Technology at UCI: 2020 Impact Report
Digital transformation in a year of change
FOR INSTRUCTORS
Canvas
With little notice to prepare, instructors were thrust into teaching in virtual classrooms in March when campus closed. As they began to only see and interact with students from behind a screen, teaching faculty faced a series of new and unexpected hurdles to tackle.
YuJa Expansion
To accommodate asynchronous course instruction, OIT expanded YuJa, UCI’s media management and lecture capture solution, from 22 TBs of total storage and 400,000 minutes of auto-captioning to unlimited. Between March 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020, YuJa received 61,292 recordings with 1.685 million minutes of auto-captioning filling 30 TB of new storage.
YuJa Recordings between March 1 - December 31, 2020
TechPrep and Zoom Support Websites
Classroom Technologies quickly developed self-service resources to facilitate the rapid transition to remote teaching and learning. OIT launched the TechPrep website in February 2020, before the campus was formally closed, in anticipation of a stay-at-home order. A dedicated Zoom support website was also created with campus-specific instructions and related resources for students, faculty and staff working remotely.
Respondus LockdownBrowser+ Monitor
With campus closing right before winter quarter finals, OIT was tasked with helping secure and rapidly integrate a new tool for remote test monitoring, Respondus LockdownBrowser + Monitor. This tool is the gold-standard for ensuring online testing is fair and equitable, as it prohibits the test taker from navigating away from the test screen during exams. Students took more than 100,000 exam sessions via Respondus during 2020.
Exams taken with Respondus in 2020
EEE+ Improvements
EEE+ Final Evaluations Manager, a revamped and improved version of the university’s instructor evaluation tool, was rolled out. The updated version was informed by instructor and Academic Senate needs, and now enables confidential student feedback on teaching and learning via a robust feature set.
Streamlining Software Licenses
The OIT Help Desk launched a new web store through Kivuto, an online resource management tool, to effectively distribute & track thousands of Adobe Creative Cloud & Acrobat licenses for faculty, staff, and students. In 2020, UCI licensed 3,376 users for Adobe Acrobat, and nearly 6,000 users for Adobe Creative Cloud, including 4,018 students and 1,971 staff.
Adobe Creative Cloud Licences for UCI Students and Staff
Adobe Acrobat Licences
FOR CAMPUS
Digital Document Management
Digital document transmission, signature and storage at UCI is a multi-pronged process, made possible through the use of DocuSign for electronic routing and signing and Filenet for short and long-term storage solutions. For many departments, these two platforms can now talk seamlessly to each other, due in large part to OIT’s efforts to integrate them.
Enterprise Zoom
To accommodate the need for a virtual meeting solution, OIT negotiated a campus-wide enterprise contract with Zoom, which allowed for larger participant group sizes in meetings, recording of transcripts and a UCInetID integration. OIT helped to develop best practices and policies for using the tool, and the Classroom Technologies Support team set up a new Zoom Help Desk and support website to assist users with questions and troubleshooting. Zoom was further employed for remote conferences & events, online advising via the UCI-HIPAA Zoom instance, and later integrated into UCI Canvas for classroom purposes. OIT obtained early access to live meeting transcripts, fostering accessibility for all members of the university community.
Zoom Licenses added in 2020
Zoom Meetings Held
Zoom Meeting Minutes
UCI Directory
The UCI Directory was given a new, modern look and mobile-friendly view to align with UCI branding guidelines. The directory data is now updated in real time to ensure timely and accurate contact information.
UCI Sites Moved to Cloud Hosting
UCI Sites and Faculty Websites migrated to managed hosting in the cloud with CampusPress, a leading provider of WordPress for higher education. The benefits include a larger selection of plugins and themes, unlimited media storage, and 24/7 technical support.
Facilities Management Requests
Implementation of the Tririga facilities management system allows campus users to easily submit service requests to UCI Facilities Management from their desktop or mobile device through a simplified user interface. Tririga was also used to support inventory management and distribution of COVID-19 PPE related supplies to buildings.
