Welcome to the Office of Information Technology's projects dashboard. Below please find highlights of our current major projects and initiatives. If you have questions about any of our projects, please contact us at helpdesk@american.edu.
Identify requirements for a tool that will be utilized by the OUA and Facilities to manage facilities and capital management projects.
Staff and Faculty
This tool will help ensure that capital projects are managed effectively, provide visibility into details of the effort and the finances and provide a consistent methodology for manageing these projects.
The project will identify vendors, complete an RFP, select and evaluate RFP responses and select a vendor. Once selected, the project will manage the procurement and implementation of the tool.
October 2011
Implementation of Entrinsik Informer as a new reporting tool.
Students, Faculty, and Staff
Entrinsik Informer is a reporting tool which provides access to real-time data from one or more databases with use of an intuitive web interface. Informer also serves as a powerful analysis tool which enables you to filter, graph, and export report results.
Entrinsik Informer will be successfully tested and delivered to the AU community with minimal downtime.
December 2011
The purpose of the Datatel User Interface (UI) 4.3 upgrade is to maintain currency with the current release of the product and vendor supported software. All previous versions of UI are no longer supported by the vendor. The upgrade requires migrating all AU custom software, as well as customizations to Datatel-delivered software, to be compatible with UI 4.3 that introduces the following benefits and fixes:
Staff
This upgrade will streamline the user experience, improve performance, and introduce new helpful features to enhance productivity. All vendor support for UI Desktop ended in June 2011 and support for UI 4.1 ends in September 2011. All users are encouraged to use UI Web to ease transition to the new UI 4.3.
December 2011
Implementation of an electronic Grant Proposal Management System, Cayuse424.
Staff and Faculty
AU’s Research Infrastructure Task Force identified a very important need to implement a new enterprise research grants management system, in direct support of AU’s Strategic Plan to expand faculty and student research support and provide advancements in research technology and infrastructure.
Adoption of the Cayuse424 system by Faculty and Staff, replacing the current manual paper and multi-system processes.
January 2012
Implementation of Plateau/SuccessFactors applications for the Learning Management, Performance Management, and Compensation Management.
Full-Time Staff
Integrated solutions which allow for development of learning plan, course registration, and course history and tracking/entry of PMPs.
Launch of HR's revised PMP for 2012 annual performance management cycle and retirement of existing domino application for course registration and Notes data for PMPs.
September 2012
Multiple Projects are included to help students enhance their experience during business transactions.
Student, Faculty, and Staff
The program will streamline and enhance student experience during business transitions.
December 2012
The purpose of this project is to review and select an enterprise document imaging systems that meets AU's imaging needs, integrates with our ERP system, and helps streamline current business processes using document imaging, workflows, electronic approvals and signatures, and other key functions to improve efficiency and productivity. Initial implementations will include Office of Enrollment, Financial Aid, and Accounts Payable.
Students, Faculty, and Staff
The system will allow documents, such as invoices, student transcripts, and financial aid documents, to be scanned, indexed, stored in a digital format in a central repository. This will help minimize or eliminate the need to print or send files as attachments in emails for review or approval as well as allow users to retrieve documents quickly and efficiently.
A vendor and product are selected and the document imaging system is implemented successfully.
December 2012
The purpose of this project is to install and configure AU's new Business Intelligence Reporting Tool, MicroStrategy, and deploy the first reporting project: AU’s Executive Dashboards.
Faculty and Staff
A Business Intelligence Reporting Tool can provide AU with historical, current and predictive views of its operations. Common functions of a BI Tool include reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), data mining, process mining, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining and predictive analytics. With a BI reporting tool one can transform operational data into actionable information: AU offices will be able to better evaluate their own productivity, thus leading to a better quality of service to faculty, students, and the community. The Executive Dashboards take advantage of the ability to view data from many sources at the same time in one place; they provide views into AU’s Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) for the University’s top executives; KPI’s include data on Enrollment, Student Population and Demographics, Admissions, Endowment and Financials.
