NEWSLETTER

DIVISION OFINFORMATIONTECHNOLOGY

# 1 0 / S P R I N G / 2 0 1 8

CHARLES STURT UNIVERSITY

Above - Foundation Day, Albury CampusFront (L-R) Heather Fielding; Anton Terblanche;Boram Kwon; Soe Soe Kyaw; Cade WhitbournSecond (L-R) John Smith; Mavis Jenkins;Veronica LaneThird (L-R) Sophie Dewar; Emrys Hughes;Alex MooreBack (L-R) Alison Foale; Kelly McCormack; Catherine Crameri Below - Gaye Smith, Computer Shop, Bathurst

INS

IDE

THIS

ISS

UE

03 Staff Hub Refresh

04 Online Shop - StudentPayments / ResearchMaster

05 My eQuals

06 Subject Outline Tool

07 The CRM Project /CSU Data Storage

08 OCBs - Multi Session /Lynda.com

09 EASE Project /Banner Upgrade

10 Information Security

11 Tech Projects Team Forum

12 agile@CSU

Welcome to theDIT Newsletter

The spring edition of the DITnewsletter is our biggest yet and isa reflection of the level of activityin our division during 2018.

Overviews of some of the 2018 TechnologyInitiatives are inside this edition, including:

• launch of Online Shop - providing a moreseamless student payment gateway

• a major upgrade to ResearchMaster• My eQuals - a sector-wide initiative delivering

online academic records and transcripts• Online Course Brochure improvements for our

future students• a complete refresh of the Subject Outline system

You’ll also find updates on major technologyprojects underway in support of the CSU Strategy:

• The Customer Relationship Management (CRM)project, to be powered by Microsoft Dynamics,will provide a platform that enables staff toengage effectively with our students.

• The Engagement and Assessment SupportEnvironment (EASE) project will provide staffwith notifications and dashboards to supportonline students and allow students to bettermanage their study requirements.

More information on the 17 major technologyprojects underway is available on the DITInitiatives & Projects web page - TI Summary tab.

This edition also includes an overview of the StaffHub refresh delivered by the Web Office in August,information on recent improvements to CSUpasswords and a summary of our move to theagile@CSU project framework, most recently usedin the Special Consideration and Subject Outlineprojects.

Each year expressions of interest are sought fromacross CSU for the annual Technology Initiativesfunding, overseen by the Technology GovernanceCommittee (TGC). Twenty initiative outlines werereceived this year, and twelve of these areprogressing to the full proposal stage forconsideration by the TGC in October for potentialfunding in 2019. The TGC includes representativesfrom all of the CSU portfolios.

I hope you enjoy the newsletter. Please send anyfeedback to ditnewsletter@csu.edu.au. / 02

What's been happeningin DIT...Gaye Smith (pictured on cover) retired in Julyafter 21 years at CSU! Gaye spent the last 13years as the Computer Shop Supervisor andwill be greatly missed. We wish her well in herretirement.

DIT also farewelled Dewang Shahu(Integration), Tim McCormack (IT Security) andMargaret Bollingmore (Business Analyst). Wewish them all the best in their new pursuits.

Moving into new positions within DIT are JenniPendarakis - Computer Shop Supervisor, MikeCharles - Project Manager, Scott Barlow -Associate Project Manager and Temma Lee -User Experience Coordinator. While MattBarlow's position, Team Leader, Service Desk,has been expanded to take on responsibilityfor the Computer Shop as well. Congratulationsto all and good luck in your new roles.

We welcome to the DIT Integration team AnupPandey and Cherie Pellissier.

DIT staff attending conferences and training

DIT staff have attended and been involved inconferences over the last few months includingGartner summits, the Blackboard conference,AARNET Net Workshop and Adobe Symposiumto name a few. And there have beenopportunities to increase staff skills andknowledge across Dell Boomi, ITIL Foundations,Certified Scrum Product Owner and CiscoApplication Centric Infrastructure (ACI) training.

Finally congratulations to Josh Kent on hismarriage to Amethyst and to Matt Barlow on hisengagement to Melinda (Min).

Tim Mannes,Executive Director

Staff Hub Refresh

03 /

BackgroundPhase 1 of Staff Hub went live June 2017. Thisrelease laid the foundations for the Staff Hubwebsite with a vision that this site would becomea one-stop shop for staff to complete tasks andaccess relevant news and information.

