SUNY COVID-19 Case Tracker Awarded “Best Application Serving the Public” by Government Technology Magazine
November 8, 2021
"Best of New York" Awards Recognize SUNY's COVID-19 Case Tracker for Utilizing Technology to Provide Greater Transparency for Each Campus and Surrounding Communities
SUNY's COVID-19 Case Tracker, Found Here, Continues to Effectively Monitor for Cases in Real Time, and Helps Guide Campus Leadership Response to Any Increased Cases
Albany, NY – State University of New York Chancellor Jim Malatras announced today that SUNY's COVID-19 Case Tracker was awarded the "Best Application Serving the Public" by Government Technology magazine, a national organization dedicated to better government through innovative and easily understood and utilized technology. The SUNY COVID-19 Case Tracker, available here, was recognized for providing greater transparency about cases of the coronavirus to help inform both campuses and surrounding communities.
"When reopening our campuses last fall, real-time information was an essential part of SUNY's best defense so that we could see emerging cases and take steps to keep our communities safe. Thanks to our award-winning COVID-19 Case Tracker—and the incredible efforts of our students, faculty, and staff—SUNY campuses were and remain among the safest places to be," said Chancellor Malatras. "Not only did this dashboard help keep SUNY safe, it set the standard for monitoring and collecting data. On behalf of our team of analysts, programmers, web team, and IT experts here at SUNY, we are pleased to receive this recognition from Government Technology. My thanks to the SUNY team that made this possible, and most importantly, to everyone on campus who continues to take the steps necessary to keep everyone safe."
SUNY Board Trustee Keith Landa said, "As the SUNY system rebounds from the pandemic, it is imperative that we maintain comprehensive health and safety protocols by providing reliable information. Key to this strategy is having innovative technology that includes transparent and robust data to track, isolate, and address when necessary. The need for the distribution of vital information during the chaos of COVID-19 was the reason for the development of the COVID-19 Case Tracker. It is an honor for the team to be recognized by Government Technology magazine."
SUNY's centralized tracker was designed to keep a real-time pulse on the pandemic across 64 campuses with approximately 1.3 million students by monitoring positive cases and helping campus leadership, in partnership with their local government and health department, respond to contain the virus.
The COVID-19 Case Tracker dashboard provides a case count for SUNY and for individual campuses. The data is reported by campuses every 24 hours and added to the dashboard daily. The dashboard also includes vital information on the different types of tests administered, daily and weekly test data, overall positivity rates, available quarantine and isolation space, and hospitalizations.
SUNY's COVID-19 Case Tracker was designed and implemented completely in house. The design and launch of the COVID-19 Case Tracker required close coordination amongst SUNY's and campuses' applications, infrastructure, identity and security, and data teams. SUNY's Office of Innovation and Technology developed several applications, consolidated into a one-stop "Health Portal," for SUNY's 64 campuses to securely submit necessary data. The team designed, launched, and consistently enhanced three public facing visualizations within the COVID-19 Case Tracker, and provided guidebooks, instructions, and trainings for campus users.
Since the tracker was launched in the beginning of September 2020, 2,831,248 COVID tests have been administered with a positivity rate of 0.40 percent. SUNY's rolling 14-day average is currently 0.46 percent, while the New York State average is at 2.20 percent for the same time period, and 5.09 percent across the U.S.
About the State University of New York
The State University of New York, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, is the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States, and more than 95 percent of all New Yorkers live within 30 miles of any one of SUNY’s 64 colleges and universities. Across the system, SUNY has four academic health centers, five hospitals, four medical schools, two dental schools, a law school, the country’s oldest school of maritime, the state’s only college of optometry, and manages one US Department of Energy National Laboratory. In total, SUNY serves about 1.4 million students amongst its entire portfolio of credit- and non-credit-bearing courses and programs, continuing education, and community outreach programs. SUNY oversees nearly a quarter of academic research in New York. Research expenditures system-wide are nearly $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2022, including significant contributions from students and faculty. There are more than three million SUNY alumni worldwide, and one in three New Yorkers with a college degree is a SUNY alum. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunities, visit suny.edu.
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Holly Liapis
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