Special interest groups.
We are all surrounded by a community. Finding our peers, subject matter experts, and friends is the goal of CUCCIO's SIGs.
SIGs are now open to ALL Higher Education Institutions.
Explore the largest network of Canadian higher education IT professionals.
Special Interest groups.
CUCCIO hosts discussions, projects, and information sessions that span well beyond CIOs. We host thousands of IT workers from SIG member institutions across Canada giving them a place to share knowledge, build community, and drive innovation. Special interest Groups (SIGs) are CUCCIO’s way of creating community for ALL of higher education IT professionals.
Each SIG is sponsored by a CIO, lead by a community member, supported by our National Program Manager and provided by CUCCIO using M365. Each community is unique and rises to the challenges of their area of interest be it functional, cross-disciplinary, or social in nature. SIGs are open to all central IT employees within an institution by the approval of their CIOs (or equivalent).
SIG members are also invited to SIG Con at our annual CANHEIT conference. SIG Con is a day dedicated to our Special Interest Groups where attendees and SIG members can leverage the opportunity to meet in person, build on the conversations from the conference, and strengthen their professional networks.
Click here for more information on SIG Con.
The following forward thinking higher education institutions have already joined our SIG community providing their entire IT teams access to over 20 Special Interest Groups (Information Security and Research Information Security excluded).:
We welcome you to join our growing community!
If you are a non-university institution who would like to join the SIG community click here for more information or to register.
WHEN IS INTAKE
Intake is taking place every day. Use the apply button below to start the process.
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Must be an employee of central IT within a SIG member university institution (free with membership) OR must be an employee of a non-university institution that has registered and pay the applicable annual fee ($500).
Application to join a SIG must be approved by your Institution’s CIO (or equivalent).
Institution’s membership must be in good standing.
There are 23 eligible SIGs (including new EDI and AI SIGs) for non-university institutions; security SIGs are omitted for non-universities.
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Participation in a SIG is entirely voluntary. Be a vocal contributor or lurk and learn. The only thing that we ask is that you participate according to your own comfort level.
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For universities: Beyond your institutional membership there are no additional costs for SIG participation.
For non-university institutions:
$500 for year one, per participating institution (subject to adjustment in Years 2 & 3).
3% credit card processing fee ($15)
5% GST ($25)
See all the Special interest groups.
Below is a list of all the currently active special interest groups. There are always ideas about new groups that should be brought online, new projects to tackle, and new communities that need to meet.
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CIO Sponsor - Wency Lum
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A special interest group dedicated to the sharing of knowledge, processes and strategies surrounding application management in higher education. The scope of this SIG includes ERP applications, departmental applications, integrations, etc.
Get in touch -
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Establish a community to collaborate on Atlassian related product uses, success stories, challenges and changes.
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The AV Technologies SIG meets monthly, generally as a round table, however a call for agenda items is distributed usually a week prior to the meeting. We have arranged for a CTL Director to talk to us about the importance of technology as it relates to instruction and the academia. Given the nature of the SIG, there is a lot of discussion and input being sought for technical issues.
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The ITSM group meets monthly to share best practices, knowledge, future ideas for all things Client Services. This includes tools, practices, resources, metrics, procedures for our Support area. We do both informal and formal agendas and the group brings topics to present and bring to the table to share information with others. We strive to connect and learn from others and discover what other Universities are doing with challenges and change.
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Leads - Lisa Tomalty & Derek Guenther
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Vision and Purpose: Establish a community of practice for relationship managers and similar roles. Share best practices, tools, strategies, success stories, etc., through regular meetings.
Goals: Connect and learn from others on Relationship Management initiatives. Develop repository of resources for CUCCIO membership. Explore skills/training for Relationship Management teams. Collaborate on obstacles, share lessons learned, etc.
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To collaborate on strategies for supporting a broad range of research computing support needs (from desktop to HPC).
