Over the course of this spring, TTS was instrumental in ensuring the community was quickly able to move to remote teaching, learning, and working.
COVID-19 Response and Recent Highlights
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24/7 Service Desk - we continue to provide 24/7 support via phone (617.627.3376) and email (it@tufts.edu)
- On-site staff - there are somef Client Support Services and Audiovisual (A/V) staff on site as needed, although most of our staff are assisting remotely.
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Course Continuance
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Our Educational Technology team and CELT (Center for Enhancement of Learning and Teaching) continue to work with the community to plan and ensure that all courses are offered at the highest possible quality whether in-person or remote.
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We are prepared to work with faculty on instructional design that provides an equitable experience for all students and captures the hallmark elements of a Tufts education, such as simulations and high engagement among students in courses.
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Recent Highlights
- Transition to online - successfully transitioned over 2,000 courses from on-premise to remote(online).
- Infrastructure and Tools
- Implemented Zoom as an alternative to WebEx for video conferencing/teaching online. Below are some resources to optimize your experience using Zoom.
- Launched Keep Teaching (for faculty), Learning Remotely (for students), and Working Remotely (for staff) web resources as well as ongoing training sessions for teaching and working remote.
- DISC (Data Intensive Studies Center at Tufts) TIDAL Training Program - TTS collaborated with DISC to offer a number of new courses for Tufts faculty, staff, and students as part of a new training program on data and computing.
- Financial Systems Upgrade - completed a significant upgrade to our Peoplesoft Financials systems all while remote.
Past Projects
FIS/Scholarly Networking
The FIS project is mostly complete. Faculty profiles are online at https://facultyprofiles.tufts.edu.
Online Check Voucher
The Online Check Voucher application allows users to enter transactions in PeopleSoft Honoraria, Stipends, Prizes, Scholarships/fellowships, and Non-employee (guest & student) travel reports. TTS built this application for Tufts Support Services (TSS) last summer, and TSS started to roll it out to the community in September of 2019.
PaymentWorks
This TSS-supported application that allows vendors to enter and update their information as well as inquire about statuses of invoices and checks. TTS was responsible for building the integration to PeopleSoft.
MediusFlow
This TSS-supported application facilitates the invoice processing and approval. Approvals are routed by the application to the Tufts user who is responsible for the purchase order associated with the invoice. TTS was responsible for building the integration to PeopleSoft.
New Work, Ongoing, and Future Projects
AS&E websites
The TTS Design and Web & Mobile Services team is working with AS&E to enhance their portfolio of websites. All websites will be accessible and mobile friendly and will better support marketing needs.
Virtual commencement
Our Design and A/V teams are working with the schools to design virtual commencement ceremonies to be held in May in lieu of the traditional in-person ceremony.
Office 365 (O365) Email and Calendaring Transition
Tufts University is in the process of moving Tufts mail from the Exchange mail environment to Microsoft’s Office 365 Email. This project is currently being implemented by school with a target completion date of June 30, 2020.
Online Effort Certification
This project will automate the manual effort certification process that is supported by Finance.
HR
TTS will be starting an HR project to support changes in regulations for Paid Family and Medical Leave. We will also be supporting the annual HR open enrollment process in the fall.
TuftsProjects
TTS is surveying the community about their use of TuftsProjects software. A communication was sent to active end users end of April. Questions and comments can be directed to Mark Damian (mark.damian@tufts.edu)