Information Technology Services

September 4, 2024

The Academic Technology Advisory Committee guides technology decisions to support the University's academic mission for teaching, learning, research, and scholarship. The committee is happy to share the following updates:

• New LMS: Earlier this academic year, the University decided to migrate to Moodle 4 as its new Learning Management System. This significant upgrade involved multiple faculty-engaged working groups convened to review policy, functionality, and roll-out. As we move into the fall semester, Moodle 4 has launched and is ready for use in Fall 2024 classes. ATAC’s Moodle 4 Subcommittee is scheduled to launch in September and will make recommendations regarding the features, procedures, and policies related to the University’s learning management system (LMS). Please utilize the links below as a resource for using Moodle 4 this fall:

  • Quick Start Guide

  • Moodle 4 Change Guide

  • Support

• Compilatio Replaces TurnItIn Feedback Studio: In an effort to provide the most accurate and comprehensive anti plagiarism and authenticity promotion platform, the ATAC after extensive research and focus group discussions, has decided to pivot away from Feedback Studio. This change will not only provide our community with a better experience, but also saves the University a considerable amount of funding with a more cost-effective platform.

• Product Purchasing & Renewal Structure: The ATAC has been working on policies and procedures to help assist the Brandeis community with a clear path for requesting products or services that support teaching, learning, and research for the University. In this pursuit, several internal procedures and workflows to the ATAC have been re-evaluated and updated to provide a new service level agreement, which can be viewed on the ATAC Website under the Academic Technology Request Process dropdown. The committee has been collaborating on a proposal with ITS, Procurement, and other departments to quantify a set of campus-wide request best practices which will have additional revisions before launching later this semester.

• SPSS Sunset: Following a comprehensive look into the use of SPSS and other similar platforms on campus, the ATAC has decided to end renewal of the campus-wide SPSS license starting on July 1st, 2025. SPSS continues to be available on campus through this academic year, however ATAC and the Library are working with individuals and departments on campus to shift to other platforms or to procure smaller SPSS licensing in very specific situations. For support with a transition email: dataservices@brandeis.edu

The IT Advisory Committee reviews, evaluates, and approves recommendations regarding IT proposals, priorities, policies and technology investments supporting the University’s objectives. The committee is happy to share the following updates:

• TDX - In January 2024, the ITAC along with partners in ITS and across campus completed the launch of TeamDynamix (TDX), a new service management solution replacing the old JIRA ticketing system. TDX allows support teams to identify and resolve issues more efficiently to better meet our expanding service management needs across campus. This was a very large and long-term project and we would like to thank and congratulate all of those involved in making its successful launch possible.

  • ITAC has moved their Administrative Project Request Form into TDX to provide teams with better workflows on managing these requests and for faster updating of requesters on the status of their requests.

• Alumni Account Deprecation - Working with a number of departments on campus, ITAC and the ITS Project Management Office have completed a project meant to align Brandeis with industry best practices on the delegation of alumni accounts. As announced in past InBriefs, an initial communication to the Brandeis Alumni Community about the changes was sent along with the announcement of a new alumni portal called My Brandeis Gateway. New alumni graduating in May 2024 and beyond will retain their student @brandeis.edu accounts for a 7-month grace period, while older Brandeis alumni accounts will become discontinued effective January 7th, 2025.

• Other Projects-In-Progress

  • Server Migration Project: Significant progress has been made on migrating Brandeis servers from Feldberg to our off-site server locations. At the time of this write-up, nearly all servers have been moved with the project nearing completion.

  • XM Fax Project: Allowing digital faxing across Ricoh Multifunction Devices is in progress

  • Redundant Application Project: Started last semester, ITAC has partnered with the Procurement Office, and departments at ITS to produce an analysis of redundant applications being purchased across the university. The intent of this project is to develop a plan to look further into combining rogue product purchases with existing enterprise supported solutions the University already holds.

  • For Information on the status of the ITS Projects, please refer to theITS PMO Portfolio ITAC Website under the “Technology Project Prioritization” dropdown

The Workday Advisory Committee oversees and directs the Workday enterprise system, including business processes, system configuration, security roles, and changes stemming from Workday product releases. Its three subcommittees, Finance, Human Resources, and Workday Student, work closely with the ITS Workday and PMO teams under the guidance of the IT Advisory Committee. The committee is happy to share the following updates:

• Workday Capital Project Module: The Workday Team, in conjunction with facilities has launched a new capital projects management module. 

• Peoplesoft Deprecation: The project to get Brandeis off of Oracle and Peoplesoft products has been completed.

• Other Workday Updates:

  • A new encumbrance data module was put in place to improve budget management and financial reporting.

  • A business protocol was configured to allow Rabb GPS to recruit faculty within Workday, facilitating a simpler hire process and improved reporting.

  • Capability was added to Workday to help manage PhD Dissertation Committees.