Under Phase 1, the Web Office conducted significant user research and engagement withstaff to create a themed, task-based informationarchitecture. This work identified 5 key userstories that were to guide the features to bedelivered in the Staff Hub. However due to timeand technical constraints, the Phase 1 releaseonly supported these user stories in limited ways.

Since the release of Phase 1 we have received 692 pieces of staff feedback. Much of this initialfeedback related to issues that were fixed as partof the defect period. Additional feedback andfeature requests have been grouped and themed,and used to inform the scope of work for Phase 2.

The Staff Hub feedback mechanism also includesa feature that lets staff give Staff Hub an overallscore. Phase 1 of Staff Hub received an averagescore of 2.1 out of 5, indicating that there was anopportunity to improve Staff Hub.

The Web Office developed the scope for Phase 2based on:1. outstanding items from Phase 12. consolidated feedback from staff3. general areas for user experience design (UX)

improvement identified.

What are the impacts?All CSU staff benefit from Phase 2 release of StaffHub.Key improvements include:• Greater prominence to key functions like ‘Find a

staff member’.• ‘Predictive’ search results for top 50 search

terms.• Reintroduction of password countdown timer.• Rebuilt personal Bookmarks feature.• Consolidated News widget on homepage -

What’s New, CSU News, Yammer and Events.• Refreshed list of ‘Quicklinks’ available every

page.• Blog and social media feeds.• Improved visual design.

What have we achieved?Phase 2 of Staff Hub was released on 16thAugust. For the full list of new or improvedfeatures check out the Staff Hub article on theWeb Office Blog.

/ 04

What are the impacts?The upgrade of the ResearchMaster product willensure that the Research Office, Ethics andCompliance Unit, Researchers and HigherDegree by Research Students will have accessto the latest features and ongoing support ofthe vendor.

What have we achieved?The project has now been completed and theupdated application is being successfully usedand supported. In addition to the upgradedapplication and new hardware, the system'sdata quality has been vastly improved, thebusiness reports updated and a new HDRProgress eForm provisioned.

Where to next?After the system is bedded in, the ResearchOffice and Ethics and Compliance unit arelooking to expand on the workflow and eFormcapabilities and reporting, as well as takeadvantage of the available softwareenhancements.myresearch.csu.edu.au

BackgroundThe primary purpose of the project was toupgrade the ResearchMaster application fromthe “end-of-life” Release 5 (RME5) to Release 6(RME6). ResearchMaster Enterprise 6 (RME6)has significant advances in the applicationsfunctionality, user interface and database. Thisupgraded system sets up the Research Officeinto the future.

The project also reimplemented the Ethicsmodule, which was not used in RME5, anddecommissioned the Publications module asthe functionality was moved to Pure – anElsevier product used for CSU Research Output.The upgrade incorporated hardware, software,configuration and data components.

The Online Shop platform went live with StudentPayments on 8th August. CSU released arefreshed Student Payments portal, givingeveryone a simpler, more intuitive way of makingpurchases and payments, with the same checkoutexperience when shopping via CSU Clubs.

Student Payments portal is now more accessibleon all devices (Smart Phones, Tablets and PCs),providing the flexibility and convenience ofmaking purchases and payments anywhere andanytime.

Students and staff can access the site throughtheir existing links or directly viapayments.shop.csu.edu.au.

After a wonderful effort by the project team, wenow have a much needed update to the existingpayments portal.

ResearchMaster Version 6 Upgrade

Online Shop

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My eQualsMy eQuals is a collaborative Higher Educationsector initiative aimed at the establishment of ashared online service for the production, management and verification of academic records andother formal credential documents issued by Australian and New Zealand universities. Studentsand graduates from participating universities are able to access their digital documents onlineand share them with potential employers, universities and other parties. This initiative supportsCSU strategy by contributing to a student-centred culture (Our Students).

What are the impacts?The implementation of My eQuals enhances the student experience and alleviates some of theworkload and complexity faced by Division of Student Administration staff who work diligentlyto ensure students receive their qualification documents in a timely manner.

