Information Technology Services Informational Report for the Board of Trustees October 15, 2014 Information Technology Services October 15, 2014 (Prepared effective September 22, 2014. Updates are since prior report on July 30, 2014) TABLE OF CONTENTS UPDATE ON PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES ........................................................................................ 3 Wired and Wireless Network .............................................................................................. 3 Voice Mail System ............................................................................................................... 3 Distributed Antenna System .............................................................................................. 3 The University of Akron PeopleSoft Split and Upgrades .................................................... 4 LCCC PeopleSoft Split and Upgrades .................................................................................. 4 Education Advisory Board (EAB) Student Success Collaborative ........................................ 5 COMPLETED PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES ........................................................................................ 6 Student Response System ................................................................................................... 6 Taylor Institute Focus Groups ............................................................................................ 6 Respondus Monitor Proctoring Tool ................................................................................... 6 LCCC Civitas Learning .......................................................................................................... 6 Desire2Learn (Springboard) Internet 2 ............................................................................... 7 GradesFirst ......................................................................................................................... 7 Web Conferencing ............................................................................................................. 7 PLANNED PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES ............................................................................................ 8 Shared Evidence and Found Property (EFP) Center ............................................................ 8 DARwin Replacement ......................................................................................................... 8 Assessment of Third‐Party Software .................................................................................. 8 Solution for Development ................................................................................................... 9 TABLED PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES ............................................................................................ 10 IUC‐CIO Oracle Licensing ................................................................................................... 10 NEOshare Shared Services Center .................................................................................... 10 2|ITS UPDATE
UPDATE ON PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES Wired and Wireless Network Upgrading our network is an ongoing project and a priority. We plan to upgrade the wired and wireless networks to accommodate the additional data traffic demands. IntelliNet Corp. was engaged to provide the additional expertise and to help develop a remediation plan. In addition, IT will work with a wireless vendor to design and engineer the University’s wireless network for the future. A phased approach is being used to update the network. PHASE I Completed prior to start of Fall 2014 
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Student Union Bierce Library first floor In process of being completed 
Coleman Commons Subsequent phases will address the needs of other areas of campus. 
Voice Mail System The University’s current voice mail system has existed since 1999 without major improvements. The new voice mail system, AVAYA Aura Messaging, will provide improved stability as well as additional features and capabilities. Telecommunications anticipates that the new voice mail system will be operational during Fall 2014. 
Distributed Antenna System Verizon identified that it has certain cellular coverage issues on the main campus as well as within certain University buildings. Verizon desires to improve its cellular coverage. The University and Verizon are developing a five‐year contract with four five‐year renewable options for a total of 25 years, for Verizon, at its own cost or remuneration to the University, to connect its downtown fiber to equipment located in Shrank Hall. Further, Verizon will access the University’s fiber and install roughly 400 distributed antennas within and among select buildings and outdoor spaces, respectively. A working draft contract has been returned to Verizon for 3|ITS UPDATE
its review. A project time line is being developed. However, the project is expected to take six to nine months to complete once started. 
The University of Akron PeopleSoft Split and Upgrades The initial exercise of splitting Campus Solutions and HCM (Human Capital Management; HR) from a copy of the UA production environment (i.e., live data) was done with help from Cedar Crestone. This exercise resulted in a more comprehensive list of actual programming changes required and a list of areas in which data cleanup needs to occur. Both Campus Solutions and HCM are being analyzed more fully and considerable data cleanup has already begun. The second set of “split” data (test 2) has been prepared and when properly configured will become the primary development area for IT to make changes in preparation for the next phase when user testing begins. PeopleSoft Portal The Portal project is on target to "go live" for the October 4 weekend, starting Friday evening. PeopleSoft Financials The financials upgrade is on target for a "go live" date of Nov. 23, 2014. The latest updates from Oracle have been incorporated into the project. PeopleSoft Human Capital Management The initial HCM upgrade is underway with the anticipated result to be an instance to be used for “fit‐gap” business function analysis. Other than this type of analysis, the bulk of this project takes place after the completion of the “CS/HCM split” in November. 
LCCC PeopleSoft Split and Upgrades UA worked with LCCC to develop a plan to split the Campus Solutions (CS) and Human Capital Management (HCM) databases. The plan closely mirrors that of the UA Split. An assessment of the LCCC CS/HCM environment was performed by consultants Sierra‐Cedar. UA created split instances for LCCC to test. The detail plan was presented to the LCCC development staff and work to cleanup data and test are in process. Initially, the plan called for LCCC to go live on Dec. 6, 2014, but that date had to be moved to Jan. 10, 2015, to 4|ITS UPDATE
accommodate the UA go live. The next step is to bring in a security consultant to review the security tables and structure so that it will work in the split environment. PeopleSoft Portal The LCCC portal upgrade project was started on Sept. 15, 2014. At the urging of UA to stay on the proposed timeline, LCCC is now contracting a portal consultant to handle the PeopleTools upgrade and Active Directory changes. There are almost no customizations in the LCCC portal and the project is expected to move along quickly once started. PeopleSoft Financials UA is working with LCCC to develop a plan to take their PeopleSoft Financials application from V9.0 to V9.2. LCCC will self‐manage its Financials upgrade. Plans are to bring in the consultant who originally created the configuration and customizations to support the project from the functional side. LCCC will be also required to bring in another consultant to handle the technical portions of the upgrade since delaying the upgrade to V9.1 has taken them out‐of‐sync with the UA technical support staff. The project is expected to begin Nov. 3, 2014. PeopleSoft Human Capital Management The project to upgrade the LCCC Human Capital Management application from V9.0 to V9.2 is expected to begin shortly after Jan. 2, 2015 and be completed by June 30, 2015. Much of the upgrade work itself is expected to be done by the LCCC development staff due to the minimal number of customizations in their implementation.
