“They elevate my every day,” says Lisa Borghesi, assistant dean of foundations in the Office of Medical Education. “I cannot emphasize how important the culture of service friendliness is at every turn, in down times and in crunch times. It’s extraordinary.”
Uduak S. Ndoh, vice chancellor and deputy chief information officer for the health sciences, wants everyone to know what Health Sciences IT has to offer in support of education, research and clinical activities.
One of the strengths of Health Sciences IT, he said, is that it has teams located all over campus, so there are experts nearby to help meet your needs.
Health Sciences IT supports a wide variety of systems, from file sharing and web services, to research computation, to classroom and academic tech support. They also offer app development services and guidance on information security.
The IT team’s work on the educational side was in high demand with the launch of the new Three Rivers Curriculum in the fall semester.
In her role supporting first- and second-year medical students, Borghesi explained that there has been a need for classroom IT to accommodate large and small groups, with students moving across the technology by station.
Alida O’Neill, curriculum coordinator for the School of Medicine, said one instance of “how IT helped to bring a course director’s teaching vision to life, is coordinating the various monitors in our new TBL (team-based learning) space to set up stations, where students or facilitators could move from display to display and cover different topics in smaller breakout groups. During our anatomy segment, members of IT set up a remote iPad to record the lab introduction in the anatomy lab so that students could have more time for the lab and visualize the anatomy as it was being discussed.”
O’Neill continued: “In addition to the on-site support and technical assistance, IT has revolutionized our video production, editing, maximizing the audio and visual quality, and adding graphics to make the videos more cohesive and professional.”
Borghesi also pointed to high-quality video recordings as “one of the fun things,” IT does for the School of Medicine, highlighting the work of Josh Howell, an information technologist. “He has extensive design expertise,” she said. He came to Pitt from the Heinz History Center, and the School of Medicine was lucky to be able to “tap into his background and strengths,” she said.
“This is all in addition to the behind-the-scenes work in administering our new learning management system, creating courses, and setting it up while also training staff and faculty in best practices for its use,” O’Neill said.
If you need creative IT solutions for your work, don’t hesitate to reach out and ask. You can submit an online service request or call +1-412-648-2222.