It also simplifies life for students and graduates who will be in a position to access, manage andshare their digital documents with prospective employers, universities and other third parties ina way that is secure, controlled and audited.

What have we achieved?The successful completion of the My eQuals project signifies a modernisation of underlyingsystems used to generate students’ qualifications documents. The project has delivered on ourcommitment to the Australia and New Zealand higher education sector and provided a significantenhancement to the overall student experience. As of August 2018, over 3,000 documents hadbeen issued via the My eQuals portal. The August graduation marked the first time the My eQualsportal was used for a graduation event.

www.myequals.edu.au

The New Subject Outline Tool

/ 06

The new Subject Outline Tool has been released for sessions 201845, 201860 and 201875 withall subject outlines now being published in the new system.

The tool replaces the current Mandatory Subject Information (MSI) system in authoring studentsubject outlines and aims to reduce the considerable amount of time spent entering andformatting content in the MSI system.

What’s changed?* A new authoring interface for academics - including the ability for academics to

collaborate on outlines.* Additional compliance and reporting features - including Head of School Dashboards.* Additional data analytics to track student interaction with subject outlines.* An enhanced student delivery system and modern view in Interact2 (i2).* A new outline search function for staff and students.

What are the benefits?* A new html editor enables academics to easily copy and paste, or build a marking rubric

within the tool – saving staff a significant amount of time.* Improved collaboration features and better integration with other data sources to save

time when creating and checking outlines.* Enhanced data and analytics extract abilities - potentially resulting in earlier identification

of Priority Contact students.* An enhanced interface within Blackboard removing the requirement for academics to

create high quality landing pages within i2. The new system facilitates the automatic creationof a high quality landing page and ensures the subject outline is the centerpiece of an i2 sitewhen students first login to a new subject.

* Retiring the Sakai system - the removal of the MSI system allows this to happen.

The project introducing the new Subject Outline Tool wrapped up in mid-August. The project hasbeen run using the Agile Methodology with extensive business involvement.

07 /

and advice, but similarly did not significantlydifferentiate between the two. However, bothlicensing costs and implementation evaluationssignificantly favoured the Microsoft Dynamics/KPMG proposal – promoting it to the preferredtender submission. The steering committeeendorsed the recommendation that MicrosoftDynamics/KPMG be selected as the preferredCRM solution and implementation partner.

Any teams or individuals who would like abriefing on the evaluation please contactPhil Roy - Director, Strategic TechnologyProgram (proy@csu.edu.au).

Where to next?Next steps are to negotiate a best and finaloffer, execute contracts and licensingagreements and initiate the CRMimplementation project – starting with an initialDiscovery phase of 8 weeks, followed by aplanned 13 week implementation of alumni inthe new CRM. After this will be current studentand prospective student implementations.Alongside these activities is the developmentof a change management approach andcapability, with significant resources fromwithin CSU and with external changemanagement expertise as part of the solutionproposal.

The CRM ProjectThe CRM (Customer Relationship Managementsystem) is all about student engagement. It willsit at the core of the CSU IT landscape to enablestaff to provide consistent, proactive, optimaland relevant student experiences and engagestudents effectively. The CRM will providesustainability and agility by enabling sustainedstudent acquisition and retention, and helpingto ensure students excel.

What have we achieved?The CRM project reached a major milestone inearly July with the selection of a preferredvendor and implementation partner. Evaluationof the two market leading shortlisted vendorsand implementation partners - Salesforce/Bluewolf and Microsoft Dynamics/KPMG -focused on key evaluation criteria:

• Functional requirements• Non-functional requirements• Implementation approach• Licensing and costs• University and other commercial reference

checks

The evaluation highlighted that both vendorofferings were viable technology solutions,without functional or nonfunctional issues thatwould significantly differentiate either offering.The reference checks provided useful learnings

CSU Data Storage Statistics

Online Course Brochure (OCB) - Multi Session

/ 08

Why do we need this change?OCBs provide an important marketing and advertising tool to attract future students. In theexisting format there were issues that limited our advertising capability.

1: The current OCBs can only display one year of information at a time due to atechnical limitation. Once 2019 CASIMS (Course and Subject Information ManagementSystem) and CAL (Course Availability List) information is approved and 2019 sessions areopen for applications, 2019 information will feed directly to the OCBs overwriting any 2018information. If a course has a 201890 session it will display the 2019 information incorrectly.

