Recent Developments in Research and Instructional Technology at UCR
September 2003
As we move into the 2003-04 academic year, there are quite a number of interesting developments in research and instructional technology on campus. Below are some very short summaries. Some have links to further information that you might want to pursue. CHASS College Computing (C 3 ) and/or Bob Hanneman would be more than happy to answer questions, provide more information, or assist you in applying these developments to your teaching and research.
Administrative and other services
Developments in research/instruction technology
GIS (Geographical information systems). GIS is a data-base and mapping application that allows researchers to examine and analyze information spatially. The campus supports the ARC software system from ESRI (located in Redlands), which is available at very low cost to campus users. Faculty in CHASS have used GIS to study everything from spatial patterns of crime and police activity to the locations of human settlements and natural resources.
A "support network" for faculty and students who want to use GIS has been created. From the website http://GIS.ucr.edu/ you can get information about access to software (provided by Computing and Communications), low cost training (provided by University Extension), free or low cost data sets and maps (there are many of these, mostly from government sources, that can be wonderful teaching tools) provided by our libraries, computer labs that support GIS analysis, and information about people at UCR who are using GIS and could help you learn more.
We are working, along with CNAS, Libraries, and Extension, to make the GIS support network a useful resource to support researchers who want to prepare grant proposals or who have grant funds to support applications of GIS in their work (both research and instruction).
Statistical consulting Co-laboratory. This campus facility is designed to support research and instruction that utilizes quantitative data and statistical applications software (e.g. SAS, Stata, EViews, MiniTab, MatLab, SPSS, etc.). More information about this facility and its services are available from the website http://collaboratory.ucr.edu .
The statistical consulting "co-laboratory" was opened in 2002-03 and has had a highly successful first year of operation. Numerous classes, short courses, and demonstration/training sessions were held in the Sproul Hall facility, which also provided a high-quality work environment for faculty and graduate students.
This year, the co-laboratory will dramatically expand it's operations. A new faculty director (Dan Jeske, Applied Statistics, who has just joined us) has been appointed to work with faculty and students to support proposal development, instruction, and consulting on statistical and data analysis problems. A professional manager for the Sproul Hall facility is being sought. An additional (second) computer classroom has been added, and two-way voice/video between these (and other) classrooms will soon be in place -- so that instruction can be simultaneously provided to 35 student workstations or more.
Arrangements are being made so that the facility will be available 24/7 beginning this year.
The core idea of the "co-laboratory" is that it serve to facilitate collaboration and user mutual support. If you work with quantitative data, you should visit the web site , learn more about this program, and consider enrolling yourself as a collaboratory affiliate.
Arts/multimedia laboratory. This campus facility has been highly successful in providing access to high-quality hardware, software, and support for people working with sound, image, and moving image data over the past two years.
In 2003-04, the laboratory is adding three workstations (to bring the total to 18) in its instructional facility in the Arts building. New digital audio and visual editing capacities have also been added in the building and are available by arrangement.
The Arts/multimedia laboratory depends critically on the participation of faculty to guide its development by serving on its advisory board. Faculty and students are also critical as "affiliates" who are willing to provide advice and assistance to other users. If you work with multi-media (or have thought that maybe you would like to learn), you should visit the website and make a connection!
Digital media exchange/storage server. If you work with digital audio, video, or still images, you know that storing and sharing these large files can be quite a challenge. The college is supporting file servers that you can use to store (for limited periods of time) and distribute digital media. To learn more about access to this (free) service, you should contact C 3 : by e-mail James Lin at james.lin@ucr.edu , or phone extension 85031.
In the past year, our digital artists and musicians have used the file server to enable file exchange among students in their classes, and to support their own research/performance work. But this resource is available to anyone who needs it. And, if you have data in other formats (e.g. DVD, VHS, CD) it can be digitized and put on the server (assuming that you have the legal right to do so).
So if you work with digital media, or think that you might like to, you might want to learn more about the support that is available in this rapidly growing area.
CATI (Computer-assisted-telephone-interviewing). A small laboratory (8 stations) is planned for a fall 2003 opening in Highlander Hall to support UCR researchers and teachers who may wish to conduct telephone polling.
Telephone polling with CATI makes it possible to automatically compile data from telephone interviews, so that basic results are available immediately. CATI is very commonly used in polling work in political science/policy analysis, opinion/attitude research in social and environmental sciences, business, and education, as well as for advertising/solicitation.
