Author: Nancy Novitski

The university’s recommendations for communication and collaboration tools — the output of the Unified Communications Needs Analysis Project — will be the subject of an upcoming town hall meeting:

• Event: Communications and Collaborative Technologies Town Hall
• Date: Monday, Nov. 18
• Time: 9:30-11:00am
• Location: Knight Library Browsing Room

The meeting will be hosted by Matt Riley, UO’s chief technology officer, and Jessie Minton, vice provost for Information Services and chief information officer.

UO students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend.

Following the information-gathering effort in spring 2019, UO’s consultant partners (Presidio and The Northridge Group) conducted detailed analyses of available tools for communications and collaboration, and in July presented recommendations to the UO project team.

Throughout August and early September, the project team worked to vet those recommendations, validate the information behind them, and develop a recommended solution suite for implementation at the UO.

At the campus town hall meeting, Riley and Minton will be sharing the UO project team’s recommendations, along with the program’s new name: Communications and Collaborative Technologies.

Anyone with questions should contact the project team at unifiedcommsprogram@uoregon.edu.

After the information-gathering phase, the project team and our consultant partners from Presidio and The Northridge Group (NRG) clarified UO’s functional priorities, informed by input from the campus community about what is most important for communications and collaboration.

Presidio and NRG are now analyzing potential Unified Communications solutions.

In late July, Presidio and NRG will present the results of their market, vendor, and cost analysis to the UO project team, with solution recommendations.

The information-gathering phase of the Unified Communications Needs Analysis Project is complete.

In April and May, the project team partnered with consultants from Presidio and The Northridge Group to solicit feedback from UO staff, faculty, and students about their communication and collaboration needs. Along with in-person interviews during two weeks the consultants spent onsite in Eugene, the team conducted a survey and several remote interviews.

Here is a summary of campus participation by the numbers:

• Interviews of administrative departments:
  • 26 departments
  • 125 participants total
• Interviews of academic departments:
  • 9 departments
  • 33 participants total
• 3 focus groups:
  • 2 for students
  • 1 for faculty
• Additional meetings:
  • Campus IT directors
  • Transform IT program team members
  • UC Program Advisory Group
• 9 side-by-side observations of offices with high call volumes:
  • Office of the Registrar
  • University Health Center
  • Technology Service Desk
  • Human Resources
  • Office of the Provost
  • Business Affairs
  • Office of the General Counsel
  • Campus Planning & Facilities Management
• 305 survey responses received:
  • 79 from students
  • 45 from faculty
  • 181 from staff

Information Services also provided Presidio and The Northridge Group with data on the university’s existing communications technology, including usage data.

On May 29, Presidio and The Northridge Group presented their “current state overview” as the first step in the capability evaluation. The overview assesses how well UO’s current communications technology meets campus needs and aligns with industry best practices.

Input from the campus community confirms the need for a unified communications strategy at the university. Many people expressed openness to standardization where it could add value and are looking for best practices for technology to facilitate easier and more effective communications.

Next, the UO project team will work with our consultant partners to prioritize functional needs in preparation for their analysis of vendor solutions and costs.

The Unified Communications Needs Analysis Project is underway!

The project team is working with consultants Presidio and The Northridge Group to gather information from faculty, students, and staff throughout the university about the communication and collaboration tools they use today and what they would like to see in the future.

An Around the O story published on April 8 (Aging desk phones lead to wider look at communications tools) provided an overview of the Needs Analysis Project and Unified Communications Program and invited the campus community to participate.

Data is being gathered in variety of ways to ensure everyone has a way to provide input:

1. The UO Communication and Collaboration Tool Survey is open to all UO students, faculty, and staff.
2. Consultants from Presidio and The Northridge Group are spending two weeks on campus in April 2019 to conduct in-person interviews and meetings:
   • April 8-12:
     • Meetings with administrative units
     • Side-by-side observations of offices with high call volumes
   • April 22-26:
     • Meetings with academic units
     • Focus groups with faculty and students

The first week of stakeholder meetings was completed successfully. The second week of meetings has just begun.

The project team also established a new email address to serve as a contact point: unifiedcommsprogram@uoregon.edu.

This is where we will post program and project updates in the future.