Potential and perspective: Profiles on EASI’s 2018 co-op students

Group shot of EASI's co-op students

From user experience process and design to information management, business analysis and machine learning – the four co-op students who joined Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration (EASI) this past summer gained a wealth of experience and contributed a wealth of knowledge.

“Not only do our co-op students benefit from their experience with EASI, we also benefit from their skills,” says Cathy Eberts, Executive Director of EASI. “We have a lot of projects on the go and we always look forward to the extra help.”

The program included students from U of T’s iSchool and Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and George Brown College. While it officially ran over the summer, several of the students will continue with EASI over the coming months.

Learn about their wide range of projects and the impact of their experiences.


Name: Andrew Magnaye
Position: User Experience Designer
Program/School: Second-year Master of Information student at U of T’s iSchool.

As part of the User Experience and Process Design team at EASI, I’ve had the opportunity to wear many different hats. On projects like ACORN and the Course Information System, I’ve worked as a designer, researcher and developer. I’m currently working on a web app that helps students sign up for usability tests and research activities with the UXPD team. This application streamlines a cumbersome process for our participants and makes it much easier for the team to keep track of these participants.

Through collaboration and critiques, I’ve seen the quality of my work grow by leaps and bounds. Being a part of the team has helped me gain a greater sense of creative confidence in everything I do. I’m incredibly grateful for this experience!


Name: Randy Samsoondar
Position: HRIS Specialist
Program/School: First-year Information Systems Business Analysis, George Brown College

I’ve had a fantastic four months with EASI and have contributed in several capacities. I supported the implementation of Kronos, a time and attendance system, in a number of departments by participating in demonstrations, trainings, configurations and testing.

It has been very interesting to gain a better technical understanding of the human resource information systems used at U of T and to see their role in the various stages of the employee lifecycle. Furthermore, I’ve had the opportunity to observe and apply various project management and business analysis techniques that I learnt during my academics, which will be invaluable experience as I move forward with my career.


Name: Jessica Viau
Position: Information Management Analyst
Program/School: Second-year Knowledge Management and Information Management, U of T iSchool

I’m currently studying innovative theory and practical solutions for Information Management, Knowledge Management, User Experience Design, and Information Governance. I’m four months into my eight-month co-op position at EASI as an Information Management Analyst and designated SharePoint Online Ambassador.

Currently, I am working with the Document Management Team to facilitate the migration of content from Blackboard, Confluence, and network drives to SharePoint Online. This includes consulting with and providing expertise to IT professionals across U of T’s many departments on the implementation of SharePoint Online. I have had the chance to build portals for the Faculty of Nursing, Office of the Vice-President International, and many more.

The level of guidance and mentorship I have received in this role has been exceptional, and the skills that have I have acquired will provide an excellent primer for continued learning and achievement as I go forward in my career.


Name: Gilbert Zhu
Position: Machine Learning Engineer
Program/School: Second-year Master of Engineering at MIE, U of T

I made use of some HR data and built a predictive model using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning techniques that can help HR professionals make certain decisions faster. I found that modern techniques like machine learning can really help improve efficiency in business processes. Through this co-op, I have gained experience with a complete data science project life cycle, which made me more confident about my future career in this area. It was a very pleasant and useful experience at EASI!

 

EASI Retirements: October 2018

Congratulations to Christina Tsang, who will be retiring on October 5 after 36 years of dedicated service to the university. Since the implementation of HRIS in 1998, Christina has been our “go-to” person for HR Payroll at U of T.

Learn more about Christina below, and please join me in wishing her all the best in the future!

Cathy Eberts
Director, Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration

Christina Tsang – Information Technology Analyst

Christina Tsang – Information Technology Analyst
Joined U of T: February 02, 1982
Retirement: January 1, 2019
Last day in the office: October 05, 2018

Describe your background and how you arrived at EASI
During my 36 years at U of T, I progressed through as a software developer at BIS (Business Information Systems), DAMS (Department of Administration Systems), UTCS (University of Toronto Computer Systems) and then as an Information Technology Analyst at EASI. I was in the original team that brought in SAP HR/Payroll/OM Modules in 1998. In the first few years, after we went live with the SAP software systems, we  experienced a lot of challenges related to technical issues, data quality issues, mindshift issues and as well as many late nights!

