Gottlieb helps nursing school keep on top of web and technology needs

Friday, May 2, 2008

Durham, NC -- It’s been a very full first seven months on the job for Jackie Gottlieb, director of web and technology solutions for the School of Nursing.

Within her first four months in the position, she helped to launch DUSONnet, the school intranet site that offers school news and a streamlined menu system for staff and faculty resources.

“It was something the school had wanted and talked about for a couple of years,” she said. “When I arrived, there was a lot of skepticism it could actually come to fruition, [but] we have been able to make that happen quickly.

Gottlieb continues to wrestle with another request she says she heard from nearly everyone she met during her first week on the job: “Fix MatCh!” That’s the school’s matriculation plan and clinical course tracking system, which has been “a thorn in everyone’s side,” she said. Gottlieb worked to get the matriculation plan component functioning better. An assessment to improve the system further is underway.

Now, she’s helping plan an update of the school’s homepage to help it better serve DUSON marketing priorities. And she’s evaluating the school’s business systems and working to find software that will better serve a growing institution.

“For our internal business processes, we have been using a lot of individual, departmental databases in Microsoft Excel and Access,” she said. “I have had numerous requests for web-based databases that would allow multiple departments to have the specific access they need. My goal is to evaluate cross-departmental business needs and find applications that meet those needs more efficiently and effectively.” She is also considering which software can best integrate with existing Duke systems.

In short, if there’s a computer, a software package or the Internet involved, Gottlieb often finds herself at the conference table. She is happy to consult with faculty and staff and offer her advice, even if a project doesn’t fit within her job description.

Gottlieb and her 7-year-old son live in Wake County. She said with a laugh that her personal choices illustrate her tech philosophy: She just got her first camera cell phone – not an iPhone, she noted – and broadband Internet at home during the past year. She said she waits for technologies to become affordable and proven to avoid the expense and bugs of the bleeding edge, unless that’s the only way to accomplish a task.

“Scalable, reliable, off-the-shelf technologies that are already tested and researched can often best meet our needs,” she said.

Gottlieb got her bachelor’s degree in artistic photography at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. After attending the School of Communication Arts in Raleigh in 1993, she took a contract job at IBM creating presentation graphics. In 1997, she went to work for North Carolina State University, where she was art director at the Center for Universal Design and then managed the development of the university’s first distance education website. She later handled technology support for Advising Central, N.C. State’s virtual advising center.