The laboratory is a campus resource, developed through cooperation among CHASS, The Center for Social and Behavioral Science Research, the Policy Studies Initiative, and the Ernesto Galarza Applied Research Center, and Computing and Communications.
Until a director and advisory board are in place, please contact Bob Hanneman if you would like more information about our CATI facility.
Faculty computer replacement program. This program provides for replacement of the computers that faculty use for research, teaching, and service every four years. The program was renewed in 2002-03 for another 4-year cycle, and CHASS College Computing is working with the departments to prioritize needs and order replacement computers.
In 2003-04 we will be working even more closely with departments so that we can pool our purchasing power and assure that some basic standards for hardware and software are observed. This approach of close consultation between C3 and the departments enables us to get substantial discounts over the prices available to individual departments (which can be used to purchase computers for instructional and administrative purposes, and for computers purchased on research grants). Assurance of some basic hardware and software standards (e.g. that there be an anti-virus program, automatic OS upgrades) is very important because these can dramatically reduce delays and costs in computer maintenance. The campus is enduring significant cut-backs in its service support for desk-top computing, and charges for support are increasing -- we need to be pro-active in preventing problems and minimizing maintenance headaches.
Campus Research Technology Policy. Technological support for the research needs of our faculty and students in difficult budgetary times is a great challenge. To assure that the campus as a whole, the College, and your department set priorities that will best serve your needs, it is very important that you participate in guiding our development. There are many ways that you can provide input.
The EVC has charged the VC Research and AVC Computing and Communications to develop an overall vision statement for the campus research technology development. You can provide input directly to either or both of these officers.
Your chair, the college executive committee, CHASS College Computing, your Dean, the campus laboratory advisory boards, and the Academic Senate Committee on Computers and Information Technology are all anxious to receive your input on matters big or small. And, you might consider becoming more actively involved by participating in senate committees or on advisory boards to laboratories in areas that interest you.
Developments in instructional/research technology
BlackBoard improvements . With the support of the Deans and college executive committees, funds were recently allocated to upgrade the campus instructional web server ( BlackBoard ). More and better server hardware has been installed to improve the speed of the system.
The new version of BlackBoard provides all the current services (web boards, chat, ftp, announcements, calendars, gradebook, on-line testing), many of which are much improved over the current version. I'm told that the gradebook, particularly, is much improved. If you haven't used BlackBoard, you probably should -- your students probably expect it -- if for nothing more than handing out your syllabus and making announcements. C 3 and Computing and Communication have all kinds of training and support available, and you can start using the system with a very limited investment on your part.
Maybe more important than the improvements, though, is the fact that we are now able to connect Blackboard to other campus services. Two of these -- connection of the gradebook to enable direct on-line grade submission by faculty, and the possibility of building a "portal" -- may make the lives of faculty and staff considerably easier.
On-line grade submission. There has been a good bit of support from campus faculty (CNAS executive committee, CHASS chairs, for example), for a system that would allow faculty to directly fill out grade reports on line and submit them electronically. Many faculty keep their grades in spreadsheets or in the BlackBoard system, and direct submission would save a good bit of time, and eliminate transcription errors. Very large amounts of time and effort would be saved at the registrar's office, and grades would be available to students more quickly.
The enhancements to BlackBoard make it technically possible to integrate the gradebook of that system with electronic grade submission. Indeed, a program has already been written and tested that makes this possible. It is important, though, that we have carefully thought out policies and procedures in place before the service is made available. The registrar will be working on these issues, and we hope to be able to implement on-line grade submission on a voluntary (and, eventually, perhaps mandatory) basis sometime during 2003-04.
Portal. A "portal" is just a personalized and customized web page that contains features and links that you have selected for your own use. Most Internet service providers give you a "portal." "My UCLA" is quite a nice portal that is offered at that institution. A portal makes it easy for the user to gain easy access to the tools they need. If some of the tools or applications they need require logging in and passwords, the portal can simplify those tasks.
UCR has been slow to provide portal services. But, with the improvements available through the upgrade of BlackBoard, we may be closer to offering better services. Discussion and development work are likely during the current year.