It was challenging to work through these issues, but it was also highly rewarding. Our efforts and contributions to successful projects were recognized with various awards such as the Distinguished Service Award and the Outstanding Staff Team Awards.

What will you remember most about EASI?
EASI has let me produce the best work possible. I’ve had a lot of opportunity for professional development and to move forward and learn. I think that the people I work with are so important. It’s a very collaborative environment and we see each other through any challenges.

What will you remember most about U of T?
I really like U of T’s architecture – it reminds me of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Convocation Hall is my favourite because of its size and location. I love walking around campus and seeing all of the buildings. I also like that U of T is an oasis in the centre of Toronto. You can easily go to Kensington Market or Chinatown and then you can enjoy the peacefulness of the St. George campus. I really like to see movies that were filmed on campus, like Good Will Hunting.

What do you plan to do in retirement?
For retirement, I plan to take a permanent holiday. It will be an opportunity to spend time with family and I really want to travel the modern Silk Road in China on a high-speed train. I also plan to stay active – it’s important to keep moving and keep your body and mind engaged.

Outside of work, I enjoy line dancing, cooking and investing, and I plan to continue with those activities.

What words of wisdom would you pass along to others?
Care for others and show that you care about your team. Everyone goes through different stages in life and a small conversation can go a long way. Also, work hard – set goals and you’ll be rewarded for your effort.

ACORN enrolment: From ‘Black’ to ‘Grey Friday’

Staff posing for group photo

It was a tense day full of careful monitoring, communications and coffee consumption. On August 3, over 35,000 Faculty of Arts & Science students logged in to ACORN during the largest enrolment day for U of T.

The system successfully handled the massive number of logins during the Faculty’s “priority drop” enrolment period. Now, a day that was previously known as “Black Friday,” when the system crashed in 2015 and 2016, has become “Grey Friday”, with more planned improvements to come.

This year’s peak enrolment day became brighter due to the efforts of staff from Information Security, Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS), and Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration (EASI) at Information Technology Services.

Let’s take a look at how the day played out:

Pre-Enrolment Preparation

Laurel Williams preparing for the big day

Laurel Williams preparing for the big day

“Look! There’s a squirrel on my coffee just for ACORN. I was up at 5:30 a.m. and decided to pick up my favourite coffee. It’s such a big day that it’s important to stay fueled,” said Laurel Williams, Information Technology Analyst with EASI. “All of the teams involved are critical to this process. I’ve been working on this project for three to four months and each year we enhance our preparation.”

9 a.m. – First Round of Enrolment

Within the first five seconds of enrolment, 1,000 fourth-year students had logged in.

“I would like to be in the same room as the mainframe to see it smoking!” said Williams.

The mainframe, which looks like a giant, black refrigerator, weighs 1,014 kg and has been working hard since 2012.

In November, the Platform Modernization Project will replace the mainframe with faster and more secure Linux servers and a new code base. It will be able to handle 15,000 simultaneous logins compared to the current 700.

“The new platform will be a lot faster – we’ve removed major bottlenecks in the design and we’re expecting a much better experience next year,” said Frank Boshoff, U of T’s Enterprise Architect.

Twenty minutes after students started enrolling, ACORN was back to normal with near instantaneous login.

“It’s great that we’ve cleared the first round with lots of time to spare. This session was easier to handle because there were fewer students applicable to login, but wait until 11 a.m. – when we have our largest round of enrolment,” said Sarosh Jamal, Project Manager/Analyst with EIS.

Group shot of team hard at workPart of the team assembled at 215 Huron Street included Frank Boshoff, Sarosh Jamal, Andre Kalamandeen, Gerry Lindo, Paul Day, Laurel Williams, Titus Hsu, Mike Clark, Miki Harmath and Parani Vinayagamoorthy. 

10 a.m. – Second Round

“Wow, we have 3,390 third-year students logged in already at 10 a.m!” said Williams.

By 10:30 a.m. that wave of students had luckily decreased to 1,695, and fifteen minutes later the system had recovered and was ready once again.

While answering students’ questions on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit, Mike Clark, Manager, User Experience & Process Design with EASI, enrolled in his own courses.

