The InTRO team used the month of November to deepen established partnerships and grow a few new ones, as well as to conduct outreach to different groups across campus. We gave our first presentation to a faculty group, participated in our first regional conference, and continued to coordinate with the staff at both halves of the partnership we represent–Academic Extension and the UO Libraries.

Portions of the InTRO team were in Portland several times in November–both for the NWACC Instructional Technology Roundtable and on a site visit to UO’s Portland campus.

The rainy skylights of the White Stag Building, UO Portland

But for the most part, we focused on increasing the depth of our knowledge locally and comparatively, getting deeper into University working groups (and briefing them on our early observations and recommendations) even as we ramped up our research into comparator institutions. We built out our RT queue — coming soon! — and developed a strategic initiative proposal for the Campus Technology Council.

While the tension between long-term and short-term visions has occasionally left us scrambling for a sense of our priorities, we did grow our active referrals list, working through some interesting (and challenging!) referrals over the past month. This included our first “incomplete” referral, which further documented a particular service gap on campus.

An early effort to (re)prioritize

As we head into the final month of 2014, we’re getting deeper into the comparator research, with the goal of isolating a handful of models at peer institutions that UO might consider, as it not only transitions to a new LMS but looks for ways to coordinate and invest in instructional technology.