Security Measures
The campus Virtual Private Network (VPN) was upgraded to allow it to handle significantly increased traffic to campus networks during remote work. Additionally, border network/security bandwidth was upgraded to 20Gbps to accommodate the significantly increased traffic.
Duo multi-factor authentication was rolled out for Office 365, and self-service support enhancements were implemented to make administration and support of Duo easier for both individual users and the OIT Help Desk to manage.
A new Password Change Tool was implemented that makes use of a database that monitors compromised accounts and hacked passwords, and requires increased complexity for all passwords. This change improves security by preventing people from reusing exploited passwords on their UCI accounts.
For National Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October, the Security Team planned a month of awareness activities, including two webinar events hosted with the FBI and Homeland Security, to share awareness of cybersecurity issues and prevention techniques with the UCI community.
In partnership with UCI Procurement, Privacy and Accessibility offices, Security contributed to a new Campus Software Procurement Process to ensure that new software being procured by campus meets the compliance standards of information security.
To ensure campus users can still sign into services during disasters, additional redundancy and failover capabilities were added to UCI Single Sign On.
FOR STUDENTS
CampusGroups Enables Connection
Moving a vibrant on-campus event experience from Aldrich Park and Ring Road to the virtual realm was no small feat, but OIT staff helped Campus Orgs and Volunteer Programs (COVP) implement the next best thing – a new way for student clubs, orgs and campus units to connect again, online.
Virtual Commencement
Teams in OIT worked closely with multiple campus units to quickly transition the 2020 graduation ceremonies into a virtual event, by supporting the commencement registration process and livestream of a pre-recorded ceremony. Adjustments were made rapidly to transition a six-ticket live event registration process, to a new process where the student’s intent to graduate was captured in order for a congratulatory box to be shipped to them from the campus. OIT staff were also instrumental in helping to interface with UCI Media Services to ensure that the livestream could handle the anticipated web traffic of a virtual ceremony. On June 13th, 2020 over 50,000 viewers tuned in during the Virtual Commencement Ceremony Livestream.
Viewers tuned in to virtual commencement livestream
New Freshman Writing Placement Process
In partnership with UCI writing faculty and staff, OIT helped to implement an innovative new freshman writing placement process, replacing the Analytical Writing Placement Exam (AWPE). This new process successfully placed 6,130 students into an appropriate first writing class and did so at no cost to the student, saving them the $110 AWPE exam fee.
Dollars saved by UCI Students
E-Transcripts
In November 2020, OIT helped UCI launch a new electronic transcript service for all students and alumni, successfully moving 370,000 records from over 50 years of student data from paper files to e-files. In the first week alone, over a thousand digital and paper transcripts were processed, representing a three-fold increase in transcript requests over the same time last year.
This is a huge benefit for the campus, provides a much-desired service to our students, and reduces the in-person requirements for Registrar’s Office staff during the COVID pandemic. This project was a success because of the expertise demonstrated by OIT and our functional partners in Registrar’s Office.
Undergraduate Admissions Modernized with Slate
UCI’s 45+ year old admissions system was replaced with a modern SAAS solution, UG Slate. This dramatically improved the student experience through the applicant portal and also reduced risk significantly by replacing aging legacy technology. The change also improved the Admissions staff’s administrative experience by rolling out an updated platform for applicant matching with a new user interface to resolve common matching conflicts.
The completion of this milestone represents the most complex and audacious work to date…Converting the enormous – and enormously idiosyncratic – amount of applicant data to be consumable by downstream legacy systems and processes was precarious, and required a singular combination of intelligence, creativity, attention to detail, tenacity, teamwork, and above all, the ability to maintain a sense of humor and positivity.
CARES Grant
When UCI was awarded federal funding as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) act, it was charged with disbursing half of the funds as financial aid for students. OIT implemented and executed a workflow to distribute over $21 million in special CARES grant awards to a total of 14,508 students. Awards ranged from $500 to $1,500 per student, calculated by basis of aid eligibility and need.