2: The current OCBs only display sessions that are open for applications, preventing usfrom advertising sessions that will be available in the future. This limits our advertisingcapacity to future students.

What are the impacts?The aim is to keep the OCBs as similar as possible. Future students will be able to switch betweenavailable years via a drop down selection, they will see a full list of approved sessions for thecurrent and next year with clear advertising on what sessions are Closed, Open and Futureplanned. The main horizontal navigation bar will be reworked in response to user feedback.Behind the scenes the full integration and OCB template has been redesigned and rewritten - nosmall task given the complexity of the integration.

As a result of the admissions transparency project, ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank)values will be updated to come in line with new regulations and a link to the new ATAR reportswill be provided on the OCBs.

What have we achieved?Currently we are in the development phase, with a rolling deployment scheduled to start in midSeptember.

09 /

The Engagement and Assessment SupportEnvironment (EASE) project - formally known asTOL Dashboard - is part of the university’slarger initiative in ensuring that we continue tomaintain a sector leadership position and growonline learning into the future. This will beachieved through transformative innovations inonline subject design, development anddelivery to improve student learningexperiences, engagement, support and success.

What are the impacts?The EASE project will focus on implementing asystem to assist the Online Study Advisors(OSAs) with their role of supporting onlinestudents. This will be an extension to the OSAPilot that started this year with first year onlinestudents studying Bachelor of Laws, GraduateDiploma of Psychology and Master of AppliedFinance. From 2019 this will be extended toapproximately 80 subjects in the Faculty ofBusiness, Justice and Behavioural Sciences forfirst year students. The project will supply OSAsand academics with dashboards andnotifications to help support and identify at riskonline students.

The project will also look at the enhancement ofthe existing Study Planner application that isbeing trialled. The Study Planner allowsstudents who are enrolled in selected subjectsto plan due dates of assessments within allowedtime periods. Requests for changes will beautomatically granted or sent to the academicfor approval, dependent on the parameters set.The aim is to increase retention by making iteasier for students to fit their studyrequirements around their lives and to identifyany students who could be at risk so supportand guidance are offered where needed.

What have we achieved?The project is in the design phase. User storieshave been defined and off the shelf optionswere investigated, but found not sufficient.Reference groups are being formed to discussany system or process changes needed.

Where to next?After system architecture design sign off theproject will launch into development. The aim isto be ready for use by students, academics andOSAs by 201930.

Engagement and Assessment Support Environment

Banner Upgrade and De-Customisation The Banner Student v9 Upgrade andDe-Customisation Planning Project is underway.

This project forms a key part of the Strategicand Major Business System TechnologyProgram. The aim is to deliver a clear businessand technical transition plan for the upgrade ofthe Banner Student Management System fromlegacy version 8 to the current version 9, takinginto account dependent systems within thetechnology ecosystem.

Options for decoupling the interdependentBanner Finance module will be investigated, toprovide flexibility in terms of a Finance systemmoving forward.

The logical extension of this project will be toimplement the upgrade inline with the plansdelivered by the project. Implementation willform a separate project. The overall outcome ofthe two projects will be to provide enhancedadministration of enrolment, graduation andstudent management streams.

Why do we need this upgrade?• The upgrade is required to maintain currency,

vendor support and access to new capabilities.• The current Banner implementation enters

sustaining support from December 2018 - noadditional patches, fixes or functionality willbe provided for the version we are running.

• High level of local customisations to existingBanner implementation requires significantCSU resources to support, and limits flexibilityfor adoption of new functionality andupgrades.

• Current interdependencies between BannerStudent and Banner Finance limits options andadds an additional level of complexity.

Where to next?The next steps will be to assist the vendor toundertake an inventory of business process,review customisations to our current instance ofBanner, identify data migration requirementsand begin work on the Information Architecture,Integration Analysis and change strategy.

Information Security at CSU

/ 10

Did you know that some organisations still allow you to recover your password if it is forgotten?This indicates that your password is not stored securely by that organisation. At CSU if you forgetyour password it cannot be recovered and you must set a new one. Simply click“Forgot your password” at the CSU login page and follow the steps to set a new password.