  • Workday is now the system of record for employee office locations and mailstops. The legacy office directory will no longer be utilized for maintenance of this information.

  • Functionality was added to allow administrators to manage faculty leave (sabbatical) data.

  • Functionality was also added to allow the Faculty Affairs Office to track exceptions to faculty teaching requirements (releases, banked courses) in order to ensure faculty are meeting their contractual obligations.

Additional information regarding individual committees, including minutes and project portfolios can be viewed in the committee archives linked below.

Please register for the IT Governance Quarterly Newsletter

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ITS PMO Portfolio - ITAC

February 4, 2024

The IT Advisory Committee reviews, evaluates, and approves recommendations regarding IT proposals, priorities, policies and technology investments supporting the University’s objectives. The committee is happy to share the following updates:

Budget Planning

• ITAC committee members, representing fifteen divisions and departments on campus, submitted their FY25 IT-related budget estimates for review and analysis. While there were a limited number of requests this year, no issues were found, and they were moved forward. ITAC also reviewed the ITS Capital Budget, aiming to orient the committee to significant cost drivers and funding centers and allow the committee members to ask questions and pose comments or concerns.

ITS Projects-in-Progress

• Major updates were provided to the committee on several ITS projects that have been in progress for months. These included the TDx Implementation (service management and ticketing), which launched last week, the Identity Management System (IDM) replacement, the Moodle 4 Upgrade project, and updates on the server-room migration from Feldberg to a new off-site location in Lowell, MA.

The Academic Technology Advisory Committee guides technology decisions to support the University's academic mission for teaching, learning, research, and scholarship. It provides engagement and processes for reviewing the academic technology supporting our faculty and students. 

New Learning Management System, LMS 

• Earlier this academic year, the University decided to migrate to Moodle 4 as its new Learning Management System. This significant upgrade involves multiple faculty-engaged working groups convened to review policy, functionality, and roll-out. The project is on target to be available this Spring and fully implemented for Fall 2024 classes. Please see the Moodle Implementation Website for more information. 

FY25 Goal: Product Purchasing & Renewal Structure

• The ATAC has been working on policies and procedures to help assist the Brandeis community with a clear path for requesting products or services that support teaching, learning, and research for the University. In this pursuit, several internal procedures and workflows to the ATAC have been re-evaluated and updated to provide a new service level agreement, which can be viewed on the ATAC Website. Additionally, the committee has been collaborating on a proposal with ITS, Procurement, and other departments to quantify a set of campus-wide request requirements. This proposal is currently under review by the executive sponsor. 

The Workday Advisory Committee oversees and directs the Workday enterprise system, including business processes, system configuration, security roles, and changes stemming from Workday product releases. Its three subcommittees, Finance, Human Resources, and Workday Student, work closely with the ITS Workday and PMO teams under the guidance of the IT Advisory Committee. Today, the committee has three top stories to share.

Open Enrollment

• As many of you know, open enrollment for benefits happens annually, allowing employees to update or choose new benefits. Each year, there is a corresponding project to work with Human Resources to update rates as appropriate and review integrations. Several changes were introduced for the 2024 benefits year, including the new HSA option, the provider transition to HPHC from Tufts, and the addition of a Roth 403b as a retirement investment option. Some members of the Workday Advisory Committee oversaw the team’s work to update the configuration, create new integrations, and test all the changes as appropriate.

TA Performance Evaluations

• TA performance evaluations describe the TA’s performance in assisting or teaching (in the case of Teaching Fellows) their assigned course, as required by their union. This new capability enables instructors to evaluate the performance of their teaching assistants and attach the performance reviews to the student record, which is now completed in Qualtrics and stored within Workday. 

Workday Prism

• The Workday Prism tool has been providing our community with a wide array of options to help conduct business. The most recent Prism related initiative provides historical degree data from Sage in Workday for reports and dashboards, access to student financial legacy data for authorized users, and historical job data from BUSS. Prism enables external information to be processed against current data in Workday to provide a more complete picture for reporting.

Additional information regarding individual committees, including minutes and project proposals, can be viewed in the committee archives linked below — along with all previously published IT Governance newsletters. 

Please register for individual committee newsletters on the IT Governance Website.

ATAC Minutes | ATAC Community Outreach Newsletters

ITAC Minutes | ITAC Community Outreach Newsletters | ITS PMO Portfolio - ITAC

October 3, 2023

The IT Advisory Committee reviews, evaluates, and makes approval recommendations regarding IT proposals, priorities, policies and technology investments supporting University objectives. The committee is happy to share the following updates:

Identity Management System Replacement

• ITAC recently reviewed and prioritized a project to replace our Identity Management System (IDM). This project involves replacing our legacy, home-grown IDM with a vendor-based cloud service. The goal is to provide increased functionality and reduce the risk associated with our reliance on no longer supported software.