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Education Advisory Board (EAB) Student Success Collaborative The goal for the Education Advisory Board Student Success Collaborative (SSC) combines technology, research, and predictive analytics to help the University to positively affect outcomes with at‐risk and off‐path students. The solution is being piloted during Fall 2014. 5|ITS UPDATE
COMPLETED PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES 
Student Response System Date completed: August 25, 2014 Audience response systems allow students to actively participate in classes and presentations. Presenters can use a software application to ask questions; audience members respond using an application (“app”) on their smart phone, tablet, or laptop. Students may also use a small hand‐held device (commonly known as a clicker) to respond. Audience Response Systems can be used to make learning more interactive, to encourage feedback, and to quickly assess student comprehension enabling intervention if needed. It can also be used in meetings to gather anonymous feedback and to support quick voting. 
Taylor Institute Focus Groups Respondus Monitor Proctoring Tool
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The Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing held a series of focus groups in April 2014 with UA students. ITS is working with representative of Student Services and Student Success to find ways to best implement the recommended enhancements. 
Date completed: Spring/Summer 2014 LCCC Civitas Learning Date completed: August 25, 2014 Respondus Monitor is a virtual proctoring solution for courses that are fully online. Respondus Monitor protects the integrity of online assessments by recording the testing session for each individual student through the use of a webcam and microphone. Date completed: Summer 2014 LCCC has acquired Civitas Learning, a predictive analytics platform, to help students learn well and finish strong. To support the new technology, which extracts information from their learning management system and PeopleSoft administrative applications hosted by UA, the Point‐to‐Point virtual private network between UA and LCCC had to be upgrade to use tunneling protocol in order to keep the data transmission secure. UA brought in a networking engineer to help setup that environment, which is now up and running. 6|ITS UPDATE
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Desire2Learn (Springboard) Internet 2 Date completed: July 15, 2014 Along with The University of Arizona, The University of Akron co‐sponsored Desire2Learn's bid to become an Internet 2 service provider. This project allows Internet 2 to support our faculty and students by providing quick and easy access to leading cloud services, such as Desire2Learn's Integrated Learning Platform, using our campus' assigned secure identity credentials via Internet 2's Trust and Identity services. As an Internet 2 subscriber, this enables UA to access these services at a reduced cost. This project also enables UA to work closely with Desire2Learn to ensure their learning suite meets the needs of UA faculty and students. 
Date completed: July 31, 2014 GradesFirst 
Web Conferencing GradesFirst provides early alert, advising management, integrated communications/scheduling and tutoring management services to improve the quality and effectiveness of academic advising. GradesFirst went live during Spring break 2014 with advising summary reports and advising note functionality. Date completed: August 25, 2014 WebEx is Cisco Systems' cloud‐based collaboration system that provides a great way for people to work together in different buildings, in another city, or across the globe. WebEx technology allows people to meet, collaborate, present, and share content — all on the web. WebEx provides opportunities to save time and travel costs. 7|ITS UPDATE
PLANNED PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES 
Shared Evidence and Found Property (EFP) Center The University of Akron is working with the City of Akron and Summit County to investigate the development of a shared evidence and found property (EFP) center. The advantage of a shared center includes greater levels of service at a reduced cost to all participating agencies such as UAPD. The research will continue through the remainder of 2014 with a decision made in early 2015. 
DARwin Replacement RFP issued: September 11, 2014 UA currently licenses the PeopleSoft Academic Advisement module and will be implementing the module to replace CollegeSource’s DARwin product. The overall implementation of the Academic Advisement module is intended to provide an integrated application and business process for supporting degree audits and degree confirmation. In addition, implementation of the Academic Advisement module will result in a savings of approximately $25,000 per year, as the DARwin license will be terminated. The tentative timeline is dependent upon the availability of consultants. 
Assessment of Third‐Party Software IT is reviewing all non‐ERP (PeopleSoft) software. Third‐party software includes a range of products such as statistical packages, software used by individual departments/colleges, Springboard, and so on. The effort is to identify redundancies and instances where the software can be incorporated into PeopleSoft modules, combined with other software tools, or eliminated. The goal is to find areas where it is possible to reduce software costs and streamline the number of third‐party applications used at UA. 8|ITS UPDATE
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Working closely with the Department of Development, IT is helping to identify a solution that will improve online fundraising efforts. Solution for Development An initial assessment was made of various web offerings and software packages. The results of this assessment was presented to Development. A next step in the process will be to advise and assist with implementation of the solution, if UA chooses to proceed. 9|ITS UPDATE
TABLED PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES 
IUC‐CIO Oracle Licensing The Inter‐University Council (IUC) met with Oracle to determine how Oracle can improve IT for higher education in Ohio and whether to aggregate licensing of Oracle products. At this time, no further discussion is planned. 
NEOshare Shared Service Center The University of Akron’s work with NEOnet, a northeast Ohio shared service center for computer services supporting regional K‐12 school districts, has been placed on hold. Currently there is no future start date scheduled. 10 | I T S U P D A T E