Executive Dashboards are available to AU’s top executives. Additional BI Reporting Capabilities is available across the University (Grants, Admissions, Development, etc.).
August 2010
This project enhanced communication with the AU community by implementing 31 new flat-panel monitors across campus in the first phase of the project. The infrastructure was modified to accommodate the new monitors to broadcast campus communications. Additional installations were expected in the summer of 2011.
Students, Faculty, Staff, and Campus Visitors
The digital signage enhances AU's ability to communicate effectively with our students and other members of the community. The messages deployed and shown on the monitors are designed to increase awareness and participation in campus activities. In addition, the monitors can be used to disseminate general campus information and emergency messages.
All monitors are installed at the desired locations. They are connected to the AU network infrastructure and are managed via remote access to a central server and to the networked devices by staff members in the various locations where the monitors are installed.
September 2010
The Project Management Office has developed a project management training course for the AU staff across campus involved in the implementation and deployment of IT projects.
Staff
By developing a project management training course, we will improve staff efficiency and productivity, as well as project delivery times and collaboration among various departments, helping us to enhance our level of service to students, faculty, and staff.
Training delivered successfully with feedback from customer surveys.
October 2010
Feasibility Assessment of Datatel Degree Audit to replace our current package DARS. This will allow us to enhance and expand the use of Datatel's advising functions, including course planning and e-advising.
Students, Faculty, and Staff
The new Degree Audit allows students to examine the requirements for their majors in a clearer, more comprehensive manner than the previous DARS report with a display including course titles, GPA and credit counts, and a list of remaining courses needed for graduation.
Colleague Degree Audit is implemented with minimal downtime. Successful and thorough testing to help minimize errors.
November 2010
The Office of Campus Life spear-headed the selection, customization, and implementation of an externally-hosted application to add blogging to the communications and promotional tools available to campus organizations.
Students, Faculty, and Staff
Members of AU community and the public can check out the blogs and find out interested topics, including sustainability, the Career Center and others. Anyone can join blog's community and participate in the discussions.
The new pilot blogs are introduced to the public and attracted a number of campus.
December 2010
(Photo: Jeff Watts)
The CommonSpot upgrade to version 5.1.1 will brings us in compliance with the current supported version of the software and is required for the next major upgrade with the release of CommonSpot 6.0 planned for later this year.
Staff
This upgrade has a minimal impact to our customizations and has little or no impact on the user community. With this upgrade, the users will experience better website performance. This upgrade includes the following new features and fixes:
The following are the success measures for this project:
The purpose of this project is to encrypt AU-owned laptops and provide better data protection.
Students, Faculty, and Staff
The implementation of this encryption allows the Office of Information Technology to better protect American University student, staff, and faculty’s private data.
Implementation was completed providing the ability for users to perform their own incryption, minmal disruption to users after encryption.
December 2010
Photo by Jeff Watts
The purpose of this project is to replace the Domino based c.Support 2007 system and transition to the new iSupport 9 for Windows systems. It involves creating a virtual server, installing iSupport 9, configuring the system, testing, developing a plan to transition open tickets, and modifying existing warehouse views. The project will combine the OIT, Public Safety, and AU Central instances into a single unified system that will increase collaboration among the three offices, standardize processes, and minimize resources needed to maintain the system.
Students, Faculty, and Staff
The update will increase our capabilities by using the most current virtual servers, allowing us to better serve the students, faculty and staff through IT Help Desk tickets.
The upgrade is completed and implemented successfully.
January 2011
AU's new Admissions Green Room offers group information sessions and tours at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Monday through Friday. (Photo: Jeff Watts)
The purpose of this project is to implement technology for the new Welcome Center to improve the AU experience for prospective students.