Scholarworks

• ITAC reviewed, approved, and prioritized the recently released Scholarworks platform, which replaced the Faculty Guide. The new Faculty and Researcher Directory (Scholarworks) hosts comprehensive profiles for faculty (those holding current appointments and emeriti), academic staff (principal investigators or other research staff designated “Academic Staff” in Workday), and postdoctoral scholars. It increases the visibility of Brandeis’s community of scholars, showcasing their expertise and rendering their achievements more discoverable. It also supports safeguarding scholarly identities by providing unique personal identifiers as part of the Open Researcher and Contributor ID or ORCID ID initiative.  Additional information about the Faculty and Researcher Directory can be found on the Office of the Provost website. 

ITS Budget Review

• ITAC reviewed the FY24 ITS budget providing comments as necessary. The goal was to introduce the committee to the current ITS budget in preparation for their expanded oversight role for FY25.

The Academic Technology Advisory Committee guides technology decisions to support the university's academic mission for teaching, learning, research, and scholarship. It provides engagement and processes for reviewing the academic technology supporting our faculty and students. 

New Learning Management System, LMS 

• Earlier this summer, the Provost’s Office shared that Brandeis will be moving to the new Moodle 4 learning management system (LMS) for use in classes starting in the fall 2024 semester. The Brandeis teaching and learning experience of community members who are participating in LMS Working Groups is critical to the implementation’s success. These groups will help to shape the future of our LMS and include a Functionality Working Group, a Policy Working Group, and a Rollout Working Group. If you are already a member of one of these groups, thank you for your contribution!

Updates on Renewals/New Products

• In FY23, ATAC took over management of 17 products, including well-known software such as STATA, Matlab, SPSS, and others. The committee approved all 17 products for renewal for the FY24 fiscal year. Additionally, the committee reviewed and approved several new products, including elabFTW, Redcap, and others. Some are currently in the implementation phase, while others, such as MNova, are undergoing contract negotiations. The ability to manage renewal and new product requests has been bolstered by the committee’s redesign of request and review processes to ensure product users are not affected by non-renewals and that users requesting new products have a clear route for making those requests.

FY24 Goal: Product Purchasing & Renewal Structure

• The ATAC is currently discussing the creation of a University policy to manage the procurement of Academic Technology Products and Services. As part of this process, the committee will define “Academic Technology” on campus, including the criteria and thresholds, consider the policy implications for the community, and determine accountability. More information will be made available as the project matures.

The Workday Advisory Committee oversees and directs the Workday enterprise system, including business processes, system configuration, security roles, and changes stemming from Workday product releases. Its three subcommittees, Finance, Human Resources, and Workday Student, work closely with the ITS Workday and PMO teams under the guidance of the IT Advisory Committee. This quarter, the committee has four top stories to share.

Performance Management (TAP), Including Merit (and FAR) 

• This long-running project successfully configured advanced compensation modules within Workday. The modules enabled the completion of employee six and twelve-month performance reviews, the application of merit by managers through Workday, and the integration to payroll.  This project was a collaborative effort between a number of departments. 

Grants Optimization: Enhanced Effort Reporting

• In pursuit of our goal to streamline our operations and meet ever-evolving regulatory requirements, we have taken a substantial step forward by engaging the expertise of a seasoned consultant. Their role has been instrumental in creating an advanced effort reporting process within Workday. This process is designed to empower our employees to certify their own effort reports, enabling us to meet our efficiency and compliance goals. Key highlights of this initiative include 

  • Compliance and Risk Reduction: By allowing employees to take ownership of their effort reporting, we are aligning with regulatory requirements more effectively. This approach significantly reduces audit risks while ensuring our reporting is accurate and transparent. 

  • Streamlined Services: We recognize the importance of efficiency in our daily operations. With this enhanced effort reporting system, we are simplifying processes by eliminating unnecessary layers of approval for data reporting. This streamlining will free up valuable time and resources.

Workday Committee Functionality Graduate Student Dissertation Committees

• This project enabled the management of graduate school dissertation committees in Workday HCM, including the ability to track PhD Committees and reports. The processes were once manual, so this development goes a long way to providing more efficiency for these groups.

Capital Projects 

• This project will result in the addition of functionality in Workday to track capital projects for the Brandeis Facilities Department. Although much of the new capability is now in use, dashboards and reporting options continue to be integrated into the service through Workday.

Additional information regarding individual committees, including minutes and project proposals, can be viewed in the committee archives linked below — along with all previously published IT Governance newsletters. Monthly newsletters for each IT Governance group will resume in October 2023. Please register for individual committee newsletters on the IT Governance Website.

ATAC Minutes | ATAC Community Outreach Newsletters

ITAC Minutes | ITAC Community Outreach Newsletters | ITS PMO Portfolio - ITAC

WAC Minutes | WAC Community Outreach Newsletters