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Technical Terms Glossary

Technical Term Glossary 

Term Acronym Definition
Activity Information Management System AIMS An enterprise system to manage outreach, engagement and extension actitivties
Agile N/A Agile development is an alternative to traditional project management where emphasis is placed on empowering people to collaborate and make team decisions in addition to continuous planning, continuous testing and continuous integration.
Application Platform as a Service aPaaS aPaaS (also known simply as PaaS) is a tool for developing applications that utilizes cloud services that offer development and deployment environments.
Application Program Interface API a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. The API specifies how software components should interact and APIs are used when programming graphical user interface (GUI) components.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery BC/DR Disaster recovery and business continuity planning are processes that help organizations prepare for disruptive events
Campus IT Directors CITD The CITD is the university-wide, top-level committee of campus IT personnel whose focus is on maintaining a broad technical awareness of the IT environment internally and externally, with an eye toward reducing duplication of effort, consolidating resources, fostering innovation, and scaling solutions that have broad appeal or usefulness.
Change Advisory Board CAB Delivers support to a change management team by approving requested changes and assisting in the assessment and prioritization of changes. This body is generally made up of IT and Business representatives that include: a change manager, user managers and groups, technical experts, possible third parties and customers (if required)
Communication Technologies ComTech ComTech A department withn NCSU’s Office of Information Technology
Destiny One N/A web based registration system specifically for continuing education
Development Dev In computer program and software product development, the development environment is the set of processes and programming tools used to create the program or software product.
Enterprise Application Services EAS A department withn NCSU’s Office of Information Technology
Extract, Transform and Load ETL a process in data warehousing responsible for pulling data out of the source systems and placing it into a data warehouse.
Enterprise Resource Planning ERP Ability to deliver an integrated suite of business apps
General Ledger GL A general ledger contains all the accounts for recording transactions relating to a company’s assets, liabilities, owners’ equity, revenue, and expenses.
HigherOne N/A Higher One provides refund management and payment services to higher education institutions through a card-based solution.
Independent Software Vendor ISV An ISV (independent software vendor) makes and sells software products that run on one or more computer hardware or operating system platforms.
Information Technology Infrastructure Library ITIL ITIL, formerly known as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a set of practices for IT Service Management (ITSM) that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business.
IT Service Management ITSM Refers to the entirety of activities – directed by policies, organized and structured in processes and supporting procedures – that are performed by an organization or part of an organization to plan, deliver, operate and control IT services offered to customers.
Local Area Network LAN A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building, using network media.
Marketing Development Funds MDF Market development funds or MDF are used in an indirect sales channel where funds are made available by a manufacturer or brand to help affiliates, channel partners, resellers, VARs, or distributors, etc. sell its products and create local awareness about the national brand.
Minimal Viable Product MVP In product development, the minimum viable product (MVP) is the product with the highest return on investment versus risk. It is essentially the bare minimum product that must be produced for a project.
Multi Protocol Label Switching MPLS MPLS is a scalable, protocol-independent transport. In an MPLS network, data packets are assigned labels. Packet-forwarding decisions are made solely on the contents of this label, without the need to examine the packet itself.
Multinational Corporation MNC A multinational corporation or multinational enterprise is an organization that owns or controls production of goods or services in one or more countries other than their home country.It can also be referred as an international corporation, a “transnational corporation”, or a stateless corporation.
OnBase N/A Content management software solution; Helps you improve customer service, reduce operating costs and minimize risk. It provides instant access to all your data, documents and business processes from wherever you are, whatever device you are using or application you are working in.
Optical Mark Reading OMR The OMR group supports almost all of the university’s Scantron (bubble sheet) testing, exams, and evaluations. This service is available to NC State faculty, staff, graduate students as well as North Carolina state agencies and other educational institutions.
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition OBIEE Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g (OBIEE) is a comprehensive business intelligence platform that delivers a full range of capabilities – including interactive dashboards, ad hoc queries, notifications and alerts, enterprise and financial reporting, scorecard and strategy management, business process invocation, search and collaboration, mobile, integrated systems management and more.
Oracle Identity Management OIM OIM will replace aging infrastructure that handles Unity account provisioning/deprovisioning, password management, grouping, and guest management.
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute OLLI Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLI) offer noncredit courses with no assignments or grades to “seasoned” adults over age 50.
Outreach, Communication and Consulting OCC A department withn NCSU’s Office of Information Technology
Payment Card Industry PCI The university has issued a new regulation for Payment Card Merchant Services that outlines procedures for campus entities to obtain and manage merchant accounts and to ensure compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards.
Project Management Institute PMI The Project Management Institute (PMI) is a US not-for-profit professional organization for project management.
Project Management Professional Certification PMP PMI’s Project Management Professional (PMP) credential is the most important industry-recognized certification for project managers. Globally recognized and demanded, the PMP demonstrates that you have the experience, education and competency to lead and direct projects.
Project Managment Body of Knowledge PMBOK A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge is a book which presents a set of standard terminology and guidelines for project management.
Project Portfolio Management PPM The centralized management of the processes, methods, and technologies used by project managers and project management offices (PMOs) to analyze and collectively manage current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics.
Proof of Concept POC A demonstration, the purpose of which is to verify that certain concepts or theories have the potential for real-world application.
Quality Assurance QA In developing products and services, quality assurance is any systematic process of checking to see whether a product or service being developed is meeting specified requirements.
QuickBase N/A A web-based collaborative database application that allows users to create custom applications without writing code.
Remote Desktop Protocol RDP RDP allows users to access resources from any machine running Microsoft Terminal Services, which enables the graphical user interface (GUI) of the operating system on the remote machine to display on your machine. At NCSU, RDP will allow users to remotely access machines on the Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) without requiring that the user have the same operating system as the remote machine.
NC State Registration Platform for Non-Credit Activity and Required Training REPORTER REPORTER is a cross university solution for tracking, managing, reporting and measuring external outreach, required training and (non- degree credit) activities and their impact across the university and beyond, supporting both internal and external compliance requirements. It was developed by NCSU’s OIT using the mendix aPaaS platform.
Request for Funds Proposal RFP A solicitation, often made through a bidding process, by an agency or company interested in procurement of a commodity, service or valuable asset, to potential suppliers to submit business proposals.
Sales force Automation Basic SFA Sales Force Automation (SFA Software) from Salesforce is the most widely used of sales tools and sales automation software, speeding and streamlining all phases of sales from lead management to analytics and forecasting.
Scrum N/A An agile way to manage a project, usually software development. Agile software development with Scrum is often perceived as a methodology; but rather than viewing Scrumas methodology, think of it as a framework for managing a process.
Self Assesment Questionnaire SAQ A, B, and D A validation tool to allow merchants to self-evaluate compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data
Security Standards (PCI DSS).
Small and Midsize Businesses SMB SMB is an abbreviation for small and medium-sized business, sometimes seen as small and midsized business. A business with 100 or fewer employees is generally considered small, while one with 100-999 employees is considered to be medium-sized.
Software as a Service SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over a network, typically the Internet.
Software Development Life Cycle SDLC A process for planning, creating, testing, and deploying an information system.
Sprints N/A A sprint is a regular, repeatable work cycle in scrum methodology during which work is completed and made ready for review.
Subject Matter Experts SME An individual with extensive knowledge and background in a particular job or task. They are responsible for ensuring that the technical details are correct. Often, they help create training materials.
System Access Request SAR It automates the approval process that was previously handled by Accelerated Summer Academic Programs (ASAP) for granting and revoking user access to applications, principally Human Resource (HR), Finance (FIN), and (SIS) Student Information System. This system allows access to be granted immediately after the last approver authorizes the request.
System Administrators Sys Admins A system administrator (sometimes abbreviated as sysadmin) is a person who is responsible for managing a multi-user computing environment, such as a local area network (LAN).
Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing SAP SAP SE is a German multinational software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations.
Technology Support Services TSS TSS provides technology support and consulting services to NC State students and staff.
User Acceptance Testing UAT A test conducted to determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met. It may involve performance tests.
Uninterruptible power supply UPS A device that allows your computer to keep running for at least a short time when the primary power source is lost.
Virtual Computing Lab VCL The Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) is a remote access service that allows individuals to reserve a computer with a desired set of applications and remotely access it over the Internet.
Virtual Private Network VPN VPN is a network that is constructed by using public wires — usually the Internet — to connect to a private network, such as a company’s network.
Wake on LAN WoL Wake-on-LAN is an Ethernet or Token ring computer networking standard that allows a computer to be turned on or awakened by a network message.
Waterfall N/A The waterfall model is one in which each phase of a product’s life cycle takes place in sequence, so that progress flows steadily downwards through these phases like a waterfall.