Had it not been for the quick action of OIT staff, students wouldn’t have their aid money. They worked many, many long hours, and we can’t say enough how much we appreciate them.
Student Orientation (SPOP)
Transitioning UCI’s signature Student Parent Orientation Program (SPOP) to a virtual experience presented a challenge, due to its highly personalized and collaborative nature. OIT supported the Center for Student Leadership and Undergraduate Advising, by enabling the hosting of virtual SPOP on Canvas, UCI’s course management platform. Over 9,000 incoming students were able to participate in virtual orientation sessions in Summer 2020, allowing them to have an enriching, informative SPOP experience, while ensuring they were not at a disadvantage when online classes began in Fall 2020. Utilizing Canvas also enabled the delivery of information and materials, providing access while also enabling accessibility.
Incoming students participated in virtual orientation
A new registration system for orientation attendees was launched using Amazon Web Services (AWS), enabling a more robust registration system for incoming students and parents. Each year, SPOP registration can exceed 9,000 students. The new cloud-hosted registration application provides more flexibility by enabling additional resources on-the-fly during peak demand times, to ensure registrations are completed quickly.
To eliminate physical documents previously used during SPOP advising sessions, and allow attendees access to a copy of their advising report during virtual sessions, OIT developed a new script to use in Google automation tools that made it possible to deploy the report to each student’s UCI sponsored Google Drive. The new process has the capability of deploying hundreds of digitized reports in rapid succession, opening up numerous automation possibilities for current additional processes that need to send sensitive information to students in a digitized format.
FOR RESEARCHERS
Research administration should be smooth, seamless and timely for our faculty, graduate students and staff. Working closely alongside campus partners and stakeholders, OIT has continued to work to transform the speed, ease and security of research administration. By replacing legacy applications with Kuali Research, enabling and improving reports and queries to provide better insights on research activities, and modernizing and improving the security of high-powered computing and data storage, researchers will be able to spend their time and energy on their ground-breaking work and not on administrative support burdens.
Kuali Research
The multi-year, multi-phase project of migrating all research administration into the Kuali Research application, replaces legacy databases and continues the Office of Research’s efforts to transition away from outdated technology, systems and processes. Kuali Research is a shining example of partnerships between functional units and the Office of Information Technology working seamlessly together by focusing on the areas of technical and subject-matter expertise within each team.
With each year and milestone on the Kuali Research project, UCI is moving closer toward a full-service enterprise research administration system that serves the whole academic community’s needs. As the vendor Kuali, Inc. delivered new and updated features for our research community to use, several core systems were upgraded to keep UCI’s Kuali Research system current. Upgrading to new releases has helped UCI follow an overall strategy of minimizing system customizations and makes it easier to maintain such a complex system over time. In 2019 and throughout 2020, work was accomplished in several other high-impact projects.
By successfully migrating sponsored projects administration’s non-funded agreements data into Kuali Research, they are now more easily accessed and managed by remote Office of Research staff and others on campus.
UCI completed a successful Proof of Concept for Kuali Research Protocols to set the foundation for new services that are more accessible by people on and off campus. The Protocols module provides key improvements to UCI’s Institutional Review Board and Human Stem Cell Research Oversight committee processes. Because of the successful Proof of Concept, KR Protocols is planned to launch in full production September 7, 2021.
The new Kuali Research Export Control module was activated for production use in managing export control requirements for research projects.
The Kuali Research and Kuali Financial Systems MySQL Migration Planning Project was completed, to set the stage for optimizing the database and infrastructure resources and costs required to support these essential systems.
Animal Research
OIT delivered a major upgrade to the animal research system, the RMS v3, in order to dramatically improve the user experience for researchers, their teams and central support groups.
