Whether you know it or not, UAB IT is part of your Blazer journey long before you step foot on campus. Besides seeing friendly faces at TechConnect or opening a ticket with our AskIT Help Desk, students interact with a team that works behind the scenes.
The applications team, which focuses on student success and advancement, work diligently on items that help you throughout the academic journey, always partnering with departments on campus to integrate technology advances into student needs.
Daniel Jones, director of Student Success and Advancement Applications, leads a team of 12 employees who work hard on applications ranging from OneCards to an AI chatbot that was launched at the beginning of 2025.
“Our focus is always on the students, and ways we can improve their time here on campus,” Jones said. “The team has worked hard on collaborating with departments on campus to support the overall goal of retention, student success, and improving graduation rates.”
Key to campus
Your OneCard is the key to campus. You need to access buildings, pay for food, and even print items at WEPA stations. Without a OneCard, you can’t get very far.
"If it is OneCard related, then most likely, I’ve worked on it — meal plans, BlazerBucks, payroll deduction. You name it, my hands have been on it," said Corey Reimers, applications engineer.
Reimers has been with UAB for 20 years. He began in an entry level position and was able to learn the ropes of teamwork and technology. Today, he is an administrator for several systems, including Transact.
"This system is core to all things OneCard-related,” Reimers said. “It is crucial to keep this system running smoothly and as close to 100% up time as possible.”
Before OneCard, UAB had a Campus Card that was just for students. There was a need for something more centralized that could encompass the University as a whole and support the medical side as well. It took a year to transition the Campus Card to the OneCard system. Reimers worked with more than 100 people, with many days filled with testing services and making sure that everything integrated properly.
An app that curates your needs
Wiley Page, AI developer, previously held the title of mobile developer. He came onboard in the fall 2022, and took on the task of maintaining the app.
"Our goal with the app was to curate a place that allowed students to find everything they needed in one place,” Page said. "People spend so much time on their phones, so being able to deliver this to them was an important goal for me."
The UAB app is geared towards staff, students, and future Blazers as a mobile platform to fit all your needs. Users can access items like the campus map to help them navigate through constructions sites, the campus calendar to see what events are happening, and even the student portal.
A new chatbot
With inspiration from a certain dragon mascot and help from AI, Jones and his team created a new way to support student success across campus.
"Innovation is one of the core values of UAB IT, and the most innovative area of tech currently is AI. We are seeing constant interest from across campus as to how AI technology can be applied to vastly different areas," Page said.
BlazeBot is UAB's chatbot, where you can find a variety of information all in one place — and on your timeframe. It launched in January at the start of the spring semester. While previous versions could answer questions, those answers lived in a database that had to be maintained and updated. BlazeBot pulls directly from online sources and can help answer those questions you do not want to bother someone for.
Banner
Allen Kelly joined IT in 2011, and has worked extensively on Banner, UAB’s primary system of record for students, known to campus as BlazerNET.
"We ensure it integrates with third-party tools and supports essential operations across campus, impacting students, faculty, and staff alike. It takes all of us to ensure that everything is running in tip top shape," Kelly said.
Some of the most recent Banner upgrades includes integrations with Salesforce and Canvas. During the COVID pandemic, the team implemented automatic classroom recordings to help with hybrid classes at the time.
“One of my favorites is the Banner-Canvas interface,” Kelly said. “This was a project that the team inherited, and we've really made it our own. It has expanded to support grade posting, automated hold removals, early alerts, and attendance tracking — benefiting every enrolled student, along with many faculty, advisors, and staff.”
Recently, Kelly took on a project that led to improvements in Freshman Orientation. Before, incoming freshman could not enroll in fall semester classes until their orientation day. This often led to confusion, and a delay in the day’s itinerary.
By working with the orientation office and UAB IT’s identity management team, UAB IT streamlined the process by verifying that students had claimed their BlazerID, UAB email, and had registered for freshman orientation. This allowed registration before orientation and sped up the process, which allowed orientation to focus on meaningful topics about college life and the freshman experience.
"Freshman orientation now dedicates more time to meaningful freshman experience programming, rather than students spending a large portion of the orientation session waiting for individual advising and class registration," Kelly said.
Teamwork makes the dream work
“Our team works with just about every part of campus,” said Ala Fedorova, applications engineer. “In my role, I am able to support my team when they need me — and they know that I’ll be in their corner if they encounter an issue.”
Student Success and Advancement applications touches everything from orientation to advancement. They strive to make sure that everything is done to the best of their abilities, and to ensure customer satisfaction. Fedorova occasionally teaches a class in the department of Computer Science, which in turns not only benefits the next generation of technology — but reinforces the skills she has already procured over the years.
However, the team still faces challenges. They have to keep systems up and running, working with large amounts of data from across campus, stay up to date on trainings and learning materials, and staying in touch with customers.
“I think one of the biggest challenges we face is technical debt,” Fedorova said. “Higher education is very process-driven, which can make changes slow. With technology, it’s very easy to fall behind and accrue potential issues unless you’re very proactive about updates and maintenance. Changes can involve training, downtime, and buy-in from the supported schools, offices, departments — so finding the balance that works for all parties is absolutely crucial.”
To help stay on top of things, the team meets regularly to discuss issues and see ways to improve their projects. They are constantly evolving and changing ways to get things done.
"The people I work with make all the difference. Our team is talented, collaborative, humble, and accountable — truly a privilege to be part of," Kelly said.