CCIT Communications Operations

Goal:
Effectively communicate information that is accurate, newsworthy, and
timely. Streamline operations to easily produce information for promotional
pieces, educational purposes, presentations, and services to any audience in
a variety of formats.

Services Offered:
• Development and release of periodic and ad hoc emails to constituents
• Coordination with CCIT Web publishers and Web administrators to
ensure CCIT Web and Intranet meet the needs of our customers and
the messages conveyed are consistent across all units.
• Composition, collection from others and release of CCIT Connections
articles
• Collection of CCIT news and press releases through News Services
• Repository of CCIT articles, emails, images, presentations, statistics,
accomplishments, etc. for generation of future stories, searching, etc.
• Assessment of communications from CCIT departments to ensure
consistent format and message throughout all CCIT (e.g. laptop
postcard, Palmetto flyer, etc.)
• Moderation of messages to constituent lists
o Including those messages sent by approved senders (ED’s to
determine)
• Coordination of CCIT events such as forums, panels, brown bag
lunches, etc. on request.
• Coordination with CU News Services for release of CCIT information
through local, state and national press channels

Services offered by other CCIT units:

• The Office of Information Security and Privacy (OISP) publishes
communications regarding information security.
• Network Operations Center (NOC) sends service notifications to
subscribers through Service Notification System (SNS).
• CRLT provides CCIT graphics (send email to ccitweb-L@clemson.edu to
request service at least 1 week in advance).
• EA/Medicaid team has a representative on CAB. They communicate
directly with HHS constituents.

Note – CCIT Communications Office will refer requests for print material
production to Publications and Promotions Office.

CCIT Communications Team Members:

Responsible for providing services listed above using procedures listed below.
• Carla Rathbone
• Katherine Dobrenen
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 • Pam Bowen
• Barbara Weaver
• Kathy Wright (1/2 time)
CCIT Communications Departmental Representatives:
These representatives are responsible for providing content from their
department and anecdotal feedback (from department or customer) to CCIT
Communications team. Collaboration space as well as listservs, etc. are
available to this group via the DCIT2084_CCIT_Communications workgroup.
• Business Services: Jason Domke, John Ray
• CTO: Jim Pepin
• CSO: Don Fraser
• CITI: Jill Gemmill
• CISO: Phil Lyles, Kevin MacKenzie
• Network: Mike Weilhamer
• Planning: Nathan Bohlmann, Jeff Davis
• CRLT: Katherine Dobrenen, Pam Bowen
• EA/University: Carol Lawson
• EA/MEDS: Gary Duncan

Councils or Committees on which CCIT Communications

Team Members serve:
• IT Council – TBD – Request submitted to NLB 03/02/09
• Educational Technology Council – Carla and Katherine
• Enterprise Applications Data Stewardship – TBD – Clifton James to
approach chair
• Student IT Advisory committee – TBD – Request submitted to NLB
03/02/09
• CI Implementation Committee – Barbara
• Teaching with Technology Community – Barbara
• Publications and Promotions Best Practices Committee - Pam
• Production Readiness – Katherine
• Change Advisory Board - Pam
***TBD indicates that the Comm. Team needs representation on this
committee. Executive Directors or other designee will determine appropriate
representation.

Audiences:
• Deans, Directors, Department Heads (CLEMSON_DDDH-L)
• Faculty (CLEMSON_FACULTY-L)
• Staff (CLEMSON_STAFF-L)
• Students (CLEMSON_STUDENTS-L)
• All CU Employees –Faculty and Staff (CLEMSON_EMPLOYEES-L)
• Internal CCIT employees (CCIT-L)
• CCIT Partners (var. lists to include all distributed support, research

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 partners, etc.)
• Alumni, Prospective Students/Parents, General Public (partner with
News Services)
• Ad hoc (CLEMSON_NOTIFY-L is populated with CU userids as required)

Initiation of Communications Process:

Many types of activities will prompt the initiation of CCIT Communication
Processes:

• Operations (CAB, outages, security, etc.)

o Scheduled outages and changes requiring notification to users.
NOTE: Some notifications are handled by other groups such as
support personnel in the area impacted.
o Unscheduled outage notification is released through SNS to
subscribed users and possibly through an email Bulletin if
appropriate.
o Note: Security notifications are sent by OISP
• Periodic Notices (end of semester bulletins, orientations)
• Services (new, updated, changed, discontinued)
• Education, Outreach or Assessment (through various meetings or
events such as training, workshops, forums, brown bag lunches, road
shows, other presentations, symposium/Seminars, open houses, pilot
programs, etc.)
• Ad hoc (requests from external committees and CCIT Comm. Reps from
each area)
• CU Community (visits and surveys)

Tools/Channels:
• CCIT controlled channels
o Email (listserv or mailmerge)
o CCIT Website (showcases/portfolio of work, service catalog,
departmental pages, outages, news, CCIT homepage banners)
o CCIT Intranet (Connections, etc.)
o Podcast/iTunesU
o Webcasts
o Roadshows (departments, schools, committees)
o Open Forums
o Educational Events (lunch and learn/Brown Bag Lunch)
o Adobe Connect sessions (such as Help Desk Virtual Situation
Room)
o SNS (Operations Notification Subscription)
o RSS
o Phone
o Participation in meetings (including Councils or Committees
listed above as well as TSP, College Consultants, MacAdmins)

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 o Print (Comm team will provide minimal support for print material
generation as resources allow)
• CU Channels/Partners (need contacts for these):
o Publications and Promotions (News Services and Web Services)
 Student home page, CU home, site index (Carol Usher)
 Inside Clemson (Beth Jarrard )
 Faculty/staff homepages (John Gouch )
 CU Master Calendar
o Clemson World (Liz Newell)
o iClemson (Jeff Appling)
o Tiger (varies)
o Rave - CU SAFE alerts – text messaging and email (John Gouch)
o Academic Success Center - CU 101 (Elaine Richardson)
o Registrar’s Office - Undergraduate and Graduate
Announcements/Catalog (Shannon Clark)
o Departmental Meetings (as possible)
• Local and National Media
o HPC Wire
o Grid Today
o Educause
o Chronicle on Higher Education (CHE)
o CI Days
o SC3
o Internet 2 Consortium
o Newspapers, radio (US News and World Report, etc.)

Process for development and release of communication

content:
• CCIT Communication Team receives need for communication.
o CAB
 Comm. Team CAB POC reviews Change Advisory Board
agenda on Monday (8am deadline) OR at any time an
Emergency RFC is issued.
 CAB POC contacts service owner and supervisor to
determine timeframe, appropriate audience and content
(bulleted text) for communication.
 RFC “Announcement Text” is used as the base for draft
text.
o Ad Hoc
 Requests for communications from the CCIT
Communication Office should be sent via email to
CCIT_COMM-L@clemson.edu. This message will go to the
CCIT Communications Team and a the appropriate team
member will work with the requester.

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  Requests should include the following information:
• Intended Audience
• Timeframe for delivery
• Content (bulleted text)
• If email, sender of the message (CCIT PR or personal
note)
 Requests will be received from anyone but approval is
required from management in the area owning the service
prior to issuing the communication.
o SNS
 If a notification from SNS is released, Comm. Team will use
the following criteria to determine if that notification should
be released via an IT Alert
• If Mission Critical System is down, an Alert will be
issued as soon as possible (target is within 1 hour of
outage).
• If Non-Mission Critical System is down and outage is
widespread, Comm. will issue Alert approximately 3
hours into the outage unless information is provided
sooner that outage will last longer than 3 hours.
• Comm Team member will use best judgment
regarding timing of IT Alerts balancing need for
information with volume of emails.
o End of Term Bulletins
 Base text should be last term’s message
 Content providers include: CRLT directors, Help Desk
Manager, Personal Computing Manager, CRLT Systems
Administrators, others?
o Annual CU Publications
 Graduate Announcements
 Undergraduate Announcements
 CU 101 book
 Orientations Catalog
 CU phone directory
 Admissions Welcome Letter to incoming students
 Parent Pin Letter (includes information about email
addresses)
 iClemson project
• Determine appropriate channel based on information provided
• Compose text and collect images in a shared collaborative version
controlled tool
o Text includes boilerplate content from template.
o Draft message is uploaded as a Google document (Google Apps
for Education)

o Document is shared with the service owner/supervisor and the

requester as well as CAB managers if request is RFC.

