Katie Babcock
Q&A with Marden Paul and Tamara Adižes
How do you secure your mobile device? How do you develop a WordPress site? How should you manage your online brand?
These are just some of the questions that TechKnowFile, U of T’s information technology (IT) conference, will address on May 6 and 7.
TechKnowFile is a professional development opportunity for all U of T staff and faculty. Through presentations, tutorials and panel discussions, participants can network, share ideas and find answers to their IT questions.
Lead organizers of the event, Marden Paul and Tamara Adižes, explain why TechKnowFile is important to U of T’s community and why staff and faculty should attend. Paul is Director of Planning, Governance, Assessment and Communications at the Office of the Chief Information Officer, and Adižes is Communications Officer at Information Technology Services.
How did TechKnowFile begin?
MP: TechKnowFile started as a grassroots activity in 2003. A few U of T staff met at an IT conference for higher education, called Educause, and realized that they learned more at the conference about each other and what their departments were doing than they had while at work. Conversations then started about how to run a similar event inside the University.
TechKnowFile first aimed to bring together IT people distributed across the University. It then branched out to include business officers, human resource specialists, faculty—anyone who uses IT in their work to get things done. TechKnowFile is meant to facilitate collaboration and build a sense of community.
TA: I started organizing the conference in 2008, and it’s interesting to see how technology has evolved over the years. Our topics have ranged from leadership and career growth to cyber security, big data, administrative systems and collaboration. We’ve had keynote speakers ranging from IBM and Firefox, to a non-profit called One Laptop per Child.
Why is this type of conference important?
MP: IT is everywhere, changes rapidly and the speed of change is accelerating. There are 600 plus individuals who are involved in IT at U of T. We need to work together to share information—whether it’s about security, application development, data or network management, best practices or resources—to improve our overall capacity, capability and efficiency.
Instead of building standalone applications or services multiple times, we can encourage departments and divisions to work together to combine resources. For example Blackboard, U of T’s online learning portal, now has over 90,000 regular users, as compared to a time when there were multiple, differently supported, independent systems. It’s really important for those of us who provide IT services to hear what the real problems and bottlenecks are, and this conference provides a forum for gathering this information.
Where did the idea for “TechKnowFile University: 2 Days of Learning” come from?
MP: The idea came from some ads I’d seen in The New York Times for One-Day University events. Educators from different fields give lectures on interesting topics, similar to TED Talks. I thought we could present sessions here with and for our own colleagues because there are so many questions about good uses of IT that we could address in a very practical sense.
Why should U of T staff and faculty attend?
TA: This year’s conference is a free and convenient professional development opportunity for all U of T staff and faculty. It’s a place where you can network and learn practical skills including how to use content management systems, how to manage your online brand, or how to protect your iPhone.
MP: Yes. Say you’ve lost your iPhone on the subway. Does your device have a strong password? Is the phone encrypted? We have all of this great technology, but people don’t necessarily know how to protect it properly or how to use it to its full extent. At this conference, you can learn how to make sure your PC is encrypted, what it means when you accept the “Terms of Use” for a tool, or how to set your privacy settings on Facebook.
The whole purpose of U of T is to grow and disseminate knowledge, and IT is a conduit through which this process happens. We’re here to enable faculty, staff and students to accomplish their goals.
What are the highlights of this year’s conference?
TA: This year we’ll offer tutorials featuring commonly used tools. These sessions are open to any member of the U of T community. This approach is convenient because participants can register for a single tutorial and they don’t have to attend the entire conference.
We’re also featuring a panel discussion on the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, and how it relates to IT. We’ll talk about how to develop AODA-compliant websites and software. We have tutorials on a broad range of topics including drones, video editing and developing software with sandboxes.
Our call for participation is now open, so if you’re interested in presenting, demonstrating your ideas through a “quick tips” tutorial, or sharing your insights on a panel discussion, you should sign up!
If you’re interested in attending, registration opens on April 6 here.
To find out more about TechKnowFile, click here.