Remaining a little over two months before the beginning of the fifth TICAL Conference, it is time to meet the international panelists who will share their experiences during the plenary sessions. The expert Eloy Rodrigues will come from Portugal; from Colombia, Andres Holguin; from Mexico, MSc. Manuel Moreno, and from Germany, Johann Pongratz. The four specialists will give life to the plenary sessions of TICAL2015 in Viña del Mar (Chile), from July 6 to 8, and the experts group has a woman, the panelist that we introduce in the following lines: Susan Grajek, from the United States.

Susan Grajek is EDUCAUSE's vice president for data, research, and analytics. She also has programmatic responsibility for EDUCAUSE cybersecurity, GRC (governance, risk and compliance) and administrative IT programs.

Before joining EDUCAUSE, she spent over 25 years at Yale University. She served as deputy relationship manager in Yale's Information Technology Services (ITS) division. In that role, she oversaw ITS strategy, planning, relationship management, and project execution for the university's academic administration and general counsel. Before that, she held the position of senior director of ITS Strategy and Planning, in which she coordinated development of Yale's first IT strategic plan and led the creation and execution of the university's current IT security strategy. She also led the change management team for the formation of Yale's first shared business services center. Her tenure with the university included other IT management and leadership positions, such as senior director of ITS client support and director of communications and technical support for ITS functions serving the Yale University School of Medicine.

Grajek, who has a Ph.D. in research psychology from Yale, held a faculty appointment in the Yale University School of Medicine's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, where she started teaching a data management course in 1996. Her work with the School of Medicine included creating and leading its IT research department. Her expertise encompasses the design and execution of research in management, the behavioral sciences, and public policy, as well as statistical analysis. She also has an established background in IT planning, assessment, and metrics, as well as IT operational leadership.

Connect with Susan Grajek on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/susan-grajek/1/ab9/8b3) to stay current with new developments in EDUCAUSE data, research, and analytics.

Those involved in the ICT management in Latin American universities are invited to submit papers to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

We continue with our series "Five Questions to" and today our guest is the Colombian Carlos Alberto Cortés López. Systems Engineer and expert in data networks, he is currently the Systems Chief at the Technological of Antioquia, in Colombia. In this interview, Cortés, who participated in all editions of TICAL since 2011, speaks about his career within the world of advanced networks and about his relationship with the conference organized by RedCLARA.

Hello, Carlos. Tell us a little about you and your formation.

Hello! I am Carlos Alberto Cortés López, Systems Engineer, specialized in data networks, Internal Auditor of ISO 27000, among others things. Currently I work as the systems chief of the Technological of Antioquia, in Colombia, with about 12,000 students and presence in 48 municipalities of the department. My main role is to propose investments to strength the institutional work through the use of new technologies for the institution to acquire academic and administrative leadership. I am also a teacher and have been for over 12 years.

What was your first contact with the advanced networks and how do you evaluate its development since then?

Since the people started to talk about RENATA in Colombia, I had the opportunity to participate in socialization events and some projects in which the network contributed with resources and training. I also had the opportunity to lead this implementation at two universities of Medellín, where we helped teachers to work with their academic partners in better conditions. Today, the problem is no longer technical. This was solved. The challenge, then, is to get more teachers and researchers to use the network.

In a context like this, what is the importance of TICAL for the development of the networks and the professionals in the field of ICT?

The institutions are constantly changing and its change requires us to move forward as well. If we do not, we're finished. In this dynamic, strategic technology plans are fundamental and, to build them, we need experience and knowledge, which are both acquired in TICAL. There, the experiences of other institutions enrich us and save our time and money. Hear about their examples help us to avoid some mistakes and to copy their successes. In TICAL, we share our struggles, achievements, observations and recommendations, and share these things is very important. For me TICAL has been fundamental, because I implemented many projects thanks to the experiences of other institutions.

You participated in all the editions of TICAL. What lessons did you take from each one of them?

Each edition of TICAL was special to me. In each of them I could structure projects that were soon included in the strategic plan of Technologies. I could also share experiences of my projects with colleagues from Ecuador and Peru and soon after TICAL we got in touch with each other. Definitely TICAL is a great learning place for my professional and personal life.

Personally and professionally, what are your expectations for TICAL2015, to be held in Chile?

Continue to grow personally and professionally and keep meeting talented and simple people who are willing to share their knowledge and experiences. Moreover, with everything I learn there, take to the institution in which I work a lot of ideas and work plans that help to transform the technology investments into benefits, in order to help the institutional growth and the acquisition of academic and administrative leadership.

When a little more than two months remain for the beginning of the fifth TICAL Conference, the event has already defined its five international speakers who will share their experiences in the plenary sessions. Susan Grajek, from the US, Andrés Holguín, from Colombia, MSc Manuel Moreno, from Mexico, and Johann Pongratz, from Germany, are four of the international experts that will give life to the plenary sessions of TICAL2015 (that will be held in Viña del Mar, Chile, between the 6th and the 8th of July) alongside the speaker that we are here introducing: Eloy Rodrigues, from Portugal.

Eloy António Santos Cordeiro Rodrigues is graduated in History, variant in Archaeology, at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto, and completed the course of specialization in Information Science, option of Library and Documentation, at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon.

Director of Documentation Services of the University of Minho, the focus of his work has been the development of digital libraries, the training of librarians and library users, and the promotion of the open access to scientific literature through the institutional repositories. He is the author of more than three dozen of articles, books and book chapters on these matters.

In 2003, he led the creation of the RepositoriUM - the institutional repository of the University of Minho, directing the service ever since. In the late 2004, he contributed to the definition of the policy of free access of the University to its scientific production.

He also streamlined the Working Group about the Open Access established by the Council of Rectors of the Portuguese Universities in 2007, and since July of 2008 leads, with the scientific and technical responsibility, the team of the University of Minho that develops the project Scientific Repository of Open Access of Portugal.

At European level, Rodrigues was a member of the Working Group on Open Access of the EUA (European Universities Association), representing the Council of Rectors of the Portuguese Universities, and is coordinating the participation of the University of Minho in various projects (NECOBELAC, OpenAIRE and OpenAIREplus, MEDOANET, PASTEUR4OA, FOSTER) funded by the EU 7th Framework Programme related to the repositories and Open Access. Currently, he also chairs the Working Group about the Interoperability of Repositories, of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR).

In the last five years, invited by several universities and other organizations, Rodrigues has conducted over three dozen of lectures, seminars and other activities of information or training on free access to the knowledge and institutional repositories in Europe (Portugal, Spain, UK, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and France), Mozambique, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.

In TICAL2015, Rodrigues will develop the thematic line “A governance framework for data managing and its processes.”

With promotional prices for those who register until May 31st and three open calls - for authors to submit papers, for young entrepreneurs and for interinstitutional projects - open until April 15, TICAL2015 promises to surpass its previous editions. The Conference will be held between July 6th and 8th, in Viña del Mar, Chile.

For more information, visit: www.tical2015.redclara.net