“We’ve made more important improvements to ACORN and its underlying infrastructure for this year, and our goal is that the system will perform even better than last year because of those changes,” said Clark. “This day is always a huge load on the system though, so we’ll have to see how things go, especially with ROSI-SWS no longer being around.”

These improvements included optimizing Weblogin to better handle the large volume of login requests, as well as a ‘webload management day’ waiting page where if students tried to log in to ACORN before their scheduled start time, their session would be kept active and prevent Weblogin from having to process repeated login attempts. This further improved the system’s overall performance.

The team also increased the duration and volume of cached registration information in the system to improve performance. And if an individual student made an unusually rapid number  of requests, they would be automatically prompted to prove that they were a human via a “captcha.”

How did these improvements help students?

“Compared to last year, we see that more users are spending a longer time actually logged in the system with fewer logins overall, rather than more time spent attempting to login as in previous years, so that’s a really good sign.” said Jamal. “This year Andre Kalamandeen and the larger developer and test teams helped tune the system so that students enrolled approximately a minute faster.”

Just before the third, and most intense, round of enrolments for second-year students, the team welcomed a surprise visitor.

“I used to have to line up for hours to enrol in classes,” said Bo Wandschneider, U of T’s Chief Information Officer. “Things have really changed since then, and we hope that next year will be even better.”

11 a.m. – Third Round

As expected, the third round of enrolments pushed the system to its limits.

“To prepare for the heaviest loads, we run tests to simulate student logins,” said Williams. “Every time something breaks we try to mitigate the issue.”

Live data on screen to monitor the load on the system

The team used live data to monitor the load on the system, as well as its performance

The User Experience & Process Design team was on-hand to assist students, via email and social media support. The team had also produced pre-enrolment information to help set students’ expectations and provide best practices on such a busy day.

Ibraheem Aziz, fourth-year Rotman Commerce student, on U of T’s Instagram giving tips to students on how to use ACORN

“On the morning of, we were online from 8:30am until mid-afternoon responding to urgent student questions, as well as engaging in broader discussions about the overall experience that students had,” said Clark. “This is a critically important day for students and staff. Luckily, we didn’t see any outright crashes this year and came away with an objectively improved system from previous ‘priority drop’ days.”

At 11:26 there were 3,608 active users who needed to clear the system to accommodate the next round at 12 p.m.

“How low can we go? There are a lot of pending enrolments and we have to clear this session before 12 p.m.” said Vik Chadalawada, Senior Manager of Student Information Systems with EASI.

At 11:41 a.m., there were still 2,975 users, but everyone breathed a sigh of relief as the number of active users dropped to 1,688 by 11:53.

12 p.m. – Fourth round

With the nail-biting part of the day over, the fourth round was a breeze.

“Phew! It’s over!” said Williams.

After an intense four hours, the team gathered for a celebratory lunch.

“Way to go everyone! We all worked really hard to make this happen,” said Chadalawada. “We had a plan, we came prepared and it was well executed. We stayed collected as a team throughout the whole process, doing everything we could to mitigate any issues while tackling social media at the same time.  Hopefully the next year will see us evolve from a Grey Friday to a Blue Sky Friday.”

Thank you to everyone on the Grey Friday team, including Client Services Representatives and registrars across the University:
Frank Boshoff
Mike Clark
Paul Day
Zunan Dong
Paul Fardy
Miki Harmath
Matt Hendrickson
Titus Hsu
Sarosh Jamal
Andre Kalamandeen
Gerry Lindo
Jose Parada
Ian Scott
Ted Sikorski
Ken Tsang
Parani Vinayagamoorthy
Matt Wilks
Laurel Williams
Mike Wiseman
Mike Wyers

Data Dragons Competition: How contestants faced the fire

Data Dragons pose for a group photo

Feather boas, fantastic pitches and fiery competition – that’s how U of T’s first Data Dragons Competition played out. On July 5, Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration (EASI – ITS) and Planning & Budget welcomed over 120 attendees to watch six dragons critique five business intelligence presentations.

For a tense ten minutes the presenters pitched their ideas, and the panel questioned them about each proposal’s University-wide impact, proof of concept and stakeholder involvement.

“This event was a chance for staff and faculty to bring their innovative, data-driven ideas to the forefront – advancing the overall mission of the University,” says Cathy Eberts, Executive Director of EASI. “I want to thank the team for their hard work in pulling off this event, and all of the contestants who were brave enough to face the panel of judges.”

U of T is quickly becoming a leader in business intelligence, which is the process of analyzing and visualizing data to make fact-based decisions. In addition to the competition, staff can tap into the power of business intelligence through the Institutional Data Hub – a rich repository of data relating to teaching, research and service activities.

The event’s proposals ranged from studying how space is used on campus, what programs of study students are pursuing, how to use artificial intelligence to respond to email, and how to measure faculty members’ impact in clinical teaching and course design.

Andrea Armstrong, Senior Policy Advisor at Enrolment Services, won the competition and is now the proud owner of the 3D-printed dragon’s head trophy. Her proposal was to use internal data to evaluate existing University policies for English language proficiency. Her pitch will be sponsored by EASI and Planning & Budget.

“I’ve always wondered about the fact that our English language proficiency is mainly based on external inputs, and I thought that we could use our extensive in-house data to make sure that the requirements we’re using to admit students are the best fit for the institution,” says Armstrong.

The event was hosted by Robert Jordan, Manager of Business Intelligence and organized by Jordan and Michael Green,  Institutional Data Hub Training & Project Specialist.

“It is incredible to see so much interest and engagement in data-driven decision-making, and to hear such innovative ideas from our colleagues about ways to improve our service to faculty, staff, and students,” says Trevor Rodgers, Assistant Vice-President, Planning & Budget. “I’m already looking forward to hearing more of these great ideas next year.”

And contestants are looking forward to next year as well.

“The experience was great. It was a bit nerve wracking to present to such a large audience, but it was exciting to share what I think is a really great idea that would benefit a lot of students as well as a lot of people across the University,” says Armstrong. “It was great to meet the other pitchers, and I encourage others to take part in the future!”

EASI and Planning & Budget would like to thank all Data Dragons participants:

Dragons
Judith Chadwick – Assistant Vice-President, Research Services
Cathy Eberts – Executive Director, Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration
Heather Kelly – Senior Director, Student Success
Richard Levin – Executive Director, Enrolment Services and University Registrar
Susan McCahan – Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education and Vice-President, Academic Programs
Trevor Rodgers – Assistant Vice-President, Planning & Budget

Contestants
Andrea Armstrong – Senior Policy Advisor, Enrolment Services

Anita Chooraman – HR Assistant, Integrated HR, Strategic Initiatives, Division of HR and Equity
Paul Nakonechny – HR Analytics Consultant, Division of HR and Equity

Dr. Kulamakan Kulasegaram – Assistant Professor, Department of Family & Community Medicine
Dr. Risa Freeman – Associate Professor, Department of Family & Community Medicine and Clinician Educator Researcher, Wilson Centre

Joseph Peter McNamara – Resource Planning and Analysis Officer, University of Toronto Scarborough

Mari Motrich – Manager, Systems and Data Analysis, University of Toronto Scarborough

NGSIS web services: Real-time data, real-time results

Academic adviser helps student while at computer

Is a student registered, enrolled in a particular course and succeeding academically? In the past, academic advisors would have to consult multiple computer systems as well as ROSI, U of T’s official student information database, for any recent changes.

Now a new solution, called web services, provides staff with real-time data to help create a seamless student experience.

The solution, introduced by Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration (EASI), provides an instant, secure link to ROSI for specific student information. Currently, U of T divisions rely on large data downloads called batch downloads.

“These batch downloads lead to out-of-date information, a huge duplication of data, and security vulnerabilities – as soon as the download is completed, the data starts becoming stale,” says Frank Boshoff, U of T’s Enterprise Architect. “When divisional applications use web services, they help provide accurate information to students and decrease the number of calls, emails and face-to-face meetings.”

The new approach is based on RESTful services – Representational State Transfer – which is used to build lightweight, maintainable and scalable web services. It allows other authorized systems to access pertinent ROSI data, and authorized systems can update ROSI, potentially saving significant administrator effort.

Batch jobs have to download all records – sometimes thousands – to determine which records have changed. web services works on a record-by-record model and only retrieves necessary records.

While this technology won’t replace batch downloads entirely, it will help when real-time transactions are a priority.

EASI recently introduced web services to the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, and plans to roll them out to other divisions in the near future.

“We wanted to more tightly integrate our local systems with the data from ROSI and other local and institutional systems of record to improve the user experience,” says Dan Pettigrew, Director of Administrative Systems and Associate Registrar at the Faculty. “In the past, staff sometimes had to consult ROSI and other systems manually because the downloaded ROSI data they were seeing was potentially out of date. We really needed a holistic, real-time view of the student experience.”

On the front lines, web services are already making an impact.

“This has been a dream of mine – it makes our jobs easier and the student experience so much better,” says Leslie Grife, Assistant Director, First Year Academic Services with the Faculty. “Now the Faculty’s Academic Advising system connects directly to the ROSI database. And soon several of our other online services will as well. We can advise students with accurate data, helping them to make better informed decisions.”

In the future, the team will work with U of T’s Information Security and Enterprise Architecture to add an extra layer of security, called OAuth 2.0.

“It comes down to getting the right data to the right person at the right time with minimal effort from the user,” says Boshoff. “Web services enable real-time access to data, which improves the user experience, reducing annoyances and irritation for students, staff and faculty. Things work better when they are designed to work together.”

New Course Information System to streamline syllabi, exams process

Professor lecturing to class

It will save U of T instructors and administrators hundreds of hours of work, and is projected to save the University over $280, 000 annually. The new Course Information System (CIS), with core functionality set for completion by the end of 2019, will streamline syllabi and exams processes for instructors and administrators, and help students to make better-informed decisions about their education.

The system, created by Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration (EASI) in partnership with the Office of the Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education, is currently being piloted in three divisions on two campuses.

“In the past, the decentralized process of creating, collecting, reviewing and approving syllabi and exams was paper- and pdf-based,” says Mark Johnston, CIS product manager. “This online system streamlines several disparate processes for instructors and departmental staff, and ensures accuracy and security. Overall, it will free up faculty and staff for more important activities.”

The system is a new product developed by the Next Generation Student Information Services program, which creates technological solutions to provide students, faculty and staff with a supportive educational environment.

It is divided into three modules for instructors to submit syllabi-related materials, pre-exam and final exam details.

When creating syllabi, instructors can immediately see whether they are meeting divisional and University guidelines. They can also select from a list of pre-written, standardized policies and statements, or use them as the basis for personally crafted statements, and the system will help instructors schedule important course milestones around holidays and important University dates.

Instructors can also submit details for their exams, including logistical information, duration and required equipment.

“This system is especially useful for new instructors,” says Johnston. “They might have to submit syllabi and exam details soon after being hired, and just as the term starts, and we’re helping them to quickly navigate the process.”

For final exams, instructors can upload their exam and printing instructions and either submit them for divisional approval or to an approved print location.

The project has been in production for 18 months and has been piloted with the Faculty of Arts & Science, the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the University of Toronto Scarborough.

“Our goal is to make the administration of courses easy for instructors,” says Professor Susan McCahan, Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education, and project co-sponsor. “The information needed to set a final exam or create a syllabus will flow through an integrated system. We anticipate that this will allow instructors to spend less time on logistics.”

Beyond streamlining processes, the system will help local academic administrators collect and analyze data to make evidence-based decisions.

“We want to provide divisions and units with a suite of tools that will help align course-related business practices, and help them to better understand the academic activity within their units’ courses and programs,” says Julian Weinrib, Special Projects Officer with the Office of the Vice-Provost. “We believe this will help spur important conversations locally, and ultimately help students to better understand and curate their academic experience.”

Similar to the process of building the student information system, ACORN, the team began the project with extensive interviews across the three campuses.

“We’re basing our development on a user-centred approach,” says Johnston. “It’s important to research, build, test, launch and then start all over again to ensure we’re developing an intuitive and informative system.”

In the future, the team will continue to build out functionality while onboarding new divisions. New functionality will include a detailed class list with students’ names, year, programs of study and photos. It will also include tools for an instructor to create their course syllabi directly on CIS and a syllabus archive and repository. In addition, the system will streamline over 18,000 accommodated tests per year at the St. George campus, and will link to Quercus, eMarks, ACORN and Degree Explorer.

“The promise of CIS is to build out useful, usable tools for instructors, departments and divisions from a centrally supported platform that integrate well across our three campuses and the complimentary systems surrounding CIS.”

Data Dragons Competition: Participants’ perspectives

Word Data Dragons on top of abstract dragon.

You might have heard about the Data Dragons Competition – an event filled with fun, scorching ideas and opportunities to learn.

Join Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration (ITS) and Planning & Budget on July 5 as six staff and faculty pitch their data science and business intelligence ideas to a panel of judges. The winning pitch will become a sponsored project.

U of T is quickly becoming a leader in business intelligence, which is the process of analyzing and visualizing data to make fact-based decisions. In addition to the competition, staff can tap into the power of business intelligence through the Institutional Data Hub – a rich repository of data relating to teaching, research and service activities.

Data Dragon trophy

See who will win this 3D printed trophy!

Here’s how some of the competitors are preparing:

Anita Chooraman – HR Assistant, Integrated HR, Strategic Initiatives, Division of HR and Equity
Paul Nakonechny – HR Analytics Consultant, Division of HR and Equity

In preparation, we’re taking time to watch Rocky II to Rocky V because those are the movies where he wins. We’re also studying who’s on the panel, scoping out our competition and practicing our delivery on how our project reflects the needs of the University as a whole. This will be an exciting experience because it’s the first event like this, and we’re ready for whatever will come at us!


Mari Motrich – Manager, Systems and Data Analysis, University of Toronto Scarborough

This is a really busy time for the registrar’s office because we’re preparing for both fall and winter courses. I’ve been preparing after work and picking my co-workers’ brains during the day. We have a rehearsal at UTSC at a data analytics meeting, and I’m hoping to get some great feedback there. I’m really excited for the event – to receive feedback on my presentation and to hear the other proposals.


Joseph Peter McNamara – Resource Planning and Analysis Officer, University of Toronto Scarborough

I’ve been preparing by going through dry runs and bouncing ideas off of colleagues. I’ll also be presenting at the same data analytics meeting as Mari – we’re very supportive of each other at UTSC. Overall, I’m going to try to make sure the event is fun, and I get a kick out of answering the tough questions. I like the adrenaline rush and having to think on my feet, and I’ll be sure to have done my homework before facing the fire.

NGSIS Platform Modernization Project: User Acceptance Testing Launches

ROSI testers sitting in front of laptops testing

On June 25, Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration (EASI) welcomed the first group of users to test the NGSIS Platform Modernization Project.

This phase of testing includes initial preparation for registration.

“We were excited to start the first of six phases today,” says Richard Chow, an information technology analyst with EASI, and the testing lead. “Participants are setting up students and courses for future registration sessions, and ensuring data accuracy.”

If a user finds a bug in the system, their names will be entered into a bi-weekly draw for one of two $10 Tim Hortons gift cards.

“We’ve really tried to make this a fun process!” says Kelly Jay, senior information systems analyst with EASI. “We have a piñata, beach balls and snacks at our testing location in 215 Huron St. This is an opportunity for users to see how the system is performing and to also build community.”

Next steps for testing include registration preparation, student enrolment, marks, awards and convocation.

EASI has created a roadmap to measure progress through the six phases.

The roadmap shows User Acceptance Testing progress
The roadmap shows User Acceptance Testing progress – credit Alex Dault

“Testing today went really smoothly,” says Chow. “Everyone could familiarize themselves with the new tools, and we expect all users to adapt to the new system quickly.”

U of T launches digital workplace training: Office 365, SharePoint, Tableau

Icons for Microsoft Office Products, Skype and Tableau

Do you want to learn more about Microsoft Office 365, Outlook, SharePoint or Tableau? Now, U of T is offering in-person and online training to help staff get up to speed with online services that are defining the future of the workplace.

From July to August, HR & Equity’s Organizational Development and Learning Centre (ODLC) will offer weekly full-day training sessions on Office 365, including Skype for Business, Teams and OneDrive. They will also offer monthly SharePoint and Tableau sessions throughout the summer.

“There’s been a high demand for these courses, and now we’re providing consolidated, comprehensive training resources,” says Luke Pereira, learning resources and web coordinator at ODLC. “We have a dedicated Office 365 trainer and we’re also offering online courses, so staff can figure out what training best meets their needs.”

The online courses include curated training videos offered through Lynda.com. All U of T staff and faculty can now log in to Lynda.com for free using their UTORid to advance their professional development.

“In the past, some staff might not have been able to attend in-person training sessions, and there were hundreds of training videos to navigate through,” says Mark Seymour, acting director of ODLC. “We’ve simplified the process with selected videos for Office 365 Basics, Skype, SharePoint and Adobe Creative Cloud.”

The Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development is funding the pilot program through eCampusOntario, providing free Lynda.com subscriptions to all Ontario colleges and universities for two years.

“A great place to begin exploring Lynda.com is by accessing the technical skills resources for just-in-time and just-enough learning, which is part of our everyday work,” says Laurie Harrison, director of online learning strategies. “As staff, we’re consistently asked to use new tools and software, and to learn and grow.”

In the future, the ODLC team will implement Success Factors, which is a new staff learning management system. The system will be a one-stop-shop inventory of learning opportunities for U of T staff, and will allow users to create online learning material or links to external online learning sources such as Lynda.com.

“We now have a plethora of communication and collaboration services. The real key now is taking advantage of all of them and using them effectively across the organization,” says Marden Paul, director of planning, governance and assessment with Information Technology Services.

Pereira agrees.

“Staff training will continue to be an evolving process, and we’re eager to see where this will take us. We’ll measure our success with this first iteration of courses, collect feedback and constantly enhance our offerings.”

For more information, visit ODLC.

Top 5 reasons to attend U of T’s Data Dragons Competition

Word Data Dragons on top of abstract dragon.

Kevin O’Leary might not be there to offer words of wisdom, but U of T’s own dragons will choose the winner of the Data Dragons Competition – an event where brave competitors will pitch their data science and business intelligence ideas to a panel of judges.

Join Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration (ITS) and Planning & Budget on July 5 as six staff and faculty take centre stage and try to convince the dragons that their ideas should become reality. The winning pitch will become a sponsored project.

“This competition is an opportunity for the outstanding analysts in our community to turn data assets into information that will make the U of T experience even better for our students, faculty, and staff,” says Trevor Rodgers, assistant vice president of Planning & Budget and one of the dragons.

U of T is quickly becoming a leader in business intelligence, which is the process of analyzing and visualizing data to make fact-based decisions. In addition to the competition, staff can tap into the power of business intelligence through the Institutional Data Hub – a rich repository of data relating to teaching, research and service activities.

Here are the top five reasons why you should attend:

  1. Learn something new beyond your specific field of interest, including data visualization, predictive analytics, machine learning and data management.
  2. Gain motivation from the presentations to implement a business intelligence solution in your area, and brainstorm ideas for the next competition.
  3. Meet new people with similar interests, or potential collaborators for your next project.
  4. Stay relevant with the latest technology and data trends and stay up to date with your peers and industry trends.
  5. Learn from presentations, including how to withstand the pressure of the powerful Dragons!

Register Now! Space is limited.

Who
The Data Dragons Panel:
Judith Chadwick – Assistant Vice-President, Research Services
Cathy Eberts – ‎Executive Director, Enterprise Applications and Solutions Integration
Heather Kelly – Senior Director, Student Success
Richard Levin – Executive Director, Enrolment Services and University Registrar
Susan McCahan – Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education and Vice-President, Academic Programs
Trevor Rodgers – Assistant Vice-President, Planning & Budget

Pitchers:
Andrea Armstrong – Senior Policy Advisor, Enrolment Services
Anita Chooraman & Paul Nakonechny – HR Assistant & HR Advisor, HR Strategic Initiatives
Dr. Mahan Kulasegaram – Assistant Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine
Joseph Peter McNamara – UTSC: Office of Business, Operations & Strategic Affairs
Mari Motrich – UTSC: Office of the Registrar

When
July 5, 2018
9 – 11:30 a.m.

Where
Governing Council Chamber (Room 214)
27 King’s College Circle
University of Toronto
M5S 1A1