Students and Faculty
The overall project was undertaken to increase interest in attending AU by improving the experience prospective students and their parents had while visiting the campus. The technology portion included the installation of a custom-designed state of the art audio-visual system and content (films and PowerPoint presentations) to augment the presentations of Admissions office staff. In addition, the design included input from faculty to ensure that the implemented technology was also appropriate for academic purposes.
New audio-visual systems are installed and working as designed.
February 2011
AU's new portal utilizes Datatel's Active Campus Portal product, built upon Microsoft SharePoint. The primary goal of phase one of the portal implementation was to replace the existing functionality provided by the legacy portal, while also rolling out some of the Sharepoint functionality.
Students, Faculty, Staff, Parents, and Alumni
Every portal user was migrated from the old portal to the new portal over a several month period, using a soft rollout approach that allowed both portals to be available concurrently for a period of time.
New portal is developed with minimal errors during rollout, quick adoption, minimal access issues.
March 2011
The purpose of this project is to switch AU to a new integrated voicemail system from Avaya that provides for unified messaging for voicemail, e-mail, and fax.
Faculty and Staff
Over 3,000 faculty and staff with AU issued landlines are now able to comment, forward, and file their voice messages online. By switching to this new system, faculty and staff are better able to keep track of their voicemails on the go, and can therefore ensure a quicker response.
New unified messaging system is implemented. Phone menus are converted and migrated over to the new system.
May 2011
The purpose of this project is to implement a network access control platform (NAC) that provides increased security for both the wireless and wired networks.
All users accessing the network
A new NAC on a periodic basis will provide higher security for both the wireless and wired networks. Every user will log into a new NAC on a periodic basis for posture assessment and remediation (if necessary).
Access and remediation are improved with minimal disruption.
August 2011
Upgrade or move to another database environment to replace the old R25 and several portal applications which is no longer supported by Oracle 9i.
Staff
A new NAC on a periodical basis will provide higher security for both the wireless and wired networks. Every user will log into a new NAC on a periodical basis for posture assessment and remediation (if necessary).
All databases will be in compliance for Oracle and the potential for security breaches due to the old Oracle version will be closed.
Data Warehouse completed in December 2010. Portal and R25 completed in August 2011.
Provides insight and visibility to our Faculty and Staff on the financial status of their Research Grants Projects through web based reports through our BI Reporting Tool.
Faculty and Staff
AU’s Research Infrastructure Task Force identified, as an important and immediate priority, the ability to access information and reports more easily and intuitively from AU’s ERP System’s (Datatel’s Colleague) accounting and budget data.
Adoption of the reports by AU’s research grants population.
August 2011
This project involves replacement of AU’s legacy wireless network (EagelNet) with the latest in Wifi Technology (eaglesecure).
Students, Faculty, Staff, Visitors, and Guests
With over 650 new access points and increased bandwidth, eaglesecure allows for quicker browsing at more locations while also providing greater security to all users. All American University buildings, including those off campus, and open areas such as the Quad, are equipped with eaglesecure leverages the 802.11n wireless technology, which delivers up to 300 Mbps of link speed for Wi-Fi radios compared to 54 Mbps with legacy 802.11a/b/g. This means increased bandwidth for end user and enterprise business applications.
August 2011
Strengthen Blackboard services and support to the AU Community.
Students, Staff, and Faculty
AU’s Blackboard user community will receive 24 x 7 support through a combination of CTRL, OIT and 3rd Party support groups. OIT continues to implement the latest Blackboard building blocks, extending the Blackboard learning experience into areas such as McGraw-Hill’s learning portal, iTunes and many more to come. Support for information transfers from our ERP (Datatel’s Colleague) is also being strengthened, providing teaching faculty and students a more stable platform.
Teaching/learning experience improved; increased customer survey satisfaction ratings.
August 2011
| Today's Events | Time |
|---|---|
| Outdoor Track at NCAA Regionals | 12:00 am |
| Coming Soon | Date |
| Outdoor Track at NCAA Regionals | 05/25/12 |
| Outdoor Track at NCAA Regionals | 05/26/12 |
