to ANGEL, then again to Blackboard, and finally to Brightspace D2L - four separate projects).

This page provides brief summaries of these efforts. The page is generally organized chronologically, meaning that our earliest efforts are listed at the bottom and our current/future efforts are generally listed closer to the top. The Current Projects Timeline provides a GANNT chart of our efforts.

2007 Snapshot of Services | Archived Projects Timeline | 2015 Snapshot of Services | 2025 Snapshot of Services (coming soon)

Project 52 - Scantron Class Climate (to be completed by December, 2024)

This project will implement a new survey service to improve end-of-course evaluations for students and instructors while also providing improved survey services for other areas of the college.

Project 51 - Duplicate People Search (to be completed by January, 2025)

This project will create a 2nd copy of People Search so we can keep employee information available to the public while protecting student directory information with a requirement for New River authentication before access.

Project 50 - Extend New River Network to the Raleigh County Memorial Airport (to be completed by December, 2025)

This project will extend the New River network to the airport to support the aircraft maintenance program.

Project 49 - New Phone and Fax Services (to be completed by January, 2025)

This project will replace our end-of-life phone system infrastructure with a modern Cloud-based solution, new handsets, and enhanced virtual phone and fax options.

Project 48 - Extend New River Network to Erma Byrd Center (to be completed by December, 2024)

This project will expand the New River network the Erma Byrd Center to improve administration, security, and to reduce cost. Infrastructure and phone systems will be updated.

Project 47 - Migrate Email Archive to the Cloud (completed July 15, 2024)

This project migrated our email archive from a physical on-site device that had reached end-of-life to the Cloud for better security, reliability, and expanded storage.

Project 46 - MCC Move to New Hope Road (completed July 25, 2024)

This project relocated our network, equipment, and personnel from the Mercer Street address to New Hope Road. A new Internet circuit was installed, the new building was re-cabled, and computer endpoints, Zoom classrooms, and other equipment were installed.

Project 45 - RCC Rotunda Project (project delayed for funding)

This project will install equipment in the RCC rotunda area to accommodate large-group meetings with a permanent presentation system comprised of a podium, video display wall, sound system, and videoconferencing.

Project 44 - Library Services Move (completed July 1, 2022)

This project involved moving Library Services from the pink building in Lewisburg to room G315 on the Greenbrier Valley Campus and downsizing our physical collection since online library resources are increasingly preferred while offering improved access.

Project 43 - Office Phone and Fax Upgrades (project delayed for funding)

This project will replace all phones and faxes used throughout the College with modern equipment we can manage in the Cloud.

Project 42 - Wireless Infrastructure Upgrades (completed December 2022)

This project completely replaced the exising New River wireless network with new Wi-Fi 6 access points and Cloud-based access for administrators to manage the new network. This upgrade provides improved security, faster speeds, and support for a greater number of user devices.

Project 41 - Zoom Classrooms (completed August 2023)

This project installed Zoom classroom technologies into 14 additional New River classrooms.

Project 40 - Microsoft Bookings (completed December 2021)

This project replaced AppointmentPlus with Microsoft Bookings (more information).

Project 39 - LMS Migration (completed January 2022)

This project replaced Blackboard Learn with Brightspace D2L as the LMS (learning management solution) for New River.

Project 38 - Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (completed January 2022)

This project created a streamlined communications platform for prospective students.

Project 37 - ID Card Replacement (completed August 2021 and promoted March 2022)

This project replaced a single ID Card printer with printers located at each campus while also introducing online submission of photos for student and employee ID Card requests (ID Card Procedures).

Project 36 - Portal Upgrade to SaaS (completed August 2021)

When implemented on January 24, 2020, the PortalGuard portal was initially hosted by New River in our data center. On August 13, 2021, we upgraded the portal to SaaS (hosted in the Cloud) and introduced the Consent to Do Business option for students as well as customizations of the portal icons for all users. To access the New River portal:

If you have any problems or need some assistance, please view our PortalGuard and Respondus FAQ and if you still have questions, please contact our Help Desk (304-929-6725 or itsupport@newriver.edu).

Project 35 - Intranet Migration from Joomla to SharePoint (completed December 2022)

Since 2018, the server that previously provided our public-facing website (www.newriver.edu) has only been used as our employee intranet (intranet.newriver.edu). This is because the content for WWW was migrated to Cucumber and Company in 2018. This project will migrate the intranet content to Microsoft SharePoint, allowing us to decommission the original Joomla server. Access to the new SharePoint intranet will be through the portal (see Project Plan for more details).

