okay so I just want to start off with
asking if you could tell me your name

and your position sure so my name is
Tasha and I'm the director of
information technology for the College

of Engineering okay where did your
involvement in OSU begin well

my involvement in OSU began as a
undergrad student I'm originally from

Fairbanks Alaska and I came to Oregon
State on what was at the time called

national student exchange which was a
program that allowed me I was a I was
enrolled at the University of Alaska

Fairbanks
I came to Oregon State as an exchange

student and it was kind of a cool
program where I came here but I paid my

home University in-state tuition even
though I was basically an out-of-state

student here and so I did that for a
year I really liked OSU I liked

Corvallis and I ended up I was supposed
to go back to Alaska and finished off my

education in Alaska but I ended up
transferring to Oregon State the next

year and then was a full time
out-of-state student here in Corvallis

and I finished my degree at OSU I was
hired by the University I worked here

for a couple years and I took a job with
Apple back in Alaska I was their system

engineer for k-12 education in Alaska
and I missed Corvallis and missed OSU a

lot Apple had me traveling four days a
week and I really didn't like that and

OSU asked me if I'd come back I did and
I've just ever since I've been

consistently kind of working at the
liner yeah um just could you tell me a

little bit about your ideology
surrounding data privacy in society sure

it's a it's a very interesting topic
because I think we I think would make a

lot of assumptions that vendors who we
give our data to we're going to do a

good job of keeping it secure and if you
look at the number of breaches and

compromises by companies you know
whether its target or or REI or Facebook

her name is on or whomever you know it
seems like we see often enough things in

the news about breaches where people's
identity their passwords their credit
card numbers whatever have been

compromised you know personally I see
that maybe you see it as well when we
get the statements about are the the

things about our car credit card numbers
have been compromised and they send us a

new credit card I mean that's because of
a data breach data privacy breach

somewhere along the chain so so I think
we make a lot of assumptions that our

data in in with companies of the work
with is secure when in fact if you look
at the number of breaches that's not

always the case basically yeah
yeah and that's you know some of that's

anecdotal just on what we hear but when
you hear these breaches involving

millions of people you know chances are
we're gonna be part of that as well so

you know that said there are many
different services in the cloud that do

a lot of things to enhance our education
our research our ability to conduct

business and so we kind of have to rely
on that these days as a service provider

on campus we take data security very
very seriously we do an awful lot to
protect the identity of our students

staff and faculty
and you know it's it's it's a

double-edged sword because some of the
things that we do make people's lives
more difficult for example some of the

resources that you have to use a VPN to
connect to there are what there are

things that we could do that would not
require a VPN I mean I could make it so

you could map a network drive off campus
without requiring a VPN we know there

are vulnerabilities in that process
though

and so by requiring a VPN we add another
layer of security to that that process

that we know is prone to be compromised
there are things that we do with

two-factor authentication are you
familiar with two-factor authentication

with duo yeah so you know this spring
duo will be required for all staff and

faculty and some point in the future
will be required for students that's a
choice that we've made to try to help to

perfect protect the identity and the
security of of our students and staff

and faculty on campus related to that
and this is kind of like a duo things

just on a side note sure my girlfriend
notes actually visiting her over the

weekend and she has duo because she's a
employee of the at her school in Utah
State and I actually see like a great

problem with it
just in the you know the monotony of

logging into like canvas or something
needed to do time and I could see that

barrier there being negative for
students and definitely like hindering

their you know interaction with the site
itself
cuz I see her you know I have to go on

your phone logging just to log to the
web site and so I kind of saw that as

you know personally ease-of-use is
definitely amazing for me because I'm

able to kind of quickly access
information and you know I'm more

inclined to access it when it's easier
to do yeah so knowing my assignments and

interacting with like school resources
is a lot easier for me because you know

there's a barrier it's not like I'm
walking to a class

yeah adding a barrier to that kind of
like increases the difficulty yeah
totally hit it for you do oh and abled

on campus not right now okay so one
thing you would find here on campus is

that we do not require it for campus
mm-hmm and that was that's another one

of those kind of interesting use cases
because some of the feedback we got from

faculty members had to do with not
allowing students to take their phones

into class then if you have an
assignment that requires getting on
canvas or a quiz or an exam then that

becomes a problem if you are requiring
people to use that device so at least on

our campus and it's different everywhere
but we're first degree it's the security

issue yeah yeah so for students who are
do have enabled canvas is not protected

mm-hmm
that's a that's a trade-off yeah okay so

on a daily basis what does your work can
consist of all sorts of things I do in

our College of Engineering we have
roughly twelve thousand users we're

about a third at the University I manage
a staff of 13 full-time professionals
and around 60 student workers we're

responsible for the day-to-day IT
computing needs for all those

individuals and so it takes an entire
team effort to take care of that

so I'm responding to user requests I you
know this morning for example I just

before you came in I was listening to a
panel discussion of new hire on campus

we're interviewing for the chief
information security officer for the

university so I was kind of paying
attention to that I was talking to a
faculty member who wants to buy into one

