FY12 Annual Report

Overview:

UIT Educational & Scholarly Technology Services (ESTS) is a university-wide service organization supporting innovation and meaningful integration of technology for clients engaged in teaching, learning, and collaboration across diverse academic contexts at Tufts and beyond.

Projects Highlights & New Service Offerings from ESTS:

  • Production rollout of Trunk service Phase 1 for the University, including platform and coordinated service and support model, course sites for A&S, SoE, The Fletcher School, and Friedman; and project sites that are self-provisioning for the full Tufts community with support of Trunk Implementation Steering Committee (http://trunk.tufts.edu).
    • ~11,000 unique Trunk users thus far, including 1340 instructors
    • 2025 published course sites in year 1
    • project sites used by ~680 groups thus far, including Interdisciplinary Research Collaborative facilitated by OVP
    • Trunk Tips newsletters
  • Trunk enhancements during first year of production:
  • Trunk Phase 2 implementation projects:
    • Friedman School migration from ANGEL (complete)
    • Online Course Evaluations underway for Fall 2012
  • Completion and successful launch of Academic Integrity Tutorial
  • iTunes U service for Tufts launched (http://go.tufts.edu/itunesu)
  • VUE hits 161,000 registered users globally. We’ve provided support to developers to enable two active forks of VUE – one at Imperial College, London, in production now; the other at North Texas (http://vue.tufts.edu).
  • Implementing Sakai-based ePortfolio service version 1 for the community (http://sites.tufts.edu/ests/projects/e-portfolios-for-tufts-university/)
    • Dental School ePortfolio pilot (mid-pilot now, going well)
    • Strong interest from across academic programs at Tufts University
    • Working now through December to implement in production and to define a sustainable, expandable ePortfolio service model
    • Tufts is institutional host for the AAEEBL ePortfolio Annual Conference in Boston this July
  • Helping to launch and further adoption of the Open GeoPortal at more than 10 other universities
  • Completed upgrade of Spark WordPress
  • Active participation in IT Integrated Service Experience for Medford Campus project, including participation on AT Services, Client Support, and Infrastructure & Systems working groups.
  • Active participation on IT Website Redesign project, including facilitation of UCD activities.
  • Contribution to selection of Modo Labs’ Kurogo Framework as part of UIT Mobile project
  • Contribution to Research Administration System technical evaluation and selection process
  • Contributed to the Gay Dads Study hrough system hosting, application design consultation, and security review
  • Contribution to several grant proposals, including Textus grant involving VUE, NEH and Bamboo grant proposals for digital humanities projects, etc.

Faculty Development: Networking & Learning Opportunities:

Library Collaborations:

  • TDL Redesign and transition to Hydra framework in partnership with Digital Collections & Archives

    TDL redesign

    TDL Redesign

  • Convened and facilitated the Digital Asset Management (DAM) working group, comprised of colleagues from DCA, ESTS, RGTS, Tisch Library, Webster Library, and ULTS, in order to articulate a strategic approach to managing the burgeoning Tufts digital collections needs across the areas of teaching, learning, research, and preservation. Strategy proposal reviewed by IT Advisory Council and University Library Council. DAM group sponsoring affinity group demos and discussions around related technologies such as Hydra, Dataverse, etc.
  • Participation on Next Generation Search & Discovery Task Force
  • Active participation in University Library Council, including planning based on the Digital Asset Management strategy proposal and complementary Next Generation Search & Discovery report, and initiation of overall library and library leadership planning process
  • UIT and Libraries partnered to connect Tufts with the Digital Preservation Network (DPN) initiative.
  • Participation on Scholarly Communications Team

Distance and Blended Learning:

  • sponsored and facilitated diverse experiments in distance/blended learning and global connection via “Islam on the Indian Ocean Rim,” History of Science connection with Notre Dame, Trunk used as platform for 13 online courses
  • continued ESTS co-leadership of Tufts Distance Learning Consortium (TDLC)
  • education for faculty via the University Teaching Conference, faculty meetings, etc., and continued sponsorship of SLOAN-C membership as resource for Tufts
  • continued strategic planning for central Tufts distance/blended learning support services

Tufts Service & Continuous Improvement:

ESTS staff participate activitely on Tufts University committees and projects and facilitate multiple community of interest groups.

  • continued representation on University Committee on Teaching & Faculty Development (UCTFD), including review of Tufts Innovates! proposals and support for successful projects, review of Open Access Fund proposals and recommendations from Scholarly Communications Team
  • Participation in Tufts NEASC Re-accreditation process in preparation for 2013:
    • Participated on NEASC Chapter 7 Working Group – “Libraries and Other Information Resources”
    • Contributed to NEASC Chapter on “Students” at chair’s request to include ePortfolio information in support of learning outcomes assessment at Tufts
  • Contributing to President Monaco’s interdisciplinary group on Graduate Education chaired by Lynne Pepall
  • Participate on TLHS Steering Committee and continued planning for “Phase 3” of Trunk project, integration of essential TUSK functionality with Sakai-based university platform, planning sessions at NYU and in Austin, TX, with Sakai Foundation and peer institutions to determine whether development partnership is desirable/viable.
  • co-chair IT Leaders Forum (ITLF)
  • co-chair Faculty Development Affinity Group with CELT – beginning to build university-wide faculty development calendar
  • chair Programmers Affinity Group
  • chair User-Centered Design Affinity Group
  • Participate on Mobile Affinity Group
  • ESTS leadership team helped to make significant progress towards UIT Career Ladders
  • Successfully filled key open positions: Senior Educational Technology Specialist, Interactive Media Designer, Senior Software Engineer, Senior Systems Administrator – LMS

Staff Presentations/Service beyond Tufts:
Members of ESTS share exemplary Tufts projects and professional best practices with colleagues in the broader professional community and serve in various leadership capacities within professional organizations.