Data Warehouse
OIT’s data warehouse and business intelligence teams have developed Protocol Search Tool, a comprehensive report enabling search capabilities across all types of research protocols. In addition, the Sponsored Projects DWQuery was released, providing ad-hoc query capability to the campus community for Kuali Research proposals and awards. The teams developed new data marts for Kuali Research Development Proposals and Subawards and built Awards Source by Campus Area – an analytical report for executive leadership.
Research Cyberinfrastructure Center (RCIC)
As more University domains depend on computing capabilities, research data storage is in high demand. The storage infrastructure supported by the Research Cyberinfrastructure Center (RCIC) helps to support research reproducibility, which is an essential component to scientific discovery. As technology hardware gets increasingly advanced every year, RCIC is in a constant effort to keep the infrastructure efficient and up to speed. Over the last year, RCIC has invested in research network upgrades and growing the high-performance computing cluster.
RESPONDING TO COVID-19
Contact Tracing
From early in the pandemic, a top priority for UCI was supporting the community’s public health by setting up contact tracing services. Contact tracing is an essential part of the fight against any infectious disease, as it helps break the chain of transmission by identifying those who may have come in contact with an infected person and notifying them of their potential exposure.
Daily Wellness Check-ins
In partnership with Human Resources and in support of the campus’ Working Well program, OIT developed email and app-based daily wellness check-ins required for all UCI students, faculty and staff. Students living on campus were supplied a digital ‘ZotPass,’ supported by the same ServiceNow application, which indicates their compliance with asymptomatic testing and symptom check requirements, allowing them to access services open on campus. UC Merced utilized the mobile app technology created by OIT for daily wellness check-ins on their campus as well.
Weekly COVID-19 Testing
When campus leadership mandated weekly testing for on-campus students and essential staff prior to the start of Fall 2020 quarter, a collaborative effort began between Student Affairs, OIT and UCI Health to facilitate COVID-19 testing and secure management of results. OIT rapidly installed underground and wireless infrastructure, procured and installed networking equipment, and collaborated with UCI Health to implement a pop-up COVID-19 testing site in a remote location in parking Lot 70. At peak testing, there were 4 testing locations – Bren Event Center, DCE CE1, ACC Plaza Verde, and ACC Vista Del Campo, and more than 112,000 samples have been collected from students (Nasal PCR and Saliva PCR tests).
COVID-19 Samples Collected
On-Campus Vaccination Site
In December of 2020, the Bren Center was rapidly converted from a testing facility into a clinical facility to vaccinate individuals from the campus and surrounding community against COVID-19. OIT supported this monumental effort by setting up computers, installing network equipment, and securing trip-proof cabling to facilitate the technical needs of the vaccination clinic. These efforts paid off, as UCI became one of the first public vaccination sites in Orange County, opening to over 2,700 UCI Health patients in its first weekend in January 2021. To date, over 70,000 vaccines have been successfully administered to the public, students, faculty and staff.
COVID-19 Vaccines Administered
On-Campus Testing Lab Site
An on-campus COVID-19 test lab was created to help offset the testing load from UCI Medical Center Lab, supported by a significant collaborative effort between UCI Health IT, Sunquest Information Systems, Covid Collection Testing Lab staff and various OIT teams. OIT supported this effort to reduce turnaround time for COVID test results, by evaluating and redesigning the environment to adjust to the unique wireless, VPN, and network requirements to connect back to Wellness, Health, and Counseling which runs the Electronic Medical Records on campus.
Loaner Laptops/Technology
OIT partnered with Student Success Initiatives to provide free laptops and equipment loans to students in need of devices for remote learning. Staff from the Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning and OIT teams worked to assist students in securing the equipment needed. In addition OIT procured and distributed urgently-needed laptops for employees. In total, over 900 laptops were loaned out, along with hundreds of hotspot units equipped with unlimited data. Having secured this equipment early, UCI was in a position to loan any extra equipment to other UCs, some of whom were placed on three-month waiting lists for laptops.
Pieces of Equipment Loaned
AUTOMATION & CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT
In a year of rapid change that required quick thinking and smart solutions, we haven’t just put a Band-Aid on each new technology need as they have come up. OIT is partnering closely with each of our campus departments to support viable, stable, long-lasting solutions and bringing efficiency and automation where it makes sense so our people can do their best work.
Remote Desktop Services
In the spring of 2020, OIT added Microsoft Remote Desktop Services to improve the remote work experience for telecommuting staff. The surge of remote access due to the COVID-19 pandemic led to some challenges due to limited physical network bandwidth in home locations. This new tool allowed UCI staff to connect securely to campus applications while mitigating issues caused by the increased network congestion.
MyCommute Expansion
OIT worked strategically with Transportation and Distribution Services to make quick changes to the campus’ parking application and provided institutional knowledge and expertise to a largely new stakeholder group involved in the project. Throughout 2020, OIT designed and developed software enhancements to MyCommute, and other dependent systems, to support online permit services for staff and faculty. Student options for return to campus were also expanded, effectively eliminating the need to visit the parking office in-person. The team also began work to develop new capabilities to support future virtual permits.
Automated Workflows
Student Withdrawal and Part-time Petitions
New workflows were implemented with the Registrar’s Office to streamline the process for students to withdraw or petition for part-time status. Prior to this change, students had to retrieve a paper form, complete it by hand and cart it to multiple departments and offices to get manual signatures. Now, the burden is removed from the student, the workflows are clearer for staff, all signatures are digital via a web application and all files are stored securely online for easy retrieval.
UC CAMPUS COLLABORATIONS
UCI, as a member of the ten-university UC system, often collaborates with other UC campuses to fill resource gaps, sharing valuable knowledge discoveries and rolling out systemwide programs that benefit all UC students, faculty and staff. These dynamic multi-campus and systemwide partnerships are invaluable for the UC system and its ability to remain so highly regarded within America’s higher education realm. Due in large part to the strong relationships OIT maintains, several collaborative projects were successfully rolled out or improved – providing a collective benefit and furthering digital transformation.
UC Path
UC Path, University of California’s chosen platform to centralize, streamline and standardize the university’s HR, payroll benefits, general ledger, workforce administration and academic processes, was rolled out at UCI at the beginning of 2020. OIT worked alongside many campus partners to ensure a smooth transition while either replacing or enhancing UCI’s legacy systems that historically housed payroll, benefits, timekeeping and HR. OIT’s team used knowledge from previous UC Path implementations to inform decisions on UCI’s rollout, which ultimately led to a successful launch in early 2020.
UC Merced TRS Implementation
Being a member of the University of California (UC) system provides opportunities for sharing knowledge and tools with other UC’s when there is a need or opportunity. In 2010, UC Irvine created a flexible, scalable, and secure online timesheet application for employees, supervisors and departmental time administrators. In partnership with University of California, Office of the President (UCOP), over the course of a decade, UCI implemented the time reporting system (TRS) at four other UC campuses. University of California, Merced is the latest campus to request UCI’s team to help implement the same program for staff at their campus. Their time reporting system instance went live in 2020 supported by UCI’s team. Along with hosting and pushing TRS live for UC Merced last year, OIT also maintains the critical application for the six campuses that use it, including updates or fixes needed.
Science & Engineering Building
The new state-of-the-art Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building networking was engineered by OIT with cutting edge technology. This is the first campus building that has 10G connectivity to all laboratory workstations and 40G connectivity to the six-story, 200,000 sq. building. The building will be occupied by faculty, researchers, and students from a wide range of departments and schools.
UC Recruit Improvements
UC Recruit, an application created at UCI for hiring of faculty and instructors, was updated and enhanced this year. The new updates sped up the in-app applicant review experience by 47%, shaved almost 2 days off of the approval processes, and added the ability to bulk download applicant documents, such as CVs, as a ZIP. These improvements also reduced analyst workload by allowing applicants to withdraw their own applications. To prepare for future updates, OIT also built a server provisioning workflow using Ansible to migrate to newer OS versions, when necessary.
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