Faculty web-mail. "Web-mail" (like Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) enables you to send and receive email anywhere/anytime that you have access to a web browser. You can either read and write mail directly in the web browser, or use web-mail in combination with a regular mail client (Iike Eudora or Outlook). Students at UCR have had the opportunity to have free web-mail through the campus since last year (several thousand have established accounts). It appears that we may be close to making this service available to faculty. The delays in offering the system to faculty stem from the need to make sure that the new service will integrate properly with the many existing mail servers that our faculty currently use.
When the service is made available, I strongly recommend that you take a close look at it. My evaluation is that you have nothing to lose (since you can still use your current email program, if you want to) and much to gain by having access to your email without having to have your computer.
Look for more details soon, when Computing and Communications publicly announces the service. If you'd like a preview, visit the Student Computing Services web pages and see the system that currently is available to our students.
CPR (Calibrated peer review). In the fall quarter, I'm teaching an introductory graduate course (methodology, in Sociology). For the first time, this course may enroll as many as 20 students. In graduate classes, particularly, I assign a lot of writing tasks. I can't handle evaluating and offering feedback on 20 students every week or two. You are probably in the same situation. With very large undergraduate classes, it is perhaps even more difficult to keep significant amounts of writing work in your courses. I've been very bothered by this, and have gone looking for solutions.
An approach that I am trying is called "calibrated peer review." This is a web-based program where each student reads and evaluates several "calibration" essays on a subject that train the student in what makes for a good, fair, or poor essay. The student also prepares and submits an essay from instructions prepared by the instructor. Each (anonymous) student's essay is then read and evaluated by three randomly chosen reviewers from the class, who assign grades. The system was developed with NSF funding by faculty at UCLA. You might want to visit the website http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu . On the Riverside campus, it has been used in CNAS, and is supported by one of our instructional technologists, Dr. Leo Schouest (Computing and Communications). This system can be integrated into your BlackBoard web site, or used separately.
The system is intended to promote by "writing to learn," and, in the process, help students to "learn to write." These are very good goals. Also important to me is that, once the exercises are created (which is quite a bit of work, to be honest), the students do all the grading. In large classes, this would enable use of written work while freeing graduate assistants for more tutorial contact, discussion, and other more creative activities.
I can't endorse this yet, but it looks promising and has a good track record. I do urge you to find out more by talking to Leo Schouest and/or visiting the website. This is a technology that may have considerable promise for how to use peer-to-peer instruction in really positive ways to improve learning of both substance and writing.
Wireless expansion. The campus continues to move toward providing wireless networking, which makes portable computers with wireless an increasingly logical choice for many faculty and graduate students. Most open areas on campus where students congregate now have coverage, as do the commons, library, cafeteria, and a number of instructional buildings (including the Arts building). More details of the current state of wireless deployment are available from the Computing and Communications website.
During 2003-04, there will be two major areas of coverage expansion. First, a number of instructional/mixed use spaces across campus have been targeted for coverage. In our college, many class/labs, and seminar/library/meeting rooms will get wireless networking support. This will facilitate greater use of web-based resources (like Blackboard) during instruction and meetings. Second, graduate student housing will be equipped with wireless networking (it currently has no network connection). This will make life easier for a number of our graduate students, and could serve as a minor item to mention during recruiting.
Wireless networks are not as fast or as secure as hard-wired ones. The campus wireless network though is fast enough for almost any common use -- including multimedia. The campus also provides virtual private networking support for users who may be concerned with privacy of wireless networking communications.
An industry source reports that sales of portable computers exceeded sales of desk top models (by dollar volume, not numbers of units) for the first time in 2003. If you haven't yet considered wireless and portable computing, you might give it serious consideration. It's not the right solution for everyone, but it has many advantages.
General assignment classroom technology. A couple years ago, funds were allocated to repair, replace, and upgrade the instructional technology in campus general assignment classrooms. The program, and its results, are available on a web site provided by Computing and Communications. Almost all of the 60 or so such classrooms have now been equipped with digital projection, Internet access, and various playback devices (VCR, digital cameras, etc.). Some classrooms have been upgraded to support instruction using multi-media (DVD, surround sound, etc.).
Not too long ago, you may have had to rely on specialized departmental class/lab spaces to support the technology you needed for your instruction. It might be possible to now use general assignment space. Your department can provide information and work with academic scheduling to identify all the classrooms that will support your instruction technologically.
In 2003-04, a number of additional campus rooms have been converted from their current uses to become general assignment classrooms. All of these new rooms will have good basic equipment. When you are thinking about instructional spaces, be sure to keep the campus computing laboratories in mind, and the class/lab spaces maintained by other departments (for example, the screening room in the Arts building).
