ASR participates in UMN biennial budget media briefing

On January 13, University of Minnesota leaders, faculty, staff and students – including Vice Provost Bob McMaster and One Stop Director Julie Selander – provided media with a look at two key aspects of the University’s 2015 biennial budget request:

• Student access and affordability: $65.2 million requested to freeze tuition
• Healthy Minnesota initiative: $34.5 million requested to improve healthcare for all Minnesotans

Presentations included:

• Bob McMaster, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education: Working toward timely graduation, examples of how the U uses advanced technology to support teaching and learning and academic counseling – part of the high quality student experience
• Julie Selander, Director, One Stop Student Services and Veterans Services: A walk-through of student resource examples and their benefits, STSS Building
• Ryan Olson, undergraduate student, College of Liberal Arts: A student perspective on Minnesotans having access to a world-class education in their home state
• The “Pushing for More: Graduation Rates Soar” video

For more information about the media briefing you can read the University of Minnesota’s press release.

The challenge of New Year's resolutions

For a lot of people the challenge isn’t making a New Year’s resolution, it’s keeping it. Stop smoking. Exercise more. Eat healthier. How long does it last? One week, maybe two? The University of Minnesota’s Recreation and Wellness group shared this American Psychological Association article with tips for making your New Year’s resolution stick.

IT@ Get Ready! event

ASR will be participating in the IT@ Get Ready! event on January 7, 2015. The event is dedicated to the Upgrade preparedness of UMN IT@ staff and personnel. ASR will discuss select aspects of the student work stream and help create awareness among the IT@ community about how the Upgrade affects faculty, staff and students.

User review sessions

In preparation for the Upgrade, the Registrar’s Advisory Committee (RAC) meetings for January and February will have a different format. For most of the scheduled RAC meeting time, members of the RAC group will be able to participate in hands-on sessions where they will have the opportunity to try out the new PeopleSoft system. Several computer labs have been reserved to accommodate users during each RAC meeting at locations across the UMNTC campus. We expect several other groups to be offered a similar opportunity in January and February, including the Faculty Go-To members.

1098-T season is here

The Office of Student Finance is busy working on preparing 1098-T forms to assist students when filing for the education tax benefits or tax credit deductions.

Folwell Hall upgrade and Tate Laboratory renovation

Winter break provides Office of Classroom Management (OCM) opportunities to access classrooms and complete projects while they aren’t consistently being used. Technology lifecycle upgrades are underway in Folwell Hall and will continue through the spring semester.

OCM has also started preparing for the Tate Laboratory of Physics renovation. Tate will go offline after spring finals. Physics and Astronomy course sections will move to the West Bank for the following two years, with other courses cascading across the Minneapolis campus.

Now you know: ASR IT's Custom Solutions group

There is a new unit in ASR IT called Custom Solutions. The group combines some of the old with the new in an effort to meet the changing needs of ASR’s staff and projects. The group is divided into the Project and Work Facilitation team, the Web team and the Destiny One Solutions team.

The Project and Work Facilitation (PWF) is the two-person team of Kristy Davis, project manager, and Christa Nicols, project coordinator, who work to support project execution in ASR. In addition to managing select projects, PWF provides guidance and support to ASR staff managing their own projects by providing a set of standard tools and templates for staff projects, and facilitating a voluntary community of practice through the Project Management Round Tables - a gathering place for staff members to coach one another and discuss best practices for managing projects in the University context. The PWF team is part of the Project and Change Management Collaborators (PCMC) Steering Committee, a group that supports University staff in applying a project and change management approach to their work while recognizing that the principles and tools have a significant benefit to those without "project or change management" in their job title. This committee delivers monthly programming on related topics.

The Web team provides application development for all ASR staff and projects, including extending existing systems with custom software, workflow applications, or reporting tools that are used to improve University functions and business processes. For example:

• The WorkflowGen team developed the paperless ASR Professional Development Request form, reducing completion time and improving processing efficiency.
• The Development team helped create the technology solution for One Stop’s queue system allowing students to check-in at kiosks decreasing wait time and giving counselors quick access to their information when it is their turn.

As ASR web-based tools evolve, so will the work required to implement them. The Web Team combines skills and experience in business analysis and consulting, software design and architecture, development, testing and deployment, and database and server administration. The team is comprised of Justin Pouliot, Shawn Isenhart, Eric Eklund, Debbie Gillespie,Ian Whitney, Davin Lagerroos, Nate Meath, Fritz Skinner, Sherief Elabbady and Adam Springer.

For assistance you can contact the Web Team at asrweb@umn.edu.

The Destiny One team’s primary objective is to deliver an enterprise level non-credit registration solution for the University. Currently, any college or unit with non-credit offerings has their own system. This results in repetitive business processes, a higher risk for the University related to PCI compliance, and an inability to effectively understand the number of non-credit offerings and corresponding activities by this population of learners. The team consists of Santiago Fernandez-Gimenez, Sandy Nelson, Brian Knutson, and Theresa Hillesheim. They’re responsible for partnering with the various college or department business analysts and program staff to evaluate the best way to support the implement a solution, Destiny One. The team works closely with the vendor team to determine various configuration elements that will support the needs of users across the University in a consistent and reliable way.