Heavy Lifting: Leveraging Resources in the Public Sector

Mary Simone, Media Center Manager Lisa Link, Web Designer Lisa Berelson, Senior Web Designer

UMass Boston: Information Technology

Case Studies: Interdisciplinary Projects

Case One:
Internal Audience: students and faculty Resources: WebCT/Blackboard, Web 2.0 tools, MACXServ

Case Two:
Example Internal/External Project Resources: YouTube, imovie, Addthis, Google, MapLib

Project Management & Tracking

UMass Boston: Information Technology

Case One: OnLine Tutoring and Blended Learning

Presented by Mary Simone, Media Center Manager

On-line Tutoring blended Learning

Internal Audience: students and faculty Resources: WebCT/Blackboard, Web 2.0 tools, MACXServ

Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Academic Support Programs Hispanic Studies Nursing Writing Proficiency Office IT
UMass Boston: Information Technology

Case One: Project Intent

To increase understanding of class material of students enrolled in Spanish 102 courses To increase student access to tutoring services of students enrolled in Critical Reading and Writing to support student writing (CRW) 283 and Nursing 360 to satisfy the Writing Proficiency Requirement (3) to provide online students with similar access to tutoring in writing as that received by Nursing students in face to face courses

Case One: Role Matrix

Manager -budget and finance, administrative support,
event management , coordination,Communication,Reports

E-Technology (ET) --MAC OS

Server Set up ,BLS Course Design (one template)

BLS Course admin and management, ,Selection of Technology tools in BLS SPA, Selection of Technology tools in BLS NU

Subject Content &Pedagogy (SCP) - -Content of Web BLS Course- Nursing

Content of Web BLS Course- Spanish 101,ESL Content of Web BLS Nursing

Tutor management (TM)- -hire tutors; administer salary train Spanish tutors in
constructivist process approach to tutoring methods and documentation

Tutor Training (TT)--Technology

Competence Training of all Tutors

Technology training documentation, train Spanish tutors in constructivist process approach to tutoring methods and documentation , train Nursing tutors in constructivist process approach tutoring methods and documentation

Assessment:

Student and project Assessments

Case One: Project Management Timeline

Case One: Project Outcomes

Developed and piloted an on-line tutoring model in Vista 4 that integrated various e-learning tools. The different courses of Nursing and Hispanic Studies required slightly different Vista template design and content due to the pedagogical demands of the courses with which they were blended www.umassonline.net Created web portal to enable students and faculty to easily access different etools including and training and support materials outside of Vista throughout the pilot. The portal can be found at http://omega.www.umb.edu/~onlinetutorweb/index.html Successful collaboration resulted from the use project management software and e-tools including wikis and blogs, and project management software to facilitate and strengthen communication among committee members, build a community of active participation, and involvement in project tasks, document, archive, and evaluate individual and team achievements. http://xserv1.umb.edu/groups/onlinetutoring/

Case One: Management Assessment

On-line resources can be used successfully to target the learning needs of individual and groups of students in diverse academic areas. Has revealed strategies about how to leverage existing resources including material and personnel in a higher educational environment. The readership of the project was limited to the audience of faculty and students through WebCT. The fact that the materials produced were targeted to internal groups gave us different options from the kinds of multi-media tools that a project targeted to external audiences needed to provide.

Case Two: Web Designers as Media Brokers

Presented by Lisa Link, Web Designer

The process is important as the final product in reinforcing the universitys mission. Maximizing campus resources with a limited budget.

Collaboration & Scalability

Web 2.0 tools enhance marketing for understaffed programs

Case Two: Process vs. Product

UMass is Bostons only public university, since its founding chosen to actively engage with and serve its community. New media allows for collaborative methods of involving students in production, so that the PROCESS of the media piece reinforces the mission of the school as much as the final PRODUCT. Had a screening to show work-in-progress, invited campus personnel to meet students. Umass Advancement Office our most active client recognizes how media must reinforce the message and mission of the school. Ellen Fleming, Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations comanaged this project with me which involved a web site and video to show both on and offline.

Case Two: Leveraging Resources

Ellen & I had students do a lot of the research for the video interview and writing of the script. We borrowed low-end cameras to rehearse so that no time would be wasted when we were on the clock in the studio. We had the students do most of the editing in imovie. We created a base file in imovie and then worked with Mary Simones staff person, John Mazzarella, to add some special effects at the end. We designated Ellen as web editor and trained in Contribute so we know that the site will be maintained. This is our practice in Web Services.