Project 34 - Online Scheduling with AppointmentPlus (completed August 2020)

In response to the pandemic, the College purchased and piloted AppointmentPlus during the summer of 2020 to provide online scheduling options for students to meet with Advisors and support staff. This project now has more than 50 faculty and support staff available as "Advisors" for online appointment requests (more information). AppointmentPlus enables students to view schedules for services (course registration, advising, tutoring, IT help, financial aid, etc.) and book appointments (see Schedule an Appointment). Office hours for Advisors (and other user service areas) are shown in AppointmentPlus so that students may view the schedules and request appointments. Students must know the name of their Advisor to request an appointment with him or her. If you need any assistance with AppointmentPlus, please view the online tutorials or contact our Help Desk (304-929-6725). The plugin for Outlook is also available to synchronize employee calendars. To install and configure the plugin to synchronize your Outlook and AppointmentPlus calendars, follow these directions. In 2022, we will work to replace AppointmentPlus with Microsoft Bookings.

Project 33 - Electronic Signatures - DocuSign (completed in July 2019)

In July 2019, we implemented an electronic signature solution (DocuSign). Initially, this solution was used for Finance forms (Excel PRF Template), but we added templates for the Curriculum Committee in 2020 and for Human Resources in 2021. To use the PRF Template, please see our training notes. To use the HR template, please contact HR and for the Curriculum Committee, contact the committee Chair.

Project 32 - Portal Replacement - PortalGuard and Regroup (completed March 2020)

For several years, New River CTC used the portal solution from Unifyed (previously CampusEAI) to provide single sign-on, multifactor authentication, and password reset services. The cost of this solution increased dramatically over the years and ultimately became unaffordable. In late 2019, we began searching for alternatives and discovered that we could afford a new portal product (PortalGuard) and a true emergency alert system (Regroup) (two products) for a combined cost much lower than we had been previously paying. We implemented these two products in early 2020. More information is available in the PortalGuard FAQ.

Project 31 - Data Governance Plan (completed August 2021)

New River built upon the our Ellucian Action Plan to create a new Data Governance Plan . Steve Lacek, Dara Fann, Jason Garris, Steve Garlow, and David Ayersman created the plan and these efforts were recognized in an online publication by the Tambellini Group (read it).

Project 30 - Zoom (completed in July 2018)

New River implemented Zoom as the enterprise solution for both videoconferencing and instant messaging. On August 1, 2018 Zoom was implemented for management of IVN classes and meetings. From August 2018 to December 2018 both Zoom and Blackboard IM will be available to users for instant messaging. Blackboard IM will be discontinued in December 2018 (more information).

Project 29 - Ellucian Banner 8 to 9 Upgrade (to be completed by December 2020)

New River CTC will complete our migration to Banner 9 by December 1, 2020. This project began in August 2018 and is still underway. Delays have been caused by the vendor and we are implementing Banner 9 modules as they become available to us. Banner 9 no longer requires the Java plugin and works on most modern web browsers. We have mulitiple links in our portal to Banner 9 (and 8) modules.

Project 28 - Alertus Desktop Notification System (completed February 2017)

On February 10, 2017 we implemented Alertus Desktop, a Desktop Notification System. This service will not replace any others, but will complement existing services by giving us yet another means of notifying users of emergencies. The Alertus Desktop software allows us to send an alert to the software clients, overriding the entire computer screen. It takes only a few moments to compose a message and send it to a group of clients (perhaps a campus location) or to all clients. The notification is received by the clients in just moments as well. (more information).

Project 27 - DropGuard Early Alert System (completed January 2017)

We continue to make improvements to our Early Alert System, DropGuard. This Early Alert System is intended to aid in communicating with students throughout their academic experience at the College and it us used to track Attendance, Participation, and Satisfactory Progress. Effective use of this tool by instructors, advisors, and others will increase retention and improve graduation rates. This service was initially made availablbe for the Spring 2017 term which began on January 17, 2017. The Early Alert System Implementation Task Force is no longer active but was comprised of representatives from throughout the College who guided this implementation (more information).

Project 26 - Library Transition Plan (completed July 2014)

On July 1, 2014, library services at the College were reorganized under Technology Services. This transition plan provides an overview of challenges and future direction of library services at New River. We have recently created a Advisory Committee for Library Services to guide our continued planning for improving library services while moving out of the pink library building by 2025.