Also remember that portable digital projectors are available for use in the college (Sociology, History, and English have loaners provided by the college; many departments and programs also have portable projectors).
If you have special needs for resources to support your instruction, C 3 can facilitate by getting you connected to the units that can supply what you need.
Media library. The media library (which is operated by the the campus Computing and Communications unit) has supported instruction in our college for a long time by providing access to analog audio tapes, and facilities for viewing VHS tapes.
There is good news, and bad news, for our faculty who have relied on the media library. The good news is that during last year a number of workstations in the lab were upgraded to provide support for individual viewing of CD, DVD, and other media.
The bad news is that budget cuts will soon be ending (or severely limiting) the professional librarian services that have been available to support acquisition and cataloging of instructional media. Since the budget cuts and layoffs affecting the university are permanent, we cannot count on an early restoration of the current services. So, we need to find new ways of performing the essential functions of cataloging instructional media materials. We are trying to determine if there are any other units on campus that could provide some of the current librarian services in the short term. In the longer term, it appears likely that we will need to change our approach to managing media. Our preferred alternative, at this point, is to develop an Internet-accessible data base system for the management and distribution of media -- outlined in the next news item, below.
In the near term, faculty will still be able to place media on reserve, and the media library will remain open to support student access. Instead of professional librarian staff, however, student monitors will be used. Librarian services to faculty, however, will be affected.
Digital media server. In the past several years, advances in digital technology have made it a realistic possibility that media in a wide variety of formats (e.g. VHS, film, slide, audio tape, CD, DVD) can be converted to completely digital form. Many of the problems with high cost, slow processes of conversion, and inadequate resulting data quality have been overcome -- or at least considerably reduced. We can reasonably anticipate continuing progress. The resulting data sets are moderately large, but not uniquely so -- and digital storage has become dramatically less expensive in the last few years.
These changes lead us to foresee a situation in which most data for images, moving images, sound, and their combination are acquired, cataloged, and distributed in digital form using the Internet - to enable the possibility of anywhere (that has high bandwidth), anytime access. Such a change could enable dramatic changes in how we conduct instruction, research, and performance with media.
This future is some ways off, because there are difficulties and complexities. Probably the most important issues are in the legal and social organizational arrangements - not the technical issues. CHASS is working with university libraries and Computing and Communications to develop a functional needs analysis for digital media distribution systems. Some such systems are commercially available. It is also possible to write one ourselves, if need be.
In the short term, there are a number of things that we can do:
Computing and Communications and C 3 staff can assist faculty in converting media to digital format. Although our resources are limited, we can provide considerable support for converting instructional materials that are needed right now.
Whenever possible, faculty should look to acquire media in digital format (e.g. language instruction on CD, not audio tape; "film" on DVD, not older media). Materials that are already in one digital format are much easier to convert to another.
Some faculty in the arts have been using our recently installed digital media storage/exchange server ( see news item ) to store and exchange work that does not have copyright issues. This service is available to others in the college, as well.
The campus has recently installed a Real (brand) media server, capable of delivering audio and video over the Internet to any location with reasonable bandwidth (anywhere on campus, including wireless). This will make it possible for faculty to attach media to BlackBoard web sites (or other web sites).
Developments in administrative and other technology services
Department/center/program web pages. The CHASS approach to enhancing and supporting the maintenance of department/center/program web "presence" has recently been awarded a Larry Sautter Award of Achievement in University Computing by the University of California system. All the many faculty, chairs, departmental administrators, and CHASS College Computing people who took part in designing and implementing this program should be proud that their collective accomplishment has been recognized.
Our approach is one that maximizes technical efficiency on the "back end" by using a common web server, standardized file structures, web-page templates, and a staff of carefully selected and trained student interns to do web page development and maintenance work. At the same time, the actual content and appearance of the the web pages of all of our units are unique to their program, and under their control. As of the beginning of 2003-04 all but one department in our college have voluntarily adopted this approach.
During 2003-04, our emphasis will be on providing more content -- particularly in the areas of graduate programs and research. C 3 is also working to provide a suite of tools that departments and programs may add to their web-sites (some of which are described, below -- for example, graduate student "prospect" support, scheduling and registration support).