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Lead - Fizal Afroze & Bruan Czerneda
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The Cloud Platform Working Group is focused on harnessing the power of cloud technologies to enhance organizational efficiency, scalability, and innovation. This interdisciplinary group brings together experts from Canadian universities to share strategies to implement and optimize cloud-based solutions tailored to the unique needs and goals of the higher education sector. Topics include: Cloud Architecture, Data Management, Institutional Reporting, Cloud Adoption, Security and Compliance, Cost Optimization, Vendor Management, and Performance Monitoring and Optimization.
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Are you a university IT communications professional looking to connect with peers and share knowledge and experiences? Welcome to the CUCCIO Communications Special Interest Group (SIG)! Our group is a platform for university communications professionals to learn, connect, and exchange knowledge with peers. We offer an informal opportunity to discuss communication experiences and challenges in a safe and welcoming space. Collaboration is highly encouraged and can range from sharing sample material like posters and newsletters to discussing campaigns, strategies and best practices. Best practice discussion topics range from change management, benchmarking, and social media to communications tools and apps. The Communications SIG is perfect for anyone looking to stay ahead of the curve in university IT communications. Don’t miss out on this informative and friendly group!
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Continuous Improvement and Change Management continue to provide measurable value across multiple business sectors. This group aims to explore business techniques and methodologies in these areas to collectively learn how they can support Canadian Higher Education achieve organizational excellence. The group will share tools and advice which have proven effective within member organizations. This SIG will benefit anyone who is interested in or has a requirement to:
Meet business objectives through improvement of processes and procedures; and/or
Coordinate, lead, and support change efforts to positively introduce change in a transparent and effective way.
As CI and CM are applications across all roles and departments in Higher Ed, this SIG invites any interested members to join.
Leads - Jennifer Ferfolja & Anuja Bajaj -
The Data Governance SIG is an opportunity for knowledge sharing across institutions that are building and delivering data governance programs. The DG SIG covers key topics such as ‘how to build a data catalog’, ‘how to improve data literacy’, ‘how to build a data strategy?’. DG SIG members participate in group discussions and presentations that reflect what is happening at their respective institution.
Leads - Amanda Lee Baldwin & Kiren Handa
Sponsor - Don Ostergard -
Leads - Kevin Jinde, Trish Kerr, & Marlyn Persaud
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This SIG collaborates and discusses a variety of EDI topics such as how to incorporate EDI concepts and practices in IT services for campus, and creating a more EDI oriented culture at work. Any topic that intersects EDI with IT work or IT people is welcome.
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Lead - Vera Merkusheva
CIO Sponsor - Matt Norton
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Leads - Mike Patterson & Guillaume Dubé
Sponsor - Art Exner
Note: This SIG is available to CUCCIO member institutions only.
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The iSig is a group of infrastructure professionals (compute, storage, network) whose goal is to help each other improve the IT capabilities of their teams and thus bring increasing benefit to their institutions, students, faculty, staff, and colleagues. Through sharing and discussion, by providing a polite and respectful atmosphere, and by being genuinely concerned about the success of their peers, the iSig team members help one another reach their goals.
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Lead - Pamela Mills
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To provide a forum for information security leaders to engage with stakeholders who provide services to researchers and who understand their requirements. The forum will develop and share: frameworks based on best practices, documentation for sponsoring agencies, approaches and re-usable resources that are useful pan-Canada. Overall, the goal is to improve the security of research at Canadian Universities and to reduce the load on researchers at research institutions across Canada. The intention is to share the artifacts collected and developed by the RISSIG.
Note: This SIG is available to CUCCIO member institutions only.
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This special interest group is dedicated to building community amongst those who work with virtual assistant/chatbot strategy, implementation, and maintenance. The scope of this SIG includes knowledge sharing about different virtual assistant/chatbot tools and services, developing best practices for implementing and maintaining a virtual assistants/chatbots, and creating community in this emerging and developing field.
* These SIGs are not available to non-university institution members.