Weinberg College
of Arts & Sciences

Meet Weinberg College Information Technology Solutions

With the transition of operational support to Northwestern IT, our three areas of focus are to facilitate research, enhance teaching and learning, and to improve administration and process. With all this transition comes a name change – we are now Weinberg College Information Technology Solutions (WITS).  

The addition of solutions to our name reflects how we see our work in Weinberg College – that of facilitator and problem-solver. Our staff see their work as support and assistance to the educational and research mission of Northwestern. Just as faculty and staff across the College strive to create new knowledge and develop it for new generations, we build new applications, improve vital systems, and share knowledge.

What are we up to?

Here are some of our recent and ongoing projects:

• Elog – an electronic logbook program for one of the College’s research group. We’re enhancing the program with Netid login, better backups and custom development for the lab’s needs.
• Automate encryption for all websites and applications maintained by WITS
• Improve the data pipeline that gathers data from various campus systems to feed into Interfolio Faculty 180 activity reporting system
• Update and manage SAFER, an application that enforces additional layers of security and access control on top of Box folders and is used by groups around the university
• Communities of Practice events: Smartsheet and iModules
• Automating security scanning, notification, and remediation

Media and Design Studio​ now joined with Weinberg College IT Solutions  

As the main part of its organizational change, the Media and Design Studio has shed a legacy classification of academic program to become a new administrative unit, fully connected to WITS. This new classification and relationship reflects the technical nature of the work that MADS does and follows decades of collegial partnership between our organizations. 

Although the organizational structure will change, MADS retains its focus and attention to language instruction and support of the digital humanities. Many of its services to Weinberg’s faculty and students in these disciplines remain the same:

• Faculty can request cameras, audio recorders, or iPads for a course, receive advice on sharing audio or video with students, or simply check out a missing adaptor for their computer.
• The active scholarly and pedagogical web and mobile projects remain in progress, as are plans for support and upkeep, as we eagerly await many more innovative and collaborative project ideas to come.
• We will offer workshops on various topics of interest to faculty and students, and stand ready to provide teaching assistance for digital tools and techniques in various courses.

In addition to direction from WITS and the College, MADS will receive crucial guidance from a newly-formed advisory council that includes key faculty partners from language instruction programs and initiatives, the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, and the Northwestern University Libraries.

Where do I go for help?

*MADS services are prioritized for Division III faculty, students, and staff use, but also available as resources allow for the broader College community

Learn more about the staff of WITS and MADS

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