C 3 is also very interested in learning, from you, what enhancements to our college's web sites might make them better serve our faculty, students, administrators, potential students and faculty, donors, and casual visitors. Ideas like discussion boards, pages for alumni relations and relations with donors are ones that we would like to make available, if departments are interested. If you see something you like while browsing the Internet, or just have a bright idea -- let us know!
Graduate program recruiting support. Increasing the numbers and qualifications of graduate students in programs in CHASS is critical to our success in both research and teaching. It is central to building the reputation of UCR as a major division I research university. These days, the first "point of contact" that most potential students have with us is through our presence on the World Wide Web. We are working, as one of our highest priorities, to increase the use of proven ideas in "e-business" to bring top students to UCR.
During 2002-03, C 3 working in close collaboration with several college departments (special thanks here to Anthropology, Sociology, Hispanic Studies, and Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages) designed, built, and implemented a web-accessed database application to support graduate student recruiting. You might want to visit the web site of Sociology to see how this system looks to potential applicants.
The system is more than a pretty web-page. By connecting it to a database, departments and the college share real-time data about prospects who have contacted us, review the status of their applications, and use this information to support faculty recruiting efforts and the processes of making admission and financial aid decisions. The system will enable (and, in some cases, challenge) departments to become more assertive in recruiting, and to be as timely as many of our competitors in wooing top prospects.
During 2003-04, we are looking forward to supporting other graduate programs in the college. Several departments that have seen the system have immediately asked for it to be installed in their web-sites. We invite your interest, and look forward to working with you for this year's recruiting season. Again, please don't hesitate to contact us .
We have also entered into discussions with the new Dean of the Graduate Division, and with Computing and Communications about how we can link our college system to the systems currently used by the Division for graduate admissions, and ultimately to the student records system and financial system. We hope, during the coming year, to help the entire campus adopt our improved approach to graduate student recruiting and admissions processes.
Graduate program financial aid planning support. During 2002-03, the new "cohort model" for managing graduate student financial aid commitments was put in place. As a part of this, a system of file sharing between the departments and the college office (Assoc. Dean Ashe) enabled both parties to share access to the same spreadsheet data ("checkbook").
This system has been a huge success in improving the management and planning of graduate student financial aid. It hasn't caused more resources to appear; but, we're doing a much better job now of planning and tracking in this important area, so that we may be getting a better "return on investment." Certainly, we now have a much better picture of the the status of support in our programs, and are in a better position to argue our case for increased support of our graduate programs.
If you have any ideas or suggestions for improvements in this system, please contact Dean Ashe .
Scheduling support (e.g. language testing). C 3 was asked by Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages to create a system where students who needed to take language exams could register for the limited seating at the various sessions on-line. The program is been successful in greatly reducing the amount of paperwork and phone calls that department staff have to do.
If you have events that involve scheduling that are like this one, it may be possible to adapt this program to your needs.
If you'd like to learn more, contact C 3 .
Conference registration support. The crack programming staff of C 3 have developed a web-page based program that allows visitors to register for events. The entries that visitors make on a web-page are stored in a database where they can be used to create emailing and mailing lists, lists of event attendees, etc.
This program was originally developed to support registration for a student affairs conference, but it can be readily adapted for use in supporting departmental/center/program events. The model has been applied to CHASS Connect enrollment and Pre-Business orientation registration. It might help to reduce some of the administrative burden of staff who are organizing events.
If you'd like to learn more, contact C 3 .
File serving. Making sure that the data we use for administrative work are backed-up on a regular basis, and are secure from hacking and intrusion are obviously important concerns for every department. As we all work to comply with new legislation that requires strong safeguards on information that includes student names and IDs, file security becomes even more important.
During 2002-03, we re-located the administrative files of the college and a number of departments (mostly in Arts and Humanities) to fast central file servers located in the secure machine room maintained by Computing and Communications. Authorized users access their files the same way they always did -- the remote file server is just another "disk drive" that appears along with the local drives. The system has proven to be highly reliable, fast, and secure. In the process of relocating files from insecure desk-top machines to the file servers, we've also helped departments to rationalize the structure of their directories -- so that different users in the same department are better able to locate digital documents that they need, and so that personnel who move from one unit to another do not face such a sharp "learning curve" due to different filing systems in different units.
During this coming year, we will be working to complete the project of migrating administrative files from the desk-top to file servers for all administrative units in the college. To be honest, this does require a bit of time and effort on the part of the department/center/program -- but you will be surprised that the task is not as impossible as it may seem. And, the rewards in increased security and ease of use are great.
