IT Senate Annual
Report 2015-16
IT Senate Annual Report 2015-16
Introduction
IT Senate continued to define its role in the areas of IT governance, funding and policy
development. This annual report focuses on key issues discussed during the year as
well as changes and updates.
•
Key issues. IT Senate discussions focused on communications, IT utilities, UM’s
IT funding model, email policy, data governance, and creating paperless
administrative processes with Banner Workflow and DocuSign.
•
Changes and updates. The IT utilities budget was reviewed and analyzed with a
focus on IT Senate’s role in the management of that budget. IT Senate reviewed
and amended a draft email policy for both employees and students. After early
progress establishing a functioning data governance structure, activities slowed
in the spring due to the restructuring of the Office for Budget, Planning and
Analysis. The Qualtrics online survey tool contract was renewed during the year,
and IT is working on renewing the Box contract. The second SUMMIT
Technology Unconference identified 12 key issues that groups agreed to continue
working on. IT Senate was also updated on Student Computer Fee Committee
changes, statistics related to the new “What do you want to study?” feature on
the UM homepage, and the launch of a mobile applications development project.
Key issues
The IT utilities fund was discussed at multiple IT Senate meetings. It was clarified that
IT Senate would serve an advisory role to the CIO on the IT utilities budget. This
decision and other details were shared with the Cabinet and approved by President
Engstrom. Matt Riley said he wants to continue with the current IT utilities model in the
future, but would like to expand it by offering a base cost per employee for IT services
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that are covered by IT utilities and not charge for phones, network ports, or base
software needs. It was suggested that IT Senate devote one meeting per year that’s
broadly focused on the whole suite of IT utilities.
In February, Jesse Neidigh and Matt Riley reported on a planned pilot project between
central IT and Student Affairs IT to implement an IT funding model that is not based on
port fees. The idea is to figure out the suite of services included in the model, and then
determine the cost per FTE employee to provide those services.
In October, IT Senate reviewed a draft email policy. While the policy addresses both
students and employees, there are some distinctions. For example, students are allowed
to forward their email at their own risk while employees should not do that. The email
policy points to overlying Board of Regent’s policies that would take precedence. The
email policy was discussed, amended and approved in December.
Steven Van Grinsven from IT’s Enterprise Information Systems presented on Banner
Workflow and DocuSign in February. At that point, there was one paperless process in
place—faculty grade entry. Steven’s group has also implemented a secondary system
called DocuSign as an addition to workflow. DocuSign is good for taking a single paper
document and making it an electronic document. DocuSign has been purchased and
implemented. We are waiting for training and rollout. Steven said there were 3,500
(Matt later reported 4,500) “envelopes” available with UM’s DocuSign license, with an
envelope constituting one workflow element. He said that some processes that start in
DocuSign might move to Banner Workflow where usage is unlimited. The Registrar’s
Office is the initial priority for creating paperless processes, but an ongoing committee
is prepared to prioritize Banner workflow projects.
Changes and updates
Dawn Ressel provided an update on the status and work of the data governance
committee. Data governance is both the process of how we value data on campus, but
also the structure that is in place. The proposed framework is unique in that it
addresses both access to data and security and privacy issues. It was suggested that the
proposal should be vetted by the Faculty Senate, making it clear that we are not talking
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about research data at this point. The committee will continue to work on the model
with a completion goal of July 1, 2016.
Matt Riley reported in February that UM’s contract with Qualtrics (online survey tool)
has been renewed and UM will be paying less for the same service with a new threeyear contract. Box is the next contract under negotiation. Matt said he is reluctant to go
beyond two years. When asked about his concerns, he pointed to slow progress on new
functionality such as workflow, upload file sizes and accessibility.
The Summit Technology Unconference was held October 15, 2015. There were 149
people who registered for the conference along with 35 breakout sessions. The reviews
were positive and the challenge now is to make sure ideas are carried out to next steps.
