ASR League March Madness

Let’s celebrate the Gophers’ NCAA Tournament appearance with a little March Madness of our own. If you’d like to participate, you can find a Gophers basketball hoop in either Williamson or Fraser and play to enter! Complete your “regular season” by March 31, and see if you earn a place in the 2017 ASR League March Madness bracket.

• Regular season (starting Monday, March 20 and must be completed by Friday, March 31): Anyone vying for a coveted tournament spot takes 20 shots that must be witnessed by an ASR employee. Enter your scores on the 2017 ASR League March Madness Google Sheet. Each player has the option to shoot from the 2-point line or 3-point line on each shot. Your 20 shots can be any combination of 2-point and/or 3-point attempts. The total points after 20 shots is the player's regular season score. All players will be ranked by score and tournament seeding will be determined based on scores and ranking. Players “on the bubble” will have a tournament-style playoff to determine whether they get in. Brackets will be determined similar to the NCAA bracket with higher seeds playing lower seeds.
• Tournament (starting April 3): Players will earn tournament seeds based their regular season score rankings. The bracket size will depend upon the number of participants. Tournament participants will be paired up and play a 10-shot head-to-head game. The winner of the game is the highest score after 10 shots. Ties result in overtime. Overtime is 5 additional shots, repeated until there is a winner. Players will be methodically and systematically eliminated until there is only 1 player left—who will be named the 2017 ASR League March Madness Champion! The Final Four will be played in a larger venue to accommodate a larger audience..

Contacts & logistics: Please contact Jeff Idle (jsidle@umn.edu) with any questions. Jeff is the Williamson Hall captain and Chelsea Weber is the Fraser Hall captain. The Williamson Hall official hoop is in Williamson Hall Suite 160 in the ASR Student Data & Analytics area (go through the main doors, make a right, and go all the way to the back). The Fraser Hall official hoop is in Fraser Hall Room 200. If you’d like to play, please be sure to complete your 20 shots and log them on the tracking sheet by the end of the day on Friday, March 31. Any University of Minnesota staff or faculty member is welcome to participate.

ASR Project Management Series: new cycle and new class

A new cycle of the ASR Project Management Series starts in April and new class will be available starting this month -- Project Risk Management.

New Class: Thursday, March 30, 10:00-11:30 a.m. - PM 203: Project Risk Management (register here)

Spring Class Cycle:

PM 101: Fundamentals of Project Management - Thursday, April 13, 10:00-11:00 a.m.

PM 102: ASR Business Needs Lifecycle - Thursday, April 20, 10:00-11:00 a.m.

PM 201: Supporting an Effective Project Team - Thursday, May 4, 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

PM 202: Developing & Maintaining a Project Plan - Thursday, May 25, 10:00-11:30 a.m.

PM 203: Project Risk Management - Thursday, June 8, 10:00-11:30 a.m.

PM 301: Evidence Based Portfolio Management - Thursday, June 22, 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Check out asrprojects.umn.edu for more information, to register for short courses, and resources. If you have already taken a PM class, but would like a refresher, you are welcome to repeat at any time. If you have suggestions for other course topics, or would like to facilitate an existing course or new course, please contact us. The Project & Work Facilitation team is also available for consultation, just email pwf-team@umn.edu.

New PS table reference guide & SQL tutorials

Cindy Salyers, ASR-IT Student Data & Analytics Team, has put together a reference guide of commonly-used PeopleSoft tables. For those who do queries, this will be a helpful tool. The guide lays out the subject area, description of data contained, and special join and querying notes for each table. This is by no means all encompassing of every table in PeopleSoft, but highlights the most commonly used tables. If there is a table missing from this list, that is frequently used, or if anything on the table is unclear, please comment on the document. Reference guide can be found at the ASR Projects Staff Resources page.

For more information on SQL query writing, sign up for the ASR SQL Tutorial with Cindy.

PCMC book club: The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp, April 19

The Project & Change Management Collaborators (PCMC) have announced their spring book club pick, The Creative Habit: Learn It & Use It For Life by Twyla Tharp. If you’re interested in joining, pick up a copy of the book and join the discussion:

Date/Time: Wednesday, April 19, 12:00-1:30 p.m.

Location: 101 Walter Library

RSVP here

More information, and purchasing suggestions, at the PCMC book club page and the book club announcement. Please email pcmc@umn.edu if you have any questions.

New Performance Appraisal form and updated timeline

A new Employee Performance and Development Annual Appraisal form has been posted to the ASR Intranet. To navigate to the form, visit the ASR Intranet (link provided in menu on asr.umn.edu), view the left sidebar and click on Human Resources, then scroll to the bottom of the page. You will see an Employee Handbook section; click on Performance Appraisals. There you will find the new form to download, annual review guidelines, and information about filling out and submitting the form.

• By April 3: Employees should have the performance appraisal form (self-assessment) completed and sent to their supervisor
• By April 17: Supervisors submit completed forms to unit director
• By April 28: Directors complete review and edits for all appraisals for their unit 
• By May 3: Directors complete review for consistency across ASR
• Between May 4- 31: Supervisors and employees meet to discuss

Analytics and Data integration strategic area update

ASR’s Analytics and Data team has begun to coordinate a campus-wide collaboration to create a roadmap for the University’s data and analytics resources. This work began after an in-depth assessment of the predictive analytics capabilities of EAB, and viewing demos of Civitas’ analytics capabilities. It was determined that the better approach for the University of Minnesota was to build in-house analytics because the University is a complex data landscape. Building our own analytics system will give the University a better understanding of our own data and larger degree of control for data modeling and reports.

A steering committee has been assembled to begin the process of building a forward-looking strategy that aligns and prioritizes the student degree progress analytics initiatives.

ASR Collegiate Connection tour

On behalf of Academic Support Resources (ASR), Sue VanVoorhis, associate provost and University registrar, recently completed visits with the leadership of every Twin Cities college and visits with Morris, Duluth, and Crookston campus leadership (23 meetings with approximately 120 people). Sue used ASR's five strategic initiatives as a framework to talk about ASR's work, and the operational and policy issues that impact the colleges. The sessions were helpful in making connections with important stakeholder groups, providing a forum for hearing each college's needs, and answering questions about issues important to them.

Sue was supported on selected topics by Stacey Tidball, Jeff Idle, Jeremy Todd, Tina Falkner and Adrienne Bricker.

Thanks Sue for this huge effort on behalf of ASR!