UW Information Technology

UW-IT Insights — Spring 2017

New online tool helps advisers “pivot” students to new academic paths

Cassady Glass Hastings, undergraduate instructor at the college of educationA pilot program helps academic advisers provide better guidance to students seeking acceptance to competitive majors — offering early insight they can use to improve a student’s chances or identify other options.

The program uses a new online advising tool called Pivot, designed by UW-IT and tested by 20 advisers during a recent five-month period. Pivot displays the average cumulative GPA of students who have declared a particular major and the average grade these students received in common courses.

“Advisers can use this standardized, up-to-date information to better inform students who are applying to a competitive major, help them set goals for upcoming quarters and discover back-up majors,” said Henry Lyle, UW-IT service manager for Pivot. “And for students who have had difficulty getting into a major and have had a change of heart, this tool helps them to ‘pivot’ and chart a new academic path.”

During the pilot project, UW-IT interviewed several advisers to understand how they were using Pivot, to document usability issues and to prioritize upcoming features. Several improvements have been made, and Pivot is expected to be available to advisers on all three campuses this summer.

Prepare now for smooth transition to Workday

news_hrp-workdayWorkday, the University’s new, modern and integrated human resources, payroll and benefits system, will go live June 27, and all employees are being asked to take important steps to ensure they are ready.

What you need to know: Enroll in Duo, the UW’s new two-factor authentication (2FA) system, which adds a second layer of security beyond your password. Using 2FA protects your personal information and UW data, and will be used to access Workday.

Visit the new Integrated Service Center website, your source for Workday information and support. All employees can view videos and user guides on the site. Additional material will be added on an ongoing basis.

The Integrated Service Center’s offices will officially open when Workday is live on June 27, and will be a key resource for faculty, staff and student employees who need help with HR, payroll or benefits. The ISC is located in the UW Tower, 0-2.

New version of MyUW for faculty and staff coming this summer

myuw1MyUW, a key portal for web resources since 2000 for faculty and staff, is being transformed to meet today’s more demanding needs.

The new MyUW, expected to be available this summer, will provide a streamlined user experience and present personal, timely and relevant information to support the work of faculty and staff.

Instructors will see an enhanced Teaching page to better support their quarterly workflow, such as improved email list management, and closer integration with GradePage for submitting final grades at the end of the quarter. MyUW will also closely integrate with other teaching and learning tools and the Registrar’s systems, to make use of these tools more efficient.

The student version of MyUW is also receiving major upgrades this June, including easier customization and navigation. The homepage offers a streamlined view with links to major areas of interest, such as academics, accounts and Husky Card.

MyPlan gets makeover, making it easier to use

MyPlanSeveral changes to MyPlan, the UW’s academic planning tool, is making it easier for students and advisers to search for courses and explore all programs offered at the UW, from any device.

The addition of Find Programs, MyPlan’s new program exploration feature, provides students and advisers a central place to browse, bookmark, compare and assess undergraduate degree programs. Students can explore by areas of study or by schools or colleges.

A more robust Find Courses feature allows students to more easily search the upcoming quarter and explore the Course Catalog to create an academic plan. Updates to Find Courses include a redesigned auto-suggest drop-down search box, providing an easy way to search by keyword, General Education requirements, course prefix, course title and course description

Discover how technology affects learning with new Tableau dashboards

Master's in Education Policy (MEP) Student ShotsNew interactive dashboards that present data about the technology experiences of undergraduates are now available in a dynamic, easy-to-use, visually compelling format.

Each dashboard provides a quick look at a key area in the annual EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR) survey on educational technology.

These dashboards use Tableau data visualization software to give students, faculty and staff a current picture of how technology affects learning at UW Seattle, including trends in technology usage from 2015 to 2016. For the past seven years, the UW has participated in the annual ECAR survey, which examines the technology experiences of undergraduates. Among some of the things they looked at:

  • Device ownership
  • Attitudes toward technology on 12 different scales
  • The distraction factor
  • Responses to Lecture Capture
  • Resources and tools that students would like instructors to use more or less often

Participation in the ECAR survey gives the University a unique opportunity to investigate students’ use of and perceptions about educational technologies. In the 2016 ECAR survey, 735 UW students participated

Analyzing research data is now easier with database service enhancements

brainUW researchers can now manage larger-scale datasets more easily with recent improvements to SQLShare, a database service for understanding and using research data.

Now with a friendlier user interface and faster file uploads, SQLShare gives UW researchers a secure, simple way to manage, share and manipulate data easily within a browser. That frees them from the hassles of database installation and management.

UW-IT and the eScience Institute worked together on the improvements to help reduce one of the most significant pain points reported by UW researchers — spending a large part of their research time handling data instead of advancing their science.

Keeping history alive with a digital library collection — latest Innovators story

Discover how a UW Tacoma professor is giving oral histories a second life in the latest story featured in the Innovators Among Us series.

Professor Michael K. Honey worked with students and UW Tacoma Library to digitize and share underrepresented voices of the South Sound. Through the Innovators series, faculty from all three campuses share their experiences, tips, best practices and methods that can be adopted by others. The series is produced through a collaboration of the Office of the Provost, the Center for Teaching and Learning, UW-IT and UW Libraries. To read all the stories, visit the Provost’s Trends website

In brief:

  • U Drive free quota goes up: Students, faculty and staff now have up to 50GB of free storage space from 30GB on the U Drive, a central file storage system accessible from anywhere. Additional storage is available for purchase with a UW budget number on an individual basis. More than 7,000 students and nearly 1,000 faculty and staff use U Drive.
  • Price reduction for UW Connect service: UW departments interested in purchasing UW Connect Service Management — used to manage and track customer requests and incidents — can subscribe to the service at newly lowered monthly rates. The rate has been reduced for staff from $66 to $49 per user license per month, and from $46 for student employees to $29
  • EDUCAUSE Review highlights Husky Experience project: A case study on the UW’s Husky Experience initiative, a project that helps UW students discover opportunities inside and outside the classroom, is featured in the February issue of EDUCAUSE Review. The study recommends how to increase student engagement in co-curricular opportunities. EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit with a mission to advance higher education via the use of IT