If you'd like to know more, and to get started (if you haven't already) before we contact you, please get in touch with us .
Work on Academic personnel systems. Of all the administrative tasks that departments do, one of the most important - and one of the most time consuming and difficult -- is academic personnel reviews. As the number of faculty in the college has grown rapidly (and as the number of staff in the departments and in the college has remained about the same), the burden of academic personnel file management has become greater and greater. Frankly, this is a major problem area for almost everyone in the college, and for the college office.
In the long-run, it is easy to envision a system where all academic personnel documents are kept in digital form, and shared on-line with carefully guarded security and transaction control. Discussions are underway among the EVC's office and the colleges on the need for such a system, and on it's design. Such a system is a matter of "when" rather than "whether." But it will take time and effort, and some expense, to do it right.
In the short run, the college and a number of departments have taken some very important first steps by sharing access to common documents used in the academic personnel process through carefully controlled file sharing. This makes communication between the college and departments for review and revision of documents much faster, and reduces confusion about multiple versions etc. It also enables us to provide the highest possible level of security for these sometimes sensitive, and always confidential documents.
In the coming year, the academic personnel office of the college will continue to broaden it's on-line collaboration with departments. We have also made some progress in document sharing with the Registrar Office for scheduling. In some cases, scanned and certified digital copies of documents are replacing paper copies. Work is being done on developing document management and tracking to reduce the volume of paper and the delays and security concerns involved in using hard-copies for academic personnel transactions.
Arts building applications: key card, schedule/calendar, inventory . There are a number of "little" tasks that all our units do that don't seem to require all that much time and effort. Arranging meetings, keeping track of equipment, issuing and recovering keys, and the like. Individually, these tasks don't seem like much. But, taken altogether, they really do absorb a fair amount of time-and-effort from our very limited staff. If we can do any of these tasks quicker, easier, or better by applying technology, it will eventually pay off.
C 3 is working with administrative units in the Arts building to develop web-based applications for security management (keys, key-cards), facility scheduling and recharge, and inventory management. Thanks, by the way, to the MSOs, chairs, and facilities manager for their willingness to work with us.
If you are interested in learning more, so that you can evaluate whether we can adapt some of these productivity tools to your unit, let us know. There is no cost, beyond your time and effort.
On-line distribution of registration PINs. In the Spring quarter of 2002-03, students were urged to get their registration PIN numbers from our student affairs web site, rather than by getting printed materials by visiting departmental and college student affairs officers. While there were a few glitches (that I think we've now solved), this approach worked remarkably well, and saved a large amount of staff time and effort.
In the Fall quarter, registration PIN information will be made available only on line. Student affairs officers, of course, have the option of requiring that individual students or groups of students appear in-person before obtaining their PINs.
At present there are several different systems for on-line distribution of reg PINs on campus. Discussions are on-going to provide a single campus-wide approach with the highest possible standards of security and privacy. When this happens, it may be possible to eliminate the reg PIN system and replace it with a much simpler system that uses only student identification numbers. Look for progress and change in this area during 2003-04.
Mandatory student email/web-mail. In the college student affairs office, we spend a huge amount of time-and-effort (not to mention a lot of cash) on sending out letters to students to inform them of critical matters. While we also use email, we can't rely on email for "official" notifications, because students are not required to use email services (though, of course, most do use either campus or private email providers).
This may be about to change. If and when it does, the change will have a big (and very, very positive) impact on your department. The VC Student Affairs will soon be considering a policy recommendation to make students responsible for providing the university with an email address, and responsible for using email for official communications.
What this means for departments is that they will be able to use electronic communication for official business, instead of hard-copy. It also means that departments will also be able to be in more regular contact with their students -- or selected mailing lists of them -- with other announcements (e.g. announcing events of interest, other news, or reminders about things that students need to do). This should dramatically increase the speed and reduce the cost of mandatory communications with students, and enable considerably more "non-mandatory" communication that may help provide better connections between departments and their students.
Eventually we will probably have a system where authorized people in departments may generate emailing lists using a web-based data-base query tool (like those in the financial system). Until such a system is in place, the college is having its technology staff trained in the FOCUS system so that they will be able to extract targeted emailing lists for departments that request them.
Watch for developments in this area during 2003-04. It's time to start thinking about how you can use email to make your contacts with students more effective.
