Colleague Connection: Introducing Academic Infrastructure
In November, the formation of the Academic Infrastructure team was announced as part of an organizational restructuring within Information Technology Services and Support. The new team, led by Dan Hoefler, lead learning technologist, partners with service owners to manage the platforms and related applications that support academic work at the University. We asked Dan to share more about the group and their goals for the coming year.
What is the role of Academic Infrastructure?
Academic Infrastructure is a team within Services and Support that reports to Joe Paris, associate vice president for the area. The team has historically supported academic platforms and services, including Canvas.
Working with service owners, the group’s focus is now on aligning how academic platforms are managed, treating each platform as part of a unified ecosystem so that decisions for each are known, considered, and consistently applied. This approach is intended to increase coordination between service owners, optimize support for each platform, and reduce the number of end-user communications necessary for substantial changes.
To achieve this alignment in service management, we will work closely with Teaching and Learning Technologies, Media and Events, IT Communications, Technology Support Services, AV Design and Support, and Academic Software Development and Innovation.
Who are the team members, and what are their roles?
I have been at Northwestern for 15 years, 10 of those in IT. I started as a project manager in the group formerly known as IT Academic and Research Technologies, then transitioned to IT Communications. I left Northwestern to work at the Poetry Foundation, then returned a year later to join Teaching and Learning Technologies as a learning technologist specializing in Canvas support. Before joining Northwestern, I worked in Worldwide Training, Learning, and Development at the McDonald’s corporate office.
I lead a team of three talented individuals:
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| Abby Rosensweig, senior learning technologist, is responsible for academic platform support and has been at Northwestern for eight years—five as a Northwestern IT staff member. | Ivette Torres, learning technologist, is responsible for academic platform support and has been at Northwestern for 11 years—nine as a Northwestern IT staff member. | Zoran Ilic, senior systems administrator, has spent 24 years in Northwestern IT. He handles Tier 4 platform support and manages hardware and software—among other duties—as a member of the Emerging Technologies Lab. |
What types of projects are you currently working on?
Our first significant work is the creation and implementation of CourseLife – a Canvas course lifecycle process. As part of this work, we partnered with Zoom and Panopto service owners and stakeholders to establish a consistent data management cycle across all three platforms.
Canvas has been a core academic platform at Northwestern for more than 10 years. With no content currently being removed from the system, the number of files continues to grow. This leaves the University exposed to risks associated with volume management, including data security, legal liability, and system performance issues.
Implementing a course site lifecycle management process will ensure that only active materials remain in the system. This approach will encourage units to adopt document storage practices that do not overly rely on Canvas, enhance system searchability and page load times, and simplify maintenance and administration.
This project is a significant undertaking that will be completed in three phases over the next four years. Development is underway, with the first phase scheduled to begin in June 2026. We are in the process now of meeting with all our partners to introduce the initiative.
What are some of the goals the team hopes to achieve in the coming year?
Our first goal is to coordinate a consistent change management timeline across Canvas, Zoom, and Panopto (and potentially NUSites, too, eventually).
We hope to socialize across the University community the expectation that major changes in academic platforms—including things like archiving old Canvas course sites, deleting old Zoom recordings, and archiving old Panopto videos—will be performed on a regular basis, in the days following the end of spring quarter and the end of fall quarter. This expectation of change could also be used by other systems beyond the Academic Infrastructure team’s domain in the future, leveraging existing communications channels.
We are also aiming to establish a consistent approach to managing each platform—Canvas, Zoom, Panopto, and NUSites—that accounts for the community's support needs, including new feature evaluation, training, and feedback.
What is something people would be surprised to know about you?
I earned a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
What is your favorite place on campus?
A bench outside the University Library, donated by the Northwestern Class of 1984, overlooks the pond between Norris and the Global Hub and the Lakefill. It is where I first drafted many of the poems that were later used in the final creative project for my master’s degree.
Dan Hoefler, lead learning technologist, on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada.