Overview

Campuswide Information Technology Policy and Planning

Project Teams Investigating Campuswide Infrastructure Issues
In November, the Vice Provost for Information and Educational Technology announced the formation of five Advanced Technology Project Teams to address critical computing and infrastructure issues: 1) Windows 2000, 2) an enterprise directory for UC Davis, 3) network security incident response standards and processes, 4) wireless networking, and 5) authentication mechanisms for mobile computing users. (See http://vpiet.ucdavis.edu/advancedprojects/.)
--> More on Project Teams.
Security Assessment Workgroup to Develop Evaluation Criteria for Departments
This month, Information and Educational Technology created a workgroup to develop a security vulnerability evaluation methodology, in collaboration with a campus department.
--> More on Security.
Campus Gearing Up for Fall Implementation of Student Computing Ownership Expectation
Since the beginning of Fall quarter, the Student Computing Ownership Workgroup has been engaged in vendor negotiations and communications with students and school counselors. In November, the group submitted a progress report summarizing accomplishments and next steps (see http://vpiet.ucdavis.edu/scow.html).
--> More on Student Computer Ownership.
E-Recruitment Portal Project Funded for Two Years
On November 6, the Information Technologies Policy Board (ITPB) agreed to fund the development of a portal for undergraduate recruitment, as sponsored by the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs.
--> More on E-Recruitment.
Computing Coordinating Councils Investigating Portal Technology, Tier 1 Reporting
Since the last JOG report, the councils have been busy investigating and discussing a number of important issues and projects. These include:
- AC4: course management systems, e-recruitment, campuswide deployment of DHCP, distributed file systems, and student personal Web pages (see AC4 Web site)
- AdC3: the E-recruitment project, Student Affairs document management project, DaFIS upgrade project, and Tier 1 system reporting (see AdC3 Web site).
--> More on Coordinating Councils.
Other Campuswide Information Technology Policy and Planning Highlights

Infrastructure Highlights

Communications
See the January 2001 UC Davis Report to the Communications Planning Group at http://iet.ucdavis.edu/pubs/CPG/CPG_01_01.html.

Projects

-	Account Conversion Process Underway This June, the campus will be one step closer to a single sign-on as Information and Educational Technology manually converts the remaining users of Old-Style accounts to UCD LoginIDs. In September 1996, UC Davis email and Web accounts were moved from "Old-Style Easy Access" accounts to UCD LoginIDs. Old-Style accounts do not grant access to kerberized services such as MyUCDavis and AFS. Today, there are 3,311 faculty, students, and staff who are still using Old-Style accounts. The mission of the account conversion project is to notify those still using Old-Style accounts to convert by June, 2001.
-	MyUCDavis Portal Midway Through Pilot Phase The MyUCDavis Web portal for students and faculty has completed the first half of its pilot phase. The pilot, begun in fall 2000, will run through Winter 2001. Statistics and feedback on how people are using the portal are being gathered through an online survey to help the project team assess the usage, usability, and functionality of the site. So far, more than 5,000 unique users have logged into the portal. A decision regarding its campuswide implementation will be made following the results of the pilot. To visit MyUCDavis, login as a guest at http://my.ucdavis.edu/.
-	I-Drive Pilot Comes to Close After assessing I-Drive as a possible campuswide file-sharing mechanism, the Academic Computing Coordinating Council (AC4) determined that a link from MyUCDavis to campus-based disks may be the better vehicle for offering distributed file space. --> More on I-Drive

Human Resources

-	Alternative Recruitment/Retention Approaches to be Discussed In February, several members of IET management will be meeting with key managers of campus HR to discuss implementing some alternative approaches to recruitment/retention. --> More on Recruitment/Retention
-	Technical Parity Allocations Focused on Retention During 99-00, UC Davis used technical parity money in an across-the-board fashion to support movement of all eligible employees toward market competitive pay. With that base, IET has distributed its 00-01 technical parity money with a greater focus on retaining individuals who occupy critical positions and who would be difficult to replace if they left, and on offering competitive salaries to new recruits.
-	Fast Track Program Continues to Grow The FastTrack program has grown from four to seven members (six students and one full time programmer). --> More on Fast Track