Project 25 - Ellucian Action Plan (a 3-year plan implemented from 2014 to 2017)

A team from Ellucian visited us and then provided us with the Ellucian Action Plan to guide our further implementation of Ellucian products at New River. We formed a Steering Committee and a Super User Group to manage this three-year initiative (more information). This initiative was completed but has also resulted in the development of our Data Governance initiative.

Project 24 - New Printers for Open Computing Labs (completed January 2015)

Each of the open computing labs received new printers that allowed users to pay a printing fee. Printing from smart devices was a new functionality provided and the purpose of the project was to reduce waste associated with previous printing solutions. More information is available online.

Project 23 - Mobile App (completed August 2015)

Dara and Jason created a Mobile App for the College using the Ellucian solution, but new licensing costs from that company later put that solution out of reach for us. They then worked with CampusEAI (now Unifyed) to implement a new Mobile App solution and that project was in Fall 2015. In 2019, we migrated to a new portal solution (PortalGuard) and discontinued our mobile app.

Project 22 - Virtualized Data Center (completed June 2011)

This project involved migrating all New River servers to a new virtualized data center. This is not just replacing equipment but instead it is drastically changing how we do business. Instead of a server for each service we are virtualizing the data center to provide many savings and efficiencies while also greatly improving our flexibility for creating new services. Current plans in this area are to move our data center to cloud-based hosting by Alpha Technologies while we also move our physical equipment to Charleston to serve as an off-site disaster recovery solution.

Project 21 - Online Admissions and Registration (completed April 1, 2013)

These two projects actually took nearly three years to complete. The outcome is that SCT Banner can now be used as the online interface to directly receive admission and registration data. Each student will have their own direct access and employees will no longer need to re-key data into Banner. The process is much more efficient than previous procedures while providing more responsive services to an empowered student body.

Project 20 - Banner 8 Upgrade (completed July 2010)

Working with WVNET, Dara Fann completed the migration from Banner 7.x to 8.x.

Project 19 - ANGEL Migration (completed January 2014)

After lengthy procurement delays, this project officially began on Friday, November 13, 2009 but was still completed prior to January 19, 2010. In 2012 we learned that ANGEL would no longer be supported by Blackboard for upgrades, so we began to explore our options for migrating to a new course management system. Working with WVNET and others as part of a statewide consortium, we participated in renegotiating the statewide licensing agreement with Blackboard so that New River would be included and so that discounted prices would be available. Unexpectedly, we had to begin an instance of Blackboard 9.1 in November 2012 to accommodate the teach-out of the entire online MAST program. We formed an Advisory Committee for Distance Education to help guide our selection of a new course management system and to provide general guidance and direction to distance learning initiatives. The ACDE decided that we would migrate from ANGEL to Blackboard in 2013 with the first full-term on Blackboard to be Spring 2014.

Project 18 - Financial Aid

Part of the overall transition of services from Bluefield State College, New River data was migrated to the new Banner at WVNET.

Project 17 - Human Resources

New River maintains personnel data using a customized addition to SCT Banner. These data were migrated from Bluefield State College in September 2009, however the PZAEMPN screen in Banner that is used is a customized add-on to SCT Banner and cannot be fully supported into the future. New River must identify a new Human Resources system that could also incorporate a new leave management solution as well as a better ID Card system. We remain hopeful that the HR module of Banner will become affordable to us as we continue working with WVNET and the statewide consortium.

Project 16 - Banner Student

Part of the overall transition of services from Bluefield State College, the New River most data has been migrated to the new Banner WVNET. Key personnel continue to access the Banner BSC for some academic history.

Project 15 - Banner Finance

Part of the overall transition of services from Bluefield State College, New River data have been migrated.

Project 14 - IVN

New River has created a robust Interactive Video Network (IVN) comprised of more 18 IVN classrooms and a robut 24-port MCU and IPVCR. This project was planned to take a total of three years and was funded entirely by a Title III grant. The project began in 2008 and was completed in 2010.

Project 13 - Corporate Cell Phones

In the past, New River issued select individuals a corporate cell phone. Corporate cell phones are no longer issued, but instead monthly stipends are issued to select employees so that they can provide their own phones. This procedure/policy was implemented by the Finance office in 2011.