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 o Comm Team member, service owner and requester
collaboratively edit content until consensus is reached

• Final Review and Approval:

o Edited message is shared with rest of CCIT Comm Team who

confirm that the message is technically accurate, is
grammatically accurate includes appropriate relevance for the
intended audience (for emails, subject line must be relevant).

• Pre-release:
o If appropriate, Manager of Distributed Support will release to
TSP/College Consultant lists prior to publication.
o If appropriate, CCIT Communications will release to CCIT-L or
Connections/Intranet prior to publication. New and changed CCIT
services as well as public events should be released to CCIT prior
to general release.
• Release communication through the appropriate channel(s). If required,
the list moderator approves the message.
• Archive communication in repository

Specific Instructions for Channels

Connections:
• Call for articles is sent each Monday morning
o New or changed services, support, hours of operation, staff and
location changes, area event announcements, awards and
honors
• Comm Area Representatives and Comm Team Members submit articles
via online form at
http://www.clemson.edu/ccit/intranet/connections/form
o Include any CCIT PR that is going to be released in the media
• Edit and review all articles using Connections Admin utility at
http://www.clemson.edu/ccit/intranet/connections/admin
o Send request for picture inclusion to CCITWeb-L@clemson.edu.
• Select articles and release email through Admin utility
o Editing email doesn’t work properly in Safari. Use Firefox.
o Verify links within stories are working
o If required, the list moderator approves the message.

CCIT News:
• Copy articles from Connections Admin utility
• Submit new articles via Online News Submission utility at
http://www.clemson.edu/ccit/about/news/form/
• Edit and review articles using CCIT News Admin utility at
http://www.clemson.edu/ccit/about/news/admin/
o Tag up to 2 stories as high priority so these remain lead stories

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  Based on global relevance and timeframe
o Manage rotation timeframe (45, 60, 90 days) through requests to
CCIT Web Admin ()

CCIT Bulletins and Alerts:

• Message should be sent from CCITPR or relevant sender (if personal
connection is required)
• Messages should be sent in a timely manner. Ideally, one week’s notice
is provided to our constituents for changes to services or support.
Reminders are sent as needed for critical IT service changes.
• Best judgment is used regarding sending messages on Fridays.
• Best judgment is used regarding sending multiple messages within a
short timeframe.
• Messages should include as much information as is practical. Links to
web sites should only be used optionally (per feedback)
• Long messages should include an index at the top with brief topic
summaries
• Plain text formatting is used with no images, no tables, no embedded
objects. Bullets and bold formatting can be used for appropriate
emphasis.
• Subject lines of messages must be relevant to the recipient
o “IT Alert” used for unscheduled outages
o “IT Bulletin” used for scheduled outages (maintenance)
 if emergency maintenance, subject should include
“Emergency Maintenance”
• All questions should be referred to Support Center
(ITHELP@clemson.edu, 864-656-3494)

CU Master Calendar:
• Calendar entries are added via Guest Access. Instructions are available
online.
• The calendar manager will confirm that your entry has been added to
the master calendar.

Process for Marketing CCIT event:

• Work with requester to obtain the following information:
o Title
o Presenter and biography
o Abstract
• Assist with securing a location (as required)
• Publish information about the event through the following channels
o Enter CCIT events in CU Master Calendar at
http://www.clemson.edu/calendar/main.php?calendar=default
 Contact is Angela Nixon
o What is involved in this? What will we do or not do?
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 o Email to all faculty, staff and students, as appropriate
o CCIT homepage banner will link to CCIT News story
o Faculty/Staff homepage or Student homepage banner will link to
CCIT News story (as appropriate)
o CU Master Calendar
o

All other tasks are handled ad hoc (scheduling meetings, face to face
discussions, processing feedback, etc.)

General Standards/Guidelines:
• Communications styles and standards adhere to the AP Style Book and
the styles set forth by CU Publications and Promotions department.
(http://www.clemson.edu/ccit/intranet/crlt/graphics/styles.html)
• Information about CU policies or other information should be included
or referenced as appropriate for the communication.
• Web image resolution and proportion must be consistent with the
standards for the CCIT Web
• Print images should follow vendor requirements as appropriate for
media. Typically, 600 or 300 dpi is appropriate.