An initiative recently completed by DIT resulted in improvements to the management andstrength of CSU passwords, with an associated increase to the minimum password change periodto 120 days.

Your CSU password must now be between 8 and 30 characters long and should contain at leastthree of the following:

• lowercase characters (a-z)• uppercase characters (A-Z)• numeric characters (0-9)• special characters (!#$%*+,-./\:=?[]^_~)

Longer passwords provide extra strength, so consider the use of a pass phrase combining anumber of words and substituting numbers and characters for letters. For exampleCh00seastrongpa55word%.

Also consider using a password manager - e.g. LastPass or Dashlane - to help keep track ofdifferent passwords you use.

When changing your password for any service, the new password should always be significantlydifferent from the previous one. For example if your password is Test2018 you should not simplyadd an increment to create your new password - Test2019. It should be something different suchas Mypa55W0rdisnow%trong.

The goal of information security is to ensure Confidentiality,Integrity and Availability of the information assets vital to theoperation of the university. DIT are continuously improving andupdating information security policies, processes andtechnologies to keep up with new threats and vulnerabilities.

CSU Passwords

Security Communities of PracticeKeeping up with the latest cybersecurity trends means knowing what threats and vulnerabilitiesare impacting others and how they are responding. By maintaining a high level of engagementacross the cybersecurity sector, DIT remains prepared and vigilant in response to cybersecurityissues.

DIT engages and actively participates in a number of security communities that shareinformation to help protect Australian universities, Government and industries together.

These communities include:• CAUDIT Cybersecurity Community of Practice• CAUDIT Information Sharing and Analysis Centre• NAUDIT Cybersecurity Community of Practice (NSW/ACT focus)• AusCERT• Australian Access Federation• AARNet• CERT Australia• NSW Government Finance, Services & Innovation Community of Practice

To participate in these communities or for information regarding IT Security at CSU log an ICTSecurity request through the Self Service Portal or visit the Information Security web page.

11 /

Technology Projects Team Forum

Left to Right - Temma Lee; Shane Meekin-Sutherland; Mavis Jenkins; Margaret Bollingmore; Scott Barlow;Dallas Woolley; Daniel Francisco; Mike Charles; Carl Sudholz; Shane Miller; Brendon Shiels; Sophie Dewar;John Sherwin; Marian Wolmarans; Heather Fielding; Rob Geis; Kelly McCormack; Ivan Saric; John Smith

Did you know there is a CSU Organisational Entity Names andAcronyms list available on the DIT website - Staff Only page?It contains formal university names and acronyms for:

• structure entities (units) including Faculties,Schools, Divisions and Offices

• research, teaching and practicum entities• budget centres• other affiliated bodies.

Please note – the list is NOT intended to serve as a completelist of all formal university names, acronyms and terminology.

The Technology Projects (TP) team met in June for the annual forum, fondly known as the “TPLove-In”. The forum was held at the National Wine and Grape Centre on the Wagga Waggacampus, with Business Analysts, Associate Project Managers and Project Managers travelling fromAlbury, Windaroo and Bathurst. The forum provides an opportunity to network and buildrelationships within the team, which is important as some staff seldom get the chance to interactacross the campuses. It was also great to welcome a number of new faces to the team.

The forum opened with an update from Tim Mannes - Executive Director, which was followed byan outline on the CRM Implementation and Major Business System renewal from Phil Roy -Director, Strategic Technology Program. Dr Lucy Webster provided a great overview of theProduct Owner role in a project and how to make it work effectively, and Professor BarneyDalgarno gave an informative talk on TOL Dashboard and Analytics.

TP’s own Dallas Woolley opened the second day with an enlightening talk on Resistance toChange, following on from last year’s Change Management presentation. There were alsopresentations from Colleen Middleton on Data Management, Paula Woodhouse and AndrewRigney about the Web Office, and Sam Barnes on Dell Boomi - the new integration tool.

All in all it was a very informative and productive two days. Thank you to all the great presentersand those who contributed to make the Technology Projects forum such a wonderful event.

CO

NTA

CT

US: https://www.csu.edu.au/

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Foundation Day (L - R) - Albury; Dubbo - Alex Metcalfe and Cathy Maginnis (Head of Campus); Wagga - Amber Murray