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April 2007
ACADEMIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS GROUP
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Learning Communities – Support for on-line Registration. The Academic Information Systems Group is currently developing a process for managing First Year Learning Communities. As a part of a Learning Community enrolling students will be presented with specific Learning Community course clusters. The process will also include an automated method of following and managing the communities (specifically enrollment) into subsequent terms.
Expanded Student Billing / Accounts Receivable Information in Data Warehouse. The Financial System Data warehouse is being expanded to include student billing and receivable supporting detail. This will provide student transaction “drilldown” details when displaying financial summary transaction data (e.g. course materials fees by student ID, by course, by term).
New Database Administrator – VSAM and DB2 Expertise. A new Database Administrator was hired to help tune and manage existing VSAM files, as well as prepare for increased relational database (DB2) processing.
Storehouse – Mainframe System – CAS and EACS. The web-based Storehouse ordering system currently running under CICS using VSAM files was recently enhanced to use C&C’s standard method for authentication – CAS (Central Authentication Services), and authorization processes contained in EACS (Enterprise Access Control System). This allows the Storehouse system to use the iViews staff portal and single sign-on. |
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STUDENT COMPUTING |
Legal to Share – from Cdigix to Ruckus – C&C has sent email to all student Cdigix users informing them that the program is ending. C&C has also informed them a new campus service (Ruckus) is available and students have been invited to use the new service.
On-line C&C Student Hiring Agency – C&C is about to launch a centralized online effort that will simplify the process of identifying talented technical student workers and matching them up with part time and temporary job opportunities within C&C. This pool of temporary student hires often leads to career hires and is a key aspect of C&C’s diversity plan. |
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INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY GROUP |
Laptop Cart – Computer Lab on Wheels - C&C recently rolled out a fleet of high-end laptop computers for use in UCR's new and innovative Flex Classrooms. In collaboration with the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education, this effort is aimed at giving instructors even more flexibility when conducting classes in these special teaching spaces. Students can be broken up into small discussion groups where each group can use the laptops to work on projects or to follow along with instruction. When not in use, the laptops are stored in a very secure cart/cabinet that provides power for re-charging and network connections for re-imaging each laptop, when required.
Blackboard Assessment System. In May of 2007 C&C will be reviewing and considering the new Blackboard Outcomes program as an enterprise level tool to help us meet new challenges from accrediting bodies and legislatures to plan, measure, and improve student learning outcomes.
Online Flex Classroom Web Request System. In Winter Quarter of 2007 C&C deployed 3 new “Flex Classrooms” with unique technologies and furniture that allow for multiple and divided class layouts paving the way for more innovative techniques in the classroom. As these classrooms are also general assignment classrooms, there was a challenge to recognize these very different rooms and insure that those innovative instructors that wished to take advantage of them had a way to request the use of those rooms. As a result we have an online special request system that allows faculty to do so.
To make scheduling UCR's Flex Classrooms easier and more convenient for instructors, C&C has created a web-based Flex Classroom Request System. The Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education collaborates with the campus Registrar to schedule the Flex Classrooms and the Request system built and deployed by C&C facilitates that collaboration. The site also offers information on a number of Instructional Innovation Grants available to faculty who wish to utilize these rooms. Conveniently, the Flex Classroom Request System uses UCR's single sign-on platform, CAS, to ease access for anyone authorized to log in and use the system. |
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ENTERPRISE COMPUTING |
Student Portal. UCR4ME is now being evaluated by a group of student pilot testers. The feedback received to date has been positive. Programming has begun on the faculty portal and UCR is forming a small group to identify links and other content to be used within the various tabs. The Staff portal (iVIEWS) will be retrofitted to use uPortal after the faculty portal is released. All portals will utilize the uPortal environment.
Academic Personnel eFile System. The system is in pilot production, and the first merit file has been completely routed through the system and approved on-line. Further enhancements are being developed now, including a creative activities module and a CV Generator. A very broad campus deployment is currently underway.
eRecruit System. The code base for the Graduate Student Information System (GradSIS) has been leveraged to develop eRecruit, a system for managing faculty recruitments at UCR. Staff can create positions, specify search committees, and recommend applicants for interview. Candidates can browse job opportunities, apply on-line, and list references, who can in-turn, provide their recommendations on-line.
Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) Preventive Maintenance. The Physical Plant Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is being upgraded to include a PM module. Supervisors in Physical Plant can define equipment and task lists and create templates that specify the tasks to be performed on specific equipment at various intervals (30, 90, 180, and 360 days). A nightly process determines which PM templates are due and creates work orders on the appropriate technician’s workbench. The PM module will be ready for production pilot in mid-May.
UCRFStotals Upgrade. The UCRFS data warehouse upgrade is in pilot testing. The new warehouse allows users to obtain specific Purchasing, Accounts Payable, and Post Audit Notification (PAN) detail behind their transactions. This allows users to view a payment and “drill-down” into the corresponding PO, see attachments, PDFs, etc. Student Information System data is being added now, to be followed by Encumbrances, Travel, and PAMIS (Proposal and Award Management Information System) detail.
Asset Management System. The specifications document is now complete and work is beginning to develop mock-up web pages. The new system will be tightly integrated into eBuy (UCR’s Purchasing System), the Accounts Payable process, and will also include features such as ECT (Equipment Cost Transfer), Fabrications, and Inter-departmental custody transfer.