Next Steps:
• Inventory CCIT content in all current publications (CCIT Connections, IT
Bulletins, CU Master Calendar, CCIT News, Graduate and
Undergraduate Announcements, CU 101 book, Orientations Catalog,
CU Phone Directory, Admissions Welcome Newsletter to incoming
students, iClemson, Parent Pin Letter from University Housing)
• Consolidate accomplishments and chronicle history of IT (progress,
leapfrog)
o Build repository of information and past stories to enable
searching, story development, presentation development, etc.
• Enable collaborative versioning tool for composition (Google Docs)
• Review CCIT public and intranet Web site
o Redefine scope of these sites
o Examine ownership of intranet site
o Enable feedback mechanism online to comment on articles/news
• Initiate roadshows and educational forums to promote existing services
and to identify changes or enhancements to services
• Reinstate faculty directions (Web)
• Develop calendar of scheduled/planned communication (CU
publications, CCIT publications, periodic bulletins, etc.)
• Revisit Security Office processes for communication
• Expand tools/channels to include
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 o Blogs and social networks for targeted groups
o Staff brochures – how to (ex. Software/hardware roadmap) for
Web or print
o Correct issues with SNS to enable its use rather that Bulletins for
any systems announcements including scheduled changes
o RSS feeds for CCIT news
• Offer additional services?
o Annual Report (BOT, administrators, etc)

Addendum:
Communication Tools Access
Listservs:
Official CCIT Communications lists:
These lists are managed by CCIT Communications Team and are moderated.
Anyone can send to the list but only the moderator (BONE) can release the
posting. By default, replies are sent to the sender only. Most are built
dynamically based on data in HR or Student systems.
• CCIT-L
• CLEMSON_DDDH-L
• CLEMSON_EMPLOYEES-L
• CLEMSON_FACULTY-L
• CLEMSON_STAFF-L
• CLEMSON_STUDENTS-L
• CLEMSON_NOTIFY-L (manually populated based on ad hoc need)
Also, DCIT2803_CCIT_RELATED_STAFF-L is a workgroup as well as a listserv and is
used for CCIT staff whose home department is not CCIT (dual appointment).

Intranet:
Within Cascade:

Read: All of CCIT

Write: CCIT Dev (James Upp, Carmen Bradley, Sonny Gray, Irfan Tak, Nicholas
McElveen, Gary Malstrom, and Jamie Brown), as well as OWS.

Within a Browser:

View: all of CCIT and members of the DCIT2803_CCIT_RELATED_STAFF

workgroup

BLOG IT:

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Connections and CCIT News:
View published stories: Connections resides within the CCIT Intranet

Post stories: DCIT2804_CCIT_COMMUNICATIONS workgroup (Comm Reps

from CCIT departments), and Jamie Brown

Administration: Katherine Dobrenen, Pam Bowen, Carla Rathbone, and Jamie

Brown

Bulletin Archive – 6/26/07 to present

(currently in Pam Bowen’s Exchange Mailbox under Inbox/CCIT Bulletins &

PR)
Pam Bowen – full access

Katherine Dobrenen – Read access

NOTE: Bulletin archive prior to 6/27/07 is currently in a Eudora mailbox on

Pam’s machine (SPF). Should be moved to repository when available.

Print Material Archive (including newsletters, pictures, The Tiger, Clemson

World)
Located in Pam’s office

CU Graphics Manager – Dale Cochran

CCIT Web Departmental Points of Contact:

• Business Services: Jason Domke, John Ray

• CTO: Jim Pepin
• CSO: Patrick McGee
• CITI: Jill Gemmill
• CISO: Kevin MacKenzie
• Network: Mike Weilhamer
• Planning: Nathan Bohlmann, Jeff Davis
• CRLT: Katherine Dobrenen, Pam Bowen
• EA/University: Debbie O’Connor
• EA/MEDS: Gary Duncan
•

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Calendar
March
• develop CCIT Exit Papers for graduating students (get your laptop
ready for life after Clemson, userid information, email information) –
includes pdf for web printing as well as distribution at Apple Store,
Library Help Desk, Support Center
April
• Distribute CCIT Exit Papers and publish on Web

Orientation
Undergrad

Graduate Student
• International orientation from international office
• Departmental orientation for major
• Online orientation for general information – videos
o Could plug in a video about CCIT here
o Follow students around campus
o Where to get pw reset
o Laptop information (although no mandate)
o Labs
• Tristam Aldridge
• Lindsay Mahaffy – combs2@clemson.edu

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