He'll see everything! He'll see the big board!

Development is primarily informed by user requests and internal usage, so it's fitting that the Development team sits directly across the hall from Support & Training. Being in close quarters allows for more rapid application development, integrated QA, and a sense of camaraderie.

This crackerjack team of coders is hard at work on adding more automated testing to the QA process, sophisticated monitoring tools for seeing hardware and software issues as they happen, and starting an effort to standardize tools across development and the customer base. The nightly Link Check that we send to website managers to notify of broken links and stale content will be integrated with QA, ensuring that new builds of the software do not break links.

Now then, Dimitri, you know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Cat?

As great as the software is, it can occasionally be cumbersome to users. It may also break, as with any software. That’s where Support & Training comes in.

Available by telephone, email, and live chat, this team is always ready to provide a quick fix, additional instructions, or involve Development for really hairy issues. They also institute a Disruption Response Plan for any loss of service. The plan involves notifying key figures within the Educational Technology Center and the Division of IT about the outage, ensuring that everyone all the way up to the Vice President of IT knows there is an issue and that someone is working on it.

The Whole point of the Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret!

Communication Design provides advertising for all services in addition to helping shape their interfaces. As the department grows and takes on more projects, this team continues to promote the Educational Technology Center’s offerings and ensure that they are as user friendly as possible.

The team works closely with our programmers to insure effective ux/ui development and design. They also work with all areas within Instruction Technologies Support to analyze, design and create visual communications across a wide range of media.

Involving this team in both the development and QA processes ensures a keen eye for bug detection and quality user experiences.

You gentlemen can’t fight in here! This is the war room.

The Educational Technology Center, while comprised of distinct teams, relies on strong collaboration between Support & Training, Development, and Communication Design. Rather than isolating ourselves, the lines of communication remain open. Customer support contacts turn into bugs and features for the developers. The designers help to continuously improve the user experience. Everyone participates in quality assurance testing. This symbiosis between the teams ensures a top quality product with the finest support available.

Mr. President, we must not allow a mine shaft gap!

Gato’s success has given rise to additional web products at Texas State.

The Signup Reservation System and University Event Calendar, both developed in-house, provide event registration and promotion tools administered at the department level.

WP Personal Websites, a network install of WordPress, gives individuals the ability to express themselves on the web. All Texas State faculty, staff, and students can create personal websites, blogs, portfolios, and image galleries.

A video content management system is on the verge of being implemented, and the Educational Technology Center will not only be providing support and training, but also working to integrate this new tool with all the existing products.

Much is on the horizon at Texas State University. Gato, and the related web services, provide a rich ecosystem of communication tools to the university community. With our strong teamwork, focus on quality, and desire to delight our customers, it’s easy to stop worrying and love the cat.

Dr. Gato-loveOr

HowI Learned

To Stop

Worrying And Love The Cat

In 2007, Texas State University was tired of losing its purity of essence to its current

content management system.

The Web Team (as it was known at the time) locked all the doors and deployed Plan G in hopes of a better tomorrow.

Seven years later, Plan G lives on as the Gato CMS. An implementation of open source Magnolia CMS, Gato houses nearly four hundred university websites.

How did this project take hold? Why does Texas State remain in the grip of a powerful luchador? How do the servers not get so hot that they could fry chickens in a barnyard?

This delicate balance is maintained by the only group crazy enough try:

The Educational Technology Center

Tom Tostanoski, User Services Consultant

Educational Technology Center Support