Case Two: Collaboration & Scalability

Video portion of the web site will be presented offline in events requiring high resolution video. Design on the premise that we can scale down, not up. That is why we invested in one hour of paid studio time..

Collaboration across multiple departments is as important as any technology. Must share information, equipment, time to succeed.
Project managed by University Advancement & Web Services. Worked with Urban Scholars staff, students and other administrators as well as Mary Simones staff and the high-end video production group on campus.

Case Two: Web 2.0 Tools

At Umass, not every department has dedicated marketing support. Web designers must assist and Web 2.0 enhances their ability to promote their programs and ideas. Host on http://www.youtube.com, solves storage and provides access to broad audience, great for these short videos. http://www.addthis.com http://maps.google.com http://www.maplib.net http:/www.facebook.com

Urban Scholars already uses Facebook extensively. http://www.google.com/analytics

UMass Boston: Program Portal

Managing Projects at an Enterprise Level
Presented by Lisa Berelson, Senior Web Designer

UMass Boston: IT Application Services

Goal of IT App Program Portal

Advanced multi purpose organization tool Reporting tool for Directors and Managers Handles projects from a multi-tier perspective: Programs represent high level longer term initiatives, Projects or Tasks are subsets of Programs and smaller in scope
Ex) Program - Template Redesign: ongoing program involving potentially thousands of sites Ex) Project - Convert Research Department to new template

Day to day tracking tool - for individual projects Long term initiative assessment Complete system for handling workflow
Directors, Managers, Staff, Plus Client

Features of IT Application Program Management Portal

Multi-tiered application Versatile Extensible Filters exists at almost every level and very helpful for all users including
managers and staff to see

Sorts example: Director or Managers can sort only the Programs they want Communicates can email Staff and or notify Client when a project is
assigned. Can also email client when an assignment is completed. Closure on a project: how satisfying.

Reports data

UMass Boston: IT Application Services

Program Management Portal

filters sorts

ID# Tip: organize emails with

this numbering system

Program Management Portal: Project Details

Client and Staff Communication

High level of detail:

URL involved

Comments: public

Developers Notes: internal

Versatile
Repository for documents: Status Reports in Word, Excel.
Instant access to the same data for staff and management. Avoid emailing old copies of status reports. All sharing same information.

Excellent repository for development docs and resources

Extensible
Allows for flexibility in growth or change of your division or department as well as flexibility in functionality
Example of Add-ons:
Calendar: shows when employees are out or at conference Contribute users portal Perhaps extend this to tracking Subdomain information ex) www.english.umb.edu

Program Management Portal:

Management Perspective

Dashboard: Management Perspective

Measures: Estimated Hours vs. Actual Hours

The Dashboard: Management Perspective

Tracks Individual Projects to the Program Initiative

The Dashboard: Reporting Tool

Report % Complete by Program

The Dashboard: Reporting Tool

Report % Complete by Program

Conclusion
Research on campus for any and all resources that may be able to design a Project Portal Application at lower cost than full outsource: possibly collaborating with Computer Science Department who may have programming students. Ex) Academic Support and Computer Science subsidiary (serl) But be aware: Database applications are a tricky business. They require a lot of knowledge of business processes and workflow. Even graduate students rarely have this expertise or experience. UMB leveraged from having the same Team Leader in charge of the department also be the developer on the application. He could therefore anticipate any and all situations that would arise in the design of this portal. If necessary, outsource the initial development of this work to a qualified web applications developer and assign a manager in charge of knowing basic maintenance issues that the developer should provide. Worth the cost in saving time and money.

UMass Boston: Web Services Image Repository

Tool of choice: dedicated file server running Adobe Bridge
UMass Boston: IT Application Services

Adobe Bridge: Cost effective way to manage large collection of images

Adobe Bridge Features

Allows you to easily Find images from vast array of photos Find feature works by assigning keywords to images
Ex) Campus Center, Studying, Collaboration

Fully dynamic and extensible assortment of images. System we set up at UMB: photographers upload images monthly to a space allocated on file server.
Organized by year_month

Details for any image: includes resolution and pixel dimensions Not a CMS system i.e. this does auto crop or optimize images

Adobe Bridge Find window

Adobe Bridge: Metadata and other properties provide precise detail including pixel dimensions and resolution
Great resource for designers and writers alike