What ideas, questions, or comments do you have?

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I’d like to hear about topics that matter to you. Please use this blog to send me any questions, ideas, or comments you have.

Comments (4)

  1. Mitchell Richman

    I see your comments about facilities you’ve visited and cool tools that campuses are using. My questions:
    What do campuses need us (as UC System IT) to facilitate their innovation?
    Are there tools they’ve developed we can use to help do our job serving U.C?

    Reply
    1. Tom A

      Boy, have you opened up a can of worms on your questions. What do they need from UCOP ITS to facilitate their innovation? Reality is on one hand, not much; on another, there is a lot we can do. The innovation culture at each of our locations (I include med centers as well) is very strong. I see great innovation whether it is with custom built apps, Google Glass, mobile fraemworks just to name a few examples. They are close to their customers and do a great job. The only thing we can add in that regard is to make sure they are connecting to the broader industry & tech marketplace so they know what is possible and what case studies there are out there that they could be leveraging. I’ve started doing this in the form of “Vendor days.”
      On the other hand I see our innovation be driven by this autonomous, location-based governance model that leads to us solving the same problem multiple times using different approaches and different technologies. This is very wasteful, and in an era where our funding is becoming more and moe challenged, it is not sustainable. Thwas part of my message to the Regents. Therefore, the role of UCOP ITS is that of a facilitator to ensure that we connect different parts of the system – both IT level and faculty/admin level – to ask ourselves if this is something that should be unique by location or if either a common process or a common tech platform might be a more cost-effective route to take. To some’s surprise, this was actually quite well received by the academic community as a way to ensure we don’t spend too much on administrative processes & systems. Then we (ITS) can add value by driving a dialog with the locations on where the best practices are and how a location might leverage that best practice versus reinventin the wheel

      Reply
  2. Maxine Gerber

    What training opportunities are available to legacy system employees, so that they can obtain the skillsets needed for future positions? For example, how can a PPS programmer get trained in PeopleSoft skills?
    I think a webinar on this topic would be useful.

    Reply
    1. Tom A

      Great question! We just discussed this in the mgmt meeting this week. There are training opportunities for any employee who is working on a legacy platform that is interested to work on a plan to transition his/her self to a new platform and a new career opportunity. I encourage you to reach out to Jo Ellen Francis to understand how such a program for you would work

      Reply

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