Transfer to NCAA brings ACS Athletics software

7th February | No Comments | posted by vegger | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

IT Systems is currently in the process of enhancing its program repertoire with the latest ACS Athletics software.

The addition is the result of Lee’s transfer from the NAIA to Division II of the NCAA.

The university’s transfer means more than the possibility of getting a football team; it also means that our current athletes and administrators must adjust to a new set of standards.

Learning how to follow and keep up with different rules can be challenging at the get-go, but if the university does not comply with them, there are costly consequences administered by the NCAA enforcement program.

“[ACS Athletics] will help us keep up with compliance so the university doesn’t have to pay fines,” business analyst LeAnn McElrath said.

According to its website, ACS Athletics is a web and mobile technology company designed to help its customers organize and manage “athletics operations, recruiting, compliance, communications and student-athlete information.”

Some of the NCAA requirements that are new to Lee involve different stipulations for academic eligibility, health eligibility, appropriate scheduling of practices, and student financial aid.

McElrath said that the financial aid element is particularly important.  If some error causes a student to be awarded too much aid one year, the NCAA may not award any aid at all for the year following.

For reasons like these, IT Systems is in the process of initializing online forms provided by the ACS Athletics software for coaches and athletes to fill out. The forms will help keep track of all of the different elements, and they will even provide a way to log phone calls with recruits.

When the software detects that something is amiss in the online paper work, an alert will be sent to a compliance officer at the university.  The officer can then ensure that steps are taken to remedy the problem before the NCAA comes in.

“It’s just about keeping people honest,” McElrath said.

After the system is set up, students who are or who will be athletes at Lee will have a log-in portal where they can enter pertinent information, and similarly for coaches.

The software should be available later this semester.

IPI sites eliminate excessive searching and clutter

1st February | No Comments | posted by vegger | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

Not being able to find what you’re looking for is one of life’s biggest headaches, especially in the electronic world. Meandering through pages of information that don’t concern you needlessly consumes precious minutes. So, to keep this from being a problem at Lee, IT Systems has crafted IPI sites.

“We created IPI sites so that we wouldn’t have so much information on the Lee university webpage,” said business analyst LeAnn McElrath.

In the past, Lee’s university old website served as the information hub for current and prospective students alike. But since the advent of the new website, IT Systems has been working hard to keep clutter from its pages.

According to McElrath, IT wants the website to be more “bare bones” as far as information goes, so it can function primarily as a marketing tool for beckoning prospective students and faculty to Lee.

The way for IT Systems to make this happen, while still keeping current students up-to-date with everything they need to know, has been the creation of the IPI sites.

IPI stands for Internal Public Information, a phrase that explains exactly what these sites do.  They act as tools for users who actually work for or attend Lee to grab the information they need in just a few clicks, without having to sift through all the material on the website that isn’t meant for them.

Sites exist for all university departments, from Academics and Admissions to Payroll and Student Life, and they can be accessed by students and employees through Portico under the “University Services” tab.

The sites contain information that each department wants users to have, such as forms, documents, contact information and schedules. They aren’t very graphic-heavy, since the focus of the sites is informational rather than visual.

McElrath said that another reason IT Systems created the sites is that they want to make Portico more of a central location for students:  a one-stop shop for everything they need. Students will hopefully only have to visit the university webpage rarely, if at all.

Essentially, the goal of this project is to make things more convenient for both those affiliated with Lee, and those who are not (yet). Each party will have its own place to go for information so that the two do not intertwine and create confusion.

“People who don’t go here or work here don’t want to know ‘interview tips for getting a job,’” McElrath said, referring to information the Center for Calling and Career now provides on its IPI site. “Well, maybe they do, but they aren’t going to look for it on Lee’s webpage.”

Keep an eye out for other pain relievers IT Systems is prescribing for technology-related headaches.

Team sites help members of Lee groups share

29th January | No Comments | posted by vegger | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

Organizations at Lee looking for a better way to communicate, collaborate and share information need look no further: IT Systems provides members of groups at Lee with access to team sites through Portico.

 

Just what are team sites?

“They’re awesome is what they are,” said IT Systems Business Analyst LeAnn McElrath, the essential brain trust of the team sites project.

Team sites, McElrath elaborated, are sharepoint sites. This means that they can be used to upload a wide variety of content to the site that can be shared with all members of a designated group, or “team.”

Team sites make it possible for group members to share anything from announcements and calendars to files and pictures.

“The sky is kind of the limit with this technology,” McElrath said.

Organizations such as Greek, academic, and service-oriented clubs can even use the team sites to keep track of their membership.

IT Systems crafts and maintains team sites for all campus departments and organizations as it becomes aware of a group’s existence and its need to use the site. It is currently working to make sure the benefits of team sites are available to all clubs and their members.

To grant team site access to clubs, IT Systems gathers information about the clubs from the academic and student life sides of the university, and puts it into Colleague.  This gives the appropriate capabilities to the organization participants that are on file. Once these people have access, they will have it for as long as they are in Lee’s Datatel system.

To access the team sites, one need only log in to Portico, scroll to the bottom and click on the tab that reads “My Team Sites.” From there the link to the desired team page can be selected, and access to all the things the team shares is granted.

Lee users should keep their eyes peeled for what technological advances will come next.

 

 

Facilities scheduling will improve room reservation process

23rd January | No Comments | posted by vegger | in For Students, Faculty and Staff

The days of back-and-forth emails and phone calls trying to reserve a room at Lee are soon to be over, thanks to the new Facilities Scheduling application being made available to students and staff by IT Systems.

IT Systems is currently perfecting the technology that will allow members of the Lee community wishing to reserve an on-campus facility to do so online, rather than by less efficient means.

“The new software is more centralized and user oriented,” Business Analyst LeAnn McElrath said. “Students can now see what rooms are available at what time, and there’s a filter for specific criteria.”

In the past, students had to call or email Director of Special Events Kim Brooks or her secretary Abby Black to ask if a certain room was available at a certain time.

Brooks or Black would then review reports from different departments on room availability, before replying to the student and contacting the person in charge of the room to reserve it.

The new tool eliminates a step on each side of the process. Instead of asking if a facility is available, students, faculty and staff can see for themselves when the place they desire is already booked.

In addition, those who do not have a certain room in mind but do need a room with certain criteria (such as specific seating capacity) can use the filter function to find rooms that meet their needs.

On the user side, Facilities Scheduling removes an element of stress from event planning. Not only can planners use it to find rooms that have everything they need, but they can also look at the schedule in advance before setting the date or general time frame for their event.

The new software has advantages on the administrative side as well.

In fact, McElrath said Kim Brooks was the one who found the software and suggested that they try it. With the advent of Facilities Scheduling, the person in charge of the room simply receives an email to approve a pending reservation request.

“All the [administrative] staff who will be using it have been trained, too,” McElrath said.

As for user training, McElrath has created a How To Guide  through Portico that goes through all the steps of reserving a room, from logging in to Portico to hitting the “Submit” button. These submissions will hopefully make scheduling easier for everyone.