Space management tools . With budget cut-backs and rapid growth, managing space has become ever more challenging. The role that the college office plays in space management is becoming smaller than in the past, and departments are being asked to to a bit more. The Dean and Assistant Dean will be discussing these administrative changes with you.
To help departments with space management, the campus Academic Planning and Budget unit will soon be providing some new web-based tools. The annual report of space utilization will shortly be made available on-line as a web-form for departments to review and modify. In addition, drawings of all the campus spaces will be provided on line. These tools should help a good deal in quickly preparing and submitting required reports, and in developing plans and proposals for space needs.
CorpTime calendaring. A couple years ago, the campus introduced the "CorpTime" on-line calendaring application. This tools allows people or entities (who have accounts) to schedule events, view other's calendars (but you can control what, if anything, other people can see in your calendar), request meetings, and schedule access to spaces and equipment. Many campus administrative offices -- including most of the college offices -- use the system.
At present, anyone on the UCR payroll can have a CorpTime account for the nominal fee of about $20. It seems likely (but not yet sure) that we may be able to do away with this fee soon. You may want to learn more about this tool, and see if it might be of use in your unit.
In our experience, on-line calendaring is not very effective in scheduling faculty and students -- who tend to have very flexible and rapidly changing calendars. It has proven to be a very effective too, though, for allowing administrators to arrange their own meetings (rather than playing phone tag, or having staff spend hours and hours on the phone and email trying to arrange meetings).
We would be happy to share our experiences with you, and show you the application. If you are interested in adopting it for use in your department, we'll be happy to assist in getting accounts set-up and configured, and getting your people trained in how to use it. Just call on us x8-5031 or e-mail james.lin@ucr.edu if you'd like to know more.
Contract and gift tracking. The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research is very close to implementing an on-line gift and contract tracking and document management system. This system will enable units and the VCR to share information about the status of these transactions, and to make available on line the documents relevant to each (contracts, guidelines, tracking and transaction information).
Credit-card server. The campus is considering whether and how to provide a "credit card server" that can be used by campus units. A credit-card server is a secure service (like those used by Barnes and Noble or Bank of America, etc.) so that people can safely and securely make credit-card payments to campus accounts that are authorized to receive them.
This service would allow visitors to campus web-sites to make purchases, pay fees, and make donations with credit cards. It has the potential of relieving staff all over campus of thousands and thousands of transactions that we are currently doing by hand.
While most of the applications are for things like purchasing tickets, paying fees and fines, and the like, departments/centers/programs could also apply this technology to automatically receive payments of conference fees, fees for xeroxing services from students, etc.
We will be working with campus authorities to try to make credit-card services available as soon as possible. If you have any comments or suggestions about how we might take advantage of this kind of service in the college, we'd be delighted to hear from you .
CHASS Intranet. CHASS intranet is logically "internal" to CHASS and is for administrative operation purpose. The intranet provides a single entry to access all web base applications developed by C 3 , and Computing and Communications. Physically they can span the globe and is limited to CHASS administrative members.
During 2003-04, we will be working to implement an Intra-net for CHASS administrative operations. The CHASS intranet provides both secure and unsecure connections depending on the nature of the application. It eliminates the need for staff to remember all kinds of different web application addresses.
Event calendaring. CHASS integrates the campus' event calendar system to publish various events and academic activities. A total of nineteen departments, centers, and programs have been utilizing the system to increase publicity of their academic activities, conferences and events. To learn more about utilizing the system, please contact us .
Knowledge base e-services. Several e-services models that embedded with business logics have been developed by C 3 to provide students with knowledge base online information services. Examples are Major Requirements Self-Guided Tour and Foreign Language Placement Test Enrollment , These models are not only reducing the burden on staff, but also improving the service quality to students. A Faculty Guide to UCR Life that has been jointly developed by C 3 and AEVC Office to serve our faculty is another example. The College has been studying other potential e-services to enhance the quality of services to our faculty and staff.
You might want to take a few minutes to look at these tools. Think about how they might be modified to help you with tasks in your unit. If you have some ideas, get in touch -- maybe we can build some technology tools for your unit, too.
Graduate application process re-engineering. The re-engineering effort streamlines the current manual paper and labor intensive processes by applying e-business technology. The CHASS students and the CHASS staff (Student Academic Affairs Office and departments) will interact with the online system through a common web browser. Certain manual processes are converted into automatic information passing.