Wyatt Smith, chair of the Student Computer Fee Committee, reported that student
enrollment decline has impacted the amount of money generated by the student
computer fee. The Student Computer Fee Committee cut all block allocations by 24
percent except for port subsidies. There was an overall 18.1 percent cut in funding from
the student computer fee with the expectation of an additional six percent cut next year.
Wyatt said the committee is in discussion about possibly changing the way port subsidy
allocations are done.
Nick Shontz, IT web manager, shared a handout with statistics about usage of the new
“What do you want to study?” feature of the UM homepage. The feature includes 130
total academic pages that can be browsed or searched. For the three-month period from
Dec. 8-March 8, there have been 38,278 page views from 8,032 users. Mobile visitors
constituted 31.8% of the traffic. Users averaged 2.8 pages per visit. Nick said that the
tool was built with intention that people could get to different academic areas within
two clicks from homepage. He said the next step is to work on digital marketing
campaigns that drive traffic to the pages.
Jeff Abbott, ACIO for Enterprise Information Systems, updated IT Senate in May about
the launch of a mobile applications development project using a platform from
CampusM. A project steering committee has been formed and will engage with
students and other stakeholders to determine what functionality will have the biggest
impact when the app is launched in the fall.
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Additional announcements
•
Art Held reported that the Foundation and Alumni went live with the iModules
Compass email solution to replace Harris Connect. He said the new system
should provide a better interface with Banner.
•
Bob Hlynoski reported that UM now has an Adobe Creative Cloud license
purchased as a sole source. He explained that a sole source justification has to be
used for a unique item. Other options include a competitive bid process or a term
contract. Matt reported that many of the Adobe licenses will go into open
student labs and others will be used in academic areas across campus.
•
Karen Moore reported that Mod Squad has been testing new releases of Banner
for the past two months. Those releases will be moved into production in mid to
late October, which will require downtime of both Banner and CyberBear for a
Saturday and Sunday. The date has not been set yet. The group has also been
working on clearing out students with duplicate 790 numbers by merging
records together. Karen is also wrapping up a Banner security plan. And finally,
Mod Squad is getting demos of student-specific Banner XE or Banner 9 modules.
Matt asked if the 790 number cleanup was the same methodology used by the
identity management group working on duplicate NetIDs (both student and
employee). Karen said it was exactly the same process.
•
John Greer announced that the Mansfield Library has opened a video recording
studio called “One Button Studio” that anyone on campus can use. Reservations
can be made for one-hour time slots.
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2015-16 IT Senators
Allen Szalda-Petree and Matt Riley served as co-chairs
Pope Ashworth
Ryan Carlson
Judy Fredenberg
John Greer
Mark Grimes
Nick Hannifin
Aaron Heiner
Art Held
Scott Holgate
Antony Jo
Roger Maclean
Karen Moore
Jesse Neidigh
Kate Oyler
Mark Pershouse
Stella Phipps
Eric Reimer
Dawn Ressel
Matt Riley
Manu Samuela
Jennifer Sauer
Allen Szalda-Petree
Staff Senate*
ASUM
Research Administration
Academic Affairs IT
Faculty Senate
ASUM
Intercollegiate Athletics
UM Foundation, Alumni Office
Information Technology
Tech Partners
Deans
Banner Mod Squad
Student Affairs IT
Staff Senate*
Faculty Senate
Staff Senate
Faculty Senate
Office of Planning, Budget & Analysis
Information Technology
Administration & Finance
Integrated Communications
Faculty Senate
*Served partial year
Ex-officio non-voting members
Claudia Denker-Eccles
Adrian Irish
IT Senate Annual Report 2015-16
Legal Counsel
IT Security
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Joe Hickman
Bob Hlynosky
Gordy Pace
Barb Seekins
IT Senate Annual Report 2015-16
Registrar’s Office
Business Services
IT Communications
ADA Team
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