Ledger Reconciliation. This system will provide an auditable method for users to download financial reports, electronically annotate the reports (using Adobe Publisher) and upload the annotated reports to a database, thus satisfying SAS-112 requirements. Specifications and web mock-ups are complete. The ledger reconciliation matrix mock-up can be found here:
http://eacsdev.ucr.edu/eacs_dev/EACS_USER.leger_recon_matrix?v_acct_id=181
Student and Affiliate Access Controls. The Enterprise Access Control System (EACS) has been modified to enforce application access by user role. UCR Students and Affiliates can be granted access to applications per the policies set by the Financial Systems Steering Committee (FSSC). The following site shows which applications and roles are available to which user roles: http://eacsdev.ucr.edu/eacs_dev/EACS_REPORT.app_list
SOA Approach to Submission of Proposals to Grants.gov. UCR is investigating how it might partner with a vendor to enable the electronic submission of proposals to Grants.gov. C&C and the Office of Research have contacted and met with Cayuse Inc., a “systems-to-systems integrator” for Grants.gov. Currently, Cayuse offers a standalone software package that enables PIs to create budgets via the web, upload various PDFs, etc. that are then transmitted by Cayuse to Grants.gov. C&C has asked Cayuse to consider a SOA approach, where C&C would provide the budget and PDFs from a local campus application to a Cayuse web service for submission to Grants.gov. Please visit http://www.cayuse.com/ for additional information. |
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COMPUTING INFRASTRUCTURE AND SECURITY |
Application Security. A team of people from Enterprise Application Development, Database Development, and Computing Infrastructure and Security evaluated SPI Dynamics WebInspect and Watchfire AppScan. Though both products were of high quality, AppScan was preferred because of its sophistication, though it is complicated to use. A proposal was made to elect a single person to run the scanning to ensure all scans are run in a consistent manner, but that all programmers be familiar with using the product. Training will be required and begin shortly.
Virtualization Efforts. Two F5 Networks BIG-IP devices arrived in January and immediately the Blackboard learning management web front-end systems were placed behind them to good effect -- in at least one occasion the Tomcat instance on one of the Blackboard systems stopped running, but no users were affected. Currently the production student portal is also behind the F5 devices, to hopefully similar good effect. Our plans call for putting our Mirapoint routers behind these devices to provide fault tolerance and balance webmail use.
Additionally, in February, a team of three Computing and Communications personnel visited UC Berkeley to discuss their backup system, and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs about their virtualization efforts with VMware.
Two Factor Authentication. Ten Premier Access tokens from SecureComputing were purchased to evaluate two-factor authentication. Initial results indicate the server side to be capable of distributed management, and ssh access to Unix systems (Solaris) functions well with the tokens. Future plans include investigating using tokens with CAS for critical services (e.g. portals).
Automation of SSL Certificates. In response to the ever increasing growth in the number of SSL Certificates, a plan has been devised to improve the timeliness of renewing SSL certificates, including renewing them automatically several weeks before they are due, and purchasing certificates for multiple years. In addition, wildcard certs will be tested for their feasibility to provide secure exchanges between developers and testers of new secure sites, especially for development and test sites.
Daylight Savings Time. Several key campus systems, including all Solaris financial web and database machines, as well as central mail systems (Mirapoint webmail and message store systems) required OS upgrades and/or patches applied for the new daylight savings time. These upgrades required substantial planning and cooperation between Enterprise Application developers, Infrastructure and Security personnel, and Database developers. All upgrades happened without major incident and the campus was completely unaffected. |
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COMMUNICATION SERVICES
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IP Telephony. Over the last few months employees of C&C have begun to use IP phones. Major issues like quality of service were scoped out and fully tested by data network and PBX staff engineers before the general roll-out. In addition to the full digital phones, approximately 10 gateway ports have been connected to analog phones as well as modems and fax machines. The UCR network uses fiber leased from the City of Riverside and CWDM technology to provide service to some off campus sites. The California Museum of photography recently ordered a new phone which would have required the installation of an OPX (off premise extension) line from the carrier. Instead, this phone was installed using VoIP. The expectation is that the Museum, as well as the neighboring arts center, will ultimately receive telephone service via the fiber-connected data network. Service to the Botanical Garden administrative office has received an initial test using the 802.11g wireless bridge already providing data service. If the upcoming user testing works out, it is expected to extend similar wireless service to the agricultural operations area which also connects via wireless bridges. The next phase of this project will be to connect the rest of C&C staff to the campus IP PBX using generic, non-proprietary SIP phones.
Data Center Power Upgrades. Similar to many California data and communication centers, UCR is facing power / electrical challenges. C&C has a continuing engagement with a power consultant to rework and add to the resilient power sources now in place at UCR. This will likely mean new and larger AC generator sets at three to four sites, as well as moving two DC power plants and installing new DC plants and UPSs at key locations. It is expected that this work will be complete by the end of calendar 2007.
New Call Accounting and Work Order System. UCR has been operating on a call accounting and work order system based on software from The Angeles Group. When they were purchased by Veramark, the new software offered by them was not adequate to provide the on-line order system to which campus customers have become accustomed. After a search, Pinnacle software has emerged as a leading candidate. Work and initial training is presently underway to facilitate making this move. Certain portions of the system will be customized by the vendor as well as UCR programmers to provide features specific to on campus use.
Network Guidelines. UCR sets the baseline network for new and remodeled building space based on a guideline / standards document which specifies the number of ports for various space linked to the square footage involved. The use of fiber, the type of cabling, various conduit requirements, including media support, are also specified with standards called out. This document has recently been revised to provide for, CAT6 wiring, 10 gig connectivity to the campus core and from some IDFs to the MDF, as well as a high percentage of 10/100/1000 switch ports to the desktop. This document will be released in early May. |
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