RESEARCH AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE MEETING NOTES
Thursday, February 18, 2015
9:00 – 10:15 AM
FAC 228D
I. IT Research Computing Environment – Update (David Pavkovic, Trice Humpert, Carol Lee)
David Pavkovic gave an update on the IT Research Computing Environment. Led by Brad Englert to make sure ITS resources are being used towards research at UT. Resources have been historically geared towards administrative IT but not research or academic focused. Goal is to make resources easy to acquire for researchers. Make sure to fit well together with TACC and the Libraries in a cohesive way.
David has met with Engineering, McCombs, Dell Medical School, and others to collect needs for the university and provide benefits to the campus. Need to make sure that there aren’t redundant services such as VM, Digital Asset Management, etc. Will focus on making resources available for students as well.
Next steps are to continue to meet more with campus and try to discover what the need is. Meeting with Microsoft and Amazon soon.
Q. From the departments you’ve interacted with, how much of what your hearing is, “We don’t actually know what we need or what is available?”
A. There is a mix of conversation. Some know what they need and have made their own solutions but others don’t know what they need.
Q. What about computing in humanities?
A. There’s an informal group that has been meeting. They had a meeting with someone from the Tower a few weeks ago. They don’t know what to ask for yet in the computing realm. I will talk to interested parties.
II. Administrative Systems Modernization Program Enterprise Readiness – Update (Pat Jones)
Pat Jones gave update on ASMP Enterprise Readiness. Her team is working with the units to do as much as possible to not affect faculty and staff operations. Gave an overview of ASMP and its efforts on campus. Goal for GoLive is January 2017.
Q. Does Workday include forecasting tools?
A. We are working with them try to influence the design in Financials. We will try to include that tool. We are in the process of helping them build products geared towards Higher Ed needs.
Q. Is the message to campus is that the core processes going to change?
A. Core process as in the workflows will change. Different roles are being defined and that in it self is going to change the processes an individual level. Yes, I wouldn’t say that it is staying the same.
Included a list of how to connect with ASMP 2.0.
III. Longhorn Innovation Fund for Technology – Launch Event and Selection Date (Christy Tran)
Christy Tran gave an update on the LIFT project. A Show & Tell and Q&A day will be on March 4th. There are six different presenters and they are all preparing materials to present.
Selection meeting was proposed to be on May 10, 2016, a Tuesday dead day. Committee members will receive an invite from the proposal management system EasyChair.
Q. Do we have the data on how well these projects are doing?
A. We will be meeting on Friday to talk about this. We are putting together a case study soon.
Q. I do not understand what this is trying to fund. Social sciences are asking questions. We need examples of what we are looking for so we can let them know.
A. We as a committee need to talk about what our goals are next meeting.