Computing Technology Onboarding

There are IT support units specific to faculty and staff members in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Below, you will find information on these units, and the processes for purchase hardware and software.

Support Organizations

The local IT unit for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Science & Engineering Node Services (SENS) provides support for eight of the nine departments in SEAS. The department of Computer Science and Engineering has its own IT support unit.

New faculty members are invited to meet with Jason Lasker, SENS director, or Christian Miller, director of information technology in CSE.

UBIT or CIT is the central computing organization for all of UB. UBIT provides services and resources common to the entire University like email, cloud storage and technology in centrally scheduled classrooms and conferences rooms. 

The Center for Computational Research (CCR) provides high-performance and parallel process computing facilities.

Questions or service requests should be directed to SENS or CSE. If another unit needs to handle the request, SENS or CSE will provide advice on who to contact. Contact the SEAS units at the email addresses below:

Purchasing Hardware and Software

Purchasing computers and other devices must be coordinated through SENS/CSE. Please follow the basic steps below:

  • The user's department will communicate any information related to budget and accounts.
  • The user will schedule a meeting with Jason Lasker (SENS) or Christian Miller (CSE) to discuss the purchase. UB has purchasing agreements with several major vendors, and they can help tailor the purchase to best meet the user's needs and concerns. SENS or CSE will provide a quote as part of this process.
  • The user's department will use the quote to make the purchase.
  • When the equipment arrives, it will be delivered to SENS' office in 114 Bell Hall, where it will be configured for the specific user.
  • The equipment will be delivered to the user after configuration.

Purchasing software is similar to the process outlined above. UB, SENS, CSE and CCR have license agreements for commonly-used software, so it may not be necessary to purchase individual copies. Staff in these units may also be aware of faculty or staff who may be using a particular piece of software, and their may be savings available by sharing existing licensing costs.

Shared services and facilities

The UBIT name is assigned to a user when they are hired. This is the login for most shared services and facilities, including email, university-owned computers, the podiums in UB technology classrooms; central services such as HUB, SIRI and UBLearns.

UBIT names should never be shared, and should be secured using a strong password or passphrase. 

SENS/CSE can provide shared cloud storage areas using UBbox or Microsoft SharePoint.

If data containing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) needs to be stored, there is a special implementation of UBbox, referred to as a Secure Box. Please contact SENS or CSE for more information. The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is not certified to handle HIPAA data. 

Policies

UBIT has provides several policies related to computing. Please review the three different policies: