BCNET News

In one way or another, everyone is affected by cybercrime. With this problem comes a growing awareness of the need to take cybersecurity out of the realm of Information technology and expand it into all areas of an organization. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for information security teams to improve their organizations' cybersecurity posture. In this track, we will explore the evolving trends in cybersecurity, strategies, technologies, and collaboration opportunities to enhance the cybersecurity maturity of institutions.

We are looking for proposals along these themes:

• Evolving cybersecurity strategy matching the evolving cyberthreat environment
• Endpoint and server protection strategies
• Network protection strategies
• Authentication strategies
• Growing information security practice
• Cybersecurity vendor market
• Disaster recovery strategies
• Security awareness

​​​​​Why is leadership the ultimate advantage for any organization? 
In this track we will explore why leadership matters now more than ever. We will be looking for proposals on how to grow values-based leadership skills, invest in your people, influence decision making, build successful and diverse teams, develop a growth mindset and thrive as an authentic leader in higher education. Leading is not about management titles, it's about the positive impact you make regardless of your role.

In this track, we are looking for content that captures these ideas:

• What are models of leadership
• Leadership during times of crisis
• Leadership that fosters a growth mindset
• Building a supportive network
• Leadership in the context of IT and education
• Coaching and mentoring
• Preparing for a leadership role

In recent years, we have continued to see increased adoption of online learning technologies and methods. What was once “innovative practice” is increasingly an expectation. Questions continue to be asked regarding equitable access to technology, concerns about privacy and the ethics of digital pedagogy. And are these technologies used effectively to promote learning? IT and learning technology teams continue to be pushed to their limits, with ongoing concerns around recruiting and retaining skilled staff. The BC Ministry of Advanced Education has released a “Digital Learning Strategy”, with elements including a “digital literacies framework”, as well as new goals around digital learning implementation across institutions. In this track, we invite submissions from educators, learning technologists and strategic planners to share what they have learned over this period, and to raise and consider the challenges that lie ahead. We will learn from our experiences with technology provision, faculty and learner support, working in remote and hybrid environments, and untangling complex social dimensions to our practice against a backdrop of uncertainty. We will also explore the ongoing challenges to support accessible, flexible and effective practice into the future.

We are seeking proposals with these content themes:

• Adopting and extending learning technologies, particularly in light of the Digital Learning Strategy's recommendations
• Faculty engagement and development and the Digital Literacies Framework
• Digital learning models: beyond F2F, hybrid, hyflex, online
• Supporting learners in remote and hybrid learning, developing student digital literacies
• Supporting pedagogies of care
• Supporting indigenous users and reconciliation
• Scaling up technology with limited resources
• Academic integrity
• Ethical practices
• Surveillance technology and privacy
• Accessibility, inclusive practice, universal design
• Innovations in practice and provision of technology
• Evaluating and implementing new technologies
• Lessons learned from the pandemic
• Emerging challenges

The research community often has vast and sophisticated technology needs and IT is an increasingly essential resource to facilitate researchers’ activities. IT professionals often support technologically innovative solutions in areas like high-performance computing, research data management, cloud services and high-speed networks. In this track, we invite IT professionals and academics who can share their learnings, experiences, best practices, successes, and resources to support research and accelerate time to discovery and innovation at their institution.

We are looking for topics with these themes:

• ​​​​​​Digital Research Alliance Canada - National Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI)
• Research computing supports and services
• Research data management
• Research software, platforms, and emerging solutions
• Research data threats, risks, and privacy
• Innovation and industry
• Cloud computing for research workloads
• AI/machine learning

The world of higher education IT is constantly evolving. Be it remote, hybrid or on-campus, the role of technology is recognized as a crucial and strategic component of higher education and research. Technology will continue to evolve as we move into the future, which is why it is important to discuss the challenges and approaches in the world of IT. This track will explore the mounting pressure and challenges for higher ed IT departments in finding innovative uses of common tools, implementing new tools, tackling remote/in-person/hybrid environments, while keeping the lights on.

We are seeking content that addresses the present and future world of information technology in support of teaching, learning and research, along these themes:

• Physical infrastructure - wired and wireless- What's new and exciting ?
• VPN post pandemic use / need
• API Development
• Cloud Services
• Cloud Migration - AWS/Azure/GCP
• Supply chain stories challenges /shortages- How much longer will this persist ?
• Hybrid learning - network challenges
• Networking to the cloud, to enable cloud migration/adoption
• Addressing increasing transit needs
• What are your strategies? finding and hiring suitable IT staff
• Project management as a tool not a task master
• Redundant/alternate connections
• Virtual firewalls
• Best practices for network architecture
• Directions in community Linux and the end of CentOS
• Infrastructure as code