News
New
The 2018 Tech Summit Call for Presentations is now open! If you have expertise in a technology, leadership or project management topics, presenting at the Texas A&M University System Technology Summit is a great way to build your professional portfolio. Submit your breakout session proposal. Presenters will receive a 25% discount on registration for the February 26-28 conference at Moody Gardens Galveston. Proposals are due September 22, 2017.
I was asked to check in with other schools to understand how they were dealing with Spectrim. Last week I sent you Richard King’s thoughts. This past week I spoke with Kevin Kjosa, formerly of UT and now the UTSA CISO. Kevin worked extensively on the underlying Archer application that was adopted by DIR and became Spectrim. There is a recognition that the software is cumbersome. Kevin, like Richard, strongly recommended enhanced training. Their experience inside the UT System is that the application becomes more manageable as the quality of the training increases. Every member of the UT System is using one of the forms of Archer/Spectrim. No school is using a workaround.
The five responses to the RELLIS Data Center RFP will be reviewed and discussed this week by the committee reviewing the responses.
There is a retirement celebration for Willis Marti on Thursday in College Station at 3:00 p.m. (MSC 2401).
System-Wide Contracting News
Repeats
Current System-wide Contracts
- Access Data provides members with preservation hold software (in annual assessment)
- Banner COE provides members with Banner-related services (discretionary)
- Cisco SmartNet (discretionary)
- Comevo provides members with online orientation software services (discretionary contract)
- Diligent provides board portal functionality for all members (discretionary)
- Docusign provides members with electronic signature and related workflow capabilities (discretionary)
- Duo provides two-factor authentication for all members (discretionary)
- Examity provides members with on-line proctoring services under a one-year master contract (discretionary contract)
- Hootsuite enables members to manage social networks, schedule messages and measure social media from a dashboard (discretionary)
- Laserfiche provides members with the digitization of documents, the automation of records processing, storage retrieval, security and archiving (discretionary)
- Modo Labs provides mobile application development support (discretionary)
- ProctorU provides members with on-line proctoring services under a one-year master contract (discretionary contract)
- Proofpoint email filtering and data loss prevention tools (in annual assessment)
- Siteimprove checks web pages, every five days, for spelling, grammar, broken links and accessibility. The cost is 54 cents per web page per year. Any member interested in adding this service need to contact me directly. (discretionary)
- Syncplicity licensing is available for all members (in annual assessment)
- WebEx is available to all members. Faculty/administrators can obtain licenses at the low cost of $1.44/month/license. (discretionary)
- WebQA is the TAMUS approved Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) solution for all members (in annual assessment)
System-wide Contracts Under Development
- Captioning Services will provide members with closed caption, transcription and subtitling solutions to make video accessible, searchable, SEO-friendly and more engaging
- On-line Course Evaluation Services will provide members with tools that allow students to evaluate academic courses (including instructors). Here is a concise status on our Course Evaluation tool efforts: 1) Explorance – Agreement is fully executed. Please be aware of the following time constraints for this Fall from Samer Saab, CEO of Explorance: “If anyone plans to implement Blue for Fall 2017, we must ensure they are fully committed prior to August 29. Our Professional Services team meets on the 29th at 2:00pm to allocate appropriate resources for Fall. Important date to keep in mind.” 2) IOTA – awaiting final review & signature by IOTA. 3) GAP Technologies – awaiting final review & signature by GAP. 4) Scantron – pending final review at their corporate office.
- Learning Management Systems RFP responses have been received; a committee has been formed to begin the process of reviewing those responses
- Maxient will provide members with a tool to manage student discipline, academic integrity and Title IX matters
- Proctoring Solutions RFP is being reviewed by OGC
Projects
New
Workday (Project Helios)
- The team continued to close System Integration Testing defects.
- The Workday Post UAT Sandbox continued for member SMEs who attended UAT, employees who have a Partner security role and a select group of member HR departmental processors. The sandbox closed August 25.
- Business process coaches continued meeting with members this week, completing coaching sessions with A&M-Central Texas, PVAMU, the System Office, TAMHSC, TAMUG, Texas A&M AgriLife, Texas A&M, TAMUT, TTI and WTAMU.
- The system integration testing team continued planning for the end to end scenarios that will be tested.
- The change team continues to develop end user materials for the Workday Help website on SSO.
SCIO Trips/Visits
- No trips are scheduled for this week.