of our computing clusters they're part
of college of engineering in Bend and

we're talking with them about buying
some new nodes for our cluster so really

kind of helping faculty members think
about what kind of computing needs they

need to take care of their research is a
big part of a bigger part of what I do I

interact a lot with different vendors
and different partners that we have this
morning

and another vendor that was here at nine
o'clock were down in the first floor

Kelly Engineering Center we're looking
to a remodel of of one of our conference

rooms and so I had a vendor that was in
we were talking about ideas and kind of

use cases and how people want to use the
facility and then they're gonna come

back to us with a proposal on how we
might do that so I I do an awful lot to

represent the college of engineering or
students staff and faculty within with

different IT groups on campus with with
partners with vendors with donors you

know I tend to be the external face for
our group for our college when it comes

to IT matters how does in your eyes have
this cloud technology evolved education

it's it's had a huge impact on the way
that we're able to provide services to

students you know I'll give you a couple
of examples of that and it's it's not

just education it's kind of more than
that we used to be a blackboard school

before canvas and blackboard was hosted
on campus with servers on campus and we

would see often that those services are
being overloaded particularly at the

beginning of the quarter and then during
dead in finals week when we moved to

canvas we moved to a cloud provider and
what's great about canvas is that

they're able to scale the computing
resources that they have based on our

needs so we don't have to provide
servers on campus to provide the

functionality of canvas it's all cloud
hosted they you know they they manage

that they're the professionals at it and
I think that's kind of been that's been
one of the biggest things is that we pay

cloud providers to do a really good job
at what they do we're not able to do

that on campus and we shouldn't we
should not kid ourselves and think that

we can so if you look at services like
box like WebEx like Google

was like those are those are big
companies they specialize in doing that
we should not even begin to kid

ourselves to think that we can compete
with them there are other areas where we

can and we do a better job of things
that are hosted on campus but for those

services that like that's their job
that's how they make their money if

they're offline that's really bad for
there just aren't holders in their

business
we should not kid ourselves to think

that we can do a better job than they
can where we should really be very

careful those around the data security
piece and making sure that they are

properly vetted that we understand their
practices around data security that we

understand that they understand FERPA
and some of the other other federal

regulations and you have to deal with
because you know we're still vulnerable

but I the services that they provide in
the cloud are far better than anything

we could do on campus and you know we
hope that by exposing students to those

and faculty members and building them
into curriculum that that you as a

student are able to do great things and
that you're able to collaborate with

others and you're able to innovate that
you're able to study for your exam to
learn new topics through those cloud

providers their big party education yeah
yeah that's awesome especially with

vetting services around I guess yeah
when did oh s you start to build the

largely did digital infrastructure we've
had bits and pieces of that for a long

time you know back in the back in the
early 90s we did class registration

electronically a very different look
very different than it does now but you

know I would say early 90s and moving
forward progressively data networking on

campus has been a real big issue
in bringing all of our buildings up to

appropriate specifications for data
capacities and speeds and wireless and

you know the whole pushed towards
wireless access points and mobile

devices that really spurred us to do a
lot for providing good wireless service

in and you know now we have we were
rated this past fall is the number one

fastest Wi-Fi in the country yeah for
any public university or any public or

private university that's a pretty big
deal and that is a that's the that's the
result of a progression of us taking

this very seriously and adding more and
more into our portfolio with with in so

you know when I think of digital that
that's a pretty wide wide spectrum but

yeah if you look at any one piece of
that it takes an entire team to build

that and so it's on top of itself yeah
exactly so you know for example if you

look at just Wireless as a piece of that
there's a wireless access point outside

my office the infrastructure and the
different groups on campus that are

required to come together for that is
pretty extreme because there's the

access point out there it runs through a
network it plugs into a switch it then

runs through some fiber it plugs into a
router it runs through some more fiber

it goes through our controller through a
firewall and then it goes through some

more fiber and it goes out to a router
which then connects us to the Internet

you know that's a that involves multiple
groups on campus the people that that

build the fibre that specify where the X
point access point needs to be that run

the routers that run the firewalls that
run all the different configuration

things that's that's that's a number of
different people from a number of

different groups and over time as as the
kind of the digital sense of the

university has increased we've had to
step up in each of those areas as well

and now we're at a point where we're
it's pretty cool because we we have a

good we have really good people that the
each of those areas that were able to

work together and then more on the you
know the third party side with Amazon

however Amazon Web Services integrated
with OSU sure yeah so about a year ago

we signed what's called an enterprise
agreement with Amazon which means that

we're able to officially do business
with them we have a contract in place

that allows us to do this that protects
both groups right now most of our spend

on Amazon is on the research side of the
house so research computing so you're a

faculty member or a grad student you
have a need for computing resources and

you make the decision that you want to
spend that up in Amazon instead of

buying hardware that we would post here
on campus and so most of our spend right

now is on the research side of the house
we do have a couple of things so there

are more infrastructures so for example
there's a service that we run called

single sign-on and that's the kind of
the familiar place where regardless if

you're going to sign into box or Google
or one or WebEx there's or canvas

there's a login screen that comes up and
you enter your onid credentials up until