Other Infrastructure Highlights

Academic Computing Highlights

Faculty Center Takes New Name
In January, the Instructional Technology and Digital Media Center changed its name to Mediaworks. The new name is the result of a campuswide "contest" to find a name that more aptly captures the breadth and depth of services offered.
--> More on Mediaworks

Service Reorganization To Improve Support of Technology in Classrooms
To improve and consolidate support for technology in the classrooms, the Classroom Support Unit was created in early October.
--> More on Classroom Support Unit

    - Media Help for Faculty First Week of Classes
This fall, IET instituted a "meet and greet" program to help faculty use new classroom equipment.
     --> More on Media Help

    - Greater Need for Spare Classroom Media Equipment
The greater use of media equipment in classrooms has reduced the amount of time available to repair it. Spare equipment is now required to temporarily replace broken equipment that must be fixed at another site. Specific equipment has been identified and funding for this ongoing need is under review.

    - Digital Audio Facility Created
A new audio editing room opened in January in the 1154 Meyer New Media Lab. This room provides the ability for audio digitizing, manipulation and editing for clients as well as music composition, editing and creation.
     --> More on Digital Audio Facility

Technology Support Program Expands Support of K-12 Outreach
In collaboration with the Schools/University Partnership Office, the Technology Support Program (TSP) is developing a program in support of K-12 teachers. A listserv (k12-share@ucdavis.edu) is available for teachers and school technology professionals to post technical questions and receive answers from more than 30 technical professionals across the UC Davis campus.
--> More on K-12 Outreach

Administrative Computing Highlights

IET Teams Up with Accounting and Financial Services to Develop Campus EFT Service
An Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) project is being developed by a team of staff from Accounting and Financial Services and Information and Educational Technology. The goal is to add the ability to disburse funds to students, staff, and vendors via an EFT option.
--> More on EFT Service
Banner Team Completes Upgrade
The Banner Student Information System Team completed work on Version 3.3 and successfully moved it to production on November 11, 2000.
--> More on Banner
DaFIS Receives Upgrades, Supports EFT Pilot
[submitted by UC Davis Accounting and Financial Services]
The Davis Financial Information System received a planned infrastructure upgrade in November. The upgrade included new server hardware and later versions of application and database software. DaFIS will also play a significant role in the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) pilot.
--> More on DaFIS
Payroll/Personnel System (PPS) ID Conversion Project
Over the Veteran's Day weekend in November, the PPS system, which is run for the campus by Office of the President, was successfully converted from using the Social Security Number as the key identifier to using a randomly-generated identification number. The local PPS Data Warehouse and other campus systems that use the payroll data have all been converted or special interfaces were written for them so they could continue. The notes from this conversion have been shared with UCSB, who is considering the same project.
Payroll/Personnel System (PPS) Data Warehouse Adds Employee Statistical Reporting
A new sub-system for employee statistical reporting has been added to the local PPS Data Warehouse and Web-based Decision Support reporting system. The reports were created to aid the central offices with their annual reports. The Planning and Budget Office is now able to extract this data for their projections and use with their Data Administration project.
Campus Data Warehouse Project Completes Second Subject Area
The Campus Data Warehouse Project has completed the second subject area, Enrolled Students, within the warehouse. There is now an accumulation of cubes (a collection of data that has been aligned over three dimensions) that can represent a variety of trends from students' prospective records all the way to graduation. The team has experimented with joining cubes, a software functionality that allows the user to display matched data from two separate cubes as though they were one. This functionality, called partitioning, was a separate purchase to the existing Hyperion Essbase OLAP software.
--> More on Data Warehouse Project