Project 12 - Network and Phones

New River began this project in mid-2007 and after lengthy procurement delays, the data network was completely installed in November 2009. The phone and video portions of the network are also now complete. Current efforts in this area are to complete a major upgrade of the phone system software while also virtualizing the services so that the physical equipment can be relocated to our disaster recovery location.

Project 11 - Joomla Upgrade

New River uses the open source web content management system named Joomla for its public web site (www.newriver.edu). Being open source, Joomla has many add-ons and upgrading Joomla typically involves upgrading both Joomla as well as these add-ons. Although we didn't initially have a TEST server for Joomla, once we virtualized our data center we were able to easily create one. Prior to that, updates were done on the PROD server. We are now periodically performing updates to avoid falling too far behind the current version. We have had several major upgrades since initial implementation and currently we are at version 2.5 waiting for 3.5 to be released (we're skipping 3.0).

Project 10 - Leave Management (completed on May 1, 2009)

New River copied the Leave Management database that was previously used at Bluefield State College (it is also used elsewhere throughout the state and is actually provided by the HEPC). Jason Garris did some minor custimizations and routinely does other support functions as needed. An enterprise system for HR should include a leave management system to replace this one.

Project 9 - ID Cards

New River assumed the responsibilty for creating ID Cards in early 2008. Photos are taken by admissions personnel at each campus and cards are printed at the Help Desk.

A new layout and design was developed and implemented for the New River web site and home page (http://www.newriver.edu) and it was completed in 2008. We contracted with WeldCreative.com to provide us with new Joomla Templates and style sheets that changed "the look" of the site. The actual organization of the information and the information itself was revised. Starting with the information on the current site, the site architecture was redesigned by the IT Advisory Group (blank Site Structure Plan). Each web page was then assigned to someone who to be responsible for the content of that page. We now provide training for these folks to enable them to do the necessary content updates. Part of this project also included moving the site from a company in Virginia that had been hosting it, to our own data center. This initial effort was completed on March 25, 2008 with training, maintenance, and updates continuing to the present date.

Project 7 - People Search (completed May 15, 2008)

We integrated the Active Directory with a public-facing directory database and then re-examined how people were organized (the OU's) and the categories of information that we were using for them to create People Search. An interactive, searchable directory of all New River email account holders (students, employees and guests). Future efforts in this area will be to refine groupings, updating position titles in Banner/Active Directory to help categorize and identify people, while also adding new customized fields, perhaps even photos, to meet ongoing needs.

Project 6 - Emergency Alert System (completed March 5, 2008)

A new Emergency Alert System for New River was implemented on March 5, 2008. In 2012 we replaced this system with our CampusEAI portal's messaging system.

Project 5 - Help Desk

New River implemented an online ticket management system (IssueTrak) in early 2008. Since that time we have integrated IssueTrak with the Active Directory so that all account holders can access it to create and review tickets. Authentication for IssueTrak is provided by the integrated Active Directory. After IssueTrak, we migrated to SpiceWorks, then Zendesk, and finally to HESK in 2021 which we're currently using.

Project 4 - Course Management (completed January 2008)

On December 28, 2007 we moved all our WebCT courses and accounts from the Bluefield State College server to a New River WebCT server. The name (URL) of the server actually remained the same (http://webct.newriver.edu).

Starting in Spring 2008, every New River course section will have a course shell in WebCT. The significance of this change becomes apparent when you realize that in Spring 2007 there were 23 New River course sections online in WebCT (and 22 in CART making 45 total). In Spring 2008 we will have over 500! Every course section will have an online syllabus and we expect an increasing number of courses to begin utilizing other aspects of WebCT. This increased usage is expected to lead to a rapid increase in the number of completely online courses as well, since so many instructors will become familiar with the online course development process and the WebCT interface and functionality.

Outcomes of this project will include:

Project 3 - Email and Active Directory (completed January 2008)

On January 2, 2008 we moved all New River email accounts from the Bluefield State College email server to an email server at New River. A new address for checking email via a web browser became available at that time (http://mail.newriver.edu/owa/). Outcomes of this project include:

Please review the email policy that reflects the scope of options that are available to users.

Project 2 - Domain Name Change

New River changed the domain name from nrctc.edu to newriver.edu in early 2008.

Project 1 - Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 (completed September 2007)

New River completed the upgrades from Windows XP to Vista and from Office 2003 to Office 2007 on schedule at the end of September 2007. The final steps in these upgrades included user training at each campus and assisting users with making recommended changes to their computer configurations. The total number of computers upgraded was about 350.