I don't know six months or so ago all of
that single sign-on piece was held on

campus and what that meant was if we
ever had a really bad internet outage
and the campus was disconnected then

even though you had services in the
cloud like canvas and in Google and

inbox you would not be able to access
them because you first had to come back

to campus for that single sign-on
piece.we now hosts one of our single

sign-on servers in amazon and if my
second backup yeah as a real-time backup

so if the university were to be
disconnected from the internet whether

that was through a tape act of terrorism
or an earthquake or a natural hazard

we'd still be able to access these
services that are cloud hosted because

instead of having to come back to campus
we're able to host that single sign-on

piece in the Amazon Cloud that's pretty
cool it's a nice note of resiliency for

us and gives us some options without
having the
contract and pieces of parts in place we

would not have been able to do that okay
so that's just one kind of practical

example for you of how Amazon was able
to accomplish what we do so in addition

to that what specific and information is
collected by Amazon the specific

information collected by Amazon really
depends on the service that we spent up
in the Amazon

so as Amazon Web Services as a whole
they collect email address from us and
our billing index so that we know how to

route filling back and forth people who
build services in Amazon though they
might collect different pieces of data

so if I'm running a research project and
I build a service in Amazon then I'm

running that server and I might be
collecting different pieces of data but
as far as Amazon themselves there's very

little about us that they collect but
they have it there you know like the

data is stored with them correct the
data is stored with them it's encrypted

and they do not have access to it okay
so it's a very interesting thing because

if you're familiar with the concept of a
data center where big building lots of

servers Amazon controls access to the
data center so they make sure that

somebody off the street can't come in
and just steal servers we control access
to the data and the services that we

build upon the data center and that's
something that Amazon makes very clear

is that they don't have access to the
services that we provide they only have

access to the physical data center ok so
it's a it's a kind of a different way of

thinking because if we're spitting up
services in Amazon we have to be very

very careful about what type of data we
collect and who we open that up to and

the security policies that we enforce
because you know it's completely

possible for you to create an account in
Amazon spin up a service spin up a

server and collect data from people and
not have

encrypted hmm so there's a lot of
responsibility that comes back to the

end-user to you or me or who's ever
building services in Amazon to

understand how that works to understand
the data security pieces and to make

very wise decisions okay
that's we take that very very seriously

and any time that we are spinning up
services or we're providing service to
Amazon that's a discussion that we have

yeah that's important it's very very
important yeah

do you think OSU is transparent enough
when it comes to which company's process

and store student data I have to think
so mostly because the companies that we

use you as a students see every day so
you see the canvas the Google the Box

you see the type of data that goes in
there because you have your it's

interactive and you're you're
interacting it with every with it every

day you know to take canvas as an
example you see the type of class

information that's there because you see
your course curriculum you see the

assignments the presentations you know
that's the type of data that each of

those companies hold for us and you have
direct access into it what a student be

able to attend OSU but abstain from
using services from third parties I

think it would be really difficult these
days hmm I mean what would you like be
without canvas yeah or BOTS or Google I

mean I presume you have worked on their
document together in Google you know I

emailed you from yeah you emailed me
from Google I think it'd be pretty hard

yeah what do you what do you think I
that's that's the thing it's like it

would be almost impossible to manage
financial statements from you know
student the student tab to look at you

know courses to see homework it would be
or schedule an advising appointed get a
syllabus yeah you can't you can't give

it like they don't hand that physic
syllabi I know

so it's it's it seems that education
isn't instead of a single entity it's

you know placing part of itself and
growing in other places and it's you you

have to make that trade-off yeah
and before you I guess in historically

it was you know buying books or
financially like you'd have to trade

your money to access education now it's
trading information and money it's kind

of it's and there's always been that
trade-off so it's it's interesting it's

not it's not really it's not your choice
yeah so it's it's pretty in with the

value of education yeah it it really
opens up yeah issues yeah

just as on processes I think it'd be
it'd be really hard mm-hmm to come to

school and not use your Gmail and to
you'd be at a serious disadvantage yeah

I'm not quite sure how that was working
yeah um also quizzes yeah literally and

just couldn't take quizzes yeah
so that's something else you know I will

I will add one thought to that though
something that I don't you may bring it

up but something that we're pretty
careful about though are the services

that we subscribe to and their ability
to provide services to disabled students

because I think it's pretty easy for you
and I to use our laptop and access

things on the internet someone who's
blind or can't hear or he and talk

though as as a very very different game
you know a very different experience and

so we make sure that that the services
that we do subscribe to our applicable

to students with any type of disability
and they're there there are different

certifications that these companies have
to go through difficult to prove that so

you know it's pretty easy for you and I
to pick up our phones and do things
someone who can't see though that's a

very
ball game from him so you know just kind

of just that's just gonna random but it
baby I know that's it yeah that though

and with disabilities and health
information you know that's that's also

stored with the school and I assume on
you know is transmitted through Amazon

or infrastructure because where this
stored

yeah those particular things are not
stored in the cloud okay that that

particular type of information is scored
is stored in something called banner

which is a which is our big student
database for student information